L I E) RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N IVLR5ITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 8Z3 
 
 v./
 
 \»-A 
 
 V^
 
 BOID k^J) EHEE. 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF " CASTE," 
 
 "Nothing is a misery 
 Unless our weakness apprehend it so. 
 We cannot be more faithful to ourselves 
 In anything that's manly, than to make 
 HI fortune as contemptible to us, 
 As it makes us to others." 
 
 EST THREE VOLIBIES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1860. 
 
 The right of TransJation is reserved.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 printed by r. born, gloucester street, 
 regent's park.
 
 ?23 
 JCS5b 
 
 V.I 
 
 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 « 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " Is there no life but these alone ? 
 Madman or slave, must man be one ? " 
 
 It was Midsummer, and late afternoon. The 
 handsome, but faded and dreary-looking, 
 city dining-room had but two occupants. 
 They were as silent as the stray sunbeam 
 that had made its way through a gap 
 between opposite houses, and was burning 
 upon the only bits of bright colour in 
 the apartment — the ruby and amber 
 wines. 
 
 YOL. I. B
 
 2 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 This sunbeam, touching the word Poetics 
 at the head of the page, drew the eyes 
 of the younger man from his book ; they 
 did not fall again, but absently watched 
 its play upon the decanters, till the other 
 occupant of the room, raising the Times 
 newspaper to refold it, shut off the moted 
 beam and changed both the direction of 
 the gaze and the direction of the thoughts 
 of his companion. 
 
 At first the young man's face expressed 
 mere annoyance at the prolonged rustling 
 of the paper ; but presently his lips moved 
 as if in a vain effort to speak, and his 
 cheek flushed, and then grew paler than 
 it had been before. It was some minutes 
 before the silence was disturbed by his 
 voice ; when he did speak, it was hoarsely 
 and abruptly. 
 
 "Sir ! why did you hate my father 
 and mother ? The time is come when I
 
 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 must know their history and my own 
 
 name." 
 
 Without even lifting his eyes, the per- 
 son addressed demanded : — 
 
 "Who has dared tell you that I hated 
 them, boy ? '^ 
 
 '^ Why will you never speak of them ? 
 Why have I never been able to win 
 more than toleration from you? Why do 
 you sometimes look at me as at the 
 likeness of a person you had hated, and 
 seem to shrink from the very sound of 
 my voice ? " 
 
 " You are a fanciful young fool ! " was 
 the short and coldly-spoken rejoinder. 
 
 The young man^s slight form quivered 
 — there was a momentary wild glare in 
 his eyes, which, when he had exclaimed — 
 
 *^ Bj Heaven, such answers shall not 
 content me ! — you must tell me what I 
 desire to know ! Why did you hate my 
 
 b2
 
 4 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 father and mother ? " — and waited for a 
 reply, with his gaze fixed upon the stern 
 man opposite — changed to an expression 
 of shrinking and sufiering timidity. 
 
 Mr. Ireton folded up his paper deliber- 
 ately, and crossed his arms over it upon 
 the table before he met the boy's eyes ; 
 his face was even more grim than usual, 
 and his manner more measured, as he 
 said : — 
 
 ^^ Spoken like yourself, Wilfred Mason 
 — ^ shall ' and ^ must ^ are words often in 
 the mouths of children and weaklings ! 
 I will try and answer like myself ; per- 
 haps you understand me well enough to 
 know that what I say I mean, and that 
 appeal against my decisions will be un- 
 availing. To a certain extent you are 
 right. If you are in the same mad mind 
 as yesterday, the time is come when you 
 must learn all that you will ever learn
 
 BOND AND FREE. 5 
 
 from me. You have chosen your own 
 course ; when you leave this house it is 
 barely possible that we shall meet again 
 — I do not desire that we may." 
 
 " You will tell me all, then — now, to- 
 night?" 
 
 " Neither now, to-night, nor ever ! '^ 
 
 There was a brief silence while Wilfred 
 struggled for power to speak. 
 
 " I will not bear this burden of shame- 
 ful doubt ! " he burst out passionately. 
 *^ I cannot, and I will not, bear to live 
 on in this cruel ignorance ; if you will 
 not speak, I will try if Death can teach 
 me what you refuse to let me know.'' 
 
 "A truce to such contemptible blas- 
 phemy. I refuse to answer your questions, 
 but did I say that they should not be 
 answered ? " 
 
 '^You have told me that no one living 
 but yourself can answer them."
 
 6 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 " And I can no more answer them than 
 if I were dead — a promise is sacred to 
 me.'' 
 
 "Did they, then, lay this curse of ignor- 
 ance upon their child? Oh, God! what 
 had I done that they should hate me 
 so?" 
 
 " Listen, boy, instead of raving — do the 
 dead ever speak ? " 
 
 '* No ; or long ago I should have learnt 
 all. Night after night I have cried to 
 Heaven for this knowledge. I have seen 
 visions, spirits, and have dreamt dreams — 
 but the dead do not speak." 
 
 '*' My question did not concern the super- 
 natural." Mr. Ireton's face and voice ex- 
 pressed intense disgust and marvelling con- 
 tempt. " Ever since the time you first 
 came into this house I have had in my 
 keeping a letter for you — from your mother" 
 — (his harsh voice grew more harsh here, per-
 
 BOND AND FREE. 7 
 
 haps because he strove to keep it from 
 softening) *^ I do not know what it tells, 
 or leaves untold ; all that you will ever 
 know, however, all she chose that you should 
 know." 
 
 " You have kept it from me all these 
 years ! You have known the torture ignor- 
 ance has been to me, and you have let me 
 suffer this torture for your pleasure." 
 
 Putting up his hand, as if to ward off 
 more such idle words, Mr. Ireton said — 
 
 '* On the letter is written, ^ For my son 
 Wilfred, when he finally leaves his guar- 
 dian's care,' — earlier you were not to know 
 of its existence. Difficult and distasteful as 
 it was to me to undertake the guardian- 
 ship of your father's child, I did under- 
 take it — doing so, I have endeavoured rigidly 
 to fulfil all the conditions of the trust. 
 Be well assured of the vanity of applying 
 to me for other or ampler information than
 
 8 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 that contained in the letter which I shall 
 give you, or cause to be given to you, as 
 you leave this house." 
 
 A weight of foreboding fell heavily on the 
 boy's mind ; he fancied a measured malice in 
 his guardian's tones. 
 
 " For the matter of your name," Mr. 
 Ireton continued, " it was not well that you 
 should be branded '' (he watched the boy 
 wince as he used this term) "by bearing 
 your father's surname. The name of Wilfred 
 is rightfully yours — that of ^ Mason ' was 
 given you by me at hazard ; you may 
 throw it off, and choose any other name 
 you will." 
 
 A pause ensued, during which the demon 
 and the angel nature of man struggled for 
 mastery in Wilfred's heart ; presently he 
 said — 
 
 *^ Last night, sir, you expressed a wish, 
 which I must of course respect, that I
 
 BOND AND FREE. 9 
 
 should never try to see you, never even 
 address you by letter, after I have left your 
 roof; therefore, I must now, while still in 
 utter ignorance of the past, say all I ever 
 say to you. If you had cause for re- 
 sentment against my parents, if they had 
 injured you, you have been generous towards 
 their son. I cannot thank you for any ten- 
 derness or affection ; but all that it was pos- 
 sible for one human being to do for another, 
 the inheritor of a just or unjust dislike,. I 
 do believe you have done for me, and I 
 wish to thank you.'* 
 
 " Do not trouble yourself to get up any 
 show of gratitude ; I expect none — I am 
 honest enough to own that I deserve none. 
 I opened my doors to you grudgingly, from 
 a mixture of bad and indifferent motives, 
 fully resolved never to open my heart. Year 
 by year your presence has become more 
 and more oppressive to me: soon the air
 
 10 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 you breathed would have seemed to stifle 
 me — I should have loathed it and you as the 
 polluter of it." 
 
 Wilfred started from his seat, sudden 
 rage flaming from his eyes. This bitter 
 vehemence from one he had always seen cold 
 and calm stung him to the quick. 
 
 Before he could speak, his guardian con- 
 tinued : — 
 
 ^^ However, it is fruitless to talk thus. 
 Quiet, boy, quiet ; you cannot leave my house 
 till to-morrow ; I should have spared you those 
 last words. To-morrow you will be free — 
 free to enjoy a fooFs happiness in a mad- 
 man^s Paradise. In the matter we discussed 
 yesterday, your future mode of bread-earning, 
 you thought, spoke, and decided as I expected 
 you would — showing yourself weak, vain, 
 ambitious, self-sufficient to infatuation. The 
 position which I offered to secure for you, 
 and which you regarded as one of degrad-
 
 BOND AND FREE. II 
 
 ing slavery, would be a peculiarly suitable and 
 safe position for you. Freedom is not good or 
 possible for the multitude, only for the strong 
 few : if you are not a slave, as you call it, 
 to some external work, you will be a slave to 
 your morbid imagination." 
 
 ^^ Had your offer been quite in accord- 
 ance with my views, I must have declined 
 any further aid from you, sir. I mean to 
 starve or thrive in my own way. I am 
 quite alone — no one will suffer by me, or 
 through me. I think I could give no greater 
 proof of madness than to bind myself to 
 years of mechanical drudgery — what could I 
 gain that would compensate for my loss ? '' 
 
 ** Spare me any elucidation of your pecu- 
 liar theories ; reserve that for your young and 
 admiring friends." 
 
 " You know well that I have no friends 
 — passing by a name not my own, and 
 weighed upon by the consciousness that
 
 12 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 some mystery hangs over me, I have always 
 felt that I had no right to make friends." 
 
 *^ The morbid view of a weak mind, 
 determined to make the worst of its posi- 
 tion and to indulge in the luxury of self- 
 compassion; but if you have no friends, who 
 is it takes you to his home to-morrow ? " 
 
 '^ Herbert Southern is not a friend of 
 my seeking — he would not be shaken off; 
 but the acquaintance will end when my 
 short visit to Beech Holmes is over." 
 
 " Herbert Southern may find some day 
 that he made a strange choice when he 
 selected you as a friend; but now step 
 with me into the next room — there is a 
 little business to be got through before we 
 can part." 
 
 Wilfred obeyed. He was obliged to give 
 his attention to minutely-detailed accounts 
 of the expenditure of the money which had 
 been entrusted to his guardian.
 
 BOND AND FREE. 13 
 
 ^^That almost the whole sum has been 
 lavished upon your education — an education 
 disproportionate to your prospects — is not 
 my fault. In this I acted in accordance 
 with the instructions I received from your 
 mother. What views were entertained for 
 you I can only conjecture ; no doubt they 
 were firmly based on a firm belief in your 
 irresistability and my generosity." 
 
 " You are clever in torturing me — my 
 ignorance makes me powerless to defend 
 my mother's memory ! " Wilfred exclaimed, 
 
 " To avoid torturing one so morbidly 
 susceptible would be the harder task, boy. 
 If your mother hoped that you would win 
 my heart and become my heir, was that 
 a crime in her ? Inhuman as you think 
 me, I am not one who would strive to 
 blacken a son's memory of his mother." 
 
 At this moment, as a few times before 
 in the course of those many years, the
 
 14 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 boy^s heart seemed drawn towards his 
 guardian. Mr. Ireton occasionally betrayed 
 a grim nobility of nature, that had pe- 
 culiar fascination for such a temperament 
 as Wilfred's ; if the stern man had ever, 
 even if only once in the course of years, 
 softened to momentary tenderness towards 
 the boy, subsequent coldness, even ferocity, 
 would never have completely alienated the 
 young heart, greedy of affection : but now 
 the time was long past when Wilfred 
 could humble himself at his guardian's 
 feet, wistfully watching for, or passionately 
 craving, some sign of kindly feeling. The 
 old longing was swiftly followed by re- 
 sentful recollection of old suffering — of 
 nights spent in weeping, of dawns cheer- 
 less and hopeless, of evenings whose gather- 
 ing glooms were full of unconfessed terrors 
 — of childhood and youth as joyless and 
 loveless as can well be imagined. Re-
 
 BOND AND FREE. 15 
 
 calling those things, he had so completely 
 withdrawn into the past that he started 
 when Mr. Ireton, who had been collect- 
 ing and folding scattered papers, said: — 
 
 ^' I require a wtitten acknowledgment 
 from you of the receipt of this small 
 residue of 50/., and here, on this paper, 
 I wish you to make a few statements. 
 Have I ever lifted my hand against you? 
 Have I let you want for anything it was 
 in my power to give you ? — (in my 
 power remember — it was not in my 
 power to give you affection). Do I let 
 you leave my house without having offered 
 to put you in the way of earning a 
 maintenance ? Write brief answers to these 
 questions." 
 
 Wilfred looked wonderingly into his guar- 
 dian's face and then wrote, while Mr. Ireton 
 added: — 
 
 *^I may, or may not, have occasion to
 
 16 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 make use of this paper ; but I wish to 
 possess it." 
 
 " Good," he said, presently, glancing at 
 what Wilfred had written. " Concisely 
 and well put; you do not want talent; 
 all your instructors have spoken of natural 
 gifts and of mental power that ought to 
 achieve some kind of greatness. I dare- 
 say you have admirers, who call you 
 original — a genius. Nevertheless, Wilfred, 
 you are eminently characterless, without 
 strength of will, the pith and marrow of 
 manliness ; your peculiarities are born of 
 your weakness, not of your strength; you 
 are variable, exacting, passionate — in a 
 word, womanish. You overvalue intellect, 
 and the advantages of mental culture. At 
 the same time that you indulge a craving 
 for love and impossible happiness, you ex- 
 aggerate all the disadvantages of your lot, 
 and magnify its minute ills."
 
 BOND AND FREE. 1 7 
 
 Wilfred wondered at this slowly-doled 
 out judgment, while he winced under its 
 severity; he was, perhaps, conscious of its 
 partial truth, though he struggled against 
 this consciousness. He rose. 
 
 "If I ofiPer you my hand, shall you 
 take it ? " he asked his guardian, and his 
 manner was not without a timid dignity. 
 "I do not wish to carry away the sting 
 of your refusal to touch me. I am your 
 debtor for more than fifteen years of 
 careful guardianship ; the debt is a heavy 
 one to owe to a man who almost loathes 
 me. If you are a Christian man, give me 
 your hand, and with it your forgiveness 
 of all my wilful offences. Will you take 
 my hand ? " 
 
 The boy's voice trembled, and his eyes 
 shone with a womanish softness. Averting 
 his face, after his glance had just touched 
 Wilfred's, Mr. Ireton extended his hand ; 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 18 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 it remained stiff and cold in the clasp 
 of those slight fingers, " I wish you no 
 ill/^ he muttered. 
 
 Wilfred left the room, and the house; 
 he needed more and purer air than was 
 to be had in that dingy, dusty dwelling. 
 
 Mr. Ireton drew a long breath, and 
 threw up the window. 
 
 " They all praise him," he muttered, 
 "but what do they say of him? Not one 
 of them speaks of stern will, of undaunted 
 resolution, or of inflexible principle — not even 
 of the promise of these things — how should 
 the child of his parents have these? Yet 
 without them, what are his other qualities 
 worth ? How handsome the young fellow 
 is ! If he had been my own son, and I had 
 loved him — " here the speaker looked 
 round the room drearily ; he listened, too, 
 and was struck by the dead silence within 
 the house, which seemed the deeper and
 
 BOND AND FREE. 19 
 
 more dead by contrast with the stir and 
 life without ; as he looked and listened, 
 his thoughts were busy with the possi- 
 bilities of the past — with things that might 
 have been. 
 
 By and by Mr. Ireton took two letters, 
 one open, and one sealed, from his desk. 
 The first he read through, saying, when 
 he had finished it : — 
 
 '^ Yes, I have done all she asked, and all 
 I promised ; with what she hoped, I have 
 nothing to do — she was, of course, un- 
 reasonable." 
 
 Taking the other letter in his hand, 
 he gazed at it intently. 
 
 ^^ I would give much to know what 
 this contains — how she speaks of herself, 
 of me, of him, to her son. Truly women 
 are wonderful — supreme in faith where 
 they trust, as in treachery where they are 
 trusted. She did not make one attempt 
 
 c 2
 
 20 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 at self-justification, and she confided to 
 me what she loved beyond life. Experience 
 taught her nothing, and she based brilliant 
 hopes for that boy on qualities which, if 
 they were ever mine, she had crushed out 
 of me." 
 
 The latest twilight found Mr. Ireton 
 still sitting at his desk, still holding that 
 faded letter in his hand.
 
 21 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 " Then black despair, 
 The shadow of a starless night, was thrown 
 Over the world in which I moved alone." 
 
 Wilfred threaded the stifling streets 
 rapidly, anxious to leave his guardian^s house 
 and the city far behind. The vivid after- 
 glow of a July sunset flamed across the sky ; 
 but even when, as he passed an opening 
 towards the west, the burning glory smote 
 against him, he paid no heed to it. Making 
 his way right on, following the course of the 
 dark, slow-gliding river, past wharves and
 
 22 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 warehouses, where vessels and bales of mer- 
 chandise bore his guardian's name — past 
 ugly suburbs, wanting alike in the life 
 and bustle of the city, and the quiet and 
 freshness of the country — he reached, at 
 last, a waste and solitary district — a dis- 
 trict of marshy meadow, disfigured by 
 heaps of mineral refuse, some ruined chim- 
 neys and hovels, and a disused and par- 
 tially destroyed tramroad. 
 
 Wilfred paused upon a bridge ; the city 
 was behind him, the foul and sullen stream 
 crept on towards it beneath his feet. As 
 twilight fell, softly veiling the desolation of 
 the scene, the country wind blew on him 
 freshly, direct from distant meadows where 
 the hay was down, and where that same 
 stream was no doubt clear and fair — fringed 
 with willow-herb, and meadow-sweet, and 
 many another flower. 
 
 The only sounds that reached him were
 
 BOND AND FREE. 23 
 
 the continuous hum of the city, the fre- 
 quent splash of a water-rat, the occasional 
 cry of a water-fowl. Leaning his folded 
 arms on the iron rail, he lingered long on 
 the bridge. Fevered sense of impotence, 
 resentment of the oppressions of fate, 
 vague and yet deadly dread of the know- 
 ledge to come, triumph in freedom, gloomy 
 forebodings of the dreariness of life — these 
 varied feelings resolved themselves into one 
 overpowering consciousness of weakness, isola- 
 tion, misery. With strange fascination the 
 boy watched the snaky coilings of the oily 
 stream ; meanwhile, in fancy he saw him- 
 self plunging into it, sinking, being closed 
 over by its cold blackness. Little search 
 would be made for him, he thought; he 
 would soon fade from the memory of 
 the few who knew him, soon be utterly 
 blotted out of the sum of human life. He 
 repeated lingeringly such broken phrases
 
 24 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 and sentences as " absolute rest," *^ to be 
 as if I had never been," " to cast off this 
 burden of being,'' '^ as the waters fail from 
 the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth 
 up, so to lie down and rise not," till a 
 longing grew within him — a longing that he 
 presently recognized with icy horror, and a 
 strong recoil towards love of life. 
 
 *' Surely I shall know happiness ere I 
 die ? God ! grant me happiness ere I 
 die ! " he cried, passionately ; *' I will not 
 crave much — not wealth, or any kind of 
 glory — only happiness and love ! " 
 
 A light in the sky, a soft veiled splen- 
 dour, attracted Wilfred's eyes ; the moon 
 lifted herself up from the plain, sending a 
 line of tremulous light to his feet along 
 the black water. 
 
 The studious, city-bred boy had no fami- 
 liarity with such sights ; he felt as if an 
 answer of peace and promise had been sent
 
 BOND AND FREE. 25 
 
 to his soul — a gentle awe, a tender and 
 religious hopefulness, stole over him. 
 
 " The holy time is quiet as a nun 
 Breathless with adoration." 
 
 " The coy moon, in the soft wavyness 
 Of whitest clouds, doth now her beauty dress ; 
 And staidly paces, higher up and higher, 
 Like a sweet nun in holy day attire." 
 
 He murmured these and many passages 
 from his favourite poets ; then he cried — 
 
 "Nature, sweet mother Nature, take me, 
 too, to thy breast — teach me the hidden 
 secrets of thy being, and show me the mys- 
 teries of beauty. Let me be among the 
 humblest of thy priests, to interpret thee to 
 the love and wonder of the world ! " 
 
 The boy was ardent and sincere ; his 
 heart beat loud and fast, and his eyes had 
 filled, partly from the intensity of vague 
 longing, partly from the intensity of his out- 
 ward gaze.
 
 26 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 The white moonlight on the water was 
 rippled with blackness as the night wind 
 rose ; when, presently, a cloud altogether 
 obscured the moon, Wilfred left the bridge 
 and turned his face homewards, shuddering 
 with a sudden sense of something not un- 
 like fear. 
 
 That cloud soon passed, however ; and as 
 he went towards the city, the climbing 
 moon hunted him with shadows which some- 
 times startled and made him stumble as 
 if real obstacles lay in his path. 
 
 "Is it so in my inner life ? " he asked 
 himself; *^ do I let mere shadows assume 
 form and substance, and then recoil from 
 them as from real evils ? " 
 
 It was midnight when Wilfred reached 
 his guardian's house, and climbed noiselessly 
 to his room — a large, low garret ; his own 
 choice — he might have had any other apart- 
 ment in the house, but this had two advan-
 
 BOND AND FREE. 27 
 
 tages — it was a long way from that occu- 
 pied by his guardian, and from one of its 
 small casements he could obtain a glimpse 
 of the river, winding towards the city, 
 through marshy meadows, from among the 
 distant hills. 
 
 It was his custom to study half the 
 night, and his lamp stood as usual ready 
 beside his books ; he did not light it, how- 
 ever, but threw himself upon his bed, to 
 watch the clouds scudding rapidly across 
 the moon, and to think of the change of 
 life impending. 
 
 To the dreamy gazer the moon appeared 
 as a fair face, now veiled by ebony, now 
 by shadowy, tresses, and now fully revealed. 
 As he grew more dreamy yet, the fair 
 face became his mother's, the clouds were 
 aspersions of her perfect truth and good- 
 ness, the wind was the breath of knowledge 
 which should disperse these clouds, and let
 
 28 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 her fame shine forth pure and bright, as the 
 moon's face when the heaven is unclouded. 
 
 The dreamy eyes grew heavy — they 
 closed at the cool kiss of a moonbeam, and 
 forgot to open. 
 
 Some time after Wilfred had fallen asleep 
 a cautious step ascended the stairs, and a 
 stealthy hand pushed his room door open. 
 Mr. Ireton entered, walked up to the bed, and 
 paused beside it. Wilfred's sleeping face 
 was womanishly beautiful ; yet even now, 
 when rest relaxed its lines, it would have 
 looked old and worn as a woman's face. 
 Perhaps Mr. Ireton was reminded of some 
 beautiful woman whom he had last seen 
 when her face was worn and haggard. His 
 gaze was a long one. He did not move 
 till Wilfred raised his arms wildly, as if 
 to push something from him, as if even in 
 his sleep he were troubled by that gaze. 
 
 In his retreat, Mr. Ireton came face to
 
 BOND AND FREE. 29 
 
 face with a something that caused him to 
 start. The moonlight had reached the side 
 of the room nearest the door; it shone 
 upon something erect and white in a dark- 
 lined recess; a woman's bust placed on a 
 pedestal, of the height of a moderately tall 
 woman — the pedestal concealed by drapery, 
 falling from the shoulders to the ground. 
 
 " Fantastic boy ! " Mr. Ireton muttered. 
 " There is some resemblance — he remem- 
 bers her, it seems. The brow is hers, — low, 
 broad, and, any stranger would have said, 
 candid ; the mouth is hers, sweet and firm 
 as I used to think hers, and the head is 
 set upon the shoulders with the same meek 
 dignity.'' 
 
 Mr. Ireton returned to his study — day- 
 light surprised him there. He left the 
 house early, to avoid risking another meet- 
 ing with his ward. 
 
 Soon after dawn Wilfred was stirring;
 
 30 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 two sides of his room were covered with 
 books from the floor to the low ceiling — 
 old books most of them, out of which 
 their former owner's name had been cut; 
 all these he had to pack. Besides his 
 books, he had a few pictures and engrav- 
 ings, and the precious bust ; when he 
 displaced this, he took it tenderly into 
 his arms, set it on the window-seat, and 
 knelt before it. Truly he was, what his 
 guardian called him, a fantastic boy — for 
 he laid his cheek against the white face, 
 pressed his lips upon the cold mouth, 
 lavished fond words and farewell caresses 
 upon the inanimate clay. The set sweetness 
 of the mouth, the unruffled calmness of 
 the brow, appeared to pain him. 
 
 "Is it to be thus with me through 
 life?" he cried. "Will my heart beat 
 itself out against a cold, unyielding fate? 
 Shall I lavish my all of love and life, 
 and receive nothinfij in return ? "
 
 BOND AND FREE. 31 
 
 Still kneeling before the lovely face, he 
 thought of Pygmalion and his marble — 
 thought and gazed so intently that he 
 seemed to see the rose-hue of life creep 
 over the cheeks, the golden tints and 
 gleamy light of life coil among the wavy 
 tresses, the lips grow warm and moist, 
 the eyelids quiver, and the bosom heaved 
 by soft-sighing breath. 
 
 A tap at his door startled Wilfred to 
 his feet — startled colour into a face that 
 had been almost as white as that on 
 which it gazed. 
 
 A woman, past middle age, and with a 
 face expressive of anything but sweetness 
 of temper, came into the room. 
 
 " Your breakfast is waiting in the 
 dining-room, Mr. Wilfred ; while you're 
 having it, I will pack your linen, sir." 
 
 Wilfred hastened to leave the field free 
 for the housekeeper's operations. Having
 
 32 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 taken a cup of coffee, and found that 
 he could eat nothing, he went out, and 
 wandered through the streets, ^leditating 
 what parting present he should buy for 
 her. Fifty pounds was the sum he pos- 
 sessed with which to begin life ; he spent 
 five on a brooch for his grim friend, his 
 guardian's housekeeper. 
 
 On his return to the house, he paused 
 outside the door of his room, hearing 
 strange sounds within ; on entering, he 
 found Mrs. Smith kneeling before a nearly 
 full box, her face almost hidden in her 
 apron, sobbing violently. 
 
 AVilfred approached her, put his hand 
 on her shoulder, stooped, and kissed her 
 cheek, blushing as he did so. 
 
 ^^Oh, don't, Mr. Wilfred, sir! I don't 
 deserve it ! " she gasped out between her 
 sobs. ** I never thought it would come 
 to this — I never thought master would 
 cast you off like this ! "
 
 BOND AND FREE. 33 
 
 " He does not cast me off, Mrs. Smith. 
 I make my own choice — I wish to be 
 free. Indeed, Mrs. Smith, you must not 
 cry so ; I little knew I had so warm a 
 friend in this house — if I had known this 
 sooner, I should often have felt less deso- 
 late in it." 
 
 ^^Tve not been your friend, Mr. Wilfred 
 — it's partly that as hurts me now." 
 
 ^^ I am sure you have no reason to 
 reproach yourself I only meant that 
 though you have been kind — " 
 
 "Bless your poor heart, that doesn't 
 know what kindness is. It's no use talking 
 now, however — " and she dried her eyes; 
 "be pleased to accept these, sir; I've had 
 pleasure in getting them ready — may you 
 live to wear them out, and many more 
 after them ! " As she spoke, she pointed 
 to a pile of new shirts and a multitude 
 of collars lying by her. 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 Wilfred thanked her, and begged her to re- 
 member him, sometimes, when she fastened on 
 the brooch he offered her. Saying that it was 
 not fit for her, but for some pretty young lady, 
 and that she did not deserve it, Mrs. Smith 
 took it, and, as she passed her hand over it ad- 
 miringly, added — 
 
 ** The air of this house isn't good air to 
 breathe so many years, sir ; it makes the 
 heart shrivel up. I set myself against you be- 
 fore ever you set foot over the threshold, 
 saying you'd bring ill luck and trouble to 
 master ; and I've never done what I ought by 
 you. I shall lie awake thinking of you many 
 a night, sir, and wishing to have the past 
 over again — that'll be my judgment." 
 
 Wilfred's kind and re-assuring words were 
 only received with sighs and shakings of the 
 head ; so, leaving Mrs. Smith to complete her 
 arrangements, he went over the whole of the 
 dreary house, for the last time — lingering
 
 BOND AND FREE. 35 
 
 here and there, and feeling something like 
 regret at his heart. 
 
 Eemembering presently that he had not 
 commended the bust to Mrs. Smith's especial 
 care, he ran hastily upstairs to do so. As he 
 opened the door he saw it lying upon the 
 floor, broken in many pieces. A sudden gust of 
 wind had swung the casement to, and jarred 
 it from its place. This accident struck Wil- 
 fred as an evil omen ; he allowed it to throw 
 an unreasonable gloom over his spirit. 
 
 It was not till he was quite ready to leave 
 that the packet, his mother's letter, was given 
 into Wilfred's hand by Mrs. Smith. Pressing it 
 close against his heart, he passed out of the 
 mouldy house into the midsummer glare and 
 heat. Crossing to the opposite side of the 
 bustling street, he looked up at the ranges 
 of black windows, and muttered — 
 
 " So, at last, I leave you for ever — and 
 leave my joyless youth within your walls ! " 
 
 D 2
 
 36 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 His one desire then was to find some quiet 
 place in which he could open and read his mo- 
 ther's letter. How many homeless ones of 
 our great cities must, in some crisis of their 
 fate, have been driven to desperation, being 
 hunted from place to place by countless eyes 
 and ceaseless noise. Had he not noticed, as he 
 passed the mouth of a low-arched passage 
 leading to old St. Jonah's, that the church 
 door stood partly open, Wilfred might have 
 sought long and vainly for some place of re- 
 fuge. He entered the church thankfully : it 
 was dim, cool, solitary, and he had an hour be- 
 fore him ere he need meet his friend, Herbert 
 Southern, at the station. 
 
