L I E> R.ARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N IVLR5ITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 82.3 
 
 y.l
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/trustfortrust01barr
 
 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 BY A. J. BARROWCLIFFE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF '' AMBERHILL." 
 
 ' For every inch of woman in the world, 
 Ay, every dram of woman's flesh, is false, 
 If she be."— Winter's Tale. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL 
 
 1859.
 
 [^Tke right of translation is reserved,']
 
 
 r"> 
 
 
 ^ 
 \ 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 4 
 
 
 --^ 
 
 
 
 Chap. 
 
 
 I. Hill and Valley 
 
 'v , 
 
 II. Above the Hills . 
 
 
 III. The Abyss 
 
 c^ 
 
 IV. The Cap of Liberty 
 
 , 
 
 V. In the Pass 
 
 V 
 
 VI. Mrs. Eraser's Visit 
 
 
 VII. The Fifth Commandment 
 
 
 VIII. Stepping Stones 
 
 
 IX. The Borough Wall 
 
 - 
 
 X. A Sign of Promise 
 
 
 XL Bows AND Arrows 
 
 Xn. The Borough "Wall Meadow 
 
 "^ 
 
 Xni. Special Pleading 
 
 
 XIV. Anthony at Home . 
 
 ^ 
 
 XV. Privy Conspiracy 
 
 ^ 
 
 XVL Rebellion 
 
 
 XVII. Flight Shooting 
 
 T"^ 
 
 XVIII. Lucy's Roses 
 
 d . 
 
 
 
 
 Pacs 
 
 1 
 11 
 
 21 
 
 35 
 
 46 
 
 61 
 
 86 
 
 96 
 
 115 
 
 138 
 
 148 
 
 154 
 
 181 
 
 195 
 
 209 
 
 227 
 
 243 
 
 262
 
 TEUST FOE TEUST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HILL AND VALLEY. 
 
 A GOOD many years ago a girl, standing in one of 
 the valleys of North Wales, was calling to a flock 
 of sheep on the mountain. She called loudly and 
 .-often. The sound was echoed, and the air rang 
 with it. It was a high, wild, prolonged, and 
 jubilant note, repeated at short intervals with 
 considerable vigor. At a little distance it seemed 
 to issue from the rocks, and to be the effect of 
 their unseen vibration. It filled the valley with 
 an invisible life, warm and musical ; and when it 
 ceased, the ear waited for its return as for a 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 TRUST rOR TRUST. 
 
 natural feature in the scenery. The valley lay 
 among high mountains. It was nearly oval in 
 shape, and perfectly flat ; a level floor of grass, 
 extending some distance lengthwise, but scarcely 
 two hundred yards across, w^alled in by the sur- 
 rounding heights, whose bases sprang abruptly out 
 of it. The mountains on the northern side were 
 not precipitous, but rose in a succession of green 
 mounds and slopes, like the swelling pastures 
 that have given the Alps their name ; but on the 
 south, the rocky ^vall, though green and sloping 
 also to a considerable height, was far steeper 
 everywhere, and ended above in crags and pre- 
 cipices, whose rough gray masses, broken by dark 
 fissures, worn by torrents or shivered into ruin by 
 frost and storm, hung grim and gaunt over the 
 beauty they had guarded and fertilized through 
 their own ages of desolation. 
 
 At both ends of the valley, the mountains 
 approached each other. Westward, they descended 
 on an irregular plain, to which a tolerably wide 
 opening gave easy access, wdiile eastw^ard, the 
 rocky heights grew continually higher, the valley 
 ending there in a steep and dreadful pass several
 
 HILL AND VALLEY. 3 
 
 miles in length, but for the most part, only broad 
 enough for the passage of a mountain torrent, 
 and for a path, little better than a sheep track, 
 by its side. The torrent, foaming down over 
 blocks of stone that would have choked up any 
 lowland river, became in the level valley a broad 
 stream, somewhat rapid, but never noisy, flowing 
 between green banks, over gray and yellow 
 pebbles, black weeds and starry moss. The pas- 
 tura2;e on either bank was divided into small 
 meadows by loose stone fences, low earthen 
 mounds, or scrubby hedges. In the midst there 
 was a small scattered village ; that is to say, there 
 was a very low and towerless stone church, with 
 perhaps thirty cottages, dotted about without the 
 least suggestion of a street, or any regard to 
 anything but the convenience of those who built 
 them. They were all of stone, roughly white- 
 washed, with slated roofs continued almost to 
 the ground behind, so as to cover their little 
 oat-houses. Most of them had small gardens, 
 with a few gooseberry bushes, and there was a 
 sprinkling of trees ; birch, ash, and elm ; of no 
 great size, among them. A tolerable road passed 
 
 JJ 2
 
 4 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 up the valley, at tlie foot of the northern range 
 of mountains; most of the cottages T^rere near it; 
 and the fields on that side of the stream had 
 gates that opened into it, but it was continued 
 onl}^ a little way beyond the village, and dwindled 
 into a narrow track before it reached the pass. 
 
 The girl was standing in one of the meadows 
 on the other side of the stream, with her back 
 to the water and her face raised towards the 
 steep slopes of the southern range. She had 
 been calling for perhaps half an hour, changing 
 her position from time to time, and by degrees 
 throwing back her head more and more, that 
 her voice might strike the mountain higher up 
 after each interval. Her purpose Avas not to 
 draw the sheep into the valley, but to drive them 
 from it. It was spring; the snow had melted, 
 the streams were full. The lower pastures with 
 their boggy soil had become too damp for the 
 mountain flocks, who nevertheless came down 
 to them, and had to be scared away to the drier 
 neighbourhood of the crags. Unpractised eyes 
 would at first see nothing on the mountain slope, 
 except the green of its herbage, the gray colour
 
 HILL AND VALLEY. 5 
 
 of its rocks, the bright lines and patches where 
 moisture trickled over them, and the brown fur- 
 rows that were occasional watercourses when the 
 snow melted suddenly, and after violent storms. 
 But the girl herself saw the flock creeping slowly 
 upwards, nibbling from, side to side, pursued by 
 two shepherd dogs, who, having worked hard 
 all the morning, appeared to have grown tired 
 and sluggish, and to be only kept from lying 
 down comfortably behind the tails of their 
 charges by the repeated ringing of her voice 
 about their ears. 
 
 She was rather tall, and could' not be called 
 slender. She was dressed in the short peasant's 
 dress of the country. Her face was very sweet 
 to look at, though with a mouth perhaps too 
 large, with eyes too small, and a forehead too promi- 
 nent above for the rigid letter of beauty. But 
 the face passed like light even through the 
 sunbeams. Its complexion was neither wdiite 
 nor red, but like one of these seen through an 
 atmosphere of the other. The hair was sunny 
 brown ; the eyes were happy : the lips pouted 
 prettily when they were not smiling, and curved
 
 6 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 into archer lines wlien they were. It was an 
 honest face ; one to ^be loved and trusted ; one 
 likely enough to win its way, withal ; and to have 
 it, being won. 
 
 She had been watched for some little time by 
 five individuals. 
 
 At the door of the cottage nearest to the field 
 she was in, a man and a woman, past middle age, 
 stood together, looking at her. They were both 
 smiling; the man, sadly; the woman, proudly. 
 Sometimes they spoke to one another, though only 
 a few words. 
 
 In the road, with his head resting on his arms, 
 and his arms on the gate opening into the little 
 meadow, a young man, about five-and-twenty, 
 stood, sulky and silent, with a dog at his side. He 
 had the dress of a working man. His round hat 
 was pulled over his eyes ; perhaps to shade them 
 from the cheerful sunshine. What could be seen 
 of his face was dark and dogged : heavy brows ; 
 firm lips; cheeks square and pale. He was directly 
 behind the girl ; the field and the stream between 
 them ; and he also seemed watching her. 
 
 On the bank of the stream, lower down, stood
 
 HILL AND VALLEY. 7 
 
 another young man, of the same age or there- 
 abouts. He wore a handsome blue coat with 
 brass buttons, white breeches, top boots, a gentle- 
 man's hat and cravat, and a watch with a gold 
 seal. 
 
 He was tall ; well made ; florid and handsome ; 
 with blue eyes and brown hair. He also had 
 been looking at the girl as he approached the 
 stream, but at this moment his eyes were on the 
 water, as if he thought of stepping into it, but had 
 not yet made up his mind. 
 
 The last of the five lookers-on sat at a greater 
 distance than the rest, on a craggy knoll on the 
 other side of the road. She was nearly hidden 
 by the projecting rocks, and sat unobserved. 
 She might have been almost a girl, but the 
 beauty of her face, which might even be called 
 splendid, was so marred and wasted by passion, 
 sorrow, or time, that it seemed impossible to 
 guess her age. She wore a hood instead of a 
 bonnet, was dressed in black, and had wrapped 
 herself in a shawl when she sat down. 
 
 The young gentleman who had been looking 
 into the water, seemed to thhik it must be deeper
 
 8 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 than his boots, and being conscious that what- 
 ever he might gain in credit he must lose in 
 appearance, by splashing through, he turned back 
 rather impatiently to some 'rough stepping-stones 
 lower down, and reached the other side without 
 either having displayed his courage or spoilt 
 his clothes. He walked quickly towards the 
 girl, who continued her calling and was uncon- 
 scious that he was coming. He stopped close 
 behind her, paused a moment till the clear ring- 
 ing note had ceased, and then spoke, smiling 
 gallantly. 
 
 She turned round, blushing. Her hand went 
 involuntarily to her hair, which was disordered. 
 It was not a coarse hand, as might have been 
 expected, but small and rather fair. He spoke 
 again, raising his hat, and listened in a respect- 
 ful attitude w^hile she answered him. She looked 
 towards the cottage ; took two or three steps 
 along the bank of the stream ; stopped again as 
 her companion followed, and listened in her turn. 
 He took her by the hand, and they walked to- 
 gether slowly across the fields, passing at length 
 out of sight behind a little rocky mound by the
 
 HILL AND VALLEY. 9 
 
 river. As they did so, the two old people spoke 
 asain to one another, and the wife re-entered the 
 cottage : the yonng man leaning on the gate 
 kicked his dog, and turned towards the village : 
 and the woman among the rocks walked away 
 in the direction of the pass. 
 