 Seeking out the most obscure nook of the 
 mouldering cloisters, he seated himself on the 
 fragments of a ruined arch, and drew the letter 
 out into the daylight. 
 
 Believing that, at last, he held the long de- 
 sired knowledge in his hand, he trembled : per-
 
 BOND AND FREE. 37 
 
 haps ignorance was safer and happier than 
 this knowledge. He studied the fine, free 
 hand-writing on the outer cover, and the seal, 
 on which was the one word "Hester." He 
 pressed his lips on this name — his mother's 
 name; repeated the name to himself — repeated 
 what he firmly believed, that she, at least, was 
 pure, true, and loving ; and then, taking great 
 heed not to break the seal, he opened that 
 outer cover. A smaller sealed packet fell at his 
 feet — its face was closely written over with 
 these words — 
 
 " My son, your mother's hope is that this 
 packet will never come into your hands during 
 your guardian's life — that you will never 
 leave your guardian's care, except to return to 
 it again — that you will be as a son to him. 
 If it should not be so, I implore you, I 
 command you — it is a mother loving you 
 above life who speaks — not to break this seal 
 till John Masters Ireton is dead. Whatever
 
 38 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 you believe of your mother — always believe 
 that she loved you above herself— that it is not 
 her own fame, but your peace and safety, she 
 is studying now.'* 
 
 Wilfred read these words many times before 
 he mastered their sense. He felt sick and 
 stunned ; even when he had read them many 
 times, he continued to gaze at the closely- 
 written lines blankly and stupidly. Motion 
 near him, caused by the perching of a sparrow 
 on a tall weed, drew off his gaze, and then it 
 dwelt with the same absorbed vacancy on the 
 rank grass. 
 
 A kind of rage woke within him when he 
 roused from this stupor. Pacing up and down 
 the cloister he muttered a hundred times — 
 " Cruel caution ! cruel caution ! To be doomed 
 to bear the burden on for years, perhaps for 
 my whole life ! Oh mother ! yours was cruel 
 caution.'' 
 
 The idea of hunting out his late guardian
 
 BOND AND FREE. 39 
 
 and of trying to force the secret from him, 
 crossed his mind only to be immediately aban- 
 doned — he knew any such attempt would be 
 utterly futile. Lost in wild fancies and som- 
 bre imaginings, Wilfred forgot the flight of 
 time ; things past, present, and to come jostled 
 each other in his disordered mind. By-and- 
 by a benignant light dawned over this chaos — 
 ^^ She loved me — it is sweet to know surely 
 how she loved me! '' As he murmured this, tears 
 came to his eyes, and soft consolation entered 
 into his heart; but the light was transient, 
 soon overclouded. Shuddering horror shut 
 out consolation, as he thought — "The 
 knowledge from which she tried so ear- 
 nestly to shield me must be dreadful 
 indeed ! " 
 
 Three hours had past since Wilfred had en- 
 tered the church, when the clanging to of a 
 heavy door startled him to a sense of pre- 
 sent engagements and responsibilities; but
 
 40 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 just in time — one door into the church was 
 already locked — in another minute, escape 
 from the cloisters would have been impos- 
 sible for that day. 
 
 Launched upon the noise and bustle of 
 the street, Wilfred was jostled to and fro, 
 and carried here and there, by eager passers- 
 by ; till, presently, an arm was linked in 
 his, a voice in his ear cried, 
 
 " Found at last ! Wake, dreamer ! Come, 
 double-quick, for heaven's sake ! or we shall 
 lose the last train that makes it possible to 
 get home to-night." 
 
 *^ I am very sorry — I had forgotten," 
 Wilfred began as he was hurried on. 
 
 " Forgotten ! I have put the housekeeper 
 at Ireton's in a pretty state by going there 
 to ask for you. You must write to her to- 
 morrow, for she looked as if she thought 
 you might have drowned yourself" 
 
 ** Did she ? — ah ! " And in spite of the hur-
 
 BOND AND FREE. 41 
 
 ried pace at which he was led on, in spite of 
 his companion's gay talk, Wilfred's imagina- 
 tion returned to the dread speculations of 
 the last few hours.
 
 42 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 "Wie einst mit flehenden Verlangen 
 Pygmalion den Stein umschloss. 
 
 So schlang ich micli mit Liebes armen 
 Um die Natur, mit Jugendlust, 
 Bis sie zu athmen, zu erwarmen 
 Begann an meiner Dichter-brust." » 
 
 " Here we are ! Throw your bag down 
 to Eoger. All well, Roger? — that's right." 
 Herbert Southern had jumped from the 
 coach — had helped his friend down — their 
 luggage had been taken off and piled on 
 Roger's barrow — the coach had pursued its 
 way and disappeared, before Wilfred com-
 
 BOND AND FREE. 43 
 
 prehended that they had reached Beech 
 Holmes, their destination. 
 
 There was no house in sight — only a pic- 
 turesquely ruinous, ivy-clad lodge, stand- 
 ing close to entrance -gates, whose pillars 
 were correspondingly ruinous and ivy-clad, 
 which opened upon an avenue of gigantic 
 beeches — the beeches being very ancient, 
 having many unlopped dead limbs and half- 
 severed wind-cracked branches, had something 
 of the picturesquely ruinous look of the 
 cottage and the pillars. 
 
 It was evident that no one was expected 
 to appear from this lodge, for young Southern 
 held the gates open while Eoger wheeled 
 the barrow through them ; that accomplished, 
 he turned to Wilfred. 
 
 "You have been quite lost the whole 
 journey through, old fellow! — pray find your- 
 self now, for they are all coming down the 
 avenue to meet us.''
 
 44 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 Even now no house, not even the chim- 
 ney of one, was to be seen ; yet down the 
 avenue, through the glancing evening sun- 
 beams and the fantastic shadows, came a 
 large family party. 
 
 A tall, black-robed lady, wearing a widow's 
 mourning — young ladies in muslin dresses, 
 with floating curls and waving ribbons — a 
 youthful matron, her little children, her 
 husband and husband's brother. 
 
 " The whole Southern force ! " Herbert 
 remarked — secretly wishing, as he remem- 
 bered his friend's lonely estate, that he had 
 given his mother some hint that would have 
 secured a less demonstrative welcome. 
 
 " That we have been travelling through 
 enchanted ground I know, by token of the 
 instantaneous disappearance of the coach 
 when we had done with it. It is plain that 
 this, too, is fairy-land, and that this is a 
 fairy-band approaching ; there is no habita-
 
 BOND AND FREE. 45 
 
 tion in sight, but, of course, the trunks of 
 these magnificent trees open to receive 
 their fairy ships at will. Walk slower," 
 Wilfred pleaded, ^^give me breathing-time, 
 before you present me." 
 
 " Ah, Felicia ! always the first to meet 
 your old brother! — you know who is his 
 favourite." 
 
 A child had separated from the group 
 and come forward — a child with a small, 
 exquisitely fair, pale face, framed heavily 
 by masses of golden-threaded brown hair 
 hanging on her shoulders. She submitted si- 
 lently to her brother^s hearty embrace; 
 when he released her, she folded her tiny 
 hands over one of his, and pressed her 
 cheek against his coat-sleeve with a quiet 
 fervour hardly childlike, looking up at him 
 with eyes radiant with gladness, yet serene 
 and calm. 
 
 The child loosened her clasp of her bro-
 
 46 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 ther's hand after a few moments — relin- 
 quishing him to his mother, in whose arms 
 he was clasped close with a fervent "welcome 
 home, my son." Then his sisters, his brother- 
 in-law, and his tiny nephews and nieces, all 
 claimed their share of his notice. 
 
 Wilfred stood just a little apart — for a 
 few moments quite forgotten ; he started 
 when a soft warm hand stole into his; 
 looking down he met a clear, and, it seemed 
 to him, compassionate gaze from the child 
 Felicia's eyes. She smiled at him a timid 
 smile, that went straight to his heart. As 
 yet he had not heard her speak. 
 
 Young Southern, released from his sisters' 
 embraces, tossed back his bright disordered 
 locks, and looked round for his friend ; he 
 smiled significantly, seeing that Felicia had 
 taken him under her protection. 
 
 It was now Wilfred's turn to receive a 
 hearty and kindly welcome; but, as they
 
 BOND AND FREE. 47 
 
 all ascended the avenue, he retained the 
 little hand that had, unsolicited, crept into 
 his. That avenue, illuminated by the low 
 sunbeams, the trunks of the ancient trees 
 turned to ruddy gold in the level light, 
 struck Wilfred as marvellously beautiful. 
 Mrs. Southern talked to her young guest 
 of the loveliness of the country he had 
 passed through — of the heat of the wea- 
 ther, and the length of the journey ; while, 
 as Wilfred noted, her glistening eyes, dwelt 
 fondly on her tall son, who, walking before 
 them surrounded by his sisters, often tossed 
 back a glad look upon his mother. 
 
 The avenue, which was about half a mile 
 in length, came to an end at the foot of 
 a broad flight of steps, where a carriage- 
 road branched off from it and curved round 
 to the side of the house. A cedar of Le- 
 banon, growing at the top of these steps, 
 sweeping the balustrade with its branches.
 
 48 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 did not yet allow the house to be seen. 
 It was not tiU the steps had been as- 
 cended, and the wide-spreading cedar passed 
 under, that it was visible. Surrounded by 
 a broad stone terrace, which had to be 
 gained by another flight of steps, the house 
 looked rather insignificant, compared with 
 the splendid avenue by which it was ap- 
 proached; but its appearance was at once 
 picturesque and exquisitely homelike — the 
 evening light brought out to the full the 
 rich colours of the lichens and mosses which 
 grew about its heavy porch and muUioned 
 windows. 
 
 The whole party lingered a little while 
 before entering the house. The terrace- 
 pavement was imperfect and moss-grown; 
 its broad-topped balustrade was chipped and 
 broken, as were the ancient vases with 
 which it was set; but the balustrade was 
 luxuriantly overhung by blossoming creep-
 
 BOND AND FREE. 4^9 
 
 ers, and the vases were well filled with 
 drooping plants. 
 
 Perhaps Beech Holmes was the more 
 beautiful — beautiful with rich-tinted, yet 
 pathetic autumnal beauty — for the air of 
 decay that breathed from its loveliness. 
 Wilfred felt a poetry of contrast, as he gazed 
 on the forms of human and youthful strength 
 and beauty, and on the crumbling, weed- 
 grown masonry that must have echoed to 
 the feet and voices, and been touched and 
 leant on by the hands and forms of many 
 generations, long since passed away ; he did 
 not consciously moralize, but felt as if 
 wrapped round by a dream-atmosphere steal- 
 ing out from between the pages of some fair 
 and ancient romance. 
 
 The terrace overlooked a wide extent 
 of wood, vale, and water ; beyond the water, 
 line after line of mountainous hill rose up 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 and fell away, melting, to-night, into a daz- 
 zling, golden distance. 
 
 *' You like it very much, don't you ? '' 
 Felicia asked Wilfred, speaking for the first 
 time since she had met Herbert. Her tone 
 was low and confidential : Wilfred had to 
 bend down to catch her words ; he used a 
 similar tone, answering : — 
 
 " I have never seen anything so per- 
 fectly beautiful — it is to me what your 
 very brightest fairy-tales must be to you." 
 
 " But I do not like fairy-tales very 
 much, because I cannot believe them." 
 
 Mrs. Southern's high, clear voice now 
 made itself heard, summoning the young 
 people to the tea-table. Turning to Wilfred 
 she said : — 
 
 ^* I hope our noisy party will not quite 
 bewilder you, Mr. Mason ; you must be used 
 to much more quiet than I can maintain 
 amongst my riotous children."
 
 BOND AND FREE. 51 
 
 *' The life to which I have been used 
 must, indeed, be different from your life 
 here — as different as winter from summer, 
 as the dullest prose from the fairest poetry." 
 
 " I only hope that the jingle of our 
 poetry may not make you recoil towards 
 the quiet of your prose," Mrs. Southern said, 
 smiling indulgently at the young man's 
 warmth of expression. 
 
 *^ Welcome to our home ! " Herbert whis- 
 pered in Mason's ear, putting his hand on 
 his shoulder, as they passed through the 
 low porch and entered a lofty, oak-raftered 
 hall. 
 
 The whole party was soon seated at table, 
 in a long room which ran the length of 
 one wing of the house; one side and one 
 end of this room retained the old-fashioned 
 casements, set deep in the thick wall and 
 admitting but little light — while, at the other 
 end, modern plate-glass windows opened on 
 
 E 2 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILUMQia
 
 52 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 to the terrace, at the back of the house. 
 From the terrace, on this side, as on the 
 other, the ground sloped away ; but here it 
 fell more gradually — steps cut in the turf 
 broke the descent at the steepest parts. 
 This slope was sparingly dotted over with 
 gaunt, much belichened fruit-trees, for the 
 most part past bearing, the survivors of a 
 once thickly-planted and productive orchard. 
 Below the orchard ran a broad, shallow 
 stream of sparkling brown water, across 
 which was thrown a light bridge ; from the 
 stream the ground rose again, ascending, 
 in broken lines, well-wooded to a consider- 
 able height, towards a mountain peak that 
 showed gray and hoary in the distance. 
 
 The tea-table, with its brilliant silver, deli- 
 cate china, piles of fruit, fragrant flowers, 
 and ample provision of cool and pleasant 
 dainties, all prettily addrned, gratified the 
 hitherto not merely unsatisfied, but almost
 
 BOND AND FREE. 53 
 
 undeveloped requirements of Wilfred's taste. 
 His appointed place was between Felicia, who 
 always sat next her mother, and Margaret 
 Landon, the eldest and married daughter — 
 the beautiful daughter par excellence. Some 
 mirth was excited by the younger Mr. Lan- 
 don^s assertion of the positive necessity of his 
 sitting beside Blanche, to assist her in pour- 
 ing out the coffee, and by the doubtful 
 results of this assistance. The tale told 
 by Blanche's gentle confusion, and her happy 
 blushes, made her pretty face almost as in- 
 teresting to Wilfred's observant eyes as it 
 was to John Landon's. 
 
 Wilfred found so much to observe in the 
 faces, and to listen to in the conversation, 
 round him, that he was disinclined to talk. 
 His beautiful neighbour, interested in her 
 brother's friend, gave herself some trouble 
 in trying to draw him out. A student 
 herself, she loved to talk of books, and by-
 
 54 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 and-by both she and Wilfred were deaf to 
 the light skirmish of merry talk kept up 
 round the table, and deep in the beauties of 
 an author who was a favourite with both. 
 
 Herbert greatly admired his eldest sister, 
 and had been anxious that she should like 
 his friend ; he was delighted now to see 
 their interest in each other — to see Wilfred's 
 pale face light up, his eyes gleam as he 
 listened, and kindle as he spoke. It is true, 
 they talked only of books ; but it is difficult 
 to speak about the heart of beautiful books 
 without showing something of the inmost 
 feelings of one's own heart. Wilfred, who 
 had never before talked with a young and 
 beautiful-natured woman, felt some things 
 Mrs. Landon said to be as revelations from an 
 undreamed-of world — while others put into fit 
 words thoughts and fancies of his own which 
 he had deemed too sacred for expression, but 
 which seemed to gather vivid life-lil^eness,
 
 BOND AND FREE. 55 
 
 without losing anything of sacredness, when 
 they were uttered by her lips and, still more 
 touchingly, by her eyes. 
 
 Speaking of Wilfred to her husband, long 
 after this evening, Margaret said : — 
 
 " Talking with Mr. Mason is like talking 
 with a woman — I don't exactly know why; 
 only, while he has far more intellectual 
 power than any woman I know, he has a 
 chivalrous patience with one's imperfect know- 
 ledge and imperfect speech which few women 
 would have." 
 
 When the merry meal was over, and every- 
 body had risen from the table, Wilfred said to 
 Herbert : — 
 
 '* Let me be alone a little while ; every- 
 body wants you, and I am quite bewildered. 
 You cannot imagine how strange to me all 
 here seems — it is like a fragment from some 
 other state of being." 
 
 " Be one of us as soon as possible — that
 
 5Q BOND AND FREE. 
 
 is all we require of you/' Herbert answered. 
 John and Blanche, lingering on the terrace 
 in the dusk, saw Wilfred descend the slope, 
 cross the stream, and vanish among the 
 trees ; but before he had left the close 
 neighbourhood of the house he had seen a 
 picture the beauty of which long haunted 
 him. In a small room, lighted by one shaded 
 lamp, the elder Mr. Landon was enjoying a 
 good-night gambol with his children ; stretched 
 on the floor at his wife's feet, he submitted 
 to various rough treatment from the two 
 elder — a sturdy boy and girl — while the 
 youngest, already in its tiny white night- 
 dress, stood on its mother's lap, supported by 
 her arm, leaning its head against her cheek, 
 and surveying the proceedings with a calm, 
 superior, pensive air. The light of the lamp 
 fell full on Margaret ; she watched the group at 
 her feet with that peculiar smile, more of the 
 eyes than of the lips, which some of the old
 
 BOND AND FREE. 57 
 
 masters have given to their Madonnas — a 
 smile the contemplation of which induces 
 sadness, seeming, in its too utter sweetness, 
 its perfect happiness, to contain a threat of 
 bitterness and tears to come. 
 
 Though Wilfred turned quickly from con- 
 templation of this scene, feeling as if such 
 happiness were awful in its holiness, the 
 memory of it often recurred to him in after 
 years, when a face, not Margaret's, would 
 wear the expression of Margaret's, and shine 
 in the stead of Margaret's. 
 
 To-night he sped on, up the opposite hill, 
 till he had cleared the wood ; then he threw 
 himself upon the ground, pressing his face 
 down into the mossy turf — feeling that he 
 threw himself lovingly upon the bosom of this 
 lovely nature, embracing her with ardour. 
 
 When he lifted up his face, by-and-by, there 
 was moisture on it, either of dew or of tears. 
 He lay and watched the smoke from the
 
 58 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 house-chimneys curling up against the clear, 
 delicious glow of the sky — watched the 
 lights kindling in one window after another 
 — watched the late birds wheeling home — 
 and watched for the rising of his last 
 night's friend, the moon. Last night ! 
 Was it only last night he had stood upon 
 the dreary bridge above the foul water? 
 How long ago it seemed ! 
 
 A strange mingling of rapture and agony 
 rose and fell in Wilfred's breast: one mo- 
 ment it seemed to him that he had obtained 
 a glimpse into the very heart of life's pos- 
 sible beauty and sweetness — only to be re- 
 minded, by the sealed packet in his bosom, 
 that such beauty and sweetness were not 
 among the possibilities of his life; the next 
 his nature rebelled against this sentence of 
 exclusion — a wild sense of undefined and 
 unbounded power asserted itself — he sprang 
 up, crying that his intense craving fpr
 
 BOND AND FREE. 59 
 
 love and happiness, his hunger after them, 
 should be to him a foreboding of the satis- 
 faction of this hunger and craving. 
 
 He was proceeding to climb higher up 
 the hill, when Southern's voice recalled 
 him. 
 
 ^' Do you mean to spend the night out 
 here? They have been asking for you. 
 Felicia didn't want to go to bed without 
 having said 'good night' to you." 
 
 The young men went towards the house 
 together. 
 
 "Margaret is going to sing — I want you 
 to hear her," Herbert remarked, as they 
 drew near. 
 
 '* Don't smother me with roses, or crush 
 me with a shower of gold — I could not 
 bear to hear your sister sing to-night. 
 Pray make my excuses, and let me go to 
 my room. I daresay you think me absurd; 
 you don't know all I have endured to-
 
 60 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 day, and you cannot guess all I shall have 
 to endure for many a day." 
 
 *^ I want you to do what you like best ; 
 only I shall see you safe to your room. 
 You are put into an out-of the-way nook, 
 for the sake of ensuring you the possibility 
 of quiet." 
 
 After leading the way up several short 
 flights of stairs, and along many passages. 
 Southern pushed open a low-arched door 
 of heavy oak. As he lighted the candles 
 that stood ready on the table, he con- 
 tinued : — 
 
 " I hope I may trust you not to sit up 
 — you look thoroughly tired out. Sleep 
 well, and wake up one of us — your iron 
 guardian and his gloomy house quite for- 
 gotten. I am afraid that your parting from 
 the man of iron was none of the pleasant- 
 est. You must tell me about it to-morrow. 
 Good night, my dear old fellow."
 
 BOND AND FREE. 61 
 
 With the heartiest of hand-shakes, and 
 the most beaming friendliness in his eyes, 
 Herbert departed.
 
 62 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 "Verweile doch! du bist so schon." 
 
 Wilfred was roused next morning by sounds 
 strange to him — sounds of just-awakened 
 birds and of lightly-stirred leaves ; while 
 through an open window the morning air 
 came to him, laden with fragrance from 
 flowers in the garden and heather on the 
 hills. 
 
 The low, oak-raftered room in which he 
 found himself had many casements, each 
 offering a lovely picture of distant moun- 
 tainous landscape, of slopes lying in pure
 
 BOND AND FREE. 63 
 
 morning shadows, and summits gay in 
 laughing light ; the creepers clustering 
 round the window-frames set these pictures 
 charmingly. 
 
 The room was more like a library than 
 a bed-room; its walls were clothed with 
 old-fashioned, well-filled bookcases ; the chairs 
 and tables were of substantial oak; a good 
 many bronze statuettes and busts, and 
 several vases full of freshly-cut roses, 
 adorned it. 
 
 It was a new thing for Wilfred to wake, 
 as he did this morning, to a sense of phy- 
 sical and spiritual wellbeing — to a conscious- 
 ness of the purity and beauty of the atmo- 
 sphere he breathed, and with the expecta- 
 tion that the day would bring him none 
 but good things, leaving him richer, happiet", 
 and better than it found him. 
 
 "I have made no compact with any Me- 
 phistopheles," he said — " I need not be afraid
 
 64 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 to cry to this time, ^ Verweile doch ! du bist so 
 schon ' — I do cry it with my whole heart ! " 
 
 He repeated the words in a clear, loud 
 voice, and then murmured over to himself 
 passage after passage from the old poets, 
 in simple, betinzled, or worthily adorned 
 praise of domestic and country life. 
 
 Afterwards he tried to recall everything 
 that had occurred since he reached Beech 
 Holmes — ^ tried to recall every kind 
 word that had been spoken to him, every 
 peculiarly beautiful expression he had no- 
 ticed on faces which all seemed to him, in 
 various ways, lovely. The one sensation 
 which he remembered with most especial 
 pleasure was that he had experienced when 
 the child Felicia's hand so unexpectedly and 
 confidently stole into his own. As he in- 
 dulged in this dreamy luxury of enjoyment, 
 his own thoughts sprang from his brain — 
 ready armed in words, the sound of which
 
 BOND AND FREE. 65 
 
 pleased him. He was far too indolently 
 happy to do more than murmur them over, 
 as he had murmured his quotations before ; 
 but a hazy wonder rose in him and floated 
 waveringly before his eyes — wonder whether 
 he should ever have power to write words 
 over which the eyes of beautiful women 
 should grow tearful, at which the cheeks 
 should flush and pale, as Margaret Landon's 
 had done, while she repeated a short passage 
 from a favourite poem. 
 
 A clear young voice singing far beneath at 
 last drew Wilfred to the window. He could 
 see Felicia's fair head glancing in and 
 out among the rose-bushes, in a garden 
 that looked very deep down ; he made 
 haste to go out, but did not find it very 
 easy to discover that garden and the way 
 into it. 
 
 He succeeded at last; and, having re- 
 ceived her morning greeting, enquired 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 what her occupation was, and if he might 
 be allowed to help her. 
 
 " 1 should very much like you to help 
 me," she answered. " I want to cut off 
 every one of the dead roses along this walk, 
 and some are so high up that I cannot 
 reach them. Will you take my scissors and 
 my basket? I will run in and fetch an- 
 other pair of scissors — the basket will do 
 between us." 
 
 She was soon back and they both set to 
 work — Wilfred stipulating that they should 
 keep close enough together to talk as they 
 worked. Sometimes the dead roses, and 
 often showers of dew, fell upon Felicia's 
 silky locks. Wilfred liked to see her shake 
 these off — she did it with such patient and 
 grave dignity ; her whole manner was sim- 
 ple and sincere — there was no trace of 
 childish coquetry about her. Once, when a 
 long curl got entangled in a thorny branch.
 
 BOND AND FREE. jft? 
 
 Wilfred was obliged to go to the rescue. 
 He touched the child's hair lovingly and 
 reverently, and thought he had never felt 
 anything so soft, or seen anything so pretty, 
 as the tress that clung round his releasing 
 fingers. Felicia was far too intent on her 
 work to talk much, but what she did say 
 seemed to her companion so gracefully 
 quaint, so simply complete in matter and 
 manner, that he mused over it and her 
 wonderingly, marvelling if all little girls of 
 Felicia's age were as charming as Felicia. 
 
 A voice from above the heads of the 
 diligent gardeners interrupted his thoughts. 
 
 " Good morning, Mr. Mason — is it not a 
 lovely morning? Felicia, child, you have 
 been out too long — you will be tired before 
 the day is begun.'' 
 
 The fellow-labourers looked up. Mrs. 
 Southern and Mrs. Landon were leaning over 
 the terrace-balustrade, looking down upon 
 
 f2
 
 68 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 them. Mrs. Southern's careworn and sun- 
 burnt face, expressive chiefly of cheerful 
 patience, and the delicate beauty of Mar- 
 garet — whose eyes, Wilfred thought, as he 
 glanced up, lighted her pale face with 
 tenderly-veiled splendour, as stars light the 
 sky on a clear and yet dewy summer night — 
 were in strong contrast, and yet were 
 brought into harmony by a look of heart- 
 goodness common to them both. 
 
 " Good morning, dear mamma — good morn- 
 ing, sister Margaret ! " cried Felicia. ^' We 
 must go in to breakfast now," she added to 
 Wilfred, putting her hand into his. As they 
 mounted the many steps to the terrace 
 she asked confidentially : — 
 
 "Do you think the angels are much 
 more beautiful than my sister Margaret ? " 
 
 After a momentary pause — a look, first at 
 Mrs. Landon, standing above them, the sun 
 shining upon her morning- dress of spotless
 
 BOND AND FREE, 69 
 
 white, then into the questioning face of the 
 fair child, Wilfred answered : — 
 
 "I do not suppose we should feel the 
 beauty of the angels as we feel the beauty 
 of some human faces; they would not be 
 more beautiful for us, perhaps, because we 
 should not understand their beauty — they 
 are too far from us/' 
 
 " But are they very far from us ? " 
 
 " Not from all of us — (^ Heaven lies about 
 us in our infancy,' indeed). I only meant 
 they are too different from most of us, for 
 their beauty to touch us as human beauty 
 does," 
 
 By this time all the family, " except that 
 lazy Herbert/' had assembled on the terrace ; 
 and even as his mother was abusing his idle- 
 ness he too appeared. 
 
 Many plans for active enjoyment of the 
 day were discussed during breakfast ; but 
 they were all rejected on account of the great
 
 70 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 heat of the weather. Some one, however, 
 by-and-by proposed a quiet day, and then 
 a row up the lake late in the afternoon, 
 tea on one of the islands, and return by 
 moonlight. This scheme met with general 
 approbation. 
 
 After breakfast the family loitered in the 
 cool hall and porch awhile, then dropped off 
 one by one, or two by two. Mrs. Southern 
 carried off her son, John Landon followed 
 Blanche into the garden, Mary went about 
 the business of the house, Felicia ascended 
 to the nursery to amuse the children while 
 nurse was busy, Mrs. Landon took her 
 work out-doors, Wilfred carrying her chair 
 for her and placing it under the cedar; 
 Mr. Landon, settled at his wife's feet, 
 began to work intently at a boat he was 
 making for his boy. Husband and wife both 
 invited Wilfred to remain with them ; but he 
 had made up his mind for a long ramble,
 
 BOND AND FREE. 71 
 
 in spite of the heat. Pursuing the same 
 path he had taken yesterday, he soon climbed 
 high enough to get the benefit of a fresh 
 breeze ; he had intended to gain the distant 
 rocky peak, but it seemed to recede as he 
 advanced — and before long he was glad 
 to throw himself down beneath the shadow 
 of a gray boulder and of an ash which 
 grew out of it. 
 
 The brightness of his morning-mood was 
 already dimmed : — 
 
 " So sind am hartsten wir gequalt : 
 Im Eeichthum fuhlend was uns fehlt." 
 
 Beauty, lavishly displayed, oppressed and 
 stupefied him ; the desire of possession, de- 
 sire that this beauty should fully enter 
 into his being, arose to torment him by its 
 futility, to make him conscious of dark- 
 ness of soul and heaviness of spirit. 
 
 The music of a little rivulet leaping from 
 the rock close beside him, set itself to wea-
 
 72 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 rily monotonous and melancholy words — 
 clear and bright as the little stream looked, 
 for him it would utter no others. 
 
 "Found at last!" cried Southern's cheery 
 voice, as he dropped down from the ash- 
 tree, alighting close to Mason. 
 
 " What a hunt I have had, and how hot 
 I have made myself! How could you climb 
 so high?" 
 
 " ' Step by step, stone by stone, 
 Strain by strain, groan by groan, 
 The goal is gained, our powers are done, 
 As loss we count that we have won ; 
 Life's pleasant plains are out of sight, 
 Before us frowns a higher height.' " 
 
 '^ Which means that you think it was 
 pleasanter below? This is not bad, how- 
 ever." 
 
 Herbert, stretching himself on the moss, 
 looked up towards the overhanging ash 
 with an expression of perfect content, 
 which did not the least change as he 
 said : —
 
 BOND AND FREE. 73 . 
 
 " My mother has sternly kept me to 
 the point all this time — the point having 
 been the contemplation of an anything but 
 satisfactory state of money-matters. My mo- 
 ther is a capital woman of business, and 
 there's need she should be ! " 
 
 After a brief pause, he continued: — 
 "A few of the thousands my father was 
 swindled out of by a nameless rascal — 
 nameless to me at least — would come by 
 no means amiss to us now. I do not 
 think I am very covetous or vindictive, 
 but I am sometimes inclined to pour power- 
 ful anathemas on that scoundrel's head. 
 Heigho ! I wish I could find a royal road 
 to fortune ! But, enough of my affairs. 
 Will you be pleased to lift up a corner 
 of the impenetrable veil that covers yours, 
 and let me peep in and see something of 
 your schemes for the future? Not if you 
 do not wish," he added quickly, as, rising
 
 74^ BOND AND FREE. 
 
 on his elbow to look at Wilfred, he no- 
 ticed that he coloured at the question and 
 appeared to hesitate to answer it. 
 
 " You see, my position is so different 
 from yours," Wilfred began apologetically 
 — " I am alone ; whether I sink or swim 
 does not much matter. I mean to try 
 whether my brains and my pen will 
 earn me bread enough to keep me from 
 starving." 
 
 The wise Herbert looked grave. 
 
 " Did your guardian, such a practical 
 man, and, I should have thought, a very 
 obstinate man, consent to this? Did he 
 leave you free ? " 
 
 " He left me quite free." Wilfred 
 slightly smiled as he answered ; he had 
 reasons, and not bad ones, for preferring 
 that Southern should remain ignorant of 
 the exact nature of his freedom; he knew 
 the impulsive generosity and unwearying
 
 BOND AND FREE. W 
 
 kindness of his friend^s nature — knew how 
 instantaneous would be the desire and how 
 dogged the determination "to do something 
 for Wilfred," should he have reason to 
 think that Wilfred was friendless and almost 
 without resources. Having resolved to go his 
 own way unhelped and unheeded, Mason did 
 not wish to have to battle against Herbert's 
 resolution to aid and befriend him. 
 
 " Quite free ! " Herbert echoed, thought- 
 fully. 
 
 " As I said before, I am alone — one by 
 myself — my wants will be few — it will be a 
 hard case if I cannot earn enough to live 
 upon.'' 
 
 " You lay much stress on your being 
 alone — one by yourself — but do you expect 
 to live alone always ? " 
 
 Wilfred smiled slightly, fixing his soft eyes 
 full on his friend. 
 
 " There is no provoking cause to make
 
 76 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 me look so far forward," he said. As he 
 added, " It is hardly likely, hardly pos- 
 sible, that I shall ever marry," all the light 
 died out of his face. 
 
 It was Southern's turn to colour — he did 
 so vividly, as he answered : — 
 
 " I won't pretend not to know what you 
 mean ; but I understand my position better 
 now than I did when I indulged in those 
 boyish fancies. I must think of nothing 
 but work for many years to come. To 
 return to your scheme : if you need a bread- 
 winning profession — is it good to take up 
 authorship in that way ? Is not the time 
 for living only to write books past ? I 
 cannot help thinking that you would be 
 happier leading a more active life. I do 
 believe that no life is so happy as that 
 in which each day necessitates the doing 
 of a day's work — external, compulsory 
 work."
 
 BOND AND FREE. 77 
 
 As Wilfred maintained silence, Southern 
 remarked : — 
 
 " You don't deign me an answer ; perhaps 
 I seem to you to be arrogantly talking of 
 what I don't understand ? " 
 
 *^I was thinking — what you say about 
 living only to write books has no meaning 
 for me. I don't think that any one should 
 live for any outward result of work — living 
 should be life's work. A man's aim (an 
 author's especially) should be, what Goethe 
 said his was, to improve himself, to sharpen 
 his own faculties, to raise the standard of 
 his own personality, and then to express 
 only that which he recognized as good and 
 true. What a man has produced should 
 be merely the necessary result of what he 
 was, before he pressed on to a higher stage, 
 and only useful to others who have not reached 
 that stage. If a man must consciously 
 live for an object, let him find it within
 
 78 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 himself— let it be his own culture and de- 
 velopment towards perfection." Here Wilfred 
 broke oflf with a laugh of self-scorn that 
 did not say much for his belief in what 
 he was somewhat dogmatically laying down 
 as truth. 
 
 '^I was going to say, 'so much for your 
 study of the great German ' ; but I see 
 you do not feel that what you say is true, 
 or sufficient — what little belief you have in 
 it you will lose in a few years. If a 
 man^s heart is in the right place, and espe- 
 cially if it is as gentle and single as yours 
 is, such a theory as that of one's own de- 
 velopment being a sufficient object to live 
 for, will never be believed in practically. 
 Yours is the last temperament to have any 
 rest amid such dry bones ; you have a real 
 hunger and thirst (repress it as you may) 
 after human sympathy. God's purpose in 
 our lives may be our development towards
 
 BOND AND FREE. 79 
 
 perfection ; but I think we are presumptuous 
 if we fancy that by consciously setting our- 
 selves to grow great and perfect, constantly 
 watching our own progress, we shall forward 
 His end ; it seems to me that those who 
 act in that way act like children who con- 
 tinually dig up their plants to see what 
 growth their roots have made." 
 
 "But, recognizing God's purpose in our 
 lives, ought we not to make it ours ? " 
 
 "It seems to me that we cannot recog- 
 nize God's purpose. His ways are not as 
 our ways — they are wonderful and past our 
 finding out. I merely said such might be 
 God's purpose." 
 
 " What would you lay down to be the 
 safe and right aim of all lives ? Is not the 
 Saint-Simonian theory, that a man should 
 work for the happiness of others as a 
 necessary condition of his own happiness, 
 to the full as selfish in reality, though it
 
 80 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 may not sound so, as Goethe's theory that 
 each man should make his own fortune first, 
 from which the happiness of others must 
 follow?" 
 
 " Suppose we say that a man should live 
 towards God, keeping His perfection before 
 the eyes of his soul, that he should live for 
 his neighbours, keeping his heart open to the 
 needs and sufferings of his kind, mightn't we 
 hope that such a man's nature would both 
 broaden and deepen continually ? " 
 
 " As yours does, and always will ! " Mason 
 exclaimed warmly ; " my mind's eye shows 
 me a beautiful picture of what your life will 
 be : you will be a true physician, for soul 
 and body — healing the body consciously, you 
 will unconsciously heal souls." 
 
 " God grant your words may to some 
 extent come true ! I know, Wilfred, that 
 higher considerations than you choose to 
 own have influenced your decision — if de-
 
 BOND AND FREE. 81 
 
 cision it is — just as lower ones than you 
 give me credit for influenced mine. Though 
 I should like to grow rich, I do not ex- 
 pect to be absorbed in the pursuit of for- 
 tune, or to care for it for its own sake ; 
 and though you may desire to grow famous, 
 you will not give yourself up to the pur- 
 suit of fame, or ." 
 
 " Fame ! the pursuit of fame ! — if I were 
 to set myself to pursue anything, it would 
 be, not fame, but happiness. I do not care 
 to be famous, but to be happy I have the 
 most intense longing." 
 
 "To pursue happiness would be a great 
 mistake, you know ; when you fancy she 
 is within reach, and open your arms to 
 embrace her, the ' red mouse ' will jump 
 but of her mouth — the story of Sir Ga- 
 waine and the loathsome lady will be re- 
 versed." 
 
 " You are cruel. ^' 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 ^'Not at all — though you may not by 
 seeking happiness find her, she will, God 
 grant, find you. Now, let us speculate no 
 further — I quite agree with Mephistopheles 
 on this head,* and it is time we returned to 
 the world again." 
 
 " How very beautiful your sister, Mrs. 
 Landon, is!" Wilfred remarked, apparently 
 apropos of nothing — as he got up, with 
 evident reluctance, and they began to de- 
 scend the hill-side. " She reminds me, in 
 expression, of an engraving I have seen of 
 Dante's Beatrice, from a picture of Ary 
 Scheffer's." 
 
 " I felt sure you would admire her — 
 Landon, too, is a thoroughly nice fellow 
 when you come to know him. I hope you 
 will see a good deal of them if you go 
 
 * " Mat ein Kerl, der speculirt 
 1st v?ie ein Thier, auf diirre Heide, 
 Von einem bosen Geist im Kreis herum gefuhrt, 
 Und rings umher liegt schone griine Weide."
 
 BOND AND FREE. 83 
 
 to London, as you talked of doing. I 
 suppose you do not mean to live quite 
 'the world forgetting, by the world forgot.' 
 I am sure you will need looking after. My 
 mother says you are ruining your constitu- 
 tion by studying at night ; she is certain, 
 judging you by your appearance, that you 
 make a habit of sitting up late — this will 
 be inexcusable when you live alone, and can 
 choose your own hours. I hope you be- 
 lieve that power of mind soon decays 
 where there is no physical power to back 
 it." 
 
 '* You are quite oppressively wise to-day, 
 Southern!" Wilfred exclaimed. "If I were 
 to say that I do not set a very high value 
 on strength of body and length of years, 
 you would of course be shocked ; you do 
 not know anything of the soul-sickness which 
 makes one cry against the burden of being, 
 and desire death rather than life." 
 
 g2
 
 84 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 ^^ I do know that only the exaggera- 
 tions of a morbid and diseased imagina- 
 tion can make any burdens laid upon us 
 really unendurable; and that what you call 
 soul-sickness is often only a consequence 
 of physical weakness or disease. I do not 
 fancy that you have been the perpetrator 
 of any mysterious crime, and so have 
 brought upon yourself a weight of mys- 
 terious, life-long remorse ; therefore I should 
 hope that, beyond the burdens borne by 
 all flesh, no burdens are laid upon you but 
 such as you may and should shake yourself 
 free from." 
 
 After those words of Southern's nothing 
 passed between them as they went through 
 the intense wavering heat, till, pausing a 
 moment on the shady bridge, Herbert 
 offered his hand to Wilfred — it was grasped 
 cordially. 
 
 "• None but our own deeds shall affect
 
 BOND AND FREE. 85 
 
 our friendship/^ Southern said ; '^ and I 
 
 trust that those deeds will only tend to 
 strengthen it/'
 
 86 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " Only a child- 
 Heaven's light yet Hng'ring, lost amid her hair, 
 Shining serenely forth from mild eyes fair ; 
 
 Taking my Fate into her hand she smiled — 
 That smile was a meek woman's, glad and sad, 
 Sad from sweet sympathy, to serve me glad." 
 
 Late that night Wilfred entered his room, and, 
 dropping into a chair, yielded himself up 
 to dreamy meditation. 
 
 He recalled the scenes, sounds, and sensa- 
 tions of the evening — the fairy island on 
 the enchanted lake, in which were mirrored 
 the delectable mountains; the water-lilies, 
 tinged with fire by the sunset and then
 
 BOND AND FREE. 87 
 
 blanched again by the moon-beams; Mar- 
 garet Landon's Beatrice-like face uplifted 
 to the light as she sang; other happy and 
 lovely faces ; sweet songs, sweet silences, and 
 clear ringing laughter ; the measured splash- 
 ing of the oars and the dancing fall of 
 sparkling showers of foam pearls. These 
 things and many more mingled confusedly. 
 Distinct from all of them he recalled the 
 feeling that had stolen over him when a 
 tired child's head had drooped upon his 
 shoulder and rested there, when his arm had 
 encircled a slight, soft form. Holding 
 Felicia thus, Wilfred had trembled with 
 positive happiness, for he knew that this 
 child loved him. 
 
 The events of the day had excited Wil- 
 fred — sleep did not seem a possibility. As 
 he opened his note-book, wishing to write 
 some few lines that might in years to come 
 recall this time, the inevitable packet fell
 
 88 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 from it. Immediately the current of his 
 thoughts was changed and chilled. His 
 eyes took a fiercely hungry look as they 
 remained fixed on the letter. To-night he 
 was not patient, or submissive. 
 
 " Intolerable ! '^ he murmured. ^^ Where- 
 ever I go, whatever I do, am I to be 
 haunted and taunted by my ignorance of a 
 mystery which only this shred of paper, 
 this blotch of wax, holds from me. What 
 if I dare the worst and at once tear out 
 the heart of this hateful secret? Tear out 
 its heart ! " 
 
 He echoed his own words shudderingly, 
 and rose from the table; it seemed to his 
 excited fancy as if he had spoken of tearing 
 out his mother's heart. As he walked up 
 and down the room he cried — "Mother! 
 mother! release me from this intolerable 
 restraint. A curse is on me, turning to ray 
 torment what you did in love ! Appear to
 
 BOND AND FREE. 89 
 
 me, or by some dream or sign release 
 me!" 
 
 Again he gazed at the innocent -looking 
 packet lying on his table — again and again 
 he reperused the faded writing of those (as 
 he called them) fatal lines. 
 
 By a train of sophistries, by passionate 
 exaggeration of the misery of ignorance and 
 the evil influence of vague dread, he might, 
 perhaps, have brought himself to disregard 
 alike his mothers entreaty and her com- 
 mand, had not a slight sound startled him 
 from this commune with a familiar demon. 
 He listened ; some one knocked softly at his 
 door. Looking at his watch, Wilfred found 
 that it was nearly two o'clock ; the knock 
 was repeated a third time, and then, full 
 of vague and ghostly expectation, he threw 
 the door open wide. 
 
 The child Felicia, covered from head to 
 foot with a white shawl, stood outside; her
 
 90 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 hair, which had been uncurled by the night 
 dew, drooped heavily on her shoulders — ^her 
 little feet shone bare and white on the dark 
 boards ; she was very pale, and the eyes she 
 lifted to Wilfred's wondering face were full 
 of timid solicitude. 
 
 He did not speak directly, and, unlike a 
 child, she waited to be questioned; so there 
 was a momentary silence. 
 
 '^ Is anything the matter, Felicia ? How 
 is it you are not asleep? You were so 
 tired," Wilfred said. 
 
 " I could not sleep. I felt very unhappy 
 about you." 
 
 " About me — you dear child ? " 
 
 "Mamma said the other day that you 
 would kill yourself by studying at night ; 
 from my window I can see the light in 
 yours. I know it is hours and hours since 
 we came home, so I thought about your 
 killing yourself, and I thought that perhaps
 
 BOND AND FREE. 91 
 
 if I asked you you would go to bed." She 
 raised eyes full of soft appeal to his. 
 
 "You kind little thing!" Wilfred ex- 
 claimed. "The light shall be put out before 
 you can get back to your room, and I 
 will behave better now that I know that a 
 kind little friend watches me." 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Mason." She had 
 bidden him good night, and was closing the 
 door behind her, when a sudden impulse 
 made Wilfred recall her. 
 
 "Will you come back for a moment, 
 Felicia? I will not keep you long." 
 
 She complied, with gentle wonder in her 
 face. He set a chair for her, and wrapped 
 his coat round her bare feet; then, taking 
 up the packet, he said : — 
 
 "I am afraid of being tempted to do 
 what would be wrong, Felicia, and you 
 could prevent me — will you ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! if you will tell me how."
 
 92 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 "My mother, who died when I was very 
 young, left this letter for me, but I may 
 not open it till another person is dead. 
 Now, I would cut off my right arm to 
 know what this letter tells me, and I am 
 afraid of being tempted to open it before 
 I ought. I want you, Felicia, to keep the 
 letter and save me from temptation." 
 
 Wilfred's colour rose and deepened as 
 the child's clear eyes perused his face, 
 while she seemed to hesitate. 
 
 "Perhaps you think me cowardly, un- 
 manly — think I ought to trust myself, and to 
 overcome instead of escaping from tempta- 
 tion ? '' Unconsciously, he no longer spoke 
 as if to a child. 
 
 " We pray not to be led into temptation." 
 
 "We do, dear; you will keep me out of 
 it? — you will take my letter and save me 
 from this danger? — you will be my little 
 guardian angel ? "
 
 BOND AND FREE. 93 
 
 "If mamma does not mind, I will take 
 care of it," she said, and let him close her 
 fingers over it. 
 
 ** You are my conscience now, dear. (A 
 pure and fair conscience I have !) May I 
 kiss your hand upon our compact ? " 
 
 The child held up her pale little face to 
 his, but he stooped lower and kissed her 
 hand, the hand that held the letter. She 
 took the kiss sedately, then, looking at him 
 with a face from which shone a woman^s sym- 
 pathy and a child's simplicity, she asked, 
 
 " Are you always sad ? Is it because 
 your mother is dead, and you have no bro- 
 thers and sisters ? " Tears began to drop 
 from the serene eyes. 
 
 Again kissing her hand, Wilfred said, 
 
 " You must not cry for me, my darling." 
 His heart was startled by the sound of that 
 word of endearment which his lips had pro- 
 bably never spoken before. " I shall be happier
 
 94 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 now that my fate is in this kind little hand," 
 he added. 
 
 Holding the letter firmly, Felicia slipped 
 down from her chair. 
 
 '' Those poor little hare feet ! " Wilfred 
 looked despairingly at his own boots and 
 slippers as he spoke, then added, 
 
 "You must let me carry you back again 
 —may I?" 
 
 " If you please, if I am not too heavy. 
 I wasn't frightened coming ; but I think I 
 might be going back,'' she said. He 
 lifted her up in his arms, and she clasped 
 her hands round his neck confidingly. 
 
 Her room was a long way off, in an 
 opposite corner of the house ; as he set her 
 down at the door she pointed out, she 
 thanked him in a cautiously subdued voice. 
 Having seen the door closed behind her, 
 he returned to his room with a happy hushed 
 feeling at his heart, "as if he had been
 
 BOND AND FREE. 95 
 
 visited by an angel," he told himself. 
 His first act was to put out the light — his 
 next to kneel and pray. 
 
 " I may keep it — it is locked up in a 
 box of mine, and the box is put in my 
 own desk, which mamma takes care of till 
 I am older." 
 
 Felicia told Wilfred this, directly she met 
 him next morning; afterwards she did not 
 allude to the matter. No one but Mrs. 
 Southern, Wilfred, and the child knew of 
 the incident of that summer night till long 
 afterwards. 
 
 Felicia seemed languid, and looked paler 
 than her wont all the next day. Wilfred 
 watched her and waited on her with 
 a chivalrous tenderness of devotion that 
 brought a smile to the lips, and tears to the 
 eyes of the observant Margaret.
 
 96 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 *' O Menschenlierz, was ist dein GlUck ? 
 Ein rathselhaft geborner, 
 Und, kaum gegriisst, verlorner, 
 Unwiederholter Angenblick ? " 
 
 Varied by all manner of excursions, by land, 
 water, hill, and valley, the weeks of sum- 
 mer and holiday flew swiftly. Wilfred be- 
 came a universal favourite ; he was no longer 
 the melancholy boy, seeming half-shy, half- 
 proud, to whom Southern had first been 
 attracted more by compassion than liking. 
 His nature had developed rapidly in the 
 sunshine of a congenial atmosphere ; as he
 
 BOND AND FREE. 97 
 
 became more and more gay and uncon- 
 strained, it seemed to bud with fresh charms 
 and graces each day. Wilfred was not 
 naturally shy ; but being at once intensely ob- 
 servant, and very ill at ease, while — ignorant 
 of the characters, tastes, and sympathies of 
 those around him — the air he breathed was, 
 as it were, foreign to his nature, he was apt 
 to become wholly absorbed in watching 
 others, and to forget that he, too, had a part 
 to play. It was not, therefore, till he had 
 been some time among the Southerns 
 that his part was played with ease and 
 grace. 
 
 Holiday life at Beech Holmes was utterly 
 different from any life he had ever known or 
 dreamed of He had hardly opened a book 
 during his stay there; his idleness had been 
 complete, and he was inclined to think cul- 
 pable ; yet at no period had his mental 
 growth been so rapid — his whole nature had 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 been richly nourished by the contemplation of 
 forms of animate and inanimate beauty at 
 once more real and more spiritual than those 
 with which his imagination had teemed. These 
 months were, perhaps, the most of all valuable 
 to him, in that they freed him from the 
 thraldom of a habit of incessant and pur- 
 poseless study, taught him the possibility of 
 living without books, and plunged him com- 
 pletely into so pure a " vagabondism of sen- 
 sation." 
 
 A lovely evening, coming after some 
 days of wild, prematurely autumnal weather, 
 was the last Wilfred was to spend at Beech 
 Holmes. A shade of melancholy tinged the 
 mood of almost all the party. Other depar- 
 tures were impending; the holiday summer 
 life was drawing to an end. 
 
 " When moonlight stole o'er the tints of 
 eve," everybody assembled on the terrace ; 
 wonderful quiet reigned as they watched the
 
 BOND AND FKEE. ' 99 
 
 moon resting upon, and then slowly lifting 
 herself up from, the heavy, dusky branches 
 of the cedar. 
 
 John Landon was at Beech Holmes again; 
 he, too, planned to leave it to-morrow; but 
 the air — timid, assured, proud, and bashful 
 — with which Blanche Southern hung upon 
 his arm, indicated that their parting would 
 not be a long one. 
 
 Mrs. Southern was the centre of this ter- 
 race group. Felicia, while she leant her 
 cheek against her mother, let Wilfred^s hand 
 clasp hers ; perhaps she, the youngest, was 
 the saddest of the party — she looked as 
 sad as the serenity of her lovely eyes would 
 let her. She, better than anyone else, knew 
 how Wilfred's heart ached at the thought of 
 to-morrow's parting, and how desolate and 
 lonely a life that parting would begin for 
 him. She bore her grief and his, for she 
 pitied him with that pity of love which 
 
 h2
 
 100 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 makes the grief of the one loved one's 
 own grief. 
 
 When they went indoors Mrs. Southern 
 begged Wilfred to come with her for a few 
 moments to her den, as she called a little 
 room which had been the steward's room 
 in the long-past days of Beech Holmes 
 grandeur. 
 
 After kind enquiries into his plans and 
 motherly cautions concerning his health, 
 Mrs. Southern asked if he seriously and 
 earnestly desired that the packet he had 
 confided to her little daughter should con- 
 tinue in the child's keeping. 
 
 ** I have felt happier ever since it passed 
 into her hands — pray let her keep it," was 
 his eager answer. 
 
 '^ It is safe with her. We call her, dear 
 child, Faith, Hope, Charity, and Constancy, 
 by turns — and do not know which name 
 suits her best. It is quite safe with her;
 
 BOND AND FREE. 101 
 
 but yet I would rather that the letter 
 were in your own hands." 
 
 Wilfred's eyes shone on the mother as 
 she spoke thus of her child ; but he did 
 not strive to say a word in Felicia's 
 praise — to him the child seemed to stand 
 above all praise ; he only said : — 
 
 "Pray let Felicia keep it." 
 
 " For the present, then. I shall hope that 
 you will soon come and see us again, and 
 that you may then feel inclined to re- 
 lieve her of her charge. But suppose by 
 any mischance that we should lose sight 
 of each other — you may leave England, 
 or we may be obliged to leave Beech 
 Holmes ." 
 
 " The letter is not to be opened while 
 Mr. Ireton, my late guardian, lives : he is 
 not an old man, and is, I should think, a 
 very strong one. The time for opening the 
 letter may never come ; if I die and have
 
 102 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 not claimed it, I suppose it had better be 
 burnt unread.'' 
 
 " I do not know if I have ever told you 
 that your guardian is not quite a stranger 
 to me; many years ago — more than twenty 
 — my husband had a great deal of busi- 
 ness intercourse with him. I used to hear 
 his name constantly. I saw him once or 
 twice." 
 
 ** You know him ! — you knew him many 
 years ago?" The old expression of wild 
 and painful eagerness distorted Wilfred's 
 face. Controlling himself by a great effort, 
 he asked: — 
 
 ^^ Do you know anything of his past 
 life? Anything of his former friends or 
 enemies ? " 
 
 " Very little. When he was a compara- 
 tively young man, and had just succeeded 
 to his father's business, he took into his 
 employ the son of an old friend, placing
 
 BOND AND FREE. 103 
 
 him in a confidential position. I do not 
 know anything of details ; but the young 
 man turned out very badly — he ruined your 
 guardian, and others were involved with 
 him. Mr. Ireton was a proud man- 
 proud, above all, of an inherited, unspotted 
 business reputation ; this did not escape. 
 He had some motive for wishing, as far 
 as possible, to screen the real transgressor. 
 Malice suggested an evil motive — scandal 
 was, I believe, busy with every incident of 
 his life. I know that my husband con- 
 sidered his personal probity as unsullied, 
 but he could not induce others to share 
 his conviction. Mr Ireton must have led 
 a life of unflinching toil to have recovered 
 his position, so far as he has done. I never 
 knew much of him ; my husband was 
 in weak health for many years pre- 
 vious to his death, and led a very quiet 
 retired life ; it must have been more than
 
 104 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 twenty years since I had heard your guar- 
 dian's name when I heard it from Herbert, 
 in connection with you.'' 
 
 " Do you by any chance remember what 
 scandal said about my guardian's reasons 
 for wishing to screen his enemy? Some 
 little truth, or some clue to the truth, 
 might be sifted out from among false- 
 hoods. Do you remember his enemy's 
 name? Was any woman's name mixed up 
 in the matter ? " 
 
 ** I do not suppose I ever knew — I do 
 not even remember hearing the culprit's 
 name ; whether any woman's name was 
 mixed up in the matter I have no idea. I 
 had many young children to nurse and tend, 
 and little time or interest to spare. My 
 husband knew everything; but he burnt all 
 the papers and letters that touched on 
 affairs of that period — at Mr. Ireton's 
 express wish, I imagine,"
 
 BOND AND FREE. 105 
 
 ^* Truly, I suffer a Tantalus torture ! — the 
 knowledge I desire perpetually evades my 
 reach by a hair's breadth only — shall I never 
 grasp it ? " 
 
 Wilfred spoke with passionate impatience; 
 and then, bending his head down upon the 
 hands that had been clenched in eager 
 expectation, groaned aloud. 
 
 For a few minutes Mrs. Southern re- 
 garded him with silent pity; then, laying 
 her hand upon his shoulder, she said : — 
 
 " Dear Wilfred, will you take plain 
 speaking as a sign of affection?" 
 
 He raised his head, but, even as he 
 begged her to speak plainly, it was easy 
 to see that he shrank from her, as if 
 expecting to be wounded. 
 
 " I always think," Mrs. Southern began 
 gently, ^Hhat a man, whose position or cir- 
 cumstances naturally excite pity, should be 
 peculiarly careful that his character and
 
 106 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 conduct shall command respect. A man 
 whose position and whose character alike 
 call for our pity, is in danger of receiving 
 it mixed with contempt — is in danger of 
 being despised. If there is anything in 
 your circumstances for which you are to 
 be commiserated, it seems to me that it is 
 the more needful that by force of will you 
 should overcome any inclination to self-pity, 
 and, by showing self-respect, should make 
 others respect you. Leave the past alone, 
 dear boy, and occupy yourself with the 
 present — with the correction of your faults. 
 You have so many qualities which can and 
 will elicit admiration, that it appears to 
 me to be of the greatest importance that 
 you should cultivate others of which nature 
 or education has left you deficient. A 
 young man whose gifts cause him to be 
 sought after and flattered, and who is de- 
 ficient in self-respecting self-restraint, in
 
 BOND AND FREE. 107 
 
 steadfastness of purpose, and in power of 
 will, is peculiarly exposed to many and dan- 
 gerous temptations — apt to be a plaything 
 in some hands, and an instrument of evil in 
 others. I hope you will feel, Wilfred, that 
 it is because I have something of a mother's 
 love for you that I presume to lecture you." 
 
 Mrs. Southern held out her hand as she 
 finished speaking. Wilfred grasped it with 
 a grateful look, but, as he did so, said 
 despondingly : — 
 
 *^ It seems as if everyone I know had 
 leagued together to exhort me to use 
 what I do not possess — to be strong where 
 it is my nature to be weak." 
 
 " But the only source of true strength is 
 open and common to all." 
 
 " That may be, but all have not the 
 needful vessel for drawing the waters." 
 
 " That indeed have they, as they find 
 when the time of real thirst comes."
 
 108 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 " Mother ! " exclaimed Herbert, entering 
 and dragging Felicia after him, " when 
 are you going to release Wilfred ? A lady- 
 is anxious for the setting free of her 
 knight." 
 
 " You are jealous Herbert, I see — and 
 you put your own jealous impatience upon 
 your little sister's shoulders; however, I 
 won't detain dear Wilfred any longer." 
 
 So saying, Mrs. Southern rose and led 
 the way into the drawing-room. 
 
 The terrace commanded, for a consider- 
 able distance, the road by which the coach 
 for Silverthorpe must come; here they all 
 assembled next morning, and as they 
 watched for its appearance everybody 
 seemed to strive who could say the kindest 
 things to the departing guest. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Landon pressed for a pro- 
 mise that he would often visit them in
 
 BOND AND FREE. 109 
 
 town, to which they meant to return very 
 soon — Mr. Landon's present business at 
 Beech Holmes being to fetch his wife and 
 children home. 
 
 " The children will be so glad to see 
 you ; and papas and mammas always make 
 those welcome whom the children love — eh! 
 mamma ? " Mr. Landon turned to Mrs. 
 Southern, after glancing at John and 
 Blanche. 
 
 ** Even when they have learnt that the 
 welcome will be repaid by theft. Such is 
 our fate, Margaret — you will be overtaken 
 by the doom some day ; your Lily is a 
 coquette by birth, and very precocious. As 
 for me, I shall be left alone in time.^' 
 
 ^^ Indeed, mamma, I will never leave you — 
 I will not indeed, mamma," the child 
 Felicia said, clinging round her. 
 
 "You will be last to leave me, no doubt." 
 
 "I will never leave you — never, never!
 
 110 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 Don't say I will — you hurt me; I will always 
 stay with you, mamma/' 
 
 The childish face was full of serious pur- 
 pose, and the eyes brimful of tears. 
 
 Mrs. Southern stroked the fair young 
 head soothingly, but her smile, though 
 tender, was incredulous. 
 