 The two who had disappeared behind the 
 hillock were soon seen again on the other side. 
 The girl's hand was still held by her companion, 
 and there was a bracelet on the wrist. He looked 
 in high spirits and talked gaily to her. She 
 seemed to make no answer. The warm tint 
 upon her face was warmer: her head was bent 
 forward; her eyes looked only at the ground; 
 her lips were just parted, trembling a little. 
 They approached the stepping-stones. He handed 
 her over them : her arm shook, and she seemed 
 to need the unaccustomed help. They went to- 
 gether up to the cottage door where the old 
 man was still standing. The young gentleman 
 addressed him immediately in a spirited manner, 
 and with a respectful bow. He replied in a few 
 words ; speaking to the girl herself. She raised 
 her head, stepped quickly forward, and opened
 
 10 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 her arms. The old man clasped her in his own. 
 In a second or two he made her turn towards 
 her companion. She kept hold of her father's 
 hand, bnt she laid her head on her lover's 
 shoulder. 
 
 So that was settled.
 
 11 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 ABOVE THE HILLS. 
 
 The old man's name was John Griffiths. He 
 was born in the valley, but he had not lived 
 there all his days. As soon as he could walk 
 he followed his father's sheep into lonely places, 
 and loved nothing better in his boyhood than 
 to spend a day or a night upon the mountains, 
 watching the flocks, tending the new born lambs, 
 finding out the greenest pastures and the clearest 
 streams, and learning in an unlettered way the 
 beauty and tenderness of nature. He did not 
 see anything terrible in the crags or the roaring 
 torrents: they turned their kind faces towards 
 him, and showed him only their beneficence. 
 He grew up delicate, but active; with a stain- 
 less character and a modest intelligence. His 
 mother was an Englishwoman. At eighteen an 
 English farmer hired him and took him away.
 
 12 TllUST FOE TRUST. 
 
 He soon pined after liis mountains, and would 
 have returned to them, but a new affection 
 coming into his heart became gradually the 
 stroncrer. His master's niece lived at the farm 
 and was kind to him. She was a fine country 
 girl, well-bred, and in his eyes a lady. Her 
 comparative elegance and refinement were a halo 
 of lio;lit to him. He saw round her a vision of 
 fairy-land. She seemed far off at first, and he 
 revered her as one in another world, but as the 
 years passed they appeared to bring her nearer. 
 Her kindness became more timid ; she even 
 blushed sometimes when he spoke to her; and 
 when a lawyer's son came wooing her he was 
 sent disconsolate away. However, if John Grif- 
 fiths began to believe he loved her, he was far 
 too poor to think of marrying her, so he sighed 
 and lived on in the bright presence, very happy 
 in his quiet way, always delicate in health, and 
 thinkins; more and more of the life to come. 
 
 His thoughts often took the form of verses. 
 He became the village poet. His compositions 
 were chiefly hymns. They were often sung at 
 the rustic church when a sermon w^as to be
 
 ABOVE THE HILLS. 13 
 
 preached for some special occasion. One of 
 them began as follows — the verse illustrating 
 the general leaning of his simple mind : — 
 
 " Come, my friend, and go with me 
 To yon place called Calvary ; 
 Where my dear Eedeemer died, 
 Where my Lord was crucified." 
 
 In his way, too, he became a great astronomer 
 — not in the technical sense, to be sure ; but the 
 stars were his familiar friends and he loved them 
 individually. His favourite constellations were 
 the Corona Borealis, which he took to be the 
 pattern of the crowns of Heaven; and the Pleiades, 
 because he thought they were twinkling eyes 
 from which God was wiping away the tears. 
 He had a special fondness, too, for the second 
 bright star in the tail of the Great Bear, with 
 its small companion. It loooked at him, he said, 
 like a ewe sheep with her little one. When he 
 had been ten years in the same place, the farmer's 
 niece being still unmarried, a legacy was left 
 him, amounting to fifty pounds a year. He 
 received the news in silence, but he looked up 
 tearfully to the sky, and then w^ent on with his
 
 14 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 work. That night and the two following, he 
 spent among the fields with the sheep, the bats, 
 and the great firmament over all : he told his 
 happiness to his favourite stars, and his gratitude 
 to the Lord who made them, and an hour before 
 daybreak he went to his bed for a short, dreamy 
 slumber. On the fourth day he offered himself 
 and all he had to his master's niece, and she 
 became his Mary. 
 
 After his marriage he went back to his native 
 valley took one of its small farms and sheep- 
 wall^s, and became a principal inhabitant in the 
 village. He had one child only. She bore 
 her mother's name and was her father's darling. 
 Mrs. Griffiths, from her own acquirements, was 
 able to give her daughter something of an 
 EnMish education: her husband had ejathered 
 many stores of genuine knowledge, and their 
 means raising them above the necessity of much 
 hard labour, Mary grew up a different being 
 to the other maidens of the valley. She knew 
 two languages to begin with ; an uncommon thing 
 in those days among those mountains ; and though 
 proficiency in Welsh is not a fashionable accom-
 
 ABOVE THE HILLS. 15 
 
 plisliment, lier knowledge of English gave her 
 an immense advantage. She was now in her 
 seventeenth year; she could read, write, and 
 sum ; had never seen a piano, but could sing 
 her country's songs and her father's hymns. Her 
 clear round voice was famous in the valley ; and 
 when the sheep had to be scared it was generally 
 Mary's task to do it. The dogs knew her well, 
 and would work for her longer than for their 
 master ; and the sound of her calling would ring 
 up the mountain sides where most other voices be- 
 came inaudible. She led no idle life ; she washed 
 and scrubbed, made hay and milked, cut wood 
 and carried water when required; but the 
 Griffiths Avere well enough oif to keep a strap- 
 ping lass for most of the dirty work, and the 
 weather-beaten father, proud of his child's fair 
 skin and pretty fingers, was better pleased to see 
 her at her needle or with a book in her hands, 
 or to have her with him on the mountains, listening 
 to his simple thoughts or telling him her own. 
 
 Mrs. Griffiths had become a stout, comely 
 person, much shrewder and more worldly than 
 her husband ; very fond of him, and very praise-
 
 16 TRUST EOR TRUST. 
 
 ■worthy in all lier deeds. One object of her life 
 was the quiet assertion of her own good-breed- 
 ing ; another was the reproduction of it in her 
 daughter's manners. She succeeded well in both : 
 for as to the first, there was no one else in the 
 valley who could hold a candle to her ; and as 
 to the second, Mary had her father's natural 
 refinement, and, being a woman, any grace or 
 propriety once suggested to her was taken in- 
 stinctively and became a part of her nature. 
 
 Among other things, boys flourished in the 
 valley, as usual. According to custom they 
 developed also into youths, and finally into lovers. 
 Six of them scratched their heads in Mary's 
 presence in the course of a year, and desired 
 to keep company with her. They got gentle 
 but summary answers. Their mothers gossipped 
 together on the heinous character of pride ; and 
 the other girls of the village wished to know 
 what there w^as in Mary Griffiths. She was looked 
 upon as sour grapes for half a year, and then a 
 seventh arm was raised to pluck her. Mr. Owen 
 Williams, aged four and twenty, born at Milford 
 Haven, endowed with a knowledge of English, a
 
 ABOVE THE HILLS. 17 
 
 clever head and a most resolute will, a petty 
 overlooker in the neighbouring slate quarries, 
 and, moreover, the son of a tradesman who might 
 leave him five hundred pounds when he died, took 
 courage one January morning and told Mary he 
 wished to marry her. When she told him she 
 was much obliged to him, but she couldn't think 
 of it, he grew dark and stern, spoke harshly and 
 fiercely, and left her at last quite frightened by the 
 assurance that he had made up his mind to have 
 her, and have her he would. Now Mary, in spite 
 of her gentleness, had on some occasions as strong 
 a will of her own as may become a woman, and 
 had he waited till her momentary fright was over, 
 she would have told him plainly that if he indeed 
 would have her it must be in another world, for 
 she would rather die ten times than marry him in 
 this. Though he did not hear this, however, he 
 understood perfectly well that his rejection was 
 point blank and definite, and he lapsed into a 
 sullen state of daily reflection as to the means 
 whereby she might be won. My story begins in 
 the spring that followed this January of rejection, 
 and Mr. Owen Williams was the gentleman who 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 18 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 felt it necessary to kick his dog wlien he saw 
 Mr. Anthony Forrest,[the successful lover^ go with 
 Mary across the field. 
 