 Felicia felt it to be so. She looked up at 
 Wilfred with a pained, pleading look, as if 
 to ask that he, at least, would believe in 
 her constancy. He stooped and whispered 
 something in her ear which made her 
 brighten up a little. 
 
 The coach came in sight, and they all 
 trooped down the avenue. Perhaps the 
 great Beeches there, being so old, that the 
 sap circulated in them feebly and imper- 
 fectly, were an easy prey to the early 
 frosts, and unable to bear the boister- 
 ousness of the autumn wind ; for already 
 the wide road beneath them was strewn
 
 BOND AND FREE. Ill 
 
 with crisp, yellow leaves and broken twigs ; 
 while many decayed branches, which had been 
 concealed by the luxuriant foliage of more 
 vigorous neighbours, now stretched them- 
 selves forth, bare and gaunt, serving as 
 death's-head at the royal festival of gor- 
 geous autumnal pomp of colouring. 
 
 " Try and think of this place as a home, 
 as long as we remain here, and of me as 
 almost a mother,'^ were Mrs. Southern's 
 final words to Wilfred. 
 
 At the last moment Felicia placed a 
 small bunch of autumn violets in her friend's 
 hand. She said '^good-by," quietly, quietly 
 lifting up her mouth for his farewell kiss ; 
 but when the coach was out of sight she 
 turned her face from the light, hid it in 
 her mother's gown, and kept it hidden a 
 long time. 
 
 Herbert went a stage with his friend. 
 Both the young men were silent for a good
 
 112 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 while. Wilfred looked back till the top ot 
 the tallest chimney, and then the hill which 
 sheltered Beech Holmes, had disappeared. 
 
 " That is over ! " he said then, drawing 
 a long breath. 
 
 " What an exclamation ! " 
 
 ''It is like waking from a delicious 
 dream ; even when I said ' good-by ^ I did 
 not believe I was really going." 
 
 '^ You must soon be there again ; with or 
 without me you will always be welcome.'' 
 
 ^' I do not feel as if there were a possi- 
 bility of anything in my life being like this 
 visit — which is over. I suppose I have 
 been happy ; but I don't know much about 
 it. The *me' I have been conscious of at 
 Beech Holmes is unlike any ' me ' I have 
 known before. Consciousness of individu- 
 ality is a strange and perplexing mystery." 
 " Spare me ! " Herbert said, laughing. 
 *' Do not laugh. Southern, I cannot to-
 
 BOND AND FREE. 113 
 
 day. I feel that I am about to resume 
 a burden that will press more grievously 
 than ever. If I could only see in the far 
 distance some certain time when I might 
 throw off this burden — when there would 
 be a probability, even a possibility, for 
 me of such happiness as my heart craves 
 hungrily, I could bear on cheerfully ; but 
 the future looks such a dismal blank. 
 Life looks so wearily long, so unbrokenly 
 dreary ! " 
 
 " Work, work, work ! Work is the one 
 unfailing panacea for human ills. Don't 
 look forward with craving — let good for- 
 tune take you by surprise ! '' 
 
 ^^I think a man in your position can 
 hardly realize what my position is. I want 
 something external to myself to live for — 
 in spite of what I tried to make you 
 believe that I believed, some months ago. 
 Vague philanthropic cant about living for 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 one's kind, one^s age and generation, won't 
 satisfy me. I do not believe that one can 
 live for one's kind, except by living for 
 individuals." 
 
 ^' Right womanishly felt and spoken. Miss 
 Mason ! " Herbert exclaimed ; then he added 
 quickly — " I believe I should never have 
 taken to you as I did, but for that some- 
 thing womanish which I often feel in you. 
 I have always been used to womankind, 
 and you seemed a nearer approach to a 
 woman than anyone else near me." 
 
 "Mr. Ireton called me womanly — woman- 
 ish, he meant it for a severe reproach. I felt 
 it to be so — do you, too, mean a reproach 
 when you call me womanish?" 
 
 Herbert did not answer immediately. 
 " I certainly did not then mean the word 
 as a term of reproach," he said, after a 
 pause; "but I stopped to consider if I had 
 unconsciously implied a reproach. It seems
 
 BOND AND FREE. 115 
 
 to me that to call a man womanish may 
 be to confer the highest praise, or the most 
 severe censure. I fancy your womanishness 
 is of a mixed nature ; but I don't feel any 
 'cair to preach to you. Time will show 
 what stuff you are made of — at Beech 
 Holmes, at all events, you will always have 
 judges more sympathetic than critical — for 
 Felicia, you are already a hero of romance." 
 
 " The friendship of your family will be 
 my greatest stimulus and safeguard; the 
 name they know me by will, I hope, win 
 some honour. I must try and forget that 
 it is not my name — that some day I may 
 have to give it up, to take a sullied and 
 disgraced name in its stead." 
 
 " To make that, too, in time an honoured 
 name ! Would not that be doing something 
 noble, something worth doing ? " 
 
 " It would be too much for me to do ; 
 I am afraid the disgraced name might 
 
 i2
 
 116 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 crush me down beneath it, instead of being 
 raised and purified by me.'' 
 
 " It would not — it ought not — it must 
 not ; one day you will be both good and 
 great — you will justify our love. Accept 
 that as my parting prophecy — you will not 
 grow weak and miserable, but good and 
 great/'
 
 117 
 
 CHAPTER YIL 
 
 " Ich weiss das mir mclits angehort; 
 Aus der Gedanke, der ungestort 
 
 Aus meiner Seele will fliesen 
 Und jeder gunstige Augenblick, 
 Den mich ein liebendes Gescbick 
 
 Von Grund aus lasst geniessen." 
 
 After the country freshness and refined 
 elegance of everything at Beech Holmes the 
 stifling atmosphere and mean ugliness of a 
 cheap London lodging seemed dreadful to 
 Wilfred, almost intolerable. Walking up and 
 down his two rooms, late on the night of 
 his arrival, he asked himself — 
 
 "What vague, wild, absurd superstition
 
 118 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 could have brought me to this crowded 
 wilderness ? " 
 
 Thoroughly harassed and heart-sick, 
 irritated almost beyond endurance by the 
 ceaseless roar and rattle in the street be- 
 neath, the only sedative he could discover 
 was the determination to rise early next 
 day, and either seek another lodging, or al- 
 together fly from London. 
 
 That, instead of doing either, he occupied 
 those two dingy rooms for very many 
 months was doubly characteristic — charac- 
 teristic of his easily changed resolution ; cha- 
 racteristic, too, in the cause of the change. 
 
 He rang for his landlady next morning, 
 intending to tell her that he should not re- 
 main with her. 
 
 The night before he had only seen a 
 slatternly servant ; when the mistress came, 
 she was not much, less slatternly — but she 
 was a mild-eyed, soft- voiced, dejected-looking
 
 BOND AND FREE. 119 
 
 woman, and clinging shyly to her apron was 
 a fair-haired child, in whom Wilfred found, 
 or fancied, some likeness to Felicia. This 
 fancied likeness, together with the mother's 
 gentle dejection, vanquished him — he signified 
 a wish for breakfast, expressed himself po- 
 litely about the accommodation, made some 
 overtures of friendship to little Jane, and did 
 not say one word about changing his quarters. 
 When he had received and arranged his 
 books and pictures his rooms looked habit- 
 able ; by degrees he ceased to notice the 
 dingy tastelessness which had, at first, so 
 much shocked him. Becoming a favourite of 
 little Jane's, Wilfred was favoured by her mo- 
 ther. Jane was often allowed to answer his 
 bell. Always receiving a kind and gentle 
 welcome to his room she was not ungrate- 
 ful; when she went with her mother to the 
 green-grocer's, or to the market, she some- 
 times begged, sometimes bought, a few flowers
 
 120 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 — these she always arranged in a glass of 
 water and placed on Wilfred's table. 
 
 As upon a new world Wilfred 
 launched himself upon the London streets ; 
 he felt a pleasing excitement in taking 
 his solitary and meditative way, un- 
 known and unnoticed, among myriads of his 
 fellow-creatures — nursing the while an unde- 
 fined, half-sad, half-triumphant consciousness 
 of the possession of powers that might one 
 day claim for him the sympathy and admi- 
 ration of thousands. While the novelty 
 lasted, the greater part of his time was 
 spent in the streets; having, by over-use, 
 worn out this pleasure, he shut himself into 
 his room and strove to continue a course 
 of study which the visit to Beech Holmes 
 had broken off. 
 
 At this time Wilfred's scheme was 
 to earn the small sum on which he 
 thought he could subsist by giving clas-
 
 BOND AND FREE. 121 
 
 sical lessons in any two or three families to 
 which he could obtain introductions — post- 
 poning, for a 'few years, the gratification of 
 other and more ambitious hopes. It was 
 with dismay that he found the concentra- 
 tion of mind necessary for study become 
 difficult, if not impossible — that he found 
 himself continually falling into reveries, 
 dwelling intently upon the most trivial de- 
 tails of the last few months. Sometimes an 
 hour would pass while his fiugers lingered 
 between the same pages of a Lexicon, and 
 his eyes and thoughts were alike withdrawn 
 from it. Rousing himself from these day- 
 dreamings he was conscious of the intense 
 craving, both of heart and brain, for that 
 beauty and poetry of life of which his pre- 
 sent seemed barren ; conscious also of infinite 
 and indefinite effort, that was not wholly 
 painful, to seize and hold the fleeting phan- 
 toms of imagination.
 
 122 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 The evenings of such idle days brought 
 remorse for wasted hours, despair at the 
 lost mastery of mind. He knew that the 
 distractions which made waste of his life 
 came from within, not from without, for he 
 was accustomed to the noise of the street 
 now, and did not even hear it. The young 
 student generally enjoys a glorious indepen- 
 dence, through his power of absorption and 
 abstraction ; it is not till over-work has made 
 the brain irritable, or forced work has made 
 it unhealthy, that outward things tyrannize 
 over it. 
 
 Wilfred stood by the window one even- 
 ing, pondering — asking himself what was to 
 be done to lay the disconnected thoughts 
 and fancies which grew and multiplied ; which, 
 while they made former pursuits laborious 
 and distasteful, appeared too airy and too 
 fragmentary to be captured and formed 
 into a palpable whole!
 
 BOND AND FREE. 123 
 
 The room was already dusky, when a 
 little white face appeared at the door. 
 
 "May I stand at your window and see 
 the lamp-lighter go down the street ? ^' was 
 Jane's request. 
 
 "Yes, come in, dear." 
 
 Jane watched, standing on a chair with 
 Wilfred's arm round her, till all the lamps 
 in sight were kindled and the light of 
 the one opposite shone into the room ; 
 then she turned to Wilfred with the ques- 
 tion : — 
 
 "Who lights up all the stars?" 
 
 The child was a very ignorant child, as 
 Wilfred found when he tried to explain 
 scientifically how the stars were lighted up. 
 The idea of giving her some simple and 
 regular instruction crossed his mind — the 
 time came when he reproached himself with 
 not having done so. 
 
 " God lights them up, doesn't he ? " Jane
 
 124 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 asked, at the end of his little lecture, to 
 which she had listened patiently. 
 
 He thought that there was beauty in 
 the obstinate simplicity of this remark — told 
 himself that a child's instinct was more sure 
 than a man's knowledge — and dismissed the 
 thought of teaching this child. If Jane had 
 shown him the picture in her mind, of 
 God as a lamp-lighter, gigantic, and with a 
 gigantic ladder, he might have doubted the 
 beauty of even a gentle child's ignorance, 
 and the spirituality of its instincts. 
 
 "Isn't it bad to be here, all alone?" 
 Jane asked next, turning from the bustling 
 street to the dim room, not without some 
 fear in her eyes. 
 
 ''I am always glad when my little friend 
 comes in to see me." 
 
 " Mother will not always let me come 
 when I want to come — she says it will 
 trouble you. You are always writing —
 
 BOND AND FREE. 125 
 
 writing, or reading hard books, she says. 
 Do you ever write pretty stories? There 
 was a gentleman here once who did — I 
 couldn't read them, but mother said they 
 were pretty; but he soon went away. 
 Mother says he got a great deal of money 
 and went to a grander house; but he 
 wasn't nice, as you are; I never wanted to 
 come in here then, he used to get in such 
 a passion if Susan made any noise. Do 
 you ever write pretty stories ? '' 
 
 Wilfred answered in the negative, and 
 just then a voice called Jane ; she asked 
 her friend to go down the stairs with her, 
 because they were dark, and he complied. 
 Eeturned to his dim room Wilfred found 
 himself thinking of ^^the gentleman who wrote 
 pretty stories " — questioning whether he 
 might not do something in that way with 
 his swarming fancies. He walked up and 
 down his room till candles and his frugal
 
 126 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 tea were brought him. After tea that 
 walking up and down was resumed. By- 
 and-by he sat down and began to write. 
 Goethe's boyish romances, which were 
 numerous, were generally written in the 
 form of letters,* as was '^Werther" later. 
 Wilfred's first attempt at prose fiction was 
 begun in the same form ; for many hours 
 he wrote rapidly and unweariedly, memory 
 and imagination working harmoniously, re- 
 producing familiar scenes and forms of beauty 
 in imaginary relations to themselves and to 
 each other. As he proceeded a feverish haste 
 possessed him — a dread lest any part of 
 the fair thought -pageant should sweep by 
 unnoted. 
 
 He was well-nigh outwearied, and the 
 morning was not far ofi*, when, the flicker- 
 ing of the expiring candles making it im- 
 
 * " Denn ich pflegte einen kleinen Roman zum Grunde zu 
 legen, den ich in Brief en auszufUhren liebte." — Wahrheit 
 und Dichtung.
 
 BOND AND FREE. 127 
 
 possible to write longer, he looked up, pushed 
 back the hair from his heated brow, and 
 exclaimed : — 
 
 "This will be happiness — this life within 
 life ! — this freedom of imagination ! Surely I 
 have found an unfailing source of happiness. 
 I certainly am happy ! '^ 
 
 The scene of this " happiness " was cheer- 
 less enough ; the air was raw and murky, the 
 fire had been out many hours, and there was 
 nothing cheering in the smoky, flaring candle- 
 light. He who was "happy'' shook with 
 cold and agitation — his brain burned, and his 
 limbs were stiff and benumbed. 
 
 What matter ? This was his first taste of 
 the delight of that " drunkenness of composi- 
 tion,''* in which all individuality of sensa- 
 tion is lost ; he was only conscious of joy 
 in his work and of longing for thrifty rest, 
 after which he might resume it. Pain does not 
 
 * M, Balzac.
 
 128 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 always follow close upon pleasant excess. 
 The young literary roue does not learn at 
 once that excess in this, as in all other 
 indulgence, defeats itself, and turns the 
 cup of joy into bitterness : — that the over- 
 worked brain acts upon the body, which 
 then re-acts upon the brain, inducing that 
 stupor of non-productiveness so bitterly 
 humiliating to the artist, is a lesson not 
 learnt from the first sin of excess. 
 
 Wilfred woke, feeling somewhat languid, 
 but eager to resume his work. For many 
 days he wrote well nigh incessantly : except 
 that late in the wintry afternoons, when 
 daylight failed, he generally took a rapid 
 walk through the streets, he allowed him- 
 self no recreation. A sunset burning away 
 in dingy fire, seen through the smoke of 
 many chimneys ; a young moon, striving 
 to assert her fairness in spite of mists, 
 both of earth and heaven ; stars shining
 
 BOND AND FREE. 129 
 
 down pure and serene through the haze of 
 crime and misery hanging over the great 
 city ; long vistas of lamps, kindling one by 
 one, through invisible agency ; the vast pro- 
 portions of the temples, both of God and 
 Mammon, seen looming through the fogs : — 
 at that time these common sights excited 
 Wilfred's fancy more, and stirred more emo- 
 tion within him, than, later in life, could 
 the snow-covered mountains and blue lakes 
 of Switzerland, the awful cascades and solemn 
 forests of Norway, or any forms of the most 
 perfect beauty, or most utter desolation of 
 nature. 
 
 During this fever of production, wild and 
 shadowy tales — in which his imagination 
 worked upon the mystery and dread in 
 which he enveloped his ignorance of facts 
 concerning his birth and parentage — incom- 
 plete poems, and half thought-out essays, 
 were thrown off one after the other — left 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 behind for something new, the scribbler 
 pressing on as breathlessly as aimlessly. 
 
 On Christmas-eve the bells were ringing 
 an unheeded refrain to Wilfred's thoughts, 
 when little Jane brought him a note ; it 
 contained a few lines from Mrs. Landon, to 
 remind him that he had promised long ago 
 to spend Christmas-day at her house. 
 
 " When is Christmas-day, Jane ? '' Wil- 
 fred asked of the child, who lingered in the 
 room as usual. 
 
 " Why, to-morrow ! — don't you know ? 
 Mother has bought me a beautiful doll, but 
 I must not play with it till after church- 
 time to-morrow. There are such pretty 
 things in the shops — I want to go out 
 again and see them ; but mother is too 
 busy." 
 
 Wilfred pushed his papers into a drawer, 
 sighing while he did so. As an interrup- 
 tion to work the festival was not welcome,
 
 BOND AND FREE. 131 
 
 and he had no glad or gay associations with 
 the time. Looking at the child beside him, 
 he detected a wistful expression in the eyes 
 fixed on his face ; reading it aright, he told 
 her to run and ask her mother if she might 
 go out with him. 
 
 " I know I may," was the joyous answer. 
 And the changed aspect of the pale little 
 face did Wilfred good; making him con- 
 scious that he was not so isolated but that 
 he had power to give pleasure, it made him 
 feel less out of harmony with the season. 
 
 Jane soon returned, looking very pretty 
 in the blue silk bonnet and white furs, of 
 which she challenged Wilfred^s admiration. 
 As they set out together he felt quite 
 proud of his companion ; he obeyed all her 
 wishes, listened — really listened — to all her 
 prattle, and bought her more sweet and 
 pretty things than she had had given her 
 before " in all her Christmases put to- 
 
 e2
 
 132 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 gether." Not being without some natural 
 delicacy of perception, the child at length 
 ceased to express her admiration of the things 
 she saw, lest Mr. Mason should fancy that 
 she wished to possess them. Thinking she 
 was tired, and, as the night was cold and 
 she had a bad cough, not liking to keep 
 her out long, he took her home. 
 
 Escaping from the mother's low-spirited 
 and abject expressions of gratitude, he went 
 out again for a solitary prowl about the 
 streets. The sound of music drew him into 
 a Roman Catholic chapel, where he narrowly 
 escaped passing the night — for, having bowed 
 his head down, to shut out everything ex- 
 ternal while he gave himself up to the en- 
 joyment of sounds which thrilled through 
 his heart and brain, as the music died into 
 silence he fell asleep. 
 
 •?t ^ ^ Jyp ^ Cjp 
 
 There was only a family-party at Mr.
 
 BOND AND FREE. 133 
 
 Landon's on Christmas-day. Blanche and 
 Mary Southern were staying there, and a 
 good many of Mr. Landon's relatives were 
 assembled. Wilfred felt like one suddenly 
 awakened from a dream ; he found it diffi- 
 cult to keep up an appearance of interest 
 in what was going on round him — difficult 
 to avoid falling back into the interrupted 
 dream-life. Want of due rest and of physical 
 exercise were beginning to tell on him ; he 
 was shy and nervous, and carried this off 
 by a manner which made those who had not 
 known him before think him proud and 
 supercilious. 
 
 The warm and pretty rooms, decked with 
 flowers and evergreens, the brilliant lights 
 and the elegant dresses of the ladies, combined 
 to produce an atmosphere in so strong con- 
 trast to that of his mean and solitary lodg- 
 ings, that he could not at first breathe 
 freely in the one, having been long accus-
 
 134 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 tomed to the other. Though Mrs. Landon 
 paid him all possible attention, the children 
 were Wilfred's grand resource. 
 
 ^^ As I drove past Hope's, the great toy- 
 shop, last evening, I thought I saw you 
 there with a little girl," Mrs. Landon said, 
 when she had expressed a fear that her 
 Lily was troublesome to him. 
 
 " My landlady's daughter — a gentle little 
 creature. She is the greatest, I may 
 say the only, attraction the house has." 
 Wilfred brightened into interest as he 
 spoke. 
 
 " How fond you are of children ! " Mrs. 
 Landon exclaimed. " Why do you not 
 come oftener and see ours? Herbert scolds 
 us for seeing so little of you — by-the-by 
 he complains that you are a wretched cor- 
 respondent." 
 
 " You are very kind — he is very kind ; but 
 I have been very much occupied," Wilfred
 
 BOND AND FREE. 135 
 
 answered, confusedly. Mrs. Landon did not 
 like to question him as to his occupations, 
 or to caution him about his health, as her 
 mother would have done : she did not feel 
 the same elder-sisterly ease with him that 
 she had done at Beech Holmes. On the 
 whole, Wilfred did not produce a favour- 
 able impression upon the Landons — and he 
 was conscious that he did not : they thought 
 him grown proud and reserved, and were 
 afraid that he might resent as patronage 
 their efforts to keep up intercourse with 
 him. On his side — going home dissatisfied 
 with himself, for a day or two feeling un- 
 settled and restless — ^he formed the opinion 
 that society was a luxury in which it was 
 not good that a poor and struggling literary 
 man should indulge, and that he should be 
 wise to refuse all future invitations. 
 
 In spite of their disappointment in him, 
 it was not long before the Landons wrote
 
 136 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 to ask him to spend a Sunday with them. 
 Unfortunately, this invitation was brought to 
 him by little Jane when he was deeply en- 
 grossed in his work: he gave the child a 
 mechanical smile and " thank you," and put 
 the note down; it soon disappeared among 
 sheets of manuscript, and its arrival was for- 
 gotten. It was not opened till many months 
 afterwards, when he came upon it acci- 
 dentally. Calling at the Landons' house then, 
 to make what apology he could, he found 
 the family out of town.
 
 137 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 "Concevoir, c'est jouir, c'est fumer des cigarettes en- 
 chantees ; mais sans I'execution tout s'en va en reve et en 
 fiimee." 
 
 " Wollt ihr hoch auf ihren Flugeln schweben 
 Wirft die Angst des Irdischen von eucli ! 
 Fliehet aus dem engen, dumpfen Leben 
 In des Ideals Reich. ! " 
 
 Wilfred repeated these lines of Schiller's; 
 then muttered, with a bitter smile — 
 
 *^Very fit advice for a taunting Mephis- 
 topheles to whisper in the ear of a starving 
 Faust ! " 
 
 Wilfred had just been startled, to find him- 
 self face to face with pennilessness. By
 
 138 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 answering advertisements, he had made two 
 attempts to get employment as a tutor ; 
 but references had been required in each 
 case, as he might have known they would 
 be, and he had not chosen to refer to Mr. 
 Landon, his only friend in town. 
 
 He had also made an attempt, which 
 had likewise proved unsuccessful, to get 
 a tale published in a magazine in which 
 two of his shorter poems (for which, how- 
 ever, no payment had been offered him) 
 had appeared. 
 
 Now he sat, with his almost empty 
 purse in his hand, pondering what to do 
 next. If he had lately looked forward to 
 gaining a livelihood by the pursuit of 
 light, ephemeral literature, he had not 
 contemplated giving himself up to a 
 hack-literary life : he had planned that he 
 could live upon next to nothing; had ex- 
 pected to earn this *^next to nothing''
 
 BOND AND FREE. 139 
 
 easily, and without infringing upon the 
 time needful for the cultivation of what 
 higher powers he might possess. He had 
 said, again and again, that he was not am- 
 bitious, but, nevertheless, grand visions had 
 floated before his eyes during the last few 
 months. 
 
 Selecting what seemed to him the most 
 finished story among the many he had 
 thrown off, Wilfred sat up late into that 
 night, correcting and recopying it, de- 
 signing to offer it to the editor of the 
 most popular miscellany of that day. Had 
 he waited for sober day-light, he would 
 probably have been struck by its crudity 
 of conception and incoherence of execution, 
 by its utter want of that ^^nettete^' which 
 has been called " le vernis des maitres," 
 and would have spared himself the pain of 
 its rejection; but the kindly note, which in- 
 formed him of its fate, contained a courteous
 
 140 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 invitation to *Hry again/' some hints as to 
 the kind of " article " likely to meet with 
 the success of acceptance, and several 
 expressions of encouragement. 
 
 Wilfred, tossing the manuscript into the 
 fire, in the first heat of disappointment 
 and mortification, exclaimed that his genius 
 was not to be dictated to : then he coloured 
 at his own arrogance in using a word, to 
 him so sacred, in connection with such 
 worthless matter as was contained in his 
 poor pages. 
 
 For some days after this disappointment 
 he did nothing but eat, sleep, and roam 
 the streets, in a state of morbid despond- 
 ency. When the end of the week came, he 
 parted with some of his books, that he 
 might be able to meet his landlady. On 
 Sunday — a fair spring Sunday — ^he started 
 for a long walk; his mood was black and 
 despairing, and he took very little heed
 
 BOND AND FREE. 141 
 
 where he went ; but when he found him- 
 self in the fields, breathed upon by a 
 south wind and with the mild sunshine 
 falling on him, found himself alone be- 
 neath a budding tree, at the root of which 
 clustered wide and mild-eyed primroses, 
 then his mood changed wholly : he threw 
 himself down upoii the turf — tears came 
 into his eyes as he gazed into those of 
 the fair primroses — he felt weak as a little 
 child, but quiet and happy. 
 
 ^' It is worth living through a bleak 
 and cheerless winter only to feel and see 
 the beauty of spring — worth living a bleak 
 and cheerless life to enter just now and 
 then into the full enjoyment of mere being. 
 Thy earth is fair and good, even in Thy 
 sight, Father ! In this sweet air and warm 
 sunshine I feel Thy loving breath ! Thou 
 hast made no creature in vain— teach me 
 Thy will with me."
 
 142 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 After murmuring these and similar words, 
 Wilfred fell into deep meditation ; but his 
 consideration of his position and prospects, 
 though calm, was quite inconclusive ; so, 
 turning his thoughts from a vexed and 
 distasteful subject, he gave himself up to 
 enjoyment of the lovely scene and of his 
 own vague dreams and aspiring fancies. 
 His enjoyment was pure — but may we give 
 ourselves up to the purest enjoyment when- 
 ever it olBfers itself? Is the wisdom of 
 those who do so the wisdom of children 
 of this generation, or of children of light? 
 Should not Wilfred, finding his brain clear 
 and passions calm, have bent his reason 
 and will to the solving of the problem 
 of how, and for what, to live ? If he 
 erred, his error was rewarded. Tender 
 and graceful thoughts and images — uncon- 
 sciously the primroses had called up the 
 memory of Felicia — gathered together in
 
 BOND AND FREE. 143 
 
 his imagination, and clustered harmoni- 
 ously to a beautiful whole. 
 
 Pacing up and down the sun-quickened 
 hedgerow, or lying beneath the tree, Wil- 
 fred let morning pass into afternoon, and 
 afternoon deepen into evening, before he 
 turned his steps towards London. 
 
 He was hungry and tired enough when 
 he reached his lodging. His poor room 
 looked almost homelike. Jane, for whom 
 he had remembered to gather a bunch of 
 flowers, was watching for him ; and his 
 tea, to which, in consideration of his having 
 had no dinner, cold meat and a nice, fresh- 
 looking salad had been added, was ready 
 — the kettle singing beside a cheerful 
 fire. 
 
 ^* Mother is at church. I might not go, 
 because of my cough. Mother said that, 
 for a treat, I might stay here till you 
 came home; but that I must not stay after
 
 144 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 you came in, unless you asked me," Jane 
 explained this, confidently expecting the in- 
 vitation she desired. 
 
 When she had received it she was at 
 ease to express her delight with the flowers. 
 *^And, oh! I am so glad you are come 
 back," she added, **for I was getting very 
 frightened. 1 heard mother telling Susan 
 such dreadful things about a lodger she 
 had once, who drowned himself in the 
 river on a Sunday. And mother said 
 you had been looking so badly lately.'' 
 
 *^You foolish little maiden! — you are al- 
 ways frightened about something or other. 
 But come, you must make my tea for me ; 
 only I will carry the teapot to the kettle 
 — it is too heavy for you to lift." 
 
 Wilfred piled some books on a chair, 
 and lifted the child up upon this perch, 
 in front of the tea-tray. Here she was 
 in her glory — very sorry when "mother"
 
 BOND AND FREE. 145 
 
 and bed-time came together. She prattled 
 faster, her eyes were brighter, and her 
 cheeks redder than usual. 
 
 '^ I hope she hasn't been troublesome, 
 sir," her mother said, when, the child in 
 bed, she came to take away Wilfred's tea- 
 things. Speaking, she sighed, as was her fre- 
 quent fashion — '^ She wont be troublesome to 
 anyone long, I'm thinking," was added in 
 a lower voice and with a heavier sigh, as 
 she left the room. 
 
 Wilfred pondered over her words un- 
 easily ; the next time he saw her, when 
 Jane was not by, he asked their mean- 
 ing. 
 
 " ! she's going sir — that's all ! " 
 
 ** Going ! You don't mean " 
 
 " Dying, sir, that's it ; all the others went — 
 she's the last, and she's going. It don't 
 so much matter this time ; I just work 
 on while there's one of them left. She's 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 the last; when she's gone, then I shall 
 just go too.'' 
 
 "But, Mrs. Morgan, Jane does not seem 
 ill ; you muSt not be so down-hearted — 
 you must be more hopeful." 
 
 " I know the cough, sir — haven't I 
 heard it again and again ? I know the 
 look of the eyes, too, and the waxy white 
 round the mouth." 
 
 "But, if she is ill, you must do some- 
 thing for her — you must try country air. 
 How she would enjoy picking primroses! 
 Have you had advice ? " 
 
 "Nothing makes any difference — she'll 
 go ; the others did, do what I would. 
 You're very good and kind " 
 
 Here the woman's stolid calm gave 
 way — she burst into tears, dropped into a 
 chair, and sobbed convulsively. 
 