 Mr, Forrest's present visit to the mountain 
 village was by no means his first. He went 
 there two years before on a fishing excursion ; 
 in ill health, irritable and unhappy. He was 
 accommodated with lodgings in John Grifiiths' 
 cottage, and he went home to England in the 
 course of two or three weeks, pretty well, and 
 quite cheerful. The next year he came again; 
 first in the spring, and then in the autumn. 
 He always found it convenient to lodge at the 
 shepherd's cottage, and to be on good terms 
 with the shepherd's daughter, and on the last 
 occasion, her parents began to look grave, and 
 to express to one another their doubts as to his 
 intentions. When he had gone, Mrs. Griffiths 
 took an opportunity of speaking to Mary on the 
 subject, and the girl blushed a little, but said 
 with her pouting lips — that it was all nonsense. 
 AVhat was Mr. Forrest to her? She never ex- 
 pected to see him again. A very pretty little lie, 
 but Mary thought it must be true, or she would
 
 ABOVE THE HILLS. 19 
 
 not have said it. Happily for her peace, and 
 for human honor, and for sweet Nature's heart- 
 strings, Mr. Forrest's purposes were straight- 
 forward and unexceptionable, at least as soon as 
 he knew them himself. When the snow melted 
 he returned; and after another week at their 
 cottage, he was in love with Mary, !^and acknow- 
 ledo-ed it to himself. A second visit within a 
 month made him resolve to marry her. He 
 came a third time, after a shorter interval; 
 arrived in the evening, entertained the farmer 
 and his wife till midnight with the interest of 
 his conversation and the flow of his spirits ; saw 
 Mary's pretty confusion when he spoke to her; 
 her blushes when she bade him good-night, and 
 her timid glance behind her at the foot of the 
 stairs ; went radiant to bed, and in the morning, 
 when Mary was in the fields, explained his wishes 
 to her parents. He made a frank exposition of 
 his means, which were splendid enough in their 
 eyes; told them candidly that he was twenty- 
 five years old, and a partner in his father's bank ; 
 assured them that though his parents knew 
 notliing of his attachment, he would answer for, 
 
 C 2
 
 20 TRUST FOE TRUST. 
 
 and presently obtain their approval of it, and 
 in regard to their daughters tender age, he 
 remarked that his own mother was married on 
 her seventeenth birthday, had had several chil- 
 dren, and still remained a handsome woman. 
 Against such fair proposals, made by one whose 
 honorable character they already knew, no 
 objection could be raised. He went at once 
 from them, across the stepping-stones, and came 
 back with Mary.
 
 21 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE ABYSS. 
 
 To Mary's simple vision the engagement between 
 herself and Anthony seemed a matter whose 
 interest extended no further than the village 
 where she lived, and the home to which she 
 might be taken. She knew nothing of life's 
 complicated machinery, and never dreamt that 
 the little wheel of fortune, turning now so 
 pleasantly before her eyes, was one only of a 
 long series, was itself moved forward by the 
 backward motion of another, and in its turn 
 was setting other cogs agoing, with what possible 
 result only the Maker of the machine could say 
 beforehand. 
 
 A storm had broken on the south coast of 
 England about a fortnight before the day of 
 Anthony's proposal, and a fisherman's boat went 
 down in the wild surf within half a mile of
 
 22 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 the shore. It was a rising tide, and the wind 
 blew from the sea, and in a short time one of 
 the drowned men was thrown upon the beach 
 opposite a grand hotel. A wife was standing 
 by the surf when the boat went down ; but 
 when the dead body floated to her feet, a widow 
 took it in her arms. There was a crowd round 
 her; it closed, increased, grew^ quiet; moved 
 again, opened; and the corpse was carried by 
 three rough sailors, tenderly along the grand 
 parade, for this was a fashionable watering- 
 place. The widow followed close. None could 
 see her face, for it was covered, but her grief 
 was seen ; and the windows of the grand parade 
 w^ere filled with spectators till the sad sea tragedy 
 passed out of sight. 
 
 One of those spectators was in the best 
 drawing-room of the great hotel. It was a 
 crimson room, with heavy crimson curtains 
 and a crimson carpet ; long mirrors on the walls, 
 and a chandelier of glass over the table. On 
 the table were two decanters, some wine glasses, 
 unused, and a tumbler which had been used 
 and was half empty. Between the table and
 
 THE ABYSS. ! 23 
 
 the fire. In a heavy easy-chair covered with 
 crimson and gold damask, sat a short, thin 
 man, with a red forehead and unquiet eyes. 
 He was little more than thirty years old ; but 
 the thin lips and selfish chin, the sunken cheeks 
 and irritable nose ; the weak hair, already turn- 
 ing gray, and the smile, half cunning and half 
 weariness, into which the unhealthy features 
 were habitually drawn, showed that a lifetime 
 of dissipation had been pressed into those thirty 
 years. He had a sporting newspaper in his hand, 
 was drinking wine at intervals out of the tumbler, 
 and biting between the draughts the ends of his- 
 cadaverous and tremulous fingers. 
 
 At one of the windows his wife stood looking 
 out upon the sea. She was tall and very hand- 
 some, but her beauty was in the wildest ruins. 
 It w^as not dissipation, but passion that had wasted 
 it ; nor was the ruin after all a grand one, for 
 her face expressed strong feeling but little intel- 
 lect, and was altogether that of a w^oman who, 
 having rushed into a foolish error, has aggravated 
 the evil of its consequences by a foolish rage, 
 rather than of one wdiose bloom has perished in
 
 24 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 the struggle with inevitable sorrow. She was 
 ten years younger even than her husband : her 
 hair was black, and worn in long curls over 
 her shoulders ; a fierce, bright colour was on 
 her cheeks, and her forehead, pure white, but 
 neither broad nor high, was crowned by an 
 impatient wrinkle. She had stood for half an 
 hour without stirring, leaning against the crim- 
 son curtains, with her hands joined together on 
 her black velvet dress, moving the rings, one 
 by one, slowly up and down her fingers, without 
 looking at them. She had been w^atching the 
 tragedy on the shore; had seen the dead fisher- 
 man thrown at his widow's feet"; had observed the 
 signs of momentary hope, and of the grief that 
 followed; and had unconsciously been arraign- 
 ing Providence, not in pity but in selfishness. 
 Her thoughts took no definite form in her own 
 mind, but if they had done so it would have 
 been pretty nearly as follows : " That woman 
 loved her husband, and she has lost him. I 
 detest mine, and he is safe in his chair. She 
 has children, no doubt, who will grow up orphans 
 and be very poor. I have no children ; and if I
 
 THE ABYSS. 25 
 
 had, the sooner their father died the better for 
 them. She must be half ruined by this loss ; 
 her husband was her chief estate ; she can have 
 nothing left but the pitiful rent-rollof her woman's 
 labour. It will cost her a month's earnings to 
 bury him, and she will measure out the crape 
 hy inches because of her children's bread. I 
 should be a richer widow than I am a wife ; 
 there might be plumes enough, and crape enough, 
 and a marble monument over the family grave. 
 I should give new caps to all the widows in the 
 parish instead of wearing one myself, and the 
 money spent upon the funeral would make the 
 undertaker a happy man. If somebody must be 
 drowned, why should it have been this poor 
 fisherman? Suppose my husband had been in 
 the boat; he might have been. He went out 
 fishing yesterday, when the sea was quiet, and 
 liad very nearly gone again this morning before 
 it began to blow. I believe he would have gone 
 if I had opposed it. What possessed me that 
 I was so good-natured? He never deserves to 
 have his schemes approved ; and I ought to know 
 by this time that when I agree to anything he
 
 26 TRUST FOrw TRUST. 
 
 is sure to cliange his plan. He talked about 
 it at breakfast ; said the doctor recommended 
 fishing, and it did him good. I wanted to get 
 rid of him, and he knows that, I am snre. How 
 stupid to let him see it ! The boats were lying 
 ready, and this was one of them. He actually 
 went half down the beach before he turned 
 l)ack. If I had only beckoned to him when 
 he turned, he would have gone on board, I 
 know : but he saw me looking vexed and so, of 
 course, he came back again. Cannot we have it 
 over again, that I may beckon to him ? He has 
 been drinking all day, and a pretty night we 
 shall have ; and the fisherman will be lying dead, 
 and his wife a free woman again." 
 
 " Kitty," said the gentleman in the easy chau', 
 after a long draught from the tumbler, ''you 
 may pack up your traps, for I shan't stay here 
 another day. I 'm as strong as a horse, and I '11 
 go down to Cambridge to-morrow, and ride the 
 mare's tail ofi", by jingo." 
 
 '* Do as you please. I don't believe there has 
 ever been anything the matter with you, or ever 
 will be."
 
 THE ABYSS. 27 
 
 " Don't you though, by Jove ! I should like 
 to change nerves with you, Mrs. Fraser. I 
 shduld like to lend you the back of my head, 
 Mrs. Fraser." 
 
 " Very well : be as ill as you can — the worse 
 the better." 
 
 " Oh, that 's it, is it ? Don't be in a hurry, 
 Kitty. It 's not a killing complaint. I shall 
 live till you're old and ugly, anyhow. There 
 never was a Fraser that didn't bury his own 
 wife. My father lived seven years dead drunk, 
 and died on the wrong side of seventy, and he 
 never would have died at all if the doctor, God 
 ])less him, hadn't stopped his grog." 
 
 " Mr. Fraser, you grow more disgusting every 
 day. I shall not stay with you ; I shall leave 
 you to imitate your father." 
 
 " Go and do it, Kitty ; but, by Jove, you shall 
 live on five shillings a week, or you shall live 
 with me. You 're a fine girl still, when you 're 
 (][uiet, or I wouldn't have anything to say to you." 
 
 ^^I shall petition for a separation, sir, and a 
 suitable allowance." 
 
 "Go and do it, then. I tell you, there are
 
 28 TKUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 girls I like every bit as well as yourself, and a 
 wife 's rather in the way sometimes." 
 
 "Mr. Fraser! Do you think I shall submit* to 
 hear such language ? If you cannot be decent, I 
 shall ring the bell, and have witnesses to prove 
 what you are saying." 
 
 He had stretched himself out in his chair, and 
 was chuckling inwardly. He made no imme- 
 diate reply ; and his wife, turning her back upon 
 him, stood shaking with rage and indignation 
 by the crimson curtain. The room was hot and 
 close, for its windows had been padded to keep 
 out the storm ; a large fire was burning, and 
 a heavy atmosphere in a crimson room neither 
 inspires nor mollifies. She felt herself helpless 
 against him. She had married him under cir- 
 cumstances which put her entirely in his power; 
 there was no considerable insult among those 
 available for domestic purposes which she had 
 not received already from her husband, but when 
 she hastily resented them with threats, like those 
 she had just made use of, it was only to feel 
 directly afterwards, how vain her fury was, and 
 how impossible it was for her to do anything
 
 THE ABYSS. 29 
 
 but clench lier teeth, as she did now, and let 
 her breast heave, as it was heaving, under the 
 black veh^et bodice and the rino-lets round it. 
 When he spoke again, which was after a pause 
 of two or three minutes, she did not turn to 
 him or notice the change in his voice. 
 
 ^^ Mrs. Eraser, get me the brandy." 
 
 " Get it yourself." 
 
 " Mrs. Fraser, I say ; get me the brandy — I 'ni 
 ill" 
 
 " You are drunk, sir." 
 
 "Am I, though? By Jove! I wish I was. Oh, 
 Lord!" 
 
 He got up staggering, and tried to reach the 
 sideboard, but fell giddily upon a sofa on the 
 way. His wife, turning her head to look at 
 him, saw that his face was drawn up, and very 
 pale, and that he was gasping for breath. It 
 was sudden illness, perhaps sudden death; but 
 the first effect upon her being that of terror, 
 she rang violently for help, and carried the 
 brandy bottle to him with all the speed imagi- 
 nable. It revived him a little, but he could 
 hardly speak intelligibly, and then only of pain.
 
 30 TKUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 His wife gave the necessaiy orders ; lie was put 
 to bed, and the doctor came. While the medical 
 examination was being made, Mrs. Fraser left 
 the bedroom, re-entered the parlour, sat down 
 upon the sofa, and waited the result. 
 
 The first fright was over ; she had begun to 
 be conscious that a sudden change in her whole 
 destiny might be close at hand; that the fixed, 
 inevitable future, as it seemed an hour before, 
 might be nothing but a phantom terror, not 
 unreal only, but impossible ; that the storm of 
 that tempestuous day might not have been only 
 on the sea, nor the fisherman the only victim; that 
 another boat, on other waters, might be foun- 
 dering in another gale, and the life sucked down 
 wdth it, her husband's. The doctor entered with 
 his verdict before even these thoughts had had 
 time to overcome the instinctive dread of death, 
 and she shivered when he came with a grave 
 countenance into the room. He told her shortl}- 
 that the ailments for which her husband had 
 come to the sea-side had been to a great extent 
 removed, but that his persistent life of debauchery 
 liad developed a hidden and inward malady
 
 THE ABYSS. 31 
 
 whose manifestation had been sudden, and would 
 be fatal. Six months perhaps he might survive ; 
 longer than that was out of the question. He 
 would rally from that day's attack, but only 
 to have it renewed from time to time, till he died 
 in the final spasm. 
 
 Mrs. Fraser sat up all night in her husband's 
 room ; a woman's natural pity, a certain sense 
 of awe, and a strangely new feeling with regard to 
 him, more like gratitude for something he had 
 promised to do than anything else, led her to 
 this vigil, and made her nurse him patiently 
 through the first painful hours. The task, how- 
 ever, became more difficult as he revived: and 
 when it was decided that he should be taken home 
 to his mansion in the north of England, Mrs. 
 Fraser managed to get a temporary respite from 
 his violence, as well as a foretaste of her coming- 
 freedom, by going herself some days before him 
 on pretence of necessary preparations. 
 
 She left him at daybreak, for the journey was 
 long, chuckling over his last insult. He had 
 been desiring her to carry a message to one of his 
 mistresses, and she stepped into her carriage with
 
 32 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 a disposition to drive at once to the ends of the 
 earth and be rid of him for ever. Rapid motion 
 and the moving landscape, the qniet of grazing 
 cattle, flowery meadows, and unruffled pools ; the 
 cheerful blossoming of orchards, and nature's 
 general content on a sunny spring morning, are 
 influences not easily resisted by one who rides 
 alone, and in an hour or two Mrs. Eraser's 
 thoughts had turned to more agreeable objects 
 than the recollection of the parting scene. She 
 began to feel the liberty that was approaching; 
 to fancy the interval past, the funeral over, 
 and herself travelling in her own carriage by her 
 own road, without a husband at either end. , He 
 was so entirely lost ; so worthless, shameless, and 
 bad, that a much better woman might have felt 
 almost as Mrs. Fraser felt with the prospect of 
 his speedy death before her. As to the unspeak- 
 able relief of losing him, there could be no doubt 
 about it. His presence in any household was a 
 nuisance inconceivable, and could never be other- 
 wise. But Mrs. Fraser. had not learnt the cus- 
 tody of the thoughts before her marriage, and 
 had had no particular inducement to do so after
 
 THE ABYSS. 33 
 
 it: and, as she rode along, her visions did not 
 rest in the simple realization of relief from her 
 present burden. In the background of her 
 memory there was an earlier life, with better hopes 
 and promises. It seemed a paradise of happiness, 
 seen across the intervening gulf. Once ■ it was 
 despised and thrown away. Now, the whole thirst 
 and question of her soul seemed to be — if only it 
 might come back again. Why should it not 
 come back again? She had only been two 
 years married; and the gate by which she had 
 entered her early garden of delight was still open, 
 as far as she knew. To know more certainly was 
 the next irresistible desire. She was chanoine: 
 horses at a town where the North road divided 
 into two branches, and she said to her footman 
 through the window. 
 
 " Take the route through Porchester," 
 At the first mention of that thriving and well- 
 known midland town, the cautious reader may 
 as well arm himself at once against the confusing 
 influence of a corrupt orthography. An old castle 
 in the south, built by Gurguntus, son of Beline, in 
 the year 375 B.C. — or, if not so, then otherwise — 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 still looks over the guarded waters of Portsmouth 
 harbor and gives its name to a petty village, 
 which, from being the Portus Magnus and the 
 Caer Peris of other tongues, has become the 
 PoETCHESTER of our own. Now modern spelling, 
 by dropping the all-important fourth letter in 
 this name, hath done much to confound this 
 miserable Hampshire suburb with the grand 
 old historic Borough of our story. The spelling, 
 hovrever, as everybody knows, is incorrect; the 
 object at once obvious and detestable : the fame 
 of the true and only Porchester needs but to 
 be hinted at to remove all risk of mixing up its 
 affairs with those of a dilapidated fortress, a 
 shabby street, and a parish unable even to boast 
 the existence of anything like a creditable mystery 
 in regard to the origin of its name. 
 
 "Take the route through Porchester," said 
 Mrs. Eraser. It was not much to say: but, on the 
 whole, it made a considerable difference.
 
 35 
 
 CHAPTER ly. 
 
 THE CAP OF LIBERTY. 
 
 Late in the day Mrs. Fraser's chariot crossed 
 the bridge, mounted the steep ascent, turned the 
 dangerous corner of the High Street, rattled 
 across the market-place, and stopped at the chief 
 hotel in the old borough town of Porchester. 
 Mrs. Eraser had never been there before, and the 
 town was picturesque enough to interest a stran- 
 ger ; but it was with even more than a stranger's 
 interest that she looked for the first view of 
 its tall chimneys and examined, as she drove 
 on, the high brick houses, the narrow streets, 
 and the people who passed along them. She 
 had especially noticed a massive ruin on the 
 outskirts of the town, almost overhanging the 
 river which ran below ; and before the carriage 
 stopped she had observed that in the market- 
 
 D 2
 
 36 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 placGj opposite to the hotel, there was a brick 
 house with the word "Bank," in large raised 
 letters on its front, and the name of "Forrest 
 and Son" on a wire-blind in one of the lower 
 Avindows. 
 
 Mrs. Fraser engaged a front room for the night; 
 and having ordered dinner, she wrote a short 
 message on paper, which she sent her own foot- 
 man to deliver. It was addressed to a i\[r. 
 Fowkes, the landlord of a little inn \\ith a curious 
 sign just outside the town. Mr. Fowkes had 
 been butler to Mrs. Fraser's father, who lived 
 in Sussex. He left his place on the occasion of 
 his marriage and settled soon afterwards at Por- 
 chester ; but being somewhat disappointed in his 
 business expectations, and finding that the office 
 of his cash-box was likely to become a sinecure, 
 he had solicited and received assistance from his 
 former master against one or two remorseless 
 quarter-days. This happened during Mrs. Fraser's 
 maidenhood. She had become familiar with Mr. 
 Fowkes' address and the general aspect of his 
 circumstances, and on the present occasion she 
 congratulated herself on having such an instru-
 
 THE CAP OF LIBERTY. 37 
 
 ment at hand in Porchester. The only question 
 was whether the quarter-days or Mr. Fowkes 
 had got the mastery in the meantime, for during 
 the two years of her married life she had heard 
 nothing about him. Waiting for her servant's 
 return from the search after him, she sat at the 
 hotel window, looking across the market-place 
 with its stalls and booths, its country carts and 
 country faces, and the large word "Bank" on 
 the opposite side. It was a very different scene 
 from that before the window where she sat when 
 the fisherman was drowned, and Mrs. Eraser's 
 feelings had changed also to a very considerable 
 extent. No sea was here with its wild tumult 
 of unrest, no shore of fragments, no horizon of 
 cold gray, hanging between wind and water. 
 The people below her were neither sickly 
 invalids nor sauntering idlers ; the hotel was 
 not half so grand, but was ten times more 
 cheerful. 
 
 There were white curtains to the windows; 
 they were white, notwithstanding the opposition of 
 the factory chimneys. The walls and furniture 
 had a predominant shade of light green; there
 
 38 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 Avas an easy chair between the table and the fire, 
 but nobody sat in it ; and when the door opened, 
 a waiting maid with cherry red hps and ribbons 
 came in to lay the cloth. The place seemed 
 either to create or to correspond with a cheerful 
 humor in Mrs. Eraser's mind. The desperate 
 desire for liberty had given place to a feeling of 
 its enjoyment; and if her eyes still flashed and 
 her pulse beat impatiently it was with the excite- 
 ment of hope instead of anger. 
 
 "This is market-day, I suppose," she said to 
 the waitress. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am." 
 
 *' Does it make you very busy ? " 
 
 " Yes, ma'am." 
 
 " And the bankers too, I should think ? " 
 
 " Yes, ma'am." 
 
 " Is that the only bank m the town ? " 
 
 " I don't know, ma'am ; I '11 ask the master." 
 