 Wilfred's cheek paled in the presence of 
 this real human sorrow ; racking his brain
 
 BOND AND FREE. 147 
 
 for consoling words, he was bitterly 
 grieved to be unable, by reason of his 
 empty purse, to make any offer to pay 
 for medical advice, for change of air — 
 for any of those things on which, in such 
 cases, hope builds. 
 
 Mrs. Morgan soon recovered composure, 
 and set about that work of tidying up 
 the room, which was never left to Susan 
 now, saying, as she did so : — 
 
 " Don't notice me — don't pity me ! that 
 knocks me down sooner than all, sir, and 
 I must last out till she's gone." 
 
 Wilfred could not ask his landlady to 
 wait a week for the week's rent, because 
 he knew she wanted money; so more of 
 his cherished books were disposed of. 
 Before a third Saturday came, however, 
 a story of his had been accepted by the 
 friendly editor who had refused the other : 
 what seemed to him a considerable sum 
 
 l2
 
 148 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 of money was now in his hands. Nothing 
 gives unmixed pleasure to a morbidly 
 susceptible temperament like Wilfred's — this 
 success came to him with its bloom 
 rubbed oflP. He had been requested to 
 call upon Mr. Brook, the editor in ques- 
 tion, and had done so ; his reception had 
 been cordial ; the criticism bestowed upon 
 his writing was genial, sympathetic, and 
 encouraging; and yet Wilfred had felt his 
 soul shrink and shiver beneath this criti- 
 cism, as exotic, hot-house plants might do 
 upon having a healthful English breeze let 
 in upon them; while the bright, pene- 
 trating eyes of the speaker had seemed to 
 him to be painfully sharp, and cruelly pierc- 
 ing. 
 
 As he returned from this interview, 
 Wilfred made a resolution that, if he fol- 
 lowed the profession of literature, he 
 would, as much as possible, avoid contact
 
 BOND AND FREE. • 149 
 
 with his fellow-workers; imagining that 
 nothing would so much tend to dispel 
 artistic illusions, and to rub off the fresh- 
 ness and bloom of fancy, as would the 
 so-called "mixing in literary circles." 
 
 The strict adherence to this resolution, 
 by which Wilfred showed that persistent 
 obstinacy in small matters which is often 
 seen in men who are weak and wavering 
 in important things, made him some enemies, 
 and caused him, in the days of partially- 
 achieved success, to be as lonely as in those of 
 early aspiration and struggling endeavour. 
 
 Notwithstanding all drawbacks, the pos- 
 session of his first-earned gold brought a 
 sense of joy and power with it. Reach- 
 ing his lodgings, Wilfred's first thought 
 was of little Jane ; his first words were 
 of inquiry for her — for a few days he 
 had lost sight of her. 
 
 " She's very bad to-day, sir — she's
 
 150 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 been talking, wandering like, the night 
 through. She won't get up to-day." 
 
 When Wilfred begged Mrs. Morgan to 
 send for any medical man in whom she 
 had confidence, she complied, more to gra- 
 tify Wilfred than because she had any 
 hope. The physician for whom she sent 
 having visited the little sufferer, Wilfred 
 questioned him as to what could be done 
 to arrest the progress of disease — ques- 
 tioned him closely and eagerly. 
 
 The doctor's answer — that he was called 
 in too late, that the child was surely 
 marked for death — cruelly robbed Wilfred's 
 first success of the gloss of unselfish joy. 
 — " ^ Too late ! ' — in this world all good 
 things come too late," he murmured to 
 himself. 
 
 Towards the evening of that day Mrs. 
 Morgan came to Wilfred in great distress; 
 she begged him to go up and see Jane,
 
 BOND AND FREE. 151 
 
 and try if he could in any way quiet 
 her. She added, by way of explanation — 
 
 "That silly Susan has let out what the 
 doctor said, and fear' 11 kill the child at 
 once, I'm thinking." 
 
 Wilfred followed her up the narrow 
 attic stairs to where the child lay. He 
 shuddered to hear the stifled cries which 
 were only interrupted by terrible fits of 
 coughing. 
 
 The unexpected appearance of her friend 
 startled little Jane into quietness ; she 
 fell back on her pillow exhausted, and 
 lay still, her hand in his. 
 
 The poor mother left them together. 
 
 Presently the child said, in a timid 
 whisper : — 
 
 "Susan is wicked to tell stories. I 
 shall not die, Mr. Mason, shall I? That 
 kind gentleman did not say so, did 
 he?"
 
 152 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 Wilfred's soothing, evasive answers and 
 loving words drew the child on to let him 
 see of what her ignorant notion of death 
 consisted — first of being laid in the wormy, 
 foul earth of the black churchyard, close by, 
 peering through the railings of which she 
 had often watched an interment ; then of 
 suffering, with some part of herself which 
 she had heard called her soul, fiery and 
 endless torments, in that hell which Susan 
 had threatened her with when she had 
 been a naughty child; and she thought 
 she had very often been a naughty child, 
 and that God must be so angry that 
 "he would let the devil have her." 
 
 As she ran on with feverish, frightened 
 talk — questioning Wilfred as to this hell, 
 this devil, and the amount of her own 
 sinfulness — his spirit stood aghast at the 
 hideousness of the horrors crowding the 
 poor child's mind; recalling how the idea
 
 BOND AND FREE. 153 
 
 of giving her regular instruction had oc- 
 curred to him, only to be lightly abandoned ; 
 he felt that he was culpable — that this 
 ignorance which left room for such ghastly 
 images was a sin to lie heavy upon his con- 
 science. All he could now do to retrieve 
 his error of omission he did, faithfully 
 and unwearyingly. 
 
 Without directly answering Jane's ques- 
 tions, he began to speak of a churchyard 
 in the country, where beautiful grass and 
 flowers grew upon graves shaded by trees 
 in which birds sang sweetly, and where 
 little children came to play and gather 
 daisies. He drew such a picture of the pret- 
 tiness and the peace of the place, dwell- 
 ing on details likely to captivate a child's 
 fancy, that when he ended, Jane said : — 
 
 "I should not so much mind dying 
 if I might be taken to such a nice 
 place as that."
 
 154 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 Wilfred gave her his earnest promise 
 that she should be taken to just such a 
 place. Soothed by this, and by his gentle 
 tones, she became quiet. The room was 
 getting dark now, presently he thought by 
 her breathing that she had fallen asleep. 
 But when he rose to go she started up, 
 cried that he must not leave her — that 
 the room was full of horrid things. Terror 
 again took full possession of her ; she 
 uttered shrieks that turned his blood cold 
 to hear. 
 
 Wilfred felt that the most difficult 
 work was yet to do ; he procured a 
 light, and then began to speak of God as 
 a tender Father, who was especially tender 
 to children ; of Jesus as one who loved 
 children, and called them round him, 
 though we are not told that they were 
 all '' quite good " children ; he tried to 
 make it clear to Jane that it was no
 
 BOND AND FREE. 155 
 
 more probable that a God, who was a 
 God of love and mercy, should suffer 
 any devil to " take away " and torment 
 one of his creatures, than that her 
 mother would permit any bad person to 
 take away and ill-use her little daughter. 
 He talked on and on, surprised at the 
 readiness of his own faith for the child, 
 and at the ease with which words came to 
 his tongue. Jane listened with a thirsty 
 face, that gradually grew less eager and 
 fevered. At last, her evil spirit cast out 
 for a time, she slept a calm, cool sleep. 
 But though Jane received all Wilfred 
 told her, with unquestioning faith, one 
 hour's talk could not enlighten the su- 
 perstition, or banish the terror, which had 
 been the growth of years. The poor child's 
 paroxysms of frenzied fear recurred 
 again and again, though happily with 
 ever-diminishing violence.
 
 156 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 Every evening, therefore, before dusk 
 began to gather, if Jane were not well 
 enough to be brought to the sofa in his 
 own room, Wilfred now took his station 
 by the tiny bed in the attic ; with 
 soothing talk, or a story told or read, 
 he whiled away the dreaded hour between 
 day-light and candle-light. Oranges, grapes, 
 ice, early strawberries, any cool and 
 pleasant dainty that suggested itself to 
 his imagination, or hers, it was his 
 pleasure to procure for little Jane. 
 
 Just at this time he received a kind 
 and urgent invitation to Beech Holmes, to 
 be present at Blanche Southern's wedding : — 
 
 " It is real May-time now — soft and 
 sunny — more pleasant and lovely than 
 you, in smoky London, can imagine," 
 Mrs. Southern wrote. " Our bride and 
 our bridesmaids will be bonnie — and, 
 altogether, the wedding will be a pretty
 
 BOND AND FREE. 157 
 
 sight. Do come ; we all, and especially 
 Herbert and Felicia, count upon your 
 presence." 
 
 Wilfred did not for a moment hesitate 
 how to answer. If Jane had been his 
 own dying child it could not have 
 seemed more impossible to him to leave 
 her side than it now did. In his letter, 
 which he strove to make express his 
 deep gratitude for Mrs. Southern's kind 
 remembrance, he merely stated that it was 
 impossible for him to leave town at 
 present, without giving any reason why 
 it was impossible : if they did him less 
 than justice on receiving that answer, 
 later, when the truth oozed out, one of 
 them at least did him more than justice, 
 thinking his self-denial most chivalrous 
 and heroic. 
 
 As the child's end drew near, Wilfred 
 often watched by her half the night,
 
 158 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 while her mother took some sorely-needed 
 rest. 
 
 If Jane slept, he thought much at 
 these times — of the sweetness of human 
 ties and the agony of their breaking — of 
 his own absolute loneliness — of there 
 being no one who would keep a watch 
 of love by his bed of sickness, or a 
 watch of sorrow by his bed of death. 
 And perhaps it would be so ever — per- 
 haps he might never call any woman 
 " wife," or have any child to call him 
 "father." 
 
 One morning when the mother came to 
 relieve his watch he relinquished the tiny 
 hand, that lay cool and listless in his own, 
 with peculiar reluctance, and the light pres- 
 sure of his lips on the marble-pale brow 
 was a long, lingering pressure. That day 
 little Jane died ! She was buried in a 
 country churchyard — such a one as Wilfred
 
 BOND AND FREE. 159 
 
 had described to her. Her friend often 
 visited the place, often stood beside the 
 small mound, gazing on the simple head-stone 
 which he had put up to mark the place 
 where she had been laid to rest. 
 
 For many a day there was a sore spot 
 and an aching void in Wilfred's heart. 
 Many a time he found himself listening 
 for light feet on the stairs, or looking 
 with wistful expectancy towards his opening 
 door. Experiencing a new pang of loss, 
 he returned to his work in an embittered 
 mood, which mirrored itself in that work. 
 This little creature — this one human being 
 who had brightened his life by her love — this 
 his one ewe-lamb — might have been spared 
 to him, he thought. Giving himself up 
 entirely to the fitful and fantastic prompt- 
 ing of his powerful but morbid imagination, 
 he allowed his practical human sympathies 
 to narrow daily. His longing for idealized
 
 160 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 ties, for a form of happiness which he 
 believed to be impossible for him, grew 
 and deepened in proportion as his life be- 
 came more and more isolated and barren. 
 Long after he could have afforded better 
 accommodation — for he met with more 
 success than was wholesome for him at this 
 crisis — he remained at those dingy lodgings ; 
 perhaps as much from apathy and indolence as 
 from consciousness of a lingering charm about 
 them. It was not till Mrs. Morgan gave 
 up the house — going to die among country 
 friends — that he left it. Then he left 
 London altogether for a time ; but this 
 was not till little Jane had been dead '^a 
 weary while " — as her mother said — not till 
 he counted the time he had occupied those 
 rooms by years rather than by months.
 
 161 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " God's cMef angel waiteth for 
 
 A brother's voice to sing ; 
 And a lonely creature of sinful nature — 
 It is an awful thing." 
 
 Excessive, suicidal work, without any worthy 
 aim, to very little worthy result, alternated 
 in Wilfred's life with an utter idleness — 
 during which he was morbidly miserable, 
 and believed all literary power lost to him 
 for ever — according as the urgent need 
 for the mental action of expression, or 
 the apathetic dulness following upon over- 
 strained effort, effacing all belief in any 
 good, possessed him. 
 
 VOL. L M
 
 162 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 In his most morbid moods ^^to win a 
 name " was now a dread rather than an 
 ambition. 
 
 " Who is this Mason ?" he fancied he 
 heard people enquire, after he had published 
 a novel which attracted considerable atten- 
 tion. Imagination would run riot in an- 
 swering the question it had itself suggested 
 — depicting various depths of inherited in- 
 famy into which the revelation of his real 
 name might some day plunge him. Some- 
 times he would be so far possessed by his 
 demon of self-torment as to hear a mocking 
 intonation in any voice that addressed him 
 as "Mason," and to read dubious question- 
 ing in the eyes of any stranger who chanced 
 to glance at him. Wrapping himself more 
 and more within himself, he excused him- 
 self to accusing conscience by pleading that 
 he had no right to make friends — no right 
 to receive or confer benefits ; that he did
 
 BOND AND FREE. 163 
 
 well to shrink from his fellows now, as 
 they might, when the time came, shrink 
 from him. 
 
 Of course these morbidly miserable moods 
 sometimes made way for brighter ones. 
 There were seasons when to walk in the 
 sunshine — to look at a beautiful picture or 
 a beautiful face — to listen to grand or 
 touching music — to read noble prose or 
 exquisite verse — or to be conscious of a 
 creative stirring in his own mind — seemed 
 to fill his whole being with a vivid joy ; 
 so that he would say, " Life is worth 
 living for, if it only brings just a few 
 moments of such joy as this ! " 
 
 Walking along a street one morning, in 
 one of his dreariest moods, he was aware 
 that, for a few moments, some one had 
 pertinaciously kept pace with him: but he 
 did not care to turn his head till a hand 
 was passed through his arm. Looking round 
 
 M 2
 
 164 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 then, he looked straight into Herbert South- 
 ern's eyes, beaming with fun and friendliness. 
 
 " It does my heart good to see you ! '' 
 he said, coming to a dead stop — " mis- 
 chievous as ever ! I felt that some one 
 was keeping close by me, but supposed it 
 only accident. I did not dream of your 
 being in town." 
 
 ^' You must come with me at once ; I 
 was on my way to hunt you out. My 
 mother and Felicia are also in town." 
 
 "At Mrs. Landon's?" 
 . "Yes." 
 
 " I should like of all things to see them ; 
 but—" 
 
 " No buts ; I know that you have treated 
 the Landons, and all of us, abominably; 
 but we will forgive you if you will behave 
 rationally now." 
 
 They walked on together, chatting 
 gaily — for Wilfred's dreariness could not re-
 
 BOND AND FREE. 165 
 
 sist the contagion of Herbert's cheery, 
 hearty kindness. When they reached the 
 Landons' door, Herbert said — 
 
 " I shall try and pass you oflf as a stranger — 
 you are very much altered, and I didn't 
 say I was going to try and find you.'' 
 
 "Always looking out for a joke, as of 
 old," Wilfred remarked, rather nervously. 
 
 "You don't blame me? There's much 
 work and little play in my life at present 
 — in most lives always. Though all the 
 knockers in this street are on the broad 
 grin, I daresay they see funerals pass as 
 often as they see weddings." 
 
 So saying, he laid a vigorous hand on 
 the facetious knocker, and gave a rap that 
 made Wilfred's nerves vibrate. 
 
 Mrs. Southern was alone in the drawing- 
 room when the young men entered it : the 
 green Venetian blinds were down, and her 
 sight was not very good. Herbert intro-
 
 166 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 duced Wilfred to his mother, as he would 
 have introduced a stranger, slurring over 
 the name. For the time she was quite 
 deceived. After a few moments had been 
 passed in grave discussion of the weather, 
 and of the gaiety of town-life at this season, 
 Felicia came into the room ; she hesitated 
 a moment, but Herbert went through a 
 
 formal introduction of his friend Mr. , 
 
 making an almost inarticulate sound, to " my 
 youngest sister." 
 
 As Wilfred rose, a sunbeam straying in 
 between the blinds fell on his face. Fe- 
 licia's colour deepened ; she turned a pretty, 
 perplexed look, first on her mother, then 
 on Herbert, as she took a seat. Felicia 
 was now no longer a child ; she had lost 
 something of her childish beauty, and had 
 not yet gained womanly grace ; her face 
 seldom struck strangers as beautiful, but 
 all observant eyes turned to it again and
 
 BOND AND FREE. 167 
 
 again, loving to dwell on its pure colouring, 
 its delicate refinement of form, and its ex- 
 pression of calm sense, quiet goodness, and 
 gentle candour. 
 
 Eeceiving no information from either of 
 her questioning looks, Felicia, seated be- 
 side her mother, took up her work; but 
 when Wilfred spoke — he had only bowed 
 as he was introduced to her — flushing crim- 
 son, she turned to her mother, and said 
 softly, 
 
 "Mamma! It is Wilfred! Isn't it? 
 Herbert is playing us a trick." 
 
 Mrs. Southern had been secretly puzz- 
 ling herself over the familiarity of the 
 voice. 
 
 "Why, Herbert, you rogue, to deceive 
 your old mother ! " she now exclaimed. 
 Extending both hands to Wilfred, in cor- 
 dial welcome, she added, " I am delighted 
 to see you — delighted to have the oppor-
 
 168 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 tunity of thanking you for some truly 
 pleasant hours, and of congratulating you 
 on your success. We are very clever 
 now, we always find you out. I should 
 have been deeply disappointed if I had 
 gone back to Beech Holmes without hav- 
 ing seen you." 
 
 Genuine pleasure lit up Wilfred's face 
 and shone in his soft eyes, as he re- 
 turned the pressure of Mrs. Southern's 
 hands. 
 
 Herbert stood by, enjoying his partial 
 success. 
 
 *^But Felicia was not half taken in,*' 
 he said, regretfully. 
 
 "Should you have known her?'^ asked 
 her mother. 
 
 "Anywhere. I do not think she is 
 altered," Wilfred answered. 
 
 He saw the same loving serenity in her 
 eyes — the same simple, happy smile on
 
 BOND AND FREE. 169 
 
 her mouth, and did not observe other 
 changes, till he found that the child who 
 used to be far below his elbow was 
 now a maiden, literally " as high as his 
 heart." 
 
 When Mrs. Landon joined them, Wilfred 
 had been so thoroughly roused and hu- 
 manized by surprise and pleasure, that he 
 made his much-needed apologies with grace- 
 ful earnestness. They were accepted gra- 
 ciously, yet in a way that showed they 
 were not felt to be needless. 
 
 After having accompanied his friends on 
 their morning round of sight-seeing, Wil- 
 fred returned with them to the Landons, 
 to dine and spend the evening there. 
 Herbert, who was in practice in the North 
 with his brother-in-law, John Landon, was 
 obliged to leave town next day. He 
 begged Wilfred to be his mother's occa- 
 sional escort while she remained, and an
 
 170 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 appointment was made for the very next 
 morning. 
 
 Mrs. Southern had no remorse in occu- 
 pying Wilfred's time. She thought he 
 looked overworked, and as if a holiday 
 would do him good ; so for a fortnight 
 he was in almost daily attendance, escort- 
 ing Mrs. Southern, Mrs. Landon, and 
 Felicia to such places as they wished to 
 visit. 
 
 Felicia was always the member of the 
 party most immediately under his charge ; 
 and to her, child as he still thought her 
 — perhaps because he thought her such a 
 child — he spoke more of his outer and 
 inner life than he had ever spoken to 
 anyone before ; so that, guided by her 
 clear sense, she came to have some idea 
 of its peculiar loneliness, its peculiar trials, 
 and its peculiar temptations. To her, too, 
 he spoke of little Jane — of what she had
 
 BOND AND FREE. 171 
 
 been to him, and of how he had missed her. 
 Quite unconsciously, he talked above his 
 ordinary self when he talked to Felicia; 
 just as, with many other people, he kept 
 the most precious things of his soul secret 
 and hidden, and involuntarily lowered his 
 ordinary standard of principles and convic- 
 tions. 
 
 From whatever cause it arose — whether 
 from love of ease, or from want of moral 
 weight to balance a too great love of 
 approbation — it is certain that Wilfred, 
 whose intellectual individuality was sharp 
 and clear, had, at this time, a dangerous 
 pliability and adaptability of ethical cha- 
 racter. Believing Felicia to be completely 
 pure and loving — all that is most excel- 
 lent in child and woman combined — the« 
 contact of her being elevated the tone of 
 his own. It is possible that he somewhat 
 idealized a good child — but that is no
 
 1 72 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 matter ; the influence was the same as if 
 she had been all angel, as he imagined 
 her, and as no child or woman is. For 
 her his best and deepest qualities were 
 always those uppermost. Content to revere 
 where she could not understand, and find- 
 ing food for reverence in what she did 
 understand, this close and confidential 
 intercourse only tended to foster and 
 confirm the tender, pitying, and yet almost 
 worshiping, admiration which Felicia al- 
 ready entertained for the young author. 
 
 Almost always calm, her enthusiasm and 
 romance being as undemonstrative as they 
 were deep-seated, most people regarded 
 Felicia as just a thoughtful, practical, and 
 amiable little creature ; certainly not clever, 
 .still more certainly not poetical, therefore 
 not in danger fi:'om influences to which they 
 would have hesitated to expose a more sus- 
 ceptible and imaginative girl.
 
 BOND AND FREE. 173 
 
 She was not clever; in that they were 
 right — her intellect was neither quick nor 
 particularly clear : nor was she highly ima- 
 ginative — while her susceptibility was of so 
 fine and subtle a nature as seldom to be 
 perceptible through the veil of habitual 
 reticence. Her understanding seemed to lie 
 almost wholly in her affections — she appre- 
 ciated beauty with her heart, not with her 
 mind ; her nature was one in which a rare 
 candour and a rare reserve were exquisitely 
 well balanced. 
 
 From what Wilfred had said about his 
 landlady's little daughter, Felicia had ga- 
 thered how good he had been to her, and 
 that for her sake he had declined to visit 
 Beech Holmes. Other things of a similar 
 nature she secretly treasured in her heart 
 till, long after, some real or fancied attack 
 upon her hero led her to pour them out
 
 174 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 as SO many triumphant proofs of his good- 
 ness and gentleness of heart. 
 
 The last day of Mrs. Southern's stay in 
 town was a sad day for Wilfred. When 
 he was alone with the mother and daugh- 
 ter, Mrs. Southern asked him if he would 
 not now take back his letter — Felicia had 
 brought it to town with her, in case he 
 should be willing to do so, she said. 
 
 Wilfred looked earnestly at Felicia — 
 her colour had risen, and tears stood in 
 her eyes. 
 
 " Would you rather I took it ? Is the 
 care of it a trouble — a burden to you ? '' he 
 asked her. 
 
 " Oh, no ; indeed no ! Dear mamma, let 
 me keep it still, if Wilfred wishes it." 
 
 "Does Wilfred much wish it?" 
 
 "In taking it from Felicia, I should 
 feel as if she and you both gave me up
 
 BOND AND FREE. 175 
 
 — as if there were no longer any link be- 
 tween me and my only friends." 
 
 '^You would be a very absurd boy to 
 feel any such thing; if there is ever any 
 giving up in the case, it will be you who 
 give us up. However, you must have your 
 own way : let things be as they are for the 
 present." 
 
 While receiving warm thanks from both 
 Felicia and Wilfred, Mrs. Southern had an 
 undefined consciousness of having done un- 
 wisely in allowing herself to earn them ; 
 however, as the deed was done, she strove 
 to overcome that feeling. 
 
 Next morning Wilfred went early to 
 Mrs. Landon^s, meaning to accompany his 
 friends to the station. Felicia was in the 
 drawing-room alone when he arrived; she 
 sat by the window, and did not hear him 
 enter. When he approached her, the eyes 
 raised to his were full of tears ; there
 
 176 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 was a sweet sadness about her mouth too — 
 few mouths can look so sad, and at the 
 same time so perfectly sweet, as did Felicia's. 
 
 "You have had a happy visit," he said, 
 as he seated himself by her ; " but you 
 are not sorry to go back to Beech 
 Holmes?" 
 
 "Oh, no!" 
 
 "You are grieved to leave your sister?" 
 
 " Oh, no ! for she is coming to us very 
 soon." 
 
 As Wilfred's eyes still questioned her, 
 she looked up into them bravely, and 
 said — 
 
 " I was thinking of you— it was that made 
 me feel sad." 
 
 "Of me, my child?" 
 
 " They say you have no friends here 
 — that you are not happy — -you will miss 
 
 us." 
 
 Wilfred took one of the child's hands
 
 BOND AND FREE. 177 
 
 in his and answered, speaking very softly : — 
 '' Indeed I shall miss you, but I hope 
 to be happier and better for having been 
 so much with you. I will be happier and 
 better if only for your sake. You have done 
 me great good, dear child. I will not for- 
 get what I owe you. God bless you, and 
 give you all happiness ! '^ 
 
 She joined her other little hand timidly 
 over the one he held ; he bent down and 
 kissed it ; when he raised his head and 
 met her eyes, the unconscious love they 
 expressed made him tremble, filling him 
 with a sense of trouble and of delicious 
 awe. But the loving eyes were serene, 
 now the tears had fallen from them 
 they did not lower themselves before his ; 
 nor did the colour on her cheek deepen. 
 Felicia did not tremble, though, silly child 
 as she was, she felt a thrill at the 
 touch of her hero's lips upon her hand, 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 believed that touch to have in it something 
 sacred and consecrating which made a feel- 
 ing of holy happiness steal over her. 
 For a long time she did not willingly 
 
 offer that hand to any casual acquaint- 
 ance.
 
 179 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " Alas ! both heart and brain are dull and dusk — 
 That which hes here is but a graceless husk ; 
 Although of violets, sweet-briar, and musk 
 
 The o'er-scratched pages tell, 
 
 I know, alas ! full well, 
 But little fragrance in the thoughts doth dwell ! 
 
 " How fain would I that this my work were fair ! 
 Bright as the gleam of her dear golden hair, 
 Pure as her child-heart, so that I might dare 
 
 Lay it before my Queen, 
 
 And see her eyes serene 
 Raised from its pages large with loving sheen." 
 
 By the next spring Wilfred had written, 
 re-written, retouched with most fastidious 
 care and dainty patience, and at last come 
 to regard as complete, a poem which it 
 
 n2
 
 180 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 was then his ambition to get published, 
 that he might send a daintily-bound copy 
 to Felicia. He had never before written 
 with so much purpose and quiet diligence; 
 had never expended so much subtle re- 
 fining care on any work. In spite of 
 his despair, contrasting what it was with 
 what he had hoped and dreamt it would 
 be, he was conscious that this poem was 
 more powerfully imagined and consistently 
 executed — had more reality and worth than 
 anything, either prose or poetry, which he 
 had previously written. 
 
 He took it first to a house which had 
 published his novel, and had offered him 
 liberal terms for his next ^* work of fic- 
 tion ; '^ but the firm declined undertaking 
 the publication of his poem. When it had 
 been also declined by three other firms, 
 the author took his manuscript home, say- 
 ing that it must bide its time — wait till
 
 BOND AND FREE, 181 
 
 he could get it printed at his own ex- 
 pense. Though this was said calmly, the 
 disappointment was hitter. Wilfred had 
 not suffered himself to have any other 
 work on hand while he wrote this poem — 
 he had given himself up to it entirely : 
 it was done for Felicia, and if it were 
 not well done it should not be through 
 carelessness. Though he had lived fru- 
 gally, he now found that his finances were 
 at a low ebb ; he felt ill, too — unfit for 
 any brain work. 
 
 He lingered in London during the sum- 
 mer months ; sometimes almost prostrated 
 by low fever, sometimes well enough to 
 write a chapter or two of the novel 
 which had been so long set aside. Tem- 
 pestuous autumn weather set in early. It 
 was just at the close of this summer that 
 Mrs. Morgan at last resolved to give up 
 the house in which he had lodged so
 
 182 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 long ; the furniture was to be sold off; 
 the lodgers were, of course, forced to de- 
 part. Being, as it were, turned out of 
 doors, Wilfred was seized with an uncon- 
 trollable longing to meet the fierce wind 
 on some sea-shore, or in some mountain- 
 ous country. 
 
 By parting with the remainder of his 
 books, with very few exceptions — dis- 
 posing of part of his wardrobe, and 
 schooling his pride so far as to request 
 the payment of a small sum which had 
 long been owing to him, Wilfred got to- 
 gether money enough to gratify this long- 
 ing. He made his way into North 
 Wales, and took up his quarters at a 
 road-side inn near a small fishing-village. 
 The place had little but its cheapness 
 and quiet, and an almost savage wild- 
 ness, to recommend it : the shore 
 was low and sandy ; the sea generally
 
 BOND AND FREE. 183 
 
 broke on it with a heavy thud, in long 
 sweeps of turbid surf ; inland a 
 sandy plain, overgrown by hardy plants — 
 the sand-rose, the sea-pink, yellow poppy, 
 and blue sea-thistle, things of a briny and 
 prickly nature, yet not without a beauty 
 of their own — was bounded by a bank of 
 low hills, beyond which, one behind 
 another, rose several mountain ranges. 
 
 Such was Abergwynn : its bracing air 
 revived Wilfred ; its wildness in that wild 
 weather deeply pleased him ; the wind and 
 waves were boisterous and health-giving 
 companions. 
 
 He had been there nearly two months, 
 when, as he lay on a patch of shingle 
 one sunshiny morning after a gale — watch- 
 ing the advance and retreat of huge breakers, 
 and speculating whether the tide would 
 roll in as far as a certain sea-thistle- — 
 he by and by saw a lady and gentleman,
 
 184 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 mounted on Welsh ponies, come round a 
 low point at the extremity of the bay and 
 scour the sands to and fro, keeping close 
 to the water's edge. Wilfred now watched 
 them instead of the breakers — for he usu- 
 ally had the whole stretch of shore to 
 himself; he saw them presently leave the 
 sands and turn their ponies inland. List- 
 lessly wondering who they might be, he 
 had returned to the contemplation of the 
 waves, when the lady flew close by him 
 — half blinding him with the sand and 
 shingle thrown up by her pony's hoofs. 
 Disgusted at the rudeness of the act, and 
 not inclined to run any further risk of 
 being trampled on, he rose and began to 
 stroll from the spot, farther along the bay. 
 