 " Don't trouble yourself. Have you lived here 
 long?" 
 
 " Only three months, ma'am." 
 
 " Do you know who lives at the bank ? " 
 
 "Old Mr. Forrest, ma'am."
 
 THE CAP OF LIBERTY. 39 
 
 " Is there a young Mr. Forrest ? " 
 
 " Yes, ma'am ; there's a young gentleman, but 
 he's not often at home. I 've heard he goes court- 
 ing somewhere." 
 
 Mrs. Forrest turned quickly to the window. 
 It was past sunset, but the large gilt letters of the 
 word " Bank" still looked brio-ht in the twilight. 
 
 " The young gentleman is not married, then ? " 
 
 " Not that I have heard of, ma'am." 
 
 Mrs. Fraser did not follow up her inquiries any 
 further; she sat watching the fading lustre of tlie 
 large gilt letters till her dinner was ready, and 
 then she ate her meal heartily, and in silence ; 
 when the cloth was cleared away, and the candles 
 lighted, her servant returned from his errand. 
 He had been successful in his search after Mr. 
 Fowkes, had brought that gentleman with him, 
 and was immediately desired to leave him with 
 his mistress. 
 
 Mr. Fowkes entered the room composedly. He 
 was a tall stout Englishman, with a large face, 
 round, red, and grave. Something negligent 
 about his handkerchief, and something ragged 
 about the edges of his linen, suggested various
 
 40 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 doubts regarding his married bliss, and bis lips 
 joined themselves together like those of a man 
 who has tasted other ingredients of life besides 
 its honey. But he was rather a fine fellow, of the 
 heavy kind ; a man who would look twice before 
 he leaped, and perhaps see very little for all 
 his looking, but who could leap decidedly when 
 he was determined. Mrs. Eraser's message had 
 been only that a lady wished to see him; and 
 when the door was closed upon them, Mr. Fowkes 
 stood looking at her with a puzzled air, half 
 wonder and half recognition. She sat in the 
 easy chair between the table and the fire ; very 
 handsome, for her face was flushed with interest 
 and impatience, and an uneasy look of trouble in 
 her eyes only made them brighter. 
 
 '^ You forget me, Richard." 
 
 *^Well, Miss Catherine, I should say it was 
 you." 
 
 " I was Miss Catherine when you left us, 
 Richard. I am altered a good deal since 
 then." 
 
 Mr. Fowkes was looking at her jewelled fingers, 
 for they sparkled in the candlelight. There
 
 THE CAP OF LIBERTY. 41 
 
 were brilliant stones on every finger of her left 
 hand, except one, and that had only the wedding 
 ring. She wore no guard to it ; it was not a thing 
 to guard; but the symbol of her wife's estate 
 was the more conspicuous in consequence. 
 
 '- 1 should say you was married, ma'am." 
 
 " I am married. You have ffone throucrh the 
 same ceremony, Richard." 
 
 Mr. Fowkes cleared his throat, and admitted 
 the circumstance. 
 
 *• Being married, Richard, I have a right to 
 take an interest in those who are not." 
 
 ^^ In those who are not," repeated Mr. Fowkes, 
 and he sighed. 
 
 " Of course you hear all the gossip of the 
 town, and know all the principal people by 
 this time. You have been here two or three 
 years." 
 
 " Three years next quarter, maVm ; and I 
 should say I do." 
 
 " I want to learn, Richard, privately, whether 
 young Mr. Forrest, the banker's son, is likely 
 to follow our example." She could not prevent 
 herself, it seemed, from speaking in a hesitating
 
 42 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 voice ; and, as if the fact annoyed her, she adde d, 
 with a defiant look at Mr. Fowkes, "I know 
 the gentleman by sight, and have a particular 
 reason for my inquiries. You are aware, perhaps, 
 that I have seen him at my father's." 
 
 " Never heard of it," said Mr. Fowkes. " He 
 never come there in my day." 
 
 Mrs. Fraser seemed to hear this with satisfac- 
 tion. 
 
 " It was after your time, Richard," she said ; 
 " and I have not seen him myself for two years. 
 Tell me what you know about him." 
 
 " Well, Miss Catherine, he 's the right sort of 
 man to get married. He '11 keep his missis in 
 her place, or the house won't hold him. He '11 
 be a born tyrant one of these days. It 's a pity 
 but Mrs. Fowkes had had him." 
 
 " Is anyone likely to have him ? I heard 
 jast now that he was paying his addresses some- 
 where." 
 
 "There's been a talk about it," Mr. Fowkes 
 replied, " and I should say it 's likely. He goes 
 down to Wales, and they say he 's after a girl 
 there ; but who it is nobody knows: what I hear's
 
 THE CAP OF LIBERTY. 43 
 
 what the servants say. The old gentleman knows 
 nothing about it, nor the missis either. He 's 
 not been so well, you see, and they think it 's 
 his health he goes for." 
 
 " When did he go last ? Is he at home now ?" 
 
 " Can't exactly say. Haven't seen him this 
 week." 
 
 " Is there any way in which you could inquire 
 Avithout speaking of me ? " 
 
 " Well, I could step over to the back door, 
 and get it out of the housemaid." 
 
 " Pray do, Richard, as soon as possible ; it 
 shall be worth your while. You know I never 
 gave you trouble for nothing." 
 
 Mr. Fowkes smiled at the comfortable hint, and 
 went on his errand without more ado. As soon 
 as he was gone Mrs. Fraser threw herself on the 
 sofa, covered her forehead with her hand and 
 began to cry. 
 
 " To be too late at last ! I might as well have 
 been born a slave, for liberty is useless. I might 
 as well have had no will of my own, for it only 
 cheats me. I never have a hope that is not 
 frustrated ; a pleasure that is not embittered ; a
 
 44 TRUST POR TRUST. 
 
 scheme that does not turn out a failure. I might 
 as well drown myself at once." 
 
 She did her best to do it with her tears, but 
 the storm having subsided her feelings took a 
 different turn. 
 
 "I cannot make things worse. No: nothino- 
 can be worse, whatever I do. Then let me fix 
 my mind on it, and resolve to have it so, and 
 see what cannot be done by a desperate woman. 
 1 will I If I fail again, it 's only what I 'm used 
 to. Knot " 
 
 She had no time to draw the other side of 
 the picture, for Mr. Fowkes re-entered the room. 
 His inquiries at the back door of the Bank 
 had been secret and successful. Mr. Anthony 
 Forrest had left for Wales by coach that after- 
 noon, and Mr. Fowkes had even got the name 
 of the village he was going to. The coach 
 would take him as far as Chester. He had a 
 horse at Chester, which would carry him the 
 remainder of the way. Mrs. Fraser listened, and 
 inquired whether there was any other coach to 
 Chester. There was the mail that night in 
 about an hour. Mrs. Fraser sat still for about
 
 THE CAP OF LIBERTY. 45 
 
 two minutes, and then informed Mr. Fowkes 
 that she should go to Chester by the mail ; tliat 
 she desired what had past between them to be 
 kept secret for ever, and that she begged his 
 acceptance of a bank note for ten pounds. Mr. 
 Fowkes departed ; his impression of Mrs. Fraser's 
 behaviour was, that it was queer ; but the queerest 
 thing of all being the existence of a ten pound 
 note in his pocket, without any immediate claim 
 upon its appropriation, he allowed his mind to rest 
 on this singular phenomenon, and to draw two 
 inferences : — -The first was that Mrs. Fraser was 
 a lady : the second, that a lady might do as 
 she pleased. 
 
 Mrs. Fraser rang the bell for her servant; 
 desired him to take the carriage on to his master's 
 seat next day; and informed him tliat, having 
 business in Chester, she should proceed there 
 herself that night, and should reach her home 
 in a day or two; soon enough at all events to 
 make preparations for her husband's return. In 
 another hour the mail coach rolled over the 
 still busy market-place, and Mrs. Fraser took 
 her place inside.
 
 46 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 IN THE PASS. 
 
 The mail reached Chester at breakfast time, and 
 stopped at one of the hotels, almost under the 
 wall of the ancient city. Mrs. Fraser had slept 
 and dreamed ; her dreams were of bygone days 
 and childhood, and she woke in a sweeter mood, 
 turning rapidly to bitterness however, as the 
 wheels upon the stones recalled her memory 
 and dispelled her visions. She eat some break- 
 fast, inquired where the day coach from Por- 
 chester stopped, found it was at another inn 
 in a different street, and went out for the purpose 
 of shopping. Her purchases were a large dark 
 shawl and a hood. She put them on at the 
 shop where she bought them; examined herself 
 in a looking glass, and, finding herself sufficiently 
 disguised, took the way towards the second inn.
 
 IN THE TASS. 47 
 
 The way was down one of those smgular " Rows" 
 for which Chester is famous : a half open gallery, 
 the whole length of the street, raised a few feet 
 above the pavement, with the shop windows and 
 doors opening out of it, the overhanging upper 
 floors for its roof, and stalls with intervals 
 between on the street side. Mrs. Fraser's pur- 
 pose was to follow Anthony to the Welsh village, 
 and see with her own eves what he was doinoj 
 there, after first ascertaining whether he had 
 already gone; and she was hastening down the 
 row for this purpose, when she met the young 
 banker himself, face to face, at the door of a 
 ieweller's shop. He had been looking in at the 
 window, and had turned suddenly as she came 
 up to him. He turned again almost at the same 
 moment to enter the shop, and did not recognise 
 her. Mrs. Eraser stopped, hesitating, and with 
 a cry of surprise scarcely stifled. The unexpected 
 meeting seemed to have taken away her breath. 
 She caught hold of one of the wooden supports 
 on the street side of the row, and stood watching 
 him, as, well dressed and with a whip in his hand, 
 he walked up to the counter. The shopman
 
 48 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 brought out various trinkets, most of which 
 Anthony pushed away in a very summary man- 
 ner. A box of rings seemed to please him 
 better. Mrs. Fraser looked eagerly, and saw that 
 they were not wedding rings. He tried some 
 of them on his little finger, but there appeared 
 to be some doubt as to the size he wanted, and 
 they also were put aside. Finally, he chose a 
 bracelet. Mrs. Frazer saw him pay several 
 pounds for it, and leave the shop with his pur- 
 chase in the left-hand pocket of his waistcoat. 
 She let him pass her a few steps, and then 
 followed him. He went at once to his inn. His 
 horse was waiting for him at the door. She 
 saw him mount into the saddle, shake the reins, 
 and gallop off on the AYelsh road. 
 
 " This is courtship without doubt," thought 
 Mrs. Fraser, under her close-drawn hood. "But," 
 and there seemed to be some strange satisfaction 
 in this idea, " he has not been buying a wedding- 
 ring." She hastened back to the hotel, ordered 
 a carriage and post horses, and was soon follow- 
 ing on Anthony's heels. It did not suit her 
 purposes of observation to enter the momitain
 
 IN THE PASS. 49 
 
 village with the noise and splendor of carriage 
 wheels and a postilion, and she stopped therefore 
 at the nearest posting inn, several miles from the 
 valley where John Griffiths fed his sheep. The 
 road was longer than she had expected. She had 
 supposed that Anthony would have to bait his 
 horse by the way, and that she should overtake 
 him, but he went by bridle-paths across the 
 country, and she saw no more of him. It was 
 dark when her carriage stopped. She must wait 
 till morning. 
 
 Very early in the morning she left the post 
 hm alone and on foot ; a two hours' walk brought 
 her to the village, and there before the stable 
 door of a little public house, Anthony's horse was 
 being curried. Mrs. Fraser had no difficulty 
 in learnino; all that was to be known from the 
 stable-boy. The gentleman had been there 
 several times. He arrived yesterday afternoon. 
 He slept at John Griffiths'. He was not up 
 yet ; at least, he had not come out of the house. 
 He was going away that same afternoon, and 
 his road would lie up the pass. John Griffiths 
 had a daughter. She was out already, scaring 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 the sheep. She was a good girl, only very 
 proud. 
 
 Mrs. Fraser got some breakfast at the public- 
 house, and learned a few more details concerning 
 Mary's parentage and character. Her father's 
 cottage and the field where she herself was calling 
 to the sheep were pointed out, and Mrs. Fraser, 
 having arranged her plan, ^^'alked on through 
 the village. As she passed the farmer's cottage 
 she saw Anthony sitting alone at table, through 
 the low lattice window. A clever woman bent 
 on interrupting his intercourse with Mary, what- 
 ever its nature might be, would not have let slip 
 this opportunity of speaking to him while Mary 
 was away. But Mrs. Fraser, though danng, 
 was not clever. She felt as if some solitary place 
 was necessary for their interview ; she had settled 
 in her own mind how it might be managed ; and 
 leaving him to finish his breakfast undisturbed, 
 she walked on through the village. It was easy 
 to identify Mary as she stood calling beyond 
 the brook where we first found her. Mrs. Fraser 
 looked at her across the field with a mixture of 
 contempt and anger in her countenance, and choos-
 
 IN THE PASS. 51 
 
 ing a spot from which she could see at once botli 
 the cottage and the girl, she sat down to observe 
 what followed; what she saw has been already told. 
 
 Anthony Forrest left the village the same 
 evening, an hour before sunset. He went on 
 horseback, and took the narrow road leading 
 through the pass, w^hich was the nearest way by 
 many miles. The evening was very fine. He 
 rode in high spirits, congratulating himself. 
 There was the stream he had crossed — a river of 
 paradise it seemed; there, the field where he 
 found her ; the mountain shadows fell across it 
 now, but somehow it looked brighter than the 
 illuminated pastures on the opposite hills. He 
 made his horse walk slowly past the sacred 
 hillock; then stopped, looked back, smiled con- 
 tentedly, and trotted briskly on. , At the entrance 
 of the pass, a great shoulder of the mountain 
 came abruptly down on one side, making tlie 
 road bend round it; as he passed the rock and 
 the wild defile opened before him, Owen Williams 
 stepped into the road and held up his hands. 
 
 " Stop ! " he said, in a surly voice. Anthony 
 did so. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 TRUST roil TRUST. 
 
 "What do you want, Williams? What are 
 you doing here ? " 
 
 He knew him by sight, but had not often 
 spoken to him. Williams stood in the road, 
 looking more than usually morose. He pulled up 
 his coat sleeves, and said, " Get off your horse : 
 I'll fight you." 
 
 Anthony was disposed to be amused. "I've no 
 time for that, my man. We're all friends to-day. 
 Good night." 
 
 But Williams laid his hand on the bridle and 
 repeated, "I'll fight you. Get off your horse. 
 You're not going to get Mary Griffiths so cheap 
 as that, I tell you." 
 
 " This is nonsense, fellow," said Anthony, 
 getting anoyed. — "Speak respectfully of Miss 
 Griffiths, and let> go my bridle, if you please." 
 
 " I'll not let it go; I'll fight you. Come down, 
 I say." 
 
 Anthony struck his spurs in, and turning his 
 horse's head sharply, disengaged him and rode by. 
 Williams turned almost black with passion, but 
 controlling his voice and raising it to its loudest 
 pitch, he cried after the incensed horseman, " Ride
 
 IN THE PASS. 53 
 
 away, there ; ride away 1 ^lary Griffiths is a 
 harlot. There 1 take that with you." 
 
 Anthony immediately stopped, and rode back to 
 him in a violent passion. " Rascal ! " he exclaimed, 
 raising his whip, " do you know what you are 
 saying ? " 
 
 "I say," returned the other, doggedly; "I say 
 Mary Griffiths is as much mine as yours, or any- 
 body's. Ride away." 
 
 Anthony got down from his horse, threw away 
 tlie bridle, seized the Welshman by the collar, 
 and with the streno;th of violent indio-nation in 
 his arm, succeeded in o-ivino- him such a terrible 
 horsewhipping that he was glad to throw himself 
 on the ground and roll down the bank of the 
 torrent. A large boulder stopped him; and 
 Anthony, thinking he had had enough, regained 
 his horse, and rode once more up the pass. 
 
 It was near sunset. He had lost time, and was 
 anxious to reach the high-road before night set in ; 
 but the steep, rugged, and narrow track between 
 the rocks and the watercourse made anything 
 like haste impossible. 
 
 The shadows fell darkly over him. The
 
 54 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 desolate precipices frowned over the torrent, and 
 its roar grew wilder as all other sounds ceased in 
 the increasing loneliness. The red sun glared 
 fiercely on the highest crags in front. Thej 
 returned the glare, flushed and angry. The 
 angry flush faded. The gloom deepened. The 
 crags still grew higher and closer. Sparks of fire 
 began to be visible as the horse's feet struck the 
 hard rock under them. 
 
 Anthony Forrest rode on Avith anything but a 
 tranquil mind. The shameful word was in his 
 ears; and though he felt no more doubt of Mary's 
 purity than he did of her accuser's baseness, it 
 enraged him to have heard her name coupled with 
 a disgraceful one, and to be obliged against his 
 will to remember both of them together. To lea^'e 
 her in the same village with Owen Williams w^as 
 wormwood to him also. He resolved to ride back 
 and warn her against him, but changed his mind, 
 recollecting that she knew Owen's character, 
 and that to delay his own return home w^as to 
 lengthen the time she must still pass in the same 
 village. But he smiled no longer ; his blood was 
 hot, and his brain uneasv. He ur^ed his horse im-
 
 IN THE PASS. 55 
 
 patiently along the difficult and now terrific way, 
 and when near the top of the pass he was obliged 
 again to come to a standstill, he drew the reins in 
 with an angry jerk and a strong desire to swear. 
 
 The obstacle now before him was a woman in 
 black, with a hood and a shawl on. She stood in 
 the middle of the track ; and at this point it had 
 become so narrow, and passed along the edge of 
 a bank so steep and stony, that not even a 
 Welsh pony could safely venture forward while 
 there was anything in the way. 
 
 " My good woman " said Anthony, in an irrit- 
 able voice, " I must trouble you to step aside. 
 There's not room for both of us, and I have no 
 time to lose." 
 
 The woman stood still however. " And if I 
 do not ? " she said. 
 
 "There will be no alternative for me but to 
 back out of this infernal pass and ride ten miles 
 further round." 
 
 " Suppose you ride over me, Anthony. It 
 might be kind." 
 
 She put back her hood ; black locks fell out of 
 it. There was no lonorer licjht enouc^h to see the
 
 66 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 details of her face, but Anthony raised his hands 
 in astonishment. 
 
 " Good heavens ! Catherine Fraser ! what 
 brought you here ? What are you doing ? Where 
 is your husband ? " 
 
 " My husband ! ask the devih He is about his 
 business. Let me ask questions, too. I have 
 come here for no other purpose. I have waited 
 for you in this lonely and fearful place that we 
 might talk alone." 
 
 ^' Whatever you have to say, Mrs. Fraser, 
 must be said quickly. I have neither time nor 
 patience to-night." 
 
 "It shall be said at once, Anthon^^ You have 
 left a girl behind you in the valley. What are 
 you doing with her ? " 
 
 " I left my betrothed wife there," he answered, 
 and the words seemed to be spoken bitterly. " If 
 you know her, Catherine, leave her alone ; that is 
 my best advice to you." 
 
 Mrs. Fraser touched the bridle of his horse and 
 came a step nearer to him. She seemed to have 
 something on her lips which it was difficult to say, 
 and though the shadow from the precipices made
 
 IN THE PASS. 57 
 
 everything indistinct, slie began to draw lier liood 
 over her face again. 
 
 "Anthony, the past sometimes comes back to 
 ns. Sometimes our miseries are only night-mares ; 
 we can wake from them, and be as if we had never 
 dreamed." 
 