 ** Stop her ! — for heaven's sake, stop 
 her ! " a voice cried after him. 
 
 He turned. The speaker was a short, 
 somewhat stout, elderly man, who had
 
 BOND AND FREE. 185 
 
 apparently been thrown from his horse, 
 for he was covered with dust and sand, 
 and seemed to be half-paralysed by fear. 
 
 After a glance into his horror-stricken 
 face, Wilfred swept the shore with his 
 eyes for the cause of this alarm ; but he 
 did not immediately discover it. 
 
 " Where is she ? " he asked. 
 
 Looking then in the direction in which the 
 gentleman pointed, he saw the lady ; she was 
 still clinging to her little steed, which was 
 plunging wildly in the foamy waters, strug- 
 gling seawards. Wilfred was soon at the 
 water's edge, close to her ; just at that 
 moment a crested wave swept completely 
 over both horse and rider. 
 
 " Get off! — throw yourself into the water, 
 and I can save you ! '^ Wilfred shouted, 
 when the wave had retreated. 
 
 The girl turned a white, resolute face 
 towards him for a moment, and shook her
 
 186 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 head ; then she again bent over her pony 
 — patting its neck, talking to it, using 
 every effort to turn its head towards the 
 shore, without success. The frightened crea- 
 ture plunged about frantically ; it was already 
 almost out of its depth — another large 
 wave would, in its retreat, sweep it out 
 to sea. The gentleman now stood by 
 Wilfred's side, screaming and shouting; but 
 the girl appeared to pay little heed. 
 
 There was no time to be lost : they both 
 saw a huge billow gathering ; the girl saw it 
 too — for she raised her head a moment, 
 and then seemed to redouble her efforts. A 
 few instants later Wilfred's arms were 
 thrown round her; he pulled her from her 
 saddle and dragged her a few feet nearer 
 the shore ; then the wave overtook them, 
 broke over them, and knocked them down. 
 When it had passed he rose, succeeded in 
 carrying his burden to a safe distance,
 
 BOND AND FREE. 187 
 
 and then fell down breathless and ex- 
 hausted. 
 
 The lady sprang to her feet immediately. 
 Freeing her eyes from her wet and heavy 
 hair, she looked out seawards — to see a dark 
 object borne farther and farther out. 
 
 ** My poor Mountaineer, she is lost ! 
 I might have saved her ! " she cried, as 
 much in anger as in grief. 
 
 ^^But for this gentleman you would now 
 be out of reach of human help, as your pony 
 is, Eleanour." 
 
 " Possibly ! I meant to save the poor 
 beast, or to share her fate !" 
 
 She turned sullenly from her father to 
 look at Wilfred, who, resting on his arm, 
 was slowly regaining breath. At first her 
 large eyes kept a resentful expression in 
 them ; then, extending her hand to her pale 
 deliverer, she said : — 
 
 **Let me help you to get up. I don't
 
 188 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 know that my life was worth the trouble 
 you have taken, and I think I might have 
 saved the pony if you had left me alone ; 
 but you acted bravely, and I suppose that 
 I ought to thank you." 
 
 Wilfred rose without touching the prof- 
 fered hand — the girl's tone displeased him. 
 Turning from her with a bow, he said to 
 the gentleman, 
 
 " I believe I can be of no further assis- 
 tance ; unless, if you are far from home, 
 you would like me to try and get you some 
 conveyance." 
 
 " I shall walk home, papa," the girl 
 said ; then, looking out to sea again, she 
 muttered, ^^ My poor Mountaineer ! — it's 
 far worse to you to meet death than it 
 would have been to me ; you battled fiercely 
 — I think I should have kept calm." 
 
 " What frightened the lady's horse ? " 
 Wilfred asked.
 
 BOND AND FREE. 189 
 
 " Some heaps of burning rubbish. It 
 would not go through the smoke. My 
 daughter strove to make it, and it wheeled 
 round and dashed straight into the water." 
 
 Having gathered up her wet habit, the 
 lady began to walk towards the point from 
 behind which Wilfred had seen her appear; 
 but she suddenly paused, turned back to 
 him, and said: — 
 
 ^'Papa has his hat to find, and his pony 
 to give orders about. You are wet — will 
 you walk home with me at once ? Our 
 house must be nearer than yours." 
 
 Wilfred declined the invitation, and she 
 immediately turned from him with an air 
 of having done a disagreeable duty. 
 
 The gentleman, having had time to collect 
 his scattered ideas, now warmly seconded his 
 daughter's invitation — warmly expressed his 
 own gratitude, telling Wilfred that he felt in- 
 debted to his courage and presence of mind
 
 190 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 for the life of his only daughter. He could 
 not, however, prevail upon Wilfred to accept 
 of his hospitality. 
 
 "I am afraid my daughter's manner 
 seemed cold — pray excuse her. Mountaineer 
 was a great pet ; she will feel more grate- 
 ful when she has got over the first shock of 
 her loss,'' he said, apologetically. 
 
 A boy now brought up the gentleman's 
 hat and his pony, which, after throwing its 
 rider, had remained quietly feeding near the 
 spot. Unwilling to keep Wilfred standing 
 in his wet clothes, he took leave of him 
 and followed his daughter, leading his 
 pony by the bridle. 
 
 That night Wilfred's rest was disturbed 
 by dreams which distorted and grotesquely 
 misrepresented the events of the morning — 
 continually presenting to his imagination 
 that unnaturally calm, white face, sur- 
 rounded by clinging masses of wet hair,
 
 BOND AND FREE. 191 
 
 and lighted by large, resentful eyes. By 
 daylight, too, and as he sat at breakfast 
 in the inn parlour, he thought a good 
 deal of his strange adventure — recalled the 
 half-contemptuous gesture with which the 
 girl had extended her glittering wet, white 
 hand to him, and marvelled how much 
 there was of reality, how much of affecta- 
 tion, in the indifference to life which she 
 had expressed. 
 
 Before he had risen from the breakfast- 
 table, a groom rode up to the inn door. 
 Wilfred's window was open — he heard the 
 man enquire of the landlord whether he 
 had a gentleman staying in the house ; 
 receiving an affirmative answer, he further 
 asked if that gentleman had been on the 
 shore yesterday morning when his lady's 
 horse took fright. A moment after two 
 notes were brought to Wilfred, with a 
 message that Squire Narpenth's groom waited 
 for his answer.
 
 192 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 The note Wilfred opened first was from 
 Mr. Narpenth, reiterating yesterday's ex- 
 pressions of gratitude, inviting Wilfred to 
 take up his quarters at his house for as long 
 as he remained in the neighbourhood, and 
 begging that he would do so in time for a 
 six o'clock dinner on that day. 
 
 Wilfred hastened to write an answer : ex- 
 pressing his pleasure at having been of 
 service, he briefly declined to avail himself 
 of the invitation. It was not till the man 
 had ridden off with this answer that Wilfred 
 opened the second note. 
 
 It was written in a foreign-looking, 
 rather cramped hand — began and ended 
 abruptly : — 
 
 '* My father tells me that my conduct 
 yesterday was ungrateful and unwomanly ; 
 for the ingratitude I ask your pardon — for 
 your exertion on my behalf I thank you, 
 and I hope you have not suffered from
 
 BOND AND FREE. 193 
 
 that exertion. Of course you could not 
 know that I valued my pony's life to the 
 full as highly as my own ; no doubt you 
 acted with the best intentions. 
 
 *^ I suppose the death you saved me from 
 would have been terrible. I have not slept 
 for seeing and hearing those angry, hungry 
 waves. My poor Mountaineer ! Do you 
 blame me for thinking more of her fate 
 than of my own safety? 
 
 "We shall see you to-day. In the 
 meanwhile, I have said to my unknown 
 deliverer that I thank him. I wish that 
 the life he has saved were more valuable to 
 its owner." 
 
 This was the whole of the note which, 
 many years afterwards, remained to bear 
 -strange witness to the singular commence- 
 ment of a singular intercourse. Why Wilfred 
 did not destroy that note he did not know ; 
 he did not keep the father's. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 "If I had accepted her father's invita- 
 tion — which, by-the-by, she takes for granted 
 that I shall do — how would she have treated 
 me, I wonder ? Condescendingly, I sup- 
 pose ; she is evidently a haughty woman — 
 how different from anything Felicia can ever 
 become ! I should like to know what dis- 
 pleases her in her fate, just out of curiosity, 
 she is not a woman to inspire warmer 
 interest; at the same time, more especially 
 as she takes my coming for granted, I am 
 glad I have refused her father's invitation." 
 
 Had Wilfred wished to avail himself of 
 Mr. Narpenth's offer of hospitality, he could 
 hardly have done so — yesterday's saturation 
 with salt-water had not improved a rough 
 travelling suit, which, with the exception of 
 one much shabbier, constituted the whole of 
 his wardrobe. 
 
 Afraid that Mr. Narpenth's gratitude and 
 consciousness of obligation would not let
 
 BOND AND FREE. 195 
 
 him rest content without making some 
 further friendly overtures, Wilfred felt that 
 the solitary charm of Abergwynn was gone : 
 he left it that day. 
 
 02
 
 196 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 " Ach, was soil der Mensch verlangen ? 
 1st es besser ruMg bleiben ? 
 Klammernd f est sich anzuhangen ? 
 1st es besser sich zu treiben ? " 
 
 Eeturning to London in vigorous health, 
 Wilfred settled himself to work, having hired 
 a cheap lodging, one room at the top of a 
 tall house, in an even more plebeian quarter 
 than that he had before inhabited. At first 
 he was happy here, for he had plenty of 
 work to do, and abundant energy with 
 which to do it. While he laboured with 
 faith and hope his outward circumstances 
 affected him but little. Till his novel was
 
 BOND AND FREE. 197 
 
 finished he had not much to live upon ; he 
 even found that dining at home was a too 
 expensive habit — sometimes he dined at a 
 cheap eating-house, sometimes he did not 
 dine at all. For a few months he was cer- 
 tainly happy ; it seemed to do him good to 
 have to fight with outward enemies — to 
 have to work to keep cold and hunger at 
 bay ; he was then in no temper, and had 
 no time, for indulgence in the morbid 
 miseries of imagination — for he worked ear- 
 nestly ; but the battle was long and hard, 
 and he grew weak and weary. When his 
 work was finished, fairly finished, and before 
 the public, he was in no mood to enjoy or 
 to value success, such as he achieved; he 
 had spent himself in the fight, without 
 caring for the result of victory — at least 
 without caring for such things as were 
 likely i' to be the result of victory. The 
 feather-weight of the paper crown won seemed
 
 198 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 enough to crush him — the wreath of puny 
 nineteenth-century laurels was as a crown 
 of thorns. 
 
 The novel which had been so long on 
 hand, a volume of essays, and a small 
 volume of short poems, were all published 
 early in this autumn. They were all well 
 received, all proved more or less successful. 
 As his purse grew heavy, it seemed that 
 his heart grew heavy with it. 
 
 Sitting in his dingy upper chamber, weak- 
 ened in body and mind by privation and 
 overwork, he wept tears of anguished 
 and pitiable self-pity over the isolation 
 which made prosperity so utterly valueless. 
 What was success to him ? — a glaring 
 light thrown into the chambers of his soul, 
 to show him the ghastly dread inhabiting 
 there. So complete was his self-imposed 
 loneliness that he had not one friend to 
 rejoice with him — he did not receive one
 
 BOND AND FREE. 199 
 
 congratulatory hand-shake which he could 
 believe was that of warm, disinterested 
 affection. Of the Landons he had seen 
 nothing since his return to London ; they 
 did not know where to find him. His 
 last letter to Herbert Southern remained 
 unanswered, for the simple reason that, 
 while he had told Herbert that he had 
 given up his former rooms, he had given 
 him no new address ; so he felt himself 
 cut off from the sympathy even of the 
 Beech Holmes circle — fancied that even 
 there, even by Felicia, he was by this 
 time forgotten. 
 
 One sultry night, late in September, 
 Wilfred leant from his open window, and 
 watched a storm gathering over the city. 
 At the top and at the back of the lofty 
 house, his window commanded a wide ex- 
 tent of chimneys and of smoke-darkened sky, 
 The day had been one of stifling closeness ;
 
 200 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 during it he had not had energy enough to 
 leave the house, but had merely lounged 
 away the hours, hoping that the evening 
 coolness would bring him relief. 
 
 Suddenly the wind, which preceded the 
 breaking of the storm, swept in and swept 
 round his room, scattering his papers. 
 This blast seemed to have a magical 
 effect on Wilfred ; it gave him energy 
 to long and to resolve — within five 
 minutes of its coming he had determined 
 to leave England next day. 
 
 When the storm broke, as it seemed, 
 right overhead, he did not heed and 
 hardly heard it — he was writing a farewell- 
 letter to Mrs. Southern, telling her of his 
 plans, of his sufferings, of his intense 
 weariness of life. To her he poured out 
 the garnered-up bitterness of his soul — 
 speaking of the mocking hoUowness of 
 success which there was nothing to endear
 
 BOND AND FREE. 201 
 
 — of the well-nigh intolerable pressure and 
 burden of such a lonely existence as his. 
 He said that the only hope he was con- 
 scious of was a hope that he was still, 
 however faintly, remembered at Beech 
 Holmes ; and that the volumes which 
 would accompany his letter — such as they 
 were, he had poured his very life into 
 them, he said — and which he begged Mrs. 
 Southern to allow her daughter Felicia 
 to accept — might be read with some little 
 pleasure and interest there, and might 
 bear some slight testimony to the grati- 
 tude and affection with which the writer 
 recalled happy days spent both there and 
 in town with his kind friends, who were 
 his only friends. 
 
 Notices of Wilfred's books had been 
 read at Beech Holmes before the books 
 themselves arrived. The author had chosen 
 that the copies intended for Felicia should
 
 202 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 be bound after a fancy of his own, and 
 this had occasioned some delay. 
 
 His letter, expressing, she thought, feel- 
 ings in such strong contrast with any he 
 ought to have entertained, was a shock 
 to Mrs. Southern; its morbid, thankless, 
 weakly miserable tone jarred on her 
 healthy mind. It was not, she said to 
 Felicia, his indifference to success that 
 pained her ; but that he showed himself un- 
 grateful to the Giver of it, by indulging 
 such feelings as those his letter expressed. 
 
 Poor Felicia felt rebuked, abashed : lis- 
 tening to her mother's condemnation, she 
 stooped over her newly-arrived treasures to 
 hide her burning cheeks and tearful eyes. 
 In her heart pity contended with admira- 
 tion—sorrow with triumph : her mother's 
 words seemed to her stern, yet an inward 
 consciousness of their partial truth humbled 
 her painfully.
 
 BOND AND FREE. 203 
 
 Mrs. Southern continued : — 
 
 " I fear Wilfred Mason will, after all, 
 prove more a warning than an example 
 — a warning of the worthlessness and vanity 
 of all gifts to one not reconciled with God 
 and resigned to His will — instead of an 
 example of the noble use of noble gifts, 
 and of the power a courageous and God- 
 fearing man has over what people call 
 fate and circumstances. Instead of proving 
 that a man may become great and good 
 in spite of disadvantages of birth and parent- 
 age, he will, I fear, be another victim to 
 morbid, exaggerating apprehension of con- 
 ventional prejudice. This is what I fear 
 for him. He seems to me determined to 
 be miserable : there is something childish 
 in the way he harps upon his friendless- 
 ness, and yet neglects to make any exertion, 
 either to retain the friends he has, or to 
 make himself new ones."
 
 204 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 Mrs. Southern sometimes talked till she 
 said rather more than she meant : this was 
 likely to be the case now. But meeting 
 a startled, imploring look from Felicia, who 
 understood little except that Wilfred was 
 blamed for not being happy, she added : — 
 
 *^Do not look so grieved, dear child. I 
 do not wish to be harsh — I do not mean 
 to say that no allowances ought to be made 
 for poor Wilfred, but ." 
 
 *^ Dear mamma," Felicia interposed, in 
 a soft, pleading, voice, ^'I think I should 
 be very, very unhappy if I had no mother, 
 no brother, no sisters — no one at all to love 
 me. I do not think anything could make 
 up to me for that — or that I could rejoice 
 over any good fortune, if there were no 
 one to rejoice with me. Then Wilfred says 
 that he is ill. If he has no one to talk 
 to, and is ill and unhappy, isn't it natural 
 that he should tell you about it ? Eead
 
 BOND AND FREE. 205 
 
 his books, mamma dear ; I think you will 
 own he must have been brave and good 
 while he wrote them. Can people who 
 have no one to love them help being un- 
 happy sometimes ? I am sure I could not." 
 
 Felicia's eyes were full of tears — her 
 hands lingered caressingly on Wilfred's 
 volumes. 
 
 ^^ Part of my complaint against Wilfred 
 is that he doesn't seek to have people to 
 love him. But, Felicia, I hoped that my 
 dear little daughter felt it impossible to 
 be unhappy. Any one whose heart is with 
 God, and whose will is His will, should 
 feel it so." 
 
 '^ I do not seem to know anything 
 about being unhappy — I have never had 
 anything to try me ; but, mamma, if 
 sorrow were to come to me, ought it not 
 to be easier to me to feel rightly, than 
 to any one who had been less happy ?
 
 206 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 Has not your love been a sort of proof 
 to me of God's love ? Yet, if I were 
 to lose you — oh, mamma! I cannot think 
 of that ! " Her eyes seemed to widen in 
 an effort to see the magnitude of such a 
 loss. 
 
 Mrs. Southern took Felicia into her arms, 
 and said, soothingly: — 
 
 "Perhaps I spoke a little hardly of 
 Wilfred — his letter disappointed me greatly; 
 he is so highly gifted — his nature has so 
 much that is truly beautiful in it — that I 
 grow angry and impatient with him for 
 being less than altogether noble." 
 
 A kiss closed the conversation. 
 
 Everybody in the house read Wilfred's 
 books before Felicia read them. They un- 
 derstood her so little as to wonder at 
 her want of eagerness. When free family 
 discussion was busy with their contents, 
 Felicia would slip quietly away.
 
 BOND AND FREE. 207 
 
 At last, when the vohimes were all her 
 own, when everybody else had finished 
 reading and discussing them, she carried 
 them off to her own little room, and 
 lived in them there. Wilfred^s thoughts 
 became her thoughts. Every word of his 
 had a peculiar sacredness for her. Of his 
 poems, there were some she was for ever 
 saying over to herself She accepted all 
 he wrote : some things she liked better 
 than others, but she never thought of 
 judging or comparing; and she did not 
 love to listen when others did this — what 
 she did not understand she was content to 
 take on faith. 
 
 Mrs. Southern had been the first to 
 speak in admiration of Wilfred's books — 
 to own that there was hardly a touch of 
 bitterness or morbidness in them — -that the 
 sentiments were noble, the language elo- 
 quent, the style vigorous. Into those
 
 208 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 books he had poured the health and 
 strength gathered from Welsh sea-breezes, 
 and from the ah^ of Welsh mountains — had 
 poured all out with spendthrift haste, and 
 had left himself completely bankrupt.
 
 209 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 " 'Twere better not to breathe or speak, 
 Than cry for strength, remaining weak, 
 And seem to find, but still to seek. 
 
 Moreover, but to seem to find 
 
 Asks what thou lackest — thought resign'd, 
 
 A healthy frame, a quiet mind." 
 
 Wilfred carried a heavy weariness — 
 
 very little expectation of enjoyment, or 
 
 capacity for it, abroad with him. He 
 
 spent the winter in Italy ; and from thence 
 
 — because utter idleness was burdensome — 
 
 he sent home various stories, sketches, and 
 
 poems to the editor of the miscellany in 
 
 which his first published tale had appeared. 
 
 These things were almost all languidly 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 imagined and listlessly executed ; there was 
 no freshness or foreignness of atmosphere 
 about them ; they were developments of 
 ideas which had lain in his brain before 
 he left London, feeble and half-stifled de- 
 velopments — for his mind, unconsciously to 
 himself, was ever receiving new impres- 
 sions, and resented the forced labour of 
 dealing with old things. 
 
 He was disappointed by what he inter- 
 preted as the want of suggestiveness of 
 his life. Nothing seemed to him new or 
 unfamiliar ; it was as if in a dream he 
 were revisiting the scenes of some former 
 existence, conscious that it was only in a 
 dream, and yet unable to dissipate the 
 dream-haze and wake to realities. 
 
 He lingered abroad till — after a winter 
 and summer had been spent in Italy, 
 Switzerland, and Germany — the lowness of 
 his funds warned him that it would be
 
 BOND AND FREE. 211 
 
 prudent to turn homewards; as anything 
 like steady application or regular work 
 seemed impossible among unfamiliar scenes. 
 October found him basking in the sun- 
 shine on the deck of a Rhine steamboat; 
 watching the shifting panorama of wooded 
 or vine-clad, castle-crowned heights, and 
 listening to the babble of German conver- 
 sation. It happened, the season being so 
 far advanced, that he was the only Eng- 
 lishman on board. 
 
 The alternations between the expression 
 of high-flown sentiments — extravagant pro- 
 fessions of love for their father-land, ex- 
 travagant praises of the beauty of the 
 glorious Ehine — and calls for butter-brods, 
 coffee, wine, beer, fruit, and sausage- 
 sandwiches, half amused, and half disgusted 
 the fastidious Englishman : the smile on 
 his lips was ertainly not a particularly 
 amiable one. 
 
 p2
 
 212 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 At this period Wilfred greatly resembled 
 Schiller, as we know him through Goethe's 
 description of him. He was proud-looking 
 in form, mien, and carriage ; only his eyes 
 were soft — they were wonderfully soft : 
 sometimes they seemed to be merely, with 
 the most absolute humility, seeking for 
 love ; mourning its want, or its incom- 
 pleteness. 
 
 At one of the prettiest spots on the 
 river, the steamer had stopped to take in 
 three persons who were awaiting it in a 
 little boat. Wilfred, happening to stand 
 near the ladder, naturally extended his 
 hand to assist these passengers — a lady, a 
 gentleman, and the lady's maid, to ascend it. 
 
 The lady made use of the proffered 
 hand ; she was passing on with a me- 
 chanical '^Ich danke sehr/' while her maid 
 rewarded the stranger's politeness by a be- 
 witching smile, when the gentleman, who
 
 BOND AND FREE. 213 
 
 came last, looking full at Wilfred, uttered 
 an exclamation which made her turn. 
 Meeting her eyes, Wilfred at once recog- 
 nized her; immediately recalled how, when, 
 and where they had met before : but he 
 himself — bronzed, disguised by a foreign- 
 looking growth of hair, and dressed well 
 and suitably — was not immediately to be 
 recognized by a person who had seen 
 him but once, and had then hardly taken 
 the trouble to look at him. 
 
 ^' Eleanour ! You have not forgotten your 
 narrow escape at Abergwynn ! This is the 
 gentleman who saved your life there." 
 
 Miss Narpenth made full use of her 
 large eyes before she spoke. At first she 
 seemed to doubt the truth of her father's 
 words. 
 
 " Saved my life, and then ran away 
 from our troublesome gratitude : T remem- 
 ber," she said. " I have never been able to
 
 214 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 get such another pony as my poor Moun- 
 taineer ! '* 
 
 "Not another who would peril your life 
 by dashing into the sea when frightened ! 
 You are certainly to be condoled with ! " 
 
 Miss Narpenth coloured slightly — per- 
 haps she had associations with that period 
 which made her colour readily; and the 
 expression of Wilfred's face was unpleasantly 
 sarcastic. She went on to say — 
 
 " You did not allow me the opportunity 
 of personally expressing my gratitude to 
 you in Wales. I offer you my hand now, 
 
 Mr. . I do not think we ever knew 
 
 your name." 
 
 It was Wilfred's turn to blush; he did 
 so, through his bronzed hue, as he an- 
 swered, "The name of Mason must supply 
 the blank Miss Narpenth leaves " 
 
 Many years as he had borne this name, 
 he still, in some moods, felt a pang of
 
 BOND AND FREE. 215 
 
 shame when he gave it as his to any 
 stranger ; knowing that his only right to 
 it was that of possessing no other. He 
 bowed somewhat low over the offered hand, 
 and his blush passed unnoticed. 
 
 When Miss Narpenth, assisted by her 
 maid, had settled herself in a comfortable 
 position — there had been a grand rising of 
 a group of German students to make way 
 for the handsome and distinguished-looking 
 Englishwoman — Wilfred, who stood at a little 
 distance, talking to her father, or rather, 
 being talked to by him, looked at her with 
 some curiosity. 
 
 Miss Narpenth was a fair brunette, if 
 that term be allowable. In her eyes, hair, 
 and complexion there was a rich golden 
 glow ; the warmer and more vivid the light, 
 the more forcibly this was brought out ; it 
 was a tone resembling that given to every- 
 thing by the sunshine of late afternoon in
 
 216 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 late August. Exposure to a summer's air 
 and sun had now greatly heightened the 
 brilliancy of this effect. At the same time, 
 as Wilfred had seen, Miss Narpenth's was 
 one of the faces from which emotion can 
 blot out all life, colour, and beauty. The 
 white, still face he remembered was not to 
 be recognized as the same face he looked % 
 at now ; save by the eyes, which were sin- 
 gular : large, full without being prominent, 
 and glowing, they suggested the idea of slum- 
 bering fires — of a nature in which it would 
 be far easier to kindle than to subdue re- 
 sentment. 
 
 As if to favour Wilfred's scrutiny, of 
 which she seemed either unconscious or 
 perfectly careless, Miss Narpenth laid aside 
 her hat for a few moments — exposing thick, 
 close coils of hair, not silky nor soft, and 
 yet not coarse, but having an almost me- 
 tallic strength and brightness ; in colour.
 
 BOND AND FREE. 217 
 
 dark, yet with a strong inclination to tawny 
 auburn. The forehead, on which this hair 
 grew rather low, was smooth, white, and 
 well-expanded ; but with brows of too heavy 
 an arch, too nearly meeting over a nose, 
 delicately formed, small and straight, the 
 sensitive nostril of which seemed ready to 
 express any passing emotion ; the mouth 
 was in keeping with the heavy brows, too 
 full-lipped and too large ; but the lips were 
 soft and rosy, and their rare smile disclosed 
 teeth dazzlingly white and perfectly formed. 
 In spite of air and sunshine, the determined- 
 looking chin, the blue-veined temples and the 
 rather long throat, were of exquisite creamy, 
 not snowy, fairness. Altogether, it was a 
 perplexing face, with too many charms to be 
 a very safe study. Apt to look sullen in 
 repose, always ready to express haughty 
 discontent, it could, nevertheless, arm itself 
 with every fascination of beauty and in-
 
 218 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 tellect ; lighting up with flattering interest, 
 or softening to the expression of tender- 
 ness, admiration, and love. It was a face 
 that at its worst might look fiendish, at its 
 best could never look angelic — a face that 
 was handsome always, now and then beau- 
 tiful ; but not with such beauty as an 
 inspired painter would dream of giving to 
 a saint or a Madonna. 
 
 Miss Narpenth was rather tall, almost as 
 tall as Wilfred; but when she did not re- 
 member to be listless, the graceful activity 
 of her movements testified to a harmony of 
 proportion that prevented her being looked 
 upon as either tall or short. Her dress 
 had the grace of appropriateness, and was 
 characterized by a neatness and complete- 
 ness which placed it in strong contrast with 
 that of most of the German women on board 
 — many of whom resembled bundles of hete- 
 rogeneous garments, surmounted by human
 
 BOND AND FREE. 219 
 
 heads ; rather than properly built, merely 
 clothed-upon women. 
 
 From the moment she stepped on deck, 
 Miss Narpenth was the cynosure of many 
 eyes ; happening to drop a book of poems 
 which she had with her, several hands were 
 stretched out towards it. A tall, fair- 
 haired, and somewhat wild-eyed young 
 man, who was fortunate enough to secure 
 it, presented it to her with an air of most 
 profound respect; and then, on the strength 
 of this introduction, tried to draw her into 
 conversation. Poetry — English and German 
 — was the subject he started. He did not 
 find it difficult to interest Miss Narpenth — 
 she was perfectly at home in German litera- 
 ture ; while he himself was tolerably versed 
 in that of England. He seemed to throw 
 his whole heart and soul into the subject — 
 quoting Goethe, Schiller, Uhland, Euckert, 
 Geibel, and Chamisso freely and firily; and
 
 220 BOND AND FREE, 
 
 wounding himself the while, as he believed 
 irrecoverably, against the fine eyes, the 
 brilliant smile, the varying colour and ex- 
 pression of the '^ wunderschone, talentvolle 
 Englanderinn." 
 
 A blue-eyed Clarchen, to whom he had 
 previously devoted himself, watched him 
 with mild despair in her heart, and inno- 
 cent tears in her wide eyes. Wilfred, 
 catching snatches of the conversation as he 
 paced the deck with Mr. Narpenth, was 
 astonished at the animation and freedom of 
 the dialogue carried on with a stranger ; 
 and, while he admired Miss Narpenth's clever 
 talk, and perfectly fluent and correct German, 
 mentally accused her of a want of womanly 
 reticence ; a want of that self-restraint which 
 exercises a restraining power over others. 
 When a bell rang, signifying that the mid- 
 day table-d'hote awaited the passengers, the 
 poetical young German was not behind his
 
 BOND AND FREE. 221 
 
 countrymen in obeying the summons. The 
 three English travellers were the last to 
 enter the saloon, and Miss Narpenth was 
 placed between Wilfred and her father. 
 