 " I admit the fact," he answered, impatiently, 
 " but I am unconscious of the application." 
 
 " Be patient. There are things a woman finds 
 it hard to say, and you are angry, and will under- 
 stand nothing but plain language." 
 
 " The plainer the betterj Mrs. Fraser. We are 
 not quite the proper parties for mysterious confi- 
 dences. You are a married woman, and I am a 
 gentleman." 
 
 '* Yes," she answered, " I am a married woman ; 
 but marriage is not always from everlasting to 
 everlasting. A wedding ring is a strong chain, 
 but not so strong that death will not break it, 
 Anthony." 
 
 " If you think of suicide, Mrs. Fraser, the place 
 is certainly convenient, but I warn you that the 
 act is wicked, and I see no reason why you should 
 make me participate in your crime."
 
 -58 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 It was too dark to see the expression of her 
 face, but she came still nearer to him. 
 
 " If I thought of suicide there would be little 
 to wonder at. Marriage is a bed of flowers, 
 Anthony; even I have found it so. But when 
 they are monkshood and henbane, nightshade and 
 upas, hemlock and almond, would you have me 
 lie^for ever on such poison weeds ? " 
 
 " Catherine, you have made your own fate and 
 must take the consequences. If you are mad, there 
 is no help for you. If not, the life of a penitent 
 is better than the death of a coward." 
 
 *' I am not mad ; I have never been a coward. 
 [f I speak of death, it is not my own. A chain 
 may break at either end, Anthony, but the liberty 
 is the same. Leave that girl in the valley : let 
 her marry her equal." 
 
 " I am much obliged to you for your advice, 
 Mrs Fraser. Perhaps you will tell me why on 
 earth I should follow it?" 
 
 She answered almost in a whisper; her hand 
 trembled on the rein, and she drew the hood still 
 further over her face. " Because," — she said, — 
 *' because my husband is dying."
 
 IN THE PASS. 59 
 
 Anthony backed his horse suddenly. "Never 
 speak to me again ! " he cried. 
 
 She stepped on to a ledge of rock, leaving the 
 narrow path clear for him, and motioned him 
 forward. Pie shook the bridle, but checked his 
 horse again immediately. 
 
 " Mrs. Fraser, you are a woman and there is no 
 human habitation within some miles. I must see 
 you safe out of this gorge." 
 
 She stood still, sajdng nothing. 
 
 " Choose your own way," Anthony continued. 
 ^' I shall follow you, and protect you." 
 
 " I have dared marriage," she answered, huskily, 
 " and this interview — I can dare solitude now. 
 Go!" 
 
 " Not till you lead the way." 
 
 " Then I shall remain here." 
 
 " Obstinate as ever ! " cried Anthony, angrily. 
 " It is a disgrace to me to leave you here ; and you 
 are resolved to humiliate me." 
 
 " You have set me the example. I have spoken, 
 and you have answered. We have heard each 
 other, and understood each other. Go — you, at 
 least, are no protector of mine."
 
 60 TRUST rOE TRUST. 
 
 "True, jMrs. Fraser; and as there is no other 
 character in which I can attend upon joti, it is, I 
 suppose, my duty to sacrifice my inchnation. If 
 any harm befals you to-night I shall resent it as 
 a personal injury, but it is, I perceive, impossible 
 to do more." 
 
 He rode on. While the sound of the hoofs was 
 heard, Mrs. Fraser remained immoveable. Then 
 she stepped down on to the path, threw back her 
 liood in the starlight, and drew her hands slowly 
 over her face and hair. 
 
 "Is their power ended?" she said. "Was it 
 the darkness, or the change ? "
 
 61 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MRS. eraser's visit. 
 
 When the crags were dark ; the torrent, a buried 
 monster, roaring and gurgling ; the distant lights 
 in cottage windows on the mountain sides like 
 fires burning deep in subterranean passages ; 
 when the green slopes had become black precipi- 
 tous masses, and the valley, a deep abyss in which 
 nothing stirred, John Griffiths sat by a bright fire 
 in his chimney corner, smoking his evening pipe, 
 and talking over the day's events with his wife 
 and Mary. 
 
 Mary had been giving various signs of a dis- 
 turbed intellect ; had presented lier father with 
 the snuffers instead of his tobacco-box ; had been 
 upstairs for her mother's knitting, ai\d returned 
 with her beaver hat and shawl ; and had finally 
 covered herself with confusion by putting the por-
 
 62 TKUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 ridge pot on the fire and stirring it for five 
 minutes before she ascertained that it was empty. 
 Blushing and laughing at her last mistake, she 
 took the pot hastily from the bars and set it down 
 on the deal table, where, being nearly red hot, 
 it immediately raised a circle of pungent smoke, 
 which made Mrs. Griffiths start in her chair 
 and drop her spectacles. 
 
 " Why, fie, now, Mary ! " she exclaimed, " what 
 sort of wife will you make, I wonder, if your 
 head's turned with the thought of it ? " 
 
 Poor Mary, quite confounded now, and almost 
 ready to cry, took the saucepan from the smoking 
 table, picked up her mother's spectacles, and 
 then stood still with a bewildered air, as if 
 afraid of trusting herself to attempt anything 
 further. 
 
 ''Bless the girl," said her father, smoking his 
 pipe, and smiling at her with his brown, thin face, 
 " she's leaving her mark with us, any how. 
 We'll call that round there, Mary's wedding 
 ring. It 's a black one, and a deal too thick on 
 this side, but never mind that ; weddings must all 
 end in funerals, and its seldom both sides of the
 
 MRS. frasek's visit. 6S 
 
 match wear out together. Don't he afraid, my 
 lass. I sheared off a sheep's tail, poor thing, the 
 day I asked your mother." 
 
 "John," said Mrs. Griffiths, "it's not -wel} to 
 talk of funerals by candle-light ; and Mary had 
 need to mind her manners better. She's too shy 
 by half. She blushes up like poppies if one says- 
 a word, and it's a mark of ill-breeding." 
 
 "Nay, wife, she's young and tender; I wouldn't 
 have thee ill-mannered, Mary; and the mother 
 knows best about that, but I think thou 'It learn 
 pretty soon what's wanted for a lady. As to- 
 funerals, why, they'll come ; be sure, they'll come. 
 The Lord won't take us to Heaven without them; 
 and when they do come, mayhap they'll find us. 
 readier than we think. Don't think you're going^ 
 to live for ever, Mary, when you're a lady, and 
 don 't let your husband think so. I 've seen gentle- 
 folks live as if their coffins were'nt surely growing,, 
 and heard them talk as if the Lord hadn 't marked 
 the flax for their winding sheets." 
 
 "John, I never heard such talk. Coffins and 
 winding-sheets ! vou '11 friojhten the c-irL" 
 
 But Mary had crept behind Iier father's chair«
 
 64 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 and was leaning over it, looking into the fire, 
 gravely, but not as if she were afraid. 
 
 " I '11 not scare her, mother. She's going 
 from ns ; it's almost like giving her to the Lord ; 
 she '11 see us now and again ; hut it's as good 
 as another country she's going to. The world's 
 very good, as the Lord said; but there's a better, 
 and I 'd have thee mind it, Mary, and see it, like 
 as if it was very near." 
 
 There came a sharp knock at the outer door of 
 the cottage. 
 
 "Jenny," said Mrs. Griffiths, "see who 's there." 
 
 "' Yis, missus," said Jenny, the working lass, 
 appearing from a little back room. The cottage 
 had a deep stone porch, fitted with slate shelves, 
 where washing-tubs were kept, and there was 
 an inner door, dividing it from the sitting-room, 
 besides the outer one. A woman's voice was 
 heard presently in the porch. 
 
 " Do you speak English here ? " 
 
 " Yis, indeed, ma'am." 
 
 " Then let me come in." 
 
 Mrs. Fraser entered the parlor. She stopped, 
 and looked round at the homely group.
 
 MRS. eraser's visit. 65 
 
 " Will you give me a lodging to-night ? I can 
 pay for it." 
 
 "No, ma'am," said Mrs. Griffiths, rather 
 proudly, "you can't pay for it here, but you 
 can have it if you like to take it." 
 
 "I will take it then. Have you anything to 
 eat ? I am hungry." 
 
 She took off her hood and bonnet, and sat down. 
 
 " There '11 be porridge ready just now. Don't 
 stir the empty pot again, Mary ; or perhaps you 
 could eat some bread and butter ? " 
 
 "I could eat anything; will you give me some 
 water first ? " 
 
 She looked hot and tired. John Griffiths, after 
 getting up and giving her welcome, sat down 
 again to his pipe. His wife and daughter hastened 
 the preparation of supper, Mary in the meantime 
 looking shyly, now and then, at the stranger, 
 whose appearance attracted and half alarmed 
 her, 
 
 " You 've travelled a good way ? " said Mrs. 
 Griffiths, looking at the stranger's feet. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 *^ You don't belong to this country ? " 
 VOL. I. p
 
 ee TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 "No." 
 
 ^^ Are you going further ? " 
 
 "I am going to Chester." 
 
 " Why that's a hundred miles." 
 
 "Not quite." 
 
 ^' You '11 wish it was nearer before you get 
 there." 
 
 " When I get there, I shall wish it was at the 
 bottom of the sea." 
 
 '' I dare say : you'll be knocked up altogether." 
 
 "No, I shall not walk much further. I am 
 not poor. I can ride when I please." 
 
 " Why do you walk at all then ? " 
 
 " It suits my purpose." 
 
 ^^Why, you must have a queer purpose to 
 be walking alone at this time of night. It 's too 
 dark to see." 
 
 " I see many things in darkness — night would 
 not hide them if it were blacker than raVens' wings." 
 
 She seemed to be forgetting herself, and lapsing 
 into abstraction. Mrs. Griffiths surveyed her as 
 if she only half liked her visitor. Mary, who 
 in her frequent glances at her had always found 
 the strange woman's eyes fixed on her own face.
 