 Amused at the fiercely-sentimental glances 
 directed towards his neighbour from the far 
 end of the table, Wilfred commented upon 
 them to her ; adding, dryly, that she had 
 seemed to find the young German 
 interesting. 
 
 "He is clever — rather a remarkable 
 young man, I should think," Miss Narpenth 
 answered. Then she said : — 
 
 " Your tone makes me imagine that you 
 find in that fact, of my having been 
 interested by a stranger, something not in 
 accordance with your notions of pro- 
 priety. Is it so?'' 
 
 " I should not presume to condemn any- 
 thing in Miss Narpenth, or to express a 
 doubt of the propriety of her conduct."
 
 222 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 "You don't approve of a lady's allowing 
 herself to be drawn into conversation by a 
 young man to whom she has not been 
 ' introduced/ perhaps ? '' 
 
 Wilfred made no answer to these scorn- 
 fully uttered words ; and his companion 
 asked, in the same tone — 
 
 " Do you find life so very amusing that 
 you can afford to throw away any chance 
 of being entertained ? " 
 
 "Has not Mife ' yet shown Miss Nar- 
 penth a fairer side than that which it 
 seemed to have presented to her when I 
 saw her first ? " 
 
 Miss Narpenth's painfully vivid blush made 
 Wilfred feel that his question had been indis- 
 creet — perhaps cruelly so. He did not ask 
 pardon in so many words, but he bestowed 
 one of the humblest glances of his soft 
 eyes upon his neighbour. Her eyes just 
 met it, and then drooped.
 
 BOND AND FREE. 223 
 
 There was a brief silence. Miss Narpenth 
 broke it by saying, in a different tone 
 from that in which she had before spoken — 
 
 '* I have one excuse to offer for hav- 
 ing allowed myself to be interested in 
 my conversation with a young man to 
 whom I have not been introduced ; which 
 is, that he spoke with enthusiasm of a book 
 by an author whose writings interest me 
 extremely. I was surprised that a foreigner 
 should have met with it, but my friend 
 says that he is but lately returned from 
 London. Perhaps you do not read fiction ? " 
 
 '' Rarely." 
 
 " Have you seen a novel called ' Endur- 
 ance and Resistance ? ' Its author has 
 written a great deal in one of the first 
 periodicals. He has also publislied a 
 volume of short poems : I have them with 
 me, and I shall be happy to lend the book 
 to you if you do not know it already."
 
 224 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 "I know the novel and the poems. 
 Now, do you really so greatly admire that 
 novel?" 
 
 Wilfred looked into Miss Narpenth's eyes 
 with a well-assumed expression of cold 
 curiosity. 
 
 "I do! — though you ask in quite an 
 intimidating way. I think it most power- 
 fully written, and its truth comes home to 
 me in so many ways. I have a strong 
 interest in all the author of that book 
 writes, and a strong wish to know him per- 
 sonally; I have never felt the same interest 
 in any other living writer. But I do think 
 that his novels and tales have one great 
 defect — everything in them about love, and 
 much in them about women, is so coldly 
 ideal; the heroines do not in the least 
 interest me — they are angels, and not 
 women." 
 
 " The defect you mention is a great one."
 
 BOND AND FREE. 225 
 
 " Do you agree with me that it exists ? " 
 
 '*No doubt you are right. I am in- 
 clined to think highly of your powers of 
 penetration." 
 
 *^ What an unsatisfactory person you are ! 
 I cannot tell whether you are laughing at 
 me or whether you are serious. Do you 
 know anything about the writer ? He seems 
 to be a mysterious person. I have so much 
 wished to see him, or even to hear about 
 him, and I have not been able to do either. 
 Do you know him ? " 
 
 *^ No doubt he is, like other authors, to 
 be heard of at his publisher's." 
 
 ''Do you know him?" persisted Miss 
 Narpenth. 
 
 ** Intimately,'' Wilfred answered — his eyes 
 bent on his plate as he spoke. 
 
 " Pray tell me all you know of him ! " 
 
 "Kather a difficult task!" Lifting his 
 glance to Miss Narpenth's, Wilfred was 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 dangerously assailed by the sweet flattery 
 of her genuinely eager interest. 
 
 " What a frigid, sententious person you 
 are !" she said. " It is evident my hero is 
 no hero for you : perhaps he is a rival of 
 yours ; or " 
 
 She stopped suddenly — Wilfred looked up 
 to ascertain the cause; again their eyes 
 met; his shrank from the contact of hers, 
 and so betrayed him. She blushed very 
 vividly. 
 
 There was an awkward silence. Miss 
 Narpenth spoke first, quite softly and 
 timidly — 
 
 "If I have been rudely inquisitive, and 
 have discovered what you wished to con- 
 ceal, I beg your pardon. Have I dis- 
 covered what you really desired should 
 be a secret ? Are you displeased with 
 me ? " The last question was asked in quite 
 a humble tone of deprecation.
 
 BOND AND FREE. 227 
 
 Wilfred felt it incumbent on him to try 
 and put Miss Narpenth at her ease. He 
 could not help feeling kindly towards one 
 who had expressed so much interest in 
 him, and so much admiration for his pro- 
 ductions. Her face now, softened to hu- 
 mility and sweetness, for the first time 
 struck him as beautiful ; and her manner 
 was pleasing, even fascinating, now that 
 it was stripped of its assumed air of easy 
 indifierence, and shadowed by that rever- 
 ence which women are ' so apt to entertain 
 for men gifted with literary power; while 
 they so often withhold it from others who 
 have more worthy and solid claims upon 
 it. 
 
 After watching Wilfred and Miss Nar- 
 penth for some time during the conversa- 
 tion, apparently of great mutual interest, 
 which ensued, the young German presently 
 rose abruptly and stormed from the saloon. 
 
 Q2
 
 228 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 He was by-and-by seen tearing up and 
 down the deck, smoking furiously, and 
 staring wildly heavenwards. The fair Eng- 
 lishwoman, however, had no more attention 
 to bestow on him ; and when he was at last 
 convinced of this he returned to his former 
 allegiance to the clear-eyed and easily-for- 
 giving Clarchen. 
 
 When evening came on Mr. Narpenth took 
 refuge below early : but Miss Narpenth and 
 "Wilfred paced the deck slowly to and 
 fro — sometimes talking, but often pausing 
 to lean over the side and note the calm 
 beauty of the evening and the scene — 
 long after daylight had quite departed. 
 
 Wilfred and the Narpenths took up their 
 quarters at the same hotel that night : 
 Wilfred woke next morning with a new 
 feeling — with a sense of having something 
 to look forward to ; of having some fresh 
 interest in life; of knowing that there was
 
 BOND AND FREE, 229 
 
 some one near who took an interest in him. 
 Miss Narpenth was gracious and gentle as 
 on the previous evening — though he had 
 fancied that her softened mood would be 
 but of short duration. When he found 
 that the Narpenths' route could not be 
 his — as they designed spending some weeks 
 in Paris, and he was obliged to hasten 
 to London — he was greatly disappointed ; 
 and yet he had a dim consciousness that 
 it was best. So, with the blank feeling 
 of a pleasure lost, came also a feeling of 
 danger escaped. 
 
 After a day or two spent together they 
 parted. 
 
 "We shall be in England in six weeks 
 from this time," Mr. Narpenth said : "I 
 have written my full address in town on 
 this card ; you will hear of me there — 
 even if we should be at Thorndon House. 
 You say that you have no address to
 
 230 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 give me, so you must visit us on our 
 return. In six weeks, remember." 
 
 " Unless you promise to do so, Mr. 
 Mason, I have a feeling that we shall 
 see nothing of you — that you disappear 
 and reappear at pleasure ; that we may 
 never be able to hunt you out. I think 
 I have a claim upon you : you saved my 
 life, and I think you ought to do some- 
 thing towards rendering it ." She 
 
 paused for a second or two, and then 
 " endurable '' was the word she chose to 
 use. She spoke with assumed lightness, 
 but there was repressed earnestness in her 
 beautiful eyes. 
 
 " I shall eagerly desire to avail myself of 
 Mr. Narpenth's kindness." 
 
 Wilfred spoke what he felt at the time ; 
 though his after-conduct gave the lie to 
 what he said. Those words, his parting 
 " auf wiedersehen," and the glance accom- 
 panying both, occupied Miss Narpenth a
 
 BOND AND FREE. 231 
 
 good deal more than a few days since 
 she would have believed it possible any- 
 such words or glances could. 
 
 "A young man of singularly pleasing 
 address, when he throws off his reserve ! ^' 
 was Mr. Xarpenth's comment on Wilfred. 
 His daughter did not contradict him. 
 
 " I know I was in a very desperate and 
 cynical mood when I saw Mr. Mason before/' 
 she mused ; ** still I wonder he did not even 
 then make some slight impression upon me. 
 What singularly powerful eyes he has ! They 
 are very peculiar in expression, seeming to 
 contradict all the rest of his face; very 
 peculiar in colour, too, so that when he 
 lifts them up, it is quite a surprise to 
 see that softly dark violet, where one 
 expected to see black or brown ; and yet, 
 peculiar as they are, I think — I fancy — that 
 they remind me of some other pair of 
 eyes — though whose I cannot tell.'^ 
 
 Leaning back luxuriously in the corner
 
 232 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 of a railway-carriage, Eleanour Narpenth 
 thought a long while about these singu- 
 larly beautiful eyes. 
 
 " Papa ! did you say that Mrs. Lister 
 was to meet us in Paris on our arrival?" 
 she abruptly asked of her father, who sat 
 opposite, busy with the paper. j 
 
 "Mrs. Lister! Yes, in Paris, on our 
 arrival. I hope you will suit each othei," 
 he added, letting the paper drop upon Ms 
 knees ; " you say you used to like her. I 
 thought myself that there was something a 
 little odd about her. She put several ques- 
 tions to me, about different people, whi^h 
 gave me the idea that she was trying to 
 find out something about some person after 
 whom she did not choose to ask directly ; 
 but when I asked if she had any English 
 friends, thinking I should like to obtain 
 more information about her, she replied 
 haughtily that she had lived so long abroad
 
 BOND AND FREE. 233 
 
 that I must engage her only on the recom- 
 mendation of her foreign friends, or not at 
 all. She had previously admitted that my 
 name was not unknown to her before she 
 knew you. When or how she became 
 acquainted with it I did not discover ; but 
 she was evidently rather anxious that I 
 should engage her. As I said before, I hope 
 you will suit each other." 
 
 His daughter appearing to take but slight 
 and languid interest in the matter, Mr. 
 Narpenth resumed his paper, and dismissed 
 Mrs. Lister from his mind. 
 
 Return to one's home and country may 
 be very delightful when one has a home 
 and friends to welcome that return ; but 
 for Wilfred returning to London, after a 
 year's absence, to be welcomed by nothing 
 warmer or more cheering than a London 
 fog, was a dismal afiair.
 
 234 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 On his arrival in town, he found all MSS. 
 he had forwarded from abroad awaiting 
 him at the office of the journal to which 
 they had been sent — without exception, 
 condition, or explanation, they were declined 
 by the editor. 
 
 Having looked them through, the author 
 straightway justified the editor's decision by 
 burning them every one. 
 
 "I have had my day — I have worn my- 
 self out, or I never could have penned such 
 feeble, worthless, mawkish stuff," was his 
 comment, as he did so. '^ I suppose I have 
 used up what good stuff there was in 
 me,'' he added; "if so, what remains for 
 me to do?" 
 
 How he answered this question, how he 
 dragged through that winter, it is not 
 easy to say, nor pleasant to think. 
 
 When the time came at which Mr. 
 Narpenth had assured Wilfred that he
 
 BOND AND FREE. 235 
 
 should be again in town, the fickle and 
 careless Wilfred had lost the card on 
 which Mr. Narpenth had written his ad- 
 dress ; and had also utterly lost any incli- 
 nation to follow up the acquaintance. 
 
 "It is all very well to be admired 
 and flattered by a clever and beautiful 
 woman, like Eleanour Narpenth," he ad- 
 mitted to himself, "but I have no fancy 
 for being an object of her pity or pa- 
 tronage. I can imagine that there are 
 women whose loving pity, poured into the 
 wounds of a man's pride and ambition, 
 may act as healing balm ; but I am sure 
 that Miss Narpenth is not one of these: 
 her compassion would be, not oil upon 
 troubled waters, but oil added to devour- 
 ing flames. If I am ever again prosper- 
 ous, I may then, perhaps, wish to seek 
 her out, and further sun myself in the 
 light of those really glorious eyes — but,
 
 236 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 for the present, I would rather that they 
 did not shine upon me." 
 
 Perhaps this winter was the most mise- 
 rable winter Wilfred ever spent; not that 
 he sujffered from cold or hunger, or any 
 outward privation — he did not. 
 
 Writing down to the level of unin- 
 structed minds, and seeking to gratify un- 
 cultivated and unrefined tastes — writing to 
 order for an inferior class of publications, 
 under a strict promise of secrecy, which 
 he knew to be worth little — he met with 
 a success which he felt, and rightly felt, 
 to be deeply humiliating. 
 
 At this time he was conscious of a 
 gradual, but sure, deterioration of his 
 whole nature. He was humbled in his 
 own eyes; and this humbling was of a de- 
 grading, embittering kind. It made him 
 moody and resentful; in time it might
 
 BOND AND FREE. 237 
 
 make him coarse and callous. It seemed 
 to him that it was now his very self 
 that dragged him down, and not anything 
 in his outward circumstances. Believing 
 that he no longer believed in the possi- 
 bility of happiness high and holy as he 
 had dreamt of — or in the possibility of 
 leading a high and holy ideal life with- 
 out happiness — and never having realized 
 the other possibility, that a life of exalted 
 endurance and untiring effort may make 
 its own happiness within itself, or find it 
 in the happiness of others — he now aban- 
 doned himself to that sceptical indifference 
 which urges its victim to seize what plea- 
 sure life offers, and not to pry too closely 
 into its nature — to live as the world lives, 
 and not set up an ideal standard, 
 the straining to attain to which robs 
 a man^s days of savour, his nights of 
 rest, turns his hair grey before its time,
 
 238 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 and makes existence a burden and a weari- 
 ness. 
 
 The devil, however, is not all-wise; for 
 some souls he does not choose the right 
 bait — some natures have not the aptitude for 
 finding delight in the low pleasures of sin 
 and sense — for finding any pleasure, delight, 
 love, or rest, save in things so high that 
 they do not hope ever to attain unto 
 them. 
 
 Happy are perhaps those unhappy ones 
 who are ever driven on by the inward im- 
 pulse ; who find no rest, no love, delight, 
 nor pleasure on those soft, sunny, lower 
 levels where they would fain lie down and 
 take their ease ; but, though the flesh is 
 weak, are compelled, by the merciless, un- 
 resting spirit, to toil onwards towards the 
 difficult hills, whose summits look cold, 
 barren, and cheerless — on whose slopes the 
 dear, cheery work-a-day sun does not
 
 BOND AND FREE. 239 
 
 appear to shine, and in whose nooks and 
 hollows no happy hearth-fires glow. 
 
 Was Wilfred one of these unhappy happy 
 ones ?
 
 240 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 " A spot of dull stagnation witliout light 
 Or power of movement, seem'd my soul 
 'Mid onward sloping motions infinite 
 Making for one sure goal." 
 
 ^* Dass ich werden diirfte wie dieser Tage- 
 lohner einer ! '^ was the exclamation which 
 broke from Wilfred, as he stood in the 
 middle of a lonely country road; looking 
 with an air half-intent, half-abstracted, at 
 some objects by its side. These objects 
 were a heap of half broken-up stones, on 
 which lay a pick-axe and a labourer's 
 jacket. He had maintained his contem- 
 plative attitude for a considerable time.
 
 BOND AND FREE. 241 
 
 After a glance to the right and left 
 — showing him the unvaried solitari- 
 ness of the white road which he could 
 see stretching away far into the distance 
 on either hand — he took off his coat and 
 hat, placed them by the labourer's 
 jacket, took up the pick-axe, and began 
 to work. His tool invariably fell wide of 
 the mark, and fragments of stone flew 
 up into his face ; but he continued to 
 work with unflagging energy, till he in- 
 flicted a somewhat severe blow upon his 
 leg. Then, the pick-axe still in his hand, 
 he leant back among the brambles growing 
 against a low wall of loose stones. 
 
 "Not even fit for this," he said, 
 gloomily. 
 
 When the first sickening pain had 
 passed off, however, he fell to work 
 again. Finding himself rather less awk- 
 ward now, he grew far too eager over 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 his occupation to hear the approach of 
 an easy-rolling carriage. As it passed 
 between him and the sunshine he invo- 
 luntarily looked up ; it contained two 
 ladies — they both wore veils ; but, when 
 one of them leant forward and bowed to 
 Wilfred, through their light lacy screen, 
 he believed that he recognized the eyes 
 of Eleanour Narpenth. 
 
 The carriage had passed before he had 
 in any way returned the lady's saluta- 
 tion ; Miss Narpenth having checked a 
 momentary impulse to stop it, as she 
 remembered that in the presence of the 
 coachman and footmen it would not be 
 quite pleasant to enter into familiar con- 
 versation with a man whom they had seen 
 breaking stones on the road. 
 
 During the greater part of her drive 
 Miss Narpenth meditated uneasily on the 
 strangeness of this encounter; she speculated
 
 BOND AND FREE. 243 
 
 whether Wilfred could possibly, by any 
 chance or change of fortune, be "on the 
 roads " professionally : this hypothesis being 
 too disagreeable to be entertained, she de- 
 cided to regard what she had seen as a 
 mere freak of eccentric genius. 
 
 Meanwhile Wilfred resumed his hat and 
 coat, and limped from the spot ; when 
 Miss Narpenth repassed it about an hour 
 afterwards she saw the pick-axe wielded 
 by its real owner. 
 
 Sickness and consequent poverty had 
 driven Wilfred from London itself; but he 
 felt obliged to remain near it. He would 
 not have chosen the neighbourhood of 
 Thorndon as a retreat, had he known that 
 the Narpenths had a house there. Yet it 
 had been Mr. Narpenth's having once 
 mentioned Thorndon House (as Wilfred now 
 remembered his having done) which had 
 given him that feeling of pleasant and 
 
 r2
 
 244 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 puzzling familiarity with the name of the 
 village that had attracted him to it. 
 
 It was not, therefore, altogether chance, 
 though it was further still from being 
 choice, that had led Wilfred into Miss 
 Narpenth's vicinity. 
 
 Feeling himself thoroughly unprosperous — 
 beginning to believe himself to be that most 
 miserable of human beings, one who has 
 mistaken his vocation — fancying now that 
 he had never possessed genius, or any- 
 thing more than quite ordinary talent, 
 and that his only inspiration had been his 
 misery, and that fire and energy of youth 
 which was already burnt out — he had 
 come to Thorndon that he might breathe 
 free, fresh air, while he resolved on his 
 future course. 
 
 The time was indeed come when he 
 envied the labourer on the roads his 
 definite day's work. Eesolved to break
 
 BOND AND FREE. 245 
 
 free from the debasing slavery into which 
 he had sold himself, and which he now 
 loathed, he believed that he was prepared 
 to subsist on dry bread, and to pass his 
 nights without shelter, rather than return 
 to it. As yet, however, he was not 
 obliged to test his resolution so severely ; 
 he carried a small portion of the spoils 
 of the Egyptian taskmasters into his free 
 estate. 
 
 On this autumn afternoon Wilfred 
 walked towards the cottage where he 
 lodged with an irritated consciousness of 
 the absurdity of the position in which 
 Miss Narpenth had surprised him ; yet 
 neither this unpleasant consciousness, nor 
 his former distaste to being an object of 
 her pity, was the chief reason which 'made 
 him contemplate a flight from her neigh- 
 bourhood : he felt both that at this turn 
 in his life Miss Narpenth's influence would
 
 246 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 be a baneful one, and that she was a 
 woman who could not remain without 
 influence over those with whom she came 
 in contact. Wilfred was indolent, however; 
 he contented himself with resolving to 
 avoid the high-road, where he had been 
 seen by Miss Narpenth ; he consoled him- 
 self with the idea that the humbleness of 
 his retreat — a common labourer's dwelling 
 — ensured him against discovery — how 
 should she even know that he was living 
 at or near Thorndon ? 
 
 But Miss Narpenth was not to be 
 easily eluded : enquiries set on foot in the 
 village soon made her acquainted with the 
 fact that a strange gentleman had for 
 some time lodged at the cottage of a 
 widow Greenman. 
 
 Within two days of the encounter on 
 the road Wilfred received an invitation to 
 dine at Thorndon House — an invitation so
 
 BOND AND FREE. 247 
 
 cleverly worded that his best feelings 
 seemed to make it impossible for him to 
 refuse it ; besides which, he thought that 
 there would be something ignominious and 
 cowardly in doing so. He could leave 
 Thorndon shortly after having availed him- 
 self of this one invitation, without there 
 being anything particularly ungracious in 
 his conduct. 
 
 " Where is Thorndon House ? " he enquired 
 of the woman of the cottage. 
 
 " Over yon, sir ; you may see the 
 smoke through the trees. It's Squire Nar- 
 penth's ; Tve heard tell he's got as big 
 a house in London, and another in 
 Wales — ^he's a banker, and main rich, I 
 fancy ! " 
 
 So the great house among the trees — 
 from which he had often watched the 
 up-curling smoke as he lounged away his 
 weary days on the low-wooded hill near
 
 248 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 the cottage — was the dwelling of Eleanour 
 Narpenth ! 
 
 A review of his wardrobe showed Wil- 
 fred that he had clothes in which he 
 should be quite presentable ; more espe- 
 cially as he knew that any shortcomings 
 from the standard of present fashion would 
 be regarded by Miss Narpenth, as no doubt 
 the stone-breaking had been regarded — 
 merely as an outbreak of the " eccentricity 
 of genius." 
 
 " Genius ! " Wilfred repeated, as he sat 
 in his miserable little room, resting his head 
 on his hands, and with his eyes fixed on 
 Miss Narpenth's note. " Genius ! — she be- 
 lieves that I have it, and I dreamt so 
 once. How far off those days of delirious 
 delight and illusion are ! I am still a young 
 man, not thirty yet, and I seem to have 
 had my day — to have lived my life. How 
 must I fill up the years to come ? How do
 
 BOND AND FREE. 249 
 
 men who never had the life I have lost, fill 
 up their years — years made up of such a 
 weary multitude of days ? Most men have two 
 lives — one the sweetener of the other : two 
 lives, one the outward bread-winning life, the 
 other the sacred family life — the life in others 
 dearer than themselves — their wives and chil- 
 dren. If it might ever be thus with me ! I 
 could, I think, be very happy doing very 
 humble work, if — ^" 
 
 Here thought grew very vague ; but pre- 
 sently he continued: — 
 
 '' Will the man whose life stands between 
 me and the possibility of such happiness 
 live till the knowledge his death gives me 
 is valueless? Yet what can that knowledge 
 profit me ? He said, ^ it was not well that 
 you should be branded with your father's 
 name/ Branded! Perhaps it is well that 
 bitter word escaped him ; or I might have been 
 tempted to pray for his death. No doubt
 
 250 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 the bitter word was a just word — he hated 
 my father, but he never lied. Well ! I 
 must just live on with what patience I 
 may. Life may be long, but each day 
 shortens it. Each night that falls blots out 
 something from the weary sum of time. 
 Happiness, that dream and desire of my 
 youth, flies from me further and further, 
 and I lose even my visionary belief in 
 her; and yet," he added, raising his head, 
 and sudden fire flashing through the haze 
 of his languid eyes, " I shall surely know 
 her before I die." 
 
 Straying out into the sun presently, 
 his craving for companionship led him to 
 the hedges, where the village children were 
 picking blackberries : he passed an hour 
 or two in helping them, hooking down the 
 branches above their reach, and greatly 
 aiding to fill their baskets. When a little 
 girl belonging to a neighbouring cottage
 
 BOND AND FREE. 251 
 
 got badly scratched, and had to be carried 
 home to her mother, Wilfred undertook the 
 charge of her ; then, finding it was late 
 enough to begin preparing for his visit to 
 Thorndon House, he did not return to the 
 blackberrying party. 
 
 To his own surprise, he found that he 
 anticipated pleasure from his visit: he was 
 tired of himself; tired of his rough lodging 
 and coarse fare — tired of seeing only homely 
 faces, and of hearing only homely speech. 
 He was inclined to seize any kind and degree 
 of pleasure that offered ; without too curiously 
 examining whether it appealed to sense or 
 spirit. 
 
 Thorndon House was a large, square, 
 ordinary-looking British mansion ; sur- 
 rounded by smooth lawns, trim shrub- 
 beries, well-kept carriage-drives, and well- 
 gravelled paths — all enclosed within a high 
 wall, and sheltered at the back by some
 
 252 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 finely-grown elms. It was furnished with 
 admirably-stocked greenhouses and hot- 
 houses ; the flower-beds glowed with au- 
 tumn flowers ; everything had a modern, 
 highly-preserved, prosperous look. Nothing 
 he saw could have reminded Wilfred of 
 Beech Holmes ; it could only have been the 
 force of contrast that sent his thoughts to 
 that picturesquely-beautiful and ruinous 
 place. 
 
 Long afterwards, to recall his feelings as 
 he ascended the steps and waited at the hall 
 door of Thorndon House that day — to recall 
 the impressions he then received from un- 
 familiar things which were destined to become 
 so familiar — was like recalling a dream. 
 
 Wilfred was ushered into a large and 
 empty drawing-room ; facing south-west it 
 was full of warmth, colour, light, and 
 fragrance : flowers, pictures, statuettes, 
 richly -bound books and richly-coloured dra-
 
 BOND AND FREE. 253 
 
 peries seemed to blend into a general at- 
 mosphere of subdued beauty — at least so 
 it struck one much accustomed to white- 
 washed walls, or to the various ugliness 
 and dinginess of cheap lodgings. 
 
 His soft exclamation ^^ Ah ! " was a long 
 drawn breath of pleasure, as he looked 
 round the apartment, inhaled the perfumed 
 air, felt the thick soft carpet beneath his 
 feet, and watched the late sunlight stream- 
 ing in. 
 
 One of the windows stood open ; near it 
 was a small inlaid table, before which was 
 placed an easy chair ; on the table was a 
 piece of delicate embroidery, with a needle 
 in it, as if it had been just thrown 
 down ; also a writing-case, a vase of 
 splendid roses, and one or two books. 
 Wilfred approached this table reverently — 
 to recoil as from a snake among flowers, 
 on finding that an open volume, half-con-
 
 254 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 cealed by the work lying on it, was a 
 copy of his poems — the same that Miss 
 Narpenth had had with her abroad. 
 
 '* A trap laid for an author's vanity — 
 she must be tired of them by this time ! " 
 Muttering this to himself he smiled con- 
 temptuously. 
 
 Miss Narpenth entering at this moment, 
 Wilfred met her with a manner of cold and 
 guarded reserve. She noticed this; after 
 her first frank greeting she coloured, 
 glanced inquiringly at his grave face, and 
 then her manner, too, became somewhat 
 formal. 
 
 As she had appeared on first coming 
 into the room, a bright smile of pleasure 
 and welcome on her lips and in her eyes, 
 Wilfred had thought her even more strik- 
 ingly handsome than he remembered to 
 have thought her before. Dressed to 
 perfection — as regarded taste and fashion,
 
 BOND AND FREE. 255 
 
 though perhaps too richly for the occasion 
 — no doubt she impressed him the more 
 from the fact that his eyes had starved 
 upon rustic awkwardness and coarseness 
 long enough to have an unnaturally keen 
 appetite for cultivated grace and beauty. 
 Miss Narpenth, too, seemed in such per- 
 fect harmony with everything surrounding 
 her, that it appeared as if the " central 
 idea" of all this luxury must have been 
 wanting before she came into the room. 
 
 When the first greetings were over, 
 and Wilfred and his hostess were both 
 seated, they felt at a loss to know what 
 to say : remarks about the weather and 
 the neighbourhood sounded absurd to Elea- 
 nour, when there were so many subjects 
 of interest on which she longed to question 
 her companion. 
 
 Wilfred broke a short silence by say- 
 ing:—
 
 256 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 " Till you drove past me the other day, 
 and did me the honour of bowing to me, 
 I did not know that you lived in this 
 place ; though afterwards I remembered that 
 I might have known it. I had been 
 puzzled to understand what association 
 could make the name of Thorndon familiar 
 to me." 
 
 ^* Perhaps you owe my greeting entirely 
 to my surprise. I think it would only 
 have been properly dignified if I had 
 affected to have forgotten a gentleman 
 who has shown so very little anxiety to 
 be remembered." 
 
 " Believe me, that when we parted at 
 Cologne I had every intention of availing 
 myself of your father's kind hospitality — 
 every desire to do so. On my return to 
 town, unforeseen circumstances arose which 
 interfered with the fulfilment of this intention. 
 The loss has so evidently been entirely my
 
 BOND AND FREE. 257 
 
 own, and the obstacles to the renewal of 
 a pleasant intercourse were of so distaste- 
 ful a kind, that I feel more inclined to 
 claim Miss Narpenth's commiseration than 
 to solicit forgiveness by making apologies 
 which imply a consciousness of wilful 
 transgression — of having sinned against 
 her, instead of having only mortified my- 
 self" 
 
 The icy composure of Wilfred's manner 
 as he made this speech repressed any ex- 
 pression of that commiseration for which 
 it pretended to call. Miss Narpenth felt 
 wonderfully little at her ease : it was a 
 relief to her when her father arrived — 
 rather late, as he explained, because, in 
 obedience to Eleanour's instructions, he had 
 come round by Wilfred's quarters ; to as- 
 certain if he had remembered his engage- 
 ment at Thorndon House— ^^ students and 
 authors being proverbially forgetful of such 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 sublunary matters as dinner engagements." 
 
 After having welcomed his guest very 
 cordially, Mr. Narpenth turned to the 
 table by the window. Not seeing anyone 
 there, he asked : — 
 
 " Where is Mrs. Lister ? " 
 
 " I had a message from her while I 
 was dressing to say that she begged to 
 be excused from appearing at the dinner- 
 table ; as she was suffering from severe 
 nervous headache." 
 
 " Has she had it all day, do you sup- 
 pose ? " 
 
 " She appeared as well as usual at 
 lunch-time. It seems almost as if Mr. 
 Mason had been guilty of producing her head- 
 ache. I happened to bring your poems 
 downstairs this afternoon," Miss Narpenth 
 added, turning to Wilfred ; " when I 
 left the room, Mrs. Lister, who had not 
 seen them before, was reading them very
 
 BOND AND FREE. 259 
 
 intently. She had not then complained of 
 indisposition." 
 
 Dinner was announced as ready. Wil- 
 fred, glad to exonerate Eleanour from the 
 sin of having left, that book open, offered 
 her his arm with a more friendly expres- 
 sion than he had yet shown her. After 
 some slight speculation in his own mind, 
 he decided rightly that this Mrs. Lister 
 must be Miss Narpenth's duenna, or dame- 
 de-compagne. 
 
 Accustomed for sometime to partake with 
 what appetite he might of clumsily-prepared 
 and roughly-served food, Mr. Narpenth's 
 dining-room and dining-table appointments 
 struck Wilfred as epicurean in their refined 
 luxury and elegance. 
 
 The twilight was shut out by crimson 
 curtains ; the small oval dining-table, drawn 
 near a clear-burning fire, but protected from 
 it by a screen of plate-glass, had nothing on 
 
 s2
 
 260 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 it but pleasantly-shaded lights, glass, plate, 
 china, and a large vase of flowers ; the 
 dishes were carved at the sideboard, and 
 handed round by a noiseless footman, as- 
 sisted by a good-looking maid-servant. The 
 host being free from cares of carving, and 
 the hostess from anxiety as to the sym- 
 metrical arrangement of the dishes, con- 
 versation flowed on evenly and pleasantly. 
 
 To a question from Wilfred as to whether 
 they had been abroad this year, Mr. Nar- 
 penth answered: — 
 
 " Eleanour did not care to go away 
 from Thorndon ; she said she was tired of 
 travelling and tired of ' furrin parts,' and 
 that she should like to try a summer and 
 autumn spent quietly in the country." 
 
 "And have you enjoyed the change ? 
 Has the experiment proved a successful 
 one ? " Wilfred asked Miss Narpenth. 
 
 " During the last six months I have
 
 BOND AND FREE. 261 
 
 perhaps yawned more than in all my life 
 before : that is answer sufficient, I think." 
 
 " My daughter is a spoilt child, and very 
 hard to please ! " 
 
 '^ The surprise your occupation of the 
 other day caused me was a delightfully 
 novel sensation, I assure you, Mr. Mason. 
 I feel deeply grateful to you for it.'' 
 
 " What ! the occupation, of stone-breaking ? 
 How came that about ? " questioned Mr. 
 Narpenth, laughingly. 
 
 •^ I am in want of a profession," Wil- 
 fred gravely replied, " and I was trying 
 my qualifications for that of a roadman. 
 I only discovered disqualifications : I am 
 still slightly lame from a blow I inflicted 
 upon my knee." 
 
 " Eleanour can hardly afford to laugh at 
 you," her father remarked. *^ Looking out 
 of my window, just after daybreak one 
 summer morning, I saw her digging vigo-
 
 262 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 rously in the vegetable garden at the back 
 of the house — with what object do you 
 suppose ? '^ 
 
 '^ Papa ! I thought you promised me not 
 to tell that story ! " 
 
 '' Did I ? I had forgotten ; but I did 
 not begin till the servants were gone. 
 Can you guess her motive, Mr. Mason ? 
 She had been struck with the cheerful, 
 contented look of some women who work 
 in the fields close by : she wished to see 
 if to work meant to be cheerful and con- 
 tented ! " 
 
 " What was the result of your exploit ? " 
 Wilfred asked, looking at Miss Narpenth 
 with more interest than he had felt in her 
 yet. 
 
 "The results were sore hands, stiff arms 
 and shoulders, intense tiredness for the rest 
 of the day (I do not know though that it 
 was an unpleasant kind of tiredness), and.
 
 BOND AND FREE. 263 
 
 worst of all, a soiled dress, the state of 
 which greatly excited the curiosity of my 
 maid. I chose that early hour, because 
 it was real hard work I wanted to try, 
 and I wished to elude the comments of 
 the servants' hall — ^but that is an impos- 
 sible thing to do. Do you remember what 
 Thackeray says in 'Vanity Fair' of the 
 Heimgericht held in the servants' hall. I 
 suppose it is true that we are all slaves 
 to some one thing or person; yet I should 
 think that you, Mr. Mason, are an ex- 
 ception to this rule : you must be enviably 
 free — free to be and do what you like, and 
 to go where you like." 
 
 '* Is it not generally the case that those 
 who are not slaves to others, and to things 
 external, are apt to be slaves to something 
 within themselves? Freedom is a thing we 
 all talk about, and of which none of us 
 know anything."
 
 264 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 Miss Narpenth did not answer ; the blush 
 that had been called into her face by her 
 father's story was slow to fade. She soon 
 rose to go to the drawing-room. Wilfred, 
 holding the door open for her, felt a sense 
 of pleasure in observing her stately grace — 
 a thrill of novel pleasure from the contact 
 of her rustling dress, as she passed him, and 
 from the glance and smile with which she 
 thanked him. 
 
 '' You take no wine, I see, Mr. Mason, 
 and you will, perhaps, prefer having coffee 
 in the drawing-room. I should like you 
 just to look at a few of Eleanour's paintings ; 
 may I trouble you to follow me ? " 
 
 Mr. Narpenth led the way to an apart- 
 ment of very studio-like appearance ; in it 
 there were a good many framed pictures — 
 some of them being copies, some from 
 original sketches — and several unframed 
 canvases, but all were turned with their
 
 BOND AND FREE. 265 
 
 faces to the wall : though there was an 
 unfinished picture on the easel, the room 
 showed no signs of recent work. 
 
 " I do not pretend to be any great judge 
 of pictures ; but of course a man must 
 pick up some knowledge about them, as 
 about other thhigs," Wilfred said, after a 
 close scrutiny of one or two of Miss 
 Narpenth's productions. 
 
 *' And how do these strike you ? " 
 
 " As showing a great deal of well directed, 
 original talent. Has Miss Narpenth worked 
 on this" — pointing to the picture on the 
 easel — ^' recently ? " 
 
 " She has not ,touched a canvas for 
 several years ; she gave up painting during 
 the last summer we spent in Wales — the 
 year when we first, and so opportunely, 
 made your acquaintance. I am very anxious 
 to see her take up her brushes again ; 
 their use was a great resource and amuse-
 
 266 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 ment — and want of occupation is the great 
 curse of young women's lives now-a-days, 
 I thmk." 
 
 " I have ventured to take Mr. Mason 
 into your studio, Eleanour," Mr. Narpenth 
 said, as they joined his daughter in the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 ''It seems to me, Miss Narpenth, that 
 your copies are much more carefully exe- 
 cuted than your original works," Wilfred 
 remarked, for the sake of breaking an awk- 
 ward silence ; which seemed to be one of 
 displeasure on the lady's part, and of ap- 
 prehension on her father's. v 
 
 " Is not that very natural ? " 
 
 ''Perhaps — ^if it arise from diffidence as 
 to the merits of your own compositions. 
 May I hope some day by daylight to be 
 allowed to look through your folios of 
 sketches? I shall then expect to see 
 new things, which have always more in-
 
 BOND AND FREE. 267 
 
 terest for me than have the most perfect 
 copies of old ones." 
 
 "You forget that Hhere is nothing new 
 under the sun/ " 
 
 " I remember that we are none of us ac- 
 quainted with a millionth part of what 
 lies under the sun ; and as each nature has 
 individuality, power to perceive something 
 not to be perceived by other natures, and 
 — if it is gifted with power of expression — 
 to produce something not to be produced 
 by other natures, may we not continually 
 learn new things one from the other? 
 Do not our most familiar thoughts some- 
 times seem strange to other minds ; and 
 the facts of other men's experience appear 
 to us as fiction when first presented to 
 ours ? " 
 
 " But do you think that every nature has 
 a distinctive individuality ? " 
 
 " I do not know why we should doubt
 
 268 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 it — why we should consider spirit likely 
 to be less varied in its manifestation than 
 matter — why we should not believe in 
 infinite differences of souls, as well as in 
 infinite differences of bodies. Can you 
 imagine the existence of another being 
 with sympathies so perfectly one with 
 your own, that were it possible to ex- 
 change natures and retain self-conscious- 
 ness (the consciousness of your former 
 self) you would not experience a sense of 
 all-pervading strangeness ? " 
 
 Eleanour passed her hand over her 
 brow in a laughing attempt to smooth 
 out the thought- wrinkles. 
 
 *^ I cannot follow you,^' she said. " ^ Take 
 some one else's nature, and yet retain 
 one's own self-consciousness ! ' " 
 
 "I am not surprised that you cannot 
 conceive the possibility of the impossible," 
 Wilfred said, laughing. ^' All mysticism
 
 BOND AND FREE. 269 
 
 apart, the fact is that I wish to be per- 
 mitted to look through Miss Narpenth's 
 sketches, and expect to receive much plea- 
 sure from doing so/' 
 
 "Look in to luncheon to-morrow," Mr. 
 Narpenth suggested. 
 
 Wilfred's eyes sought for Eleanour's per- 
 mission. 
 
 " I shall be happy to show you my 
 poor performances if you will do so ; and I 
 can then introduce you to the lady of whom 
 you have heard us speak to-day — Mrs. 
 Lister. She is an interesting person; and 
 I often fancy must have a history, which, 
 if you could find it out, might form a 
 good subject for a novel." 
 
 "I do not think I have yet acquired 
 the habit of taking a merely professional 
 interest in my fellow-creatures," Wilfred 
 replied, coldly. 
 
 "By-the-bye, my dear, do you know
 
 270 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 if Mrs. Lister is better ? " asked Mr. 
 Narpenth. 
 
 "She is rather better. 1 told Ann to 
 enquire when she took her up some tea. I 
 daresay a night's rest will set her all right." 
 
 Then, conscious that something in her 
 last speech to Wilfred had been distasteful 
 to him, Miss Narpenth devoted herself to 
 the endeavour of effacing the bad impres- 
 sion it had made. She turned the con- 
 versation to places they had both visited, 
 and works of art they had both seen 
 abroad; in speaking of the latter, she ex- 
 cited Wilfred's admiration by her discrimi- 
 nating appreciation of their merits. She 
 not only entered into the subtlest refine- 
 ments of his criticism ; but sometimes, 
 taking the initiative, she showed either 
 that she went beyond him in enthusiasm, 
 or that her taste was more highly culti- 
 vated. When she spoke of scenes and
 
 BOND AND FREE. 271 
 
 objects of natural beauty, however, she 
 pleased her listener less ; with these she 
 seemed to have no inward sympathy, and 
 all she said in their praise sounded forced 
 and superficial. 
 
 It was very late when Wilfred rose to 
 go ; but even then he seemed reluctant to 
 depart, and Eleanour knew how to enchain 
 him longer. For the last two hours the 
 conversation had been a Ute-a-t^te. Mr. 
 Narpenth had been dozing over the paper. 
 Eleanour sat near the centre lamp, toying 
 with some work ; Wilfred, lounging near 
 her in a low, luxurious chair, had watched 
 the busy idleness of her beautiful hands, 
 and the slipping to and fro of the brace- 
 lets on her smooth white arms, with a 
 kind of indolent fascination ; sometimes he 
 forgot to talk, and had to be roused by a 
 glance from her brilliant eyes, or a few 
 sparkling words from her lips.
 
 272 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 Even after he had once said "good-night/' 
 he lingered ; leaning on the back of his chair. 
 
 " The scenes of our first, second, and 
 third meeting differ widely ! " he said, as 
 his eyes returned from a circuit of the 
 room to its attractive centre. " Have 
 you any sketches of the Welsh coast near 
 Abergwynn ? " 
 
 " Only some very early ones. I had 
 given up sketching before that strange 
 meeting of ours; and between that summer 
 and a summer we passed at Abergwynn, 
 when I was not much more than a child, 
 I was at school abroad." 
 
 Miss Narpenth coloured deeply as she 
 spoke — why, Wilfred could not understand. 
 
 ^^ If you ever paint from memory, that 
 bay; overhung by lowering clouds; with 
 wild surf breaking on its sandy curve ; and 
 the dismal beauty of the plain stretching 
 between the sea and the hills "
 
 BOND AND FREE. 278 
 
 "Abergywnn offers fine subjects without 
 doubt," Miss Narpenth broke in abruptly; 
 "but I have given up painting. At 
 least " 
 
 Wilfred waited for the end of this sen- 
 tence; but Ele.anour drooped her head over 
 her work, and did not finish it. 
 
 The small voice of a French clock just then 
 made itself heard, striking twelve; Wilfred, 
 at last, really departed. Mr. Narpenth, ac- 
 companying him to the house-door, re- 
 minded him of his promise to come and 
 see Eleanour's sketches next morning ; add- 
 ing, "If you can revive her interest in 
 painting, I really shall feel obliged to 
 
 you." 
 
 The door was closed after Wilfred. He 
 found himself alone; under a clear, star- 
 lit sky: but in spite of the coolness and 
 silence of night the influences of Thorndon 
 House lingered about him — those of nature 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 did not penetrate through the atmosphere 
 these made. 
 
 Eeaching his cottage, it seemed more 
 than usually redolent of unsavoury odours, 
 those of onions and stale tobacco pre- 
 dominating ; and to-night these things affected 
 him more than usual — they greatly offended 
 and disgusted him. His small, low sleep- 
 ing-room, with its musty smell, seemed stifl- 
 ing. He flung the lattice open with a 
 violence that shook out several loosened 
 panes of glass ; then, bending his head over 
 some plants, a heliotrope, and a rose-scented 
 geranium that stood on his sill, he closed 
 his eyes, and allowed himself to think of 
 Eleanour Narpenth — of her grace, and of her 
 soft graciousness for him ; of the elegance 
 and luxury by which she was so fittingly 
 surrounded. 
 
 The night air was chill ; when by-and- 
 by he lifted up and drew in his head.
 
 BOND AND FREE. 275 
 
 opening his eyes to the meanness of his 
 poor room — illumined by the dirty light of a 
 candle flaring smokily, and guttering into 
 the already grease-spotted candlestick — he 
 experienced a very unpleasant revulsion of 
 feeling. 
 
 t2
 
 276 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 " Was man GescMck nennt, lasst sicli nicht versohnen." 
 
 Wilfred passed the next morning in look- 
 ing forward to the afternoon. Restlessness 
 had taken the place of listlessness — a sign, 
 perhaps, that life had some unwonted in- 
 terest; for those who fear nothing, hope 
 nothing, and expect nothing, do not suffer 
 from restlessness. 
 
 As he walked up the carriage-drive to 
 Thorndon House, his glance swept the draw- 
 ing-room windows, and showed him a lady- 
 seated near one of them — not Miss Nar-
 
 BOND AND FREE. 277 
 
 penth he found, when he was ushered into 
 the apartment; but a lady taller than Miss 
 Narpenth, dressed in black, with a com- 
 plexion of almost startling pallor. She rose 
 as he entered — they exchanged bows, and 
 he was struck with a certain eagerness, 
 almost amounting to wildness, in her eyes. 
 
 Mrs. Lister — for so he concluded this lady 
 was called — begging him to be seated, said 
 she would tell Miss Narpenth, who she be- 
 lieved was in the garden, of his arrival. 
 She laid the morning paper before him and 
 crossed the room. 
 
 The servant having announced him as 
 "Mr. Mason," Wilfred was rather surprised 
 that Mrs. Lister paused before she reached 
 the door, and asked — 
 
 " Who shall I tell Miss Narpenth desires 
 to see her ? " 
 
 Wilfred, from a consciousness that his 
 Christian name alone was rightfully his, had
 
 278 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 acquired a habit of using it on most occa- 
 sions — he did so now. 
 
 "Mr. Wilfred Mason — but I am sorry to 
 trouble you so far/' he answered. 
 
 A suppressed cry, as of pain, startled 
 him. He saw Mrs. Lister stagger, and clutch 
 the handle of the door. In a moment he 
 was by her side, and her clutch was trans- 
 ferred to his offered arm. She turned her 
 face to his, looking at him with eyes that 
 were at first sightless from the intensity of 
 hungry effort to see — while the working of 
 her features bore witness to some sharp 
 inward struggle, as between death and life. 
 When the mist cleared from before her 
 vision, and she met Wilfred's alarmed and 
 sympathising look, she tried to smile. 
 
 "It is nothing. I struck my foot — the 
 pain made me feel faint — thank you ! '' she 
 said. 
 
 She released his arm from her grasp, and
 
 BOND AND FREE. 279 
 
 passed quickly out of the door which he 
 held open for her. He returned to his 
 seat, and to the perusal of the paper. 
 In talking with Mr. Narpenth yesterday, 
 he had found it inconvenient to be so 
 entirely ignorant as he was on all topics 
 of public interest ; he had resolved to 
 give some attention to these things for 
 the future ; but now he could not fix his 
 thoughts on the columns, so much did 
 the strangeness of Mrs. Lister's look and 
 manner occupy him. 
 
 It was not long before Miss Narpenth 
 ■entered through the conservatory, her hands 
 and the hat which hung over her arm full 
 of flowers. When she freed a hand to 
 offer it to Wilfred, a shower of late au- 
 tumn roses fell at her feet. Being young 
 and poetical, it would have been odd if 
 he could have assisted in picking up the 
 scattered treasures without finding some-
 
 280 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 thing pretty and appropriate to say about 
 the flowers and the fair culler of them. 
 His compliments were received with digni- 
 fied pleasure. 
 
 " May I keep this one rose ? " he 
 asked, as he lifted the last — a flower of 
 a peculiarly brilliant crimson, and of 
 a rich and powerful perfume — from the 
 ground. 
 
 "I have a sort of right to it," he 
 added, having received permission to retain 
 it — "for it has wounded me. Has it any 
 distinctive name ? '' 
 
 Eleanour smiled rather consciously. 
 
 "Our old gardener believes it to be a 
 variety of his own introduction," she an- 
 swered, evasively. 
 
 " No doubt he has named it then ? " 
 
 "He begged my permission to call it 
 the 'Eleanour Narpenth.'" 
 
 "Your namesake has wounded me rather
 
 BOND AND FREE. 281 
 
 deeply, Miss Narpenth," Wilfred said, ex- 
 amining his finger. 
 
 "I think the gardener paid me a doubt- 
 ful compliment — for the tree is particularly 
 thorny, and does not flower freely. Have 
 you really done more than prick your 
 finger, Mr. Mason ? Eeally hurt it ? " 
 
 "Indeed I have; a very large thorn is 
 safely lodged in my flesh." 
 
 " Shall I give you a needle to try and 
 extract it ? " she asked, and carefully se- 
 lected one from a case she took from 
 Mrs. Lister's open work-box. 
 
 " May I venture to ask you to extract 
 it for me?" he asked, holding out his 
 hand towards her. 
 
 She took the hand in hers, examined the 
 wound, and drew him towards the light, 
 saying, as she did so : — 
 
 " Surely you have a right to ask me 
 to do more than such a trifling service
 
 282 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 for you, seeing that I owe my life to 
 your courage and presence of mind. I 
 do not think I am of a quite thankless 
 nature ! " 
 
 Perhaps her hand was not quite firm, 
 or his trembled ; at all events, the thorn 
 was not easily extracted. Eleanour looked 
 up once to see if she were giving him 
 much pain ; but there was a power in the 
 intent glance that met hers which pre- 
 vented her from repeating the experiment. 
 It is certain that, after this exchange of 
 looks, it was her hand which trembled. 
 
 The thorn had at last been extracted, 
 and Wilfred was tendering his thanks to 
 the fair operator, when Mrs. Lister came 
 into the room ; her quick glance seemed 
 immediately to take note of Eleanour's 
 blushing cheeks, and of the soft, perhaps 
 involuntary, flattery of Wilfred's eyes. 
 
 Miss Narpenth, with a manner less com-
 
 BOND AND FREE. 283 
 
 posed than usual, introduced Wilfred to her 
 friend Mrs. Lister ; and then they went into 
 an adjoining room — a small breakfast par- 
 lour — to luncheon. Mrs. Lister spoke but 
 little while they sat at table ; and when 
 they returned to the drawing-room, and 
 Miss Narpenth's portfolios were brought in, 
 she seated herself by a distant window, and 
 did not, even by a look, take part in the 
 conversation that ensued. This silent pre- 
 sence weighed upon Wilfred. At first Elea- 
 nour also seemed to feel it a restraint ; 
 but, after a time, she grew too much in- 
 terested in her companion to remember Mrs. 
 Lister, or any strangeness she might have 
 noticed in her demeanour. 
 
 "I find that a poet is a most pleasant 
 critic," Miss Narpenth said, by-and-by : " your 
 imagination, Mr. Mason, supplies the defi- 
 ciencies of my work — you discover beauties 
 that cannot exist in the sketches themselves —
 
 284 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 because I did not perceive them in nature, 
 and, therefore, did not try to represent 
 them/' 
 
 "I do not think that your ' because ' 
 proves anything, Miss Narpenth. I think 
 that a sketch or picture from the hand 
 of a true artist will always have things 
 in it that he was not conscious of trying 
 to put into it— beauties and truths which 
 are first seen and interpretated by intelli- 
 gent criticism. Should not Art always be, 
 to some extent, unconscious — though to 
 say so may seem paradoxical? These com- 
 panion sketches of yours, which I see you 
 have called, ^Before the Storm' and * After 
 the Storm,' appear to me to be beauti- 
 fully felt, and wonderfully true to nature. 
 It was daring of you to take exactly the 
 same scene, and represent it under the 
 two aspects ; but I think the result has 
 justified the daring. One feels a sense of
 
 BOND AND FREE. 285 
 
 oppression ; a sense of something awful 
 and threatening in the stillness, looking 
 at the first drawing : while this other, 
 with its pure, fair, tender tints ; with its 
 waters sinking to calm now after their 
 late troubling ; pervaded, as it seems to 
 me, by a kind of penitent serenity — as if 
 nature repented herself of her late passion 
 — makes one grow quiet and peaceful as 
 one gazes." Lowering his voice, he added, 
 "One would almost long to have a fierce 
 storm of trouble break over one's life were 
 one assured that it would be followed by 
 such profound and delicious calm — or to 
 see a beloved face lowering with anger 
 and distorted by passion, might it surely 
 melt and soften afterwards to an expres- 
 sion of so exquisitely mild and beautiful a 
 penitence." 
 
 Eleanour sighed "You will make me 
 in love with my own work; you will wake
 
 286 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 up my dead zeal — if dead thiDgs can wake 
 _and if ." 
 
 " May I venture to enquire why you 
 gave up the use of so beautiful a gift ? " 
 Wilfred asked — when she did not complete 
 her sentence. She coloured vividly, but 
 did not look altogether displeased with the 
 questioner. A quick, involuntary glance 
 which she turned towards Mrs. Lister made 
 Wilfred fancy that had they been alone 
 his curiosity would have been gratified ; 
 but in this he was mistaken. 
 
 '^ My love of painting left me all at 
 once, with other girlish follies or enthu- 
 siasms,'^ she answered — "I do not know 
 that I shall ever paint again." 
 
 "And yet," persisted Wilfred, ^'I fancy 
 that you suffer from ennui — ^from want of 
 interests and occupation. It is wrong to 
 let your talent lie idle — you will not be 
 happy and content while you do so ; the
 
 BOND AND FREE. 287 
 
 sense of possession of unused power is 
 always burdensome. ^ Was man nicht niitzt 
 ist eine schwere Last/ you know. But that 
 it is a wonderful piece of arrogant presump- 
 tion on my part to speak in this style, I 
 am fully aware. Can you excuse my hav- 
 ing done so ? '^ 
 
 "I do not see that I have anything to 
 excuse : I am grateful to you for speaking 
 as you have done.'* Bending her head 
 down over the drawings, she continued 
 softly and hurriedly :— 
 
 " You are perfectly right ; and, to own 
 the truth, I often long to paint again ; but 
 once, when I was very miserable, and when 
 I believed myself to be cruelly ill-used, I 
 made a foolish vow, which, though I know 
 it was foolish and wrong, I am now afraid 
 to break." 
 
 " Did you vow never to paint again ? " 
 
 " Never, unless something happened which
 
 288 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 I believed never could happen. I know this 
 must sound very absurd, and I give you 
 leave to laugh at me." She lifted up a 
 glowing face as she finished speaking, and 
 set him the example by laughing scorn- 
 fully ; but Wilfred's face was perfectly 
 grave. 
 
 "Miss Narpenth, is it not time that we 
 dressed for dinner ? " Mrs. Lister asked. 
 Both Wilfred and Eleanour started at the 
 harshly abrupt tone of the question. 
 
 " Surely it is not yet so late ? " Miss 
 Narpenth exclaimed. 
 
 " It is more than half-past five." 
 
 *' Tou must see the contents of the second 
 folio some other day, then, Mr. Mason. I 
 find it exceedingly pleasant, Mrs. Lister, to 
 have unknown beauties in my poor daubs 
 introduced to my notice," she added, turn- 
 ing gaily to the lady she addressed. 
 
 "You have seen these drawings, I take
 
 BOND AND FREE. 289 
 
 for granted ? " Wilfred asked Mrs. Lister. 
 
 "Most of them. I am best acquainted 
 with the earlier ones — sketches of foreign 
 scenes which were executed under a foreign 
 master." 
 
 " Mr. Mason has not seen those/' Eleanour 
 interposed, quickly. 
 
 " Do you not agree with me, that to 
 call works of Art — especially sketches — sug- 
 gestive, is to offer them the highest praise ? " 
 
 With a drawing still in his hand, Wilfred 
 addressed his question to Mrs. Lister : feel- 
 ing as if he had been guilty of rudeness in 
 leaving her so long unnoticed, and conscious 
 of something unpleasant in the manner of 
 both the ladies, he was anxious to draw 
 her into conversation. 
 
 **It always seems to me," he continued, 
 " that works of which the whole beauty, 
 meaning, and force are seen, felt, or heard at 
 once, must necessarily be of a low calibre." 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 290 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 " One very soon wearies of such works 
 at all events; as one does of people with- 
 out reticence, who turn their natures inside- 
 out for every stranger's inspection." 
 
 It struck Wilfred that this remark of 
 Mrs. Lister's was directed against Miss Nar- 
 penth. Perhaps Eleanour thought so, too ; 
 for when Mrs. Lister had left the room, 
 she observed, in a tone of annoyance ; — 
 
 ^^ That lady is in a singular humour 
 to-day." 
 
 Assisting to tie the strings of a folio, 
 Wilfred said — more for the sake of giving 
 a fresh turn to Miss Narpenth's thoughts, 
 than from any very earnest desire in the 
 matter — 
 
 ^' If I should be the direct or indirect 
 means of re-awakening in you so great an 
 interest in your art as shall lead you to 
 break an ill-considered vow, I shall be 
 much gratified."
 
 BOND AND FREE. 291 
 
 "That is not likely," Eleanour answered, 
 brusquely. 
 
 As she spoke, she looked at him with 
 something of haughty defiance in her eyes 
 and bearing. At this moment Mr. Nar- 
 penth arrived. 
 
 " Papa will insist on your staying to 
 dinner," Eleanour observed; she already 
 repented of her hasty haughtiness, as she 
 saw Wilfred's face assume a wounded and 
 surprised expression. 
 
 He answered her with a manner that 
 mirrored her passing hauteur. Leaving 
 him in her father's hands, she escaped to 
 the duties of the toilette; confidently ex- 
 pecting to find him in the drawing-room 
 on her return to it, 
 
 Mr. Narpenth was hospitably urgent, 
 but Wilfred did not choose to remain. 
 He passed his evening in abusing his folly 
 for having indulged the sudden pique that 
 
 U2
 
 292 BOND AND FREE. 
 
 prompted him to refuse Mr. Narpenth's 
 invitation ; in speculating whether he 
 had given Miss Narpenth any cause of 
 offence; or whether ill-humour, caused by 
 a personal application of Mrs. Lister's re- 
 mark, was alone answerable for the rapid 
 change from soft, confiding graciousness 
 to an air of proud hostility. He weighed 
 the possible reasons for this change ; till, 
 becoming angry with Eleanour — angry with 
 himself, too, for thinking so much about 
 her — he resolved that he would not go 
 to Thorndon House again until he was 
 particularly requested to do so. He had 
 no intention of submitting submissively to 
 being made the sport of a proud girl's 
 caprices. 
 
 Ten days passed before he saw Miss 
 Narpenth again ; he had never spent 
 five more uneasy, dissatisfied, restless 
 days than were the first five of these. On
 
 BOND AND FREE. 293 
 
 the sixth he set to work: not, however, to 
 execute either of the orders — which, offer- 
 ing golden alhirements, lay temptingly at 
 hand — for that kind of composition which 
 he had abjured. Scenes and incidents of 
 his life abroad — moods of thought that 
 had been on him in various places, at 
 various times of day or night — contrasted 
 and harmonized aspects under which dif- 
 ferent objects had presented themselves to 
 him, had been vividly recalled to his 
 mind by his conversations with Miss Nar- 
 penth ; in spite of his belief that, either, 
 he had never possessed genius, or that 
 it had left him, he set himself to en- 
 deavour to fix these revived impressions 
 in a series of poems. 
 
 Apparently he had no longer any 
 thought of soon leaving Thorndon. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
 E. BORN, PRINTEE, GLOUCESTER STREET, REGENT'S PARK.
 
 UNIVERStTY OF ILLINOIS-UHBANA 
 
 3 0112 084215257