 67 
 
 or seeking it, looked round again, and saw her 
 now gazing at the wall. 
 
 " The Lord made the Night/' said John Griffiths, 
 taking his pipe from his lips, and smiling peace- 
 fully. "You're right, ma'am; there's many 
 things it's like sunshine to: I've seen many a 
 had face I couldn't find it in my heart to call 
 God's creature by daylight; hut when the dark 
 came, it was just the shape the Lord made Adam, 
 with all the sin blotted out. I'd soonest meet 
 my enemy by night, if mayhap I was angered 
 against him and wanted to forgive him." 
 
 "John, you're a queer one," said his wife. 
 " Come to supper, man." 
 
 The stranger ate eagerly. Her face, in its 
 exhaustion, appeared so haggard and despairing 
 as to lose almost its own terrible beauty ; but after 
 swallowing the porridge, and drinking a deep 
 draught of butter-milk, she leaned back in her 
 chair, and a change came over her. She hastily 
 pushed back her hair, cast her eyes upon the 
 ground with a spasmodic frown on every feature, 
 raised them the next instant with a smooth brow 
 and smiling lips, and fixed them upon Mary. 
 
 p 2
 
 68 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 '' I have been dismal/' she said, " but I was 
 tired : your porridge has revived me. You will 
 be a rare farmer's wife some day; you make 
 it so well." 
 
 Mary blushed, and looked at her mother. Her 
 mother coughed, raised her head a little, and 
 went on with her knitting. John Griffiths, who 
 had not yet finished his supper, put his spoon 
 down, and said, with one of his quiet smiles — 
 
 " She 's been a good daughter ; and, the Lord 
 bless her, she'll be a good wife to him that gets 
 her, be he a farmer or a duke." 
 
 Mrs. Eraser looked disturbed. 
 
 "Have you lived here all your life?" she 
 asked, hastily, looking at Mary. 
 
 " Yes, I was born here." 
 
 " And have brothers and sisters ? " 
 
 " Not one." 
 
 " And have you been to school ? " 
 
 ^' Only to my mother." 
 
 *^The mother," said John, interposing, "is 
 mayhap the best scholar in these parts, and 
 she 's taught Mary all she knows, and somehow 
 a deal more ; and the girl 's learnt what 's written
 
 MRS. eraser's visit. 69 
 
 outside in the fields, and up there in the skies, 
 and how the grass is fresh because it 's growing, 
 and the sun's bright because he 's shining ; and 
 what a thing it is to smutch the snow, or leave 
 a young lamb in the storm." 
 
 " That must be education enough for a village 
 life," said Mrs. Fraser ; " what a pity it goes 
 for so little in a town ! " 
 
 "Some towns may be mighty particular," 
 Mrs. Griffiths answered, drily, '^ but I 've seen 
 many a lady could neither read nor write like 
 Mary." 
 
 " Oh, very likely : reading and writing may 
 be half dispensed with. What society requires is 
 a knowledge of the world's ways, and thoughts, 
 and fashions ; what to do, and how to do it ; 
 what to say, and how to say it. You do all 
 things as you please here : you should be thank- 
 ful for your liberty. In a higher rank, if they 
 are not done by rule, and if the rule is not a 
 habit, you are miserable, for you are vulgar." 
 
 " I think, ma'am, I '11 trouble you not to say 
 any more about it," said Mrs. Griffiths, looking 
 with severe dignity over her spectacles. " Our
 
 70 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 Mary's fit for any of your towns, and you 're 
 making her shake as if she wasn't. Put the 
 work down, and get to bed, my girl, before the 
 needle 's through your hand." 
 
 "Nay, let her hear it, mother," said John 
 Griffiths, " the lady 's partly got the right of it, 
 but not altogether. It's likely enough they'll 
 laugh at thee, Mary, for thy country ways ; but 
 if they laugh, thou 'st hurt nobody, and the ways 
 will mend. We must all have something to bear, 
 or the Lord won't know us for His servants. You 
 see, ma'am, the girl 's going from us, and she 's 
 going to be a lady ; she 's timid, but it 's best to 
 know what 's coming, and there 's no harm done." 
 
 " Oh, I beg her pardon," said Mrs. Fraser, who 
 had been watching the effect of her own words in 
 Mary's troubled face and unsteady fingers. " She 
 is not, then, to be a farmer's wife? Marriage, 
 to be sure, seems best between equals; but as 
 to being laughed at, if her husband bears it as 
 well as herself " 
 
 " Let 's have no more talking," said Mrs. 
 Griffiths. " Go you all to bed. It 's your own 
 fault, John : you 've been croaking all the evening
 
 MRS. FRASER'S VISIT. 71 
 
 about things best left alone. Bring us another 
 candle, Jenny, and get undressed." 
 
 The stranger rose, went up to Mary, and took 
 her by the hand, smiling. 
 
 " Will you sleep with me ? I am nervous at 
 night and have bad dreams if I am alone." 
 
 Mary said she should be very glad to do so. 
 Her mother looked doubtfully at her and her 
 intended bed-fellow; but muttering to herself, 
 "Well, she can't harm her," she left them to 
 do as they pleased. 
 
 Mary led Mrs. Traser to her own little 
 chamber. It was a whitewashed room, with a 
 dormer window ; a white blind of coarse muslin, 
 worked with a pattern of daisies and little lambs, 
 was drawn across the lattice panes, and in the 
 window there was a small looking-glass and 
 two or three early rose-buds in a china mug, 
 with " Mary" in gilt letters on its side. The bed, 
 without posts or hangings, but as white as snow, 
 was in a corner opposite the window. A chair 
 stood by the pillow against the wall, and a little 
 table in front of the chair, with several books 
 upon it. A low chest of drawers served also
 
 72 TEUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 as a washstandj but they were of polislied maho^ 
 gany, and Mary took more pride in them than in 
 anything else about her room. They were her 
 father's present, in a year of unusual plenty, when 
 the flocks multiplied exceedingly, and the corn 
 in the valley ripened before September. On the 
 slate mantel-piece was one china ornament — a 
 figure of the Good Shepherd ; and beside it lay 
 a gold and jewelled bracelet, on a little nest of 
 white wool, spread carefully underneath. The 
 floor was partly covered by two strips of carpet, 
 in the form of a cross — one from the door to 
 the fireplace, the other from the window to the 
 bed side ; and on the walls were hung in frames 
 two of Mary's samplers ; not for vanity, but 
 because the words she had worked there were 
 verses from her father's hymns. 
 
 Mrs. Eraser sat down on the bed when the door 
 was shut, surveyed the room, recognised the 
 bracelet, and again fixed her eyes on Mary, 
 watching her closely while she took off her 
 short peasant dress, and the loosened hair, falling 
 from her pretty hands, shone like burnished gold 
 in the candlelight.
 
 MRS. FRASER'S visit. 73 
 
 For the success of her own purposes Mrs. 
 Eraser's visit had been anything but satisfactory. 
 She saw that neither Mary nor her parents 
 belonged to the common order of villagers. She 
 fancied Mary's beauty must be something irre- 
 sistible if set off by fashionable dress and seen 
 in drawing-rooms, and she knew enough of An- 
 thony's temper to doubt the power of any com- 
 mon obstacles to defeat his intentions. Thinking 
 of him, however, and her own resolve growing 
 deeper as she thought, another feature in his 
 character rose into prominence and seemed to 
 promise help. His wife must own him as her 
 master; he would expect obedience, and demand 
 unlimited confidence. Mystery w^ould excite his 
 jealousy : concealment, his anger. A secret 
 between him and Mary would be the surest worm 
 in the bud, provided Mary were the possessor 
 of it. Could she make it so ? At any rate she 
 would try. 
 
 " I see how it is," she said, undoing her black 
 hair, Vhich was as long as Mary's ; " that bracelet 
 tells the story. Some rich lover has been here, and 
 has won you, Mary. Keep him faithful if you can."
 
 74 TKUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 Mary turned, with a long lock in her hand, 
 surprised, and half indignant. 
 
 ^' He is faithful," she said. ^' I need not keep 
 him so." 
 
 " Ah, you are simple, Mary ; you know nothing 
 of what wives may have to bear. How old are 
 you?" 
 
 '^ I am not seventeen, but you do not know him." 
 
 " Look at me, Mary ; come close : I am only 
 four years older than yourself. Do you think 
 four years will change you so ? " 
 
 Mary's bashfulness had prevented her from 
 examining her guest's appearance very critically 
 before. She saw now that her color was hectic, 
 her eyes were sunken, and her whole appearance 
 was that of a much older woman. 
 
 ^^ What has done it?" she asked, compassionately. 
 
 ^^Love has done it; marriage has done it; 
 passion and misery have done it. You sleep here 
 alone in your white chamber, while other women 
 are breaking their hearts under their marriage 
 curtains. Can you guess why I am walking alone 
 in this gipsy fashion through this wild country ? 
 It is to get a few days' respite from my husband's
 
 MRS. ERASER'S VISIT. 75 
 
 company; to feel what life would be if lie were 
 dead, or I had never known him." 
 
 " You have made an unhappy marriage," said 
 Mary, rather paler than before: "you must be 
 very miserable." 
 
 " Unhappy ! " Mrs. Eraser rose, walked up to 
 Mary, and put her hand on her shoulder. '^ Do 
 you pity me ? " 
 
 "Indeed I do." 
 
 Mrs. Fraser bent her head over the girl's hand, 
 and kissed it. On the whole, it was a piece of 
 deliberate acting; but the feelings she wished to 
 assume corresponded so nearly with her natural 
 ones that the keenest eye would not have seen her 
 hidden insincerity. Mary's eyes were, for detec- 
 tive purposes, disabled on the spot. She saw 
 nothing but an unhappy ^sister, thanking her for 
 her sympathy. 
 
 ^^ I am so seldom pitied," Mrs. Fraser said. 
 ^^ People blame me rather. But they never 
 knew all my story. I cannot make confidants 
 of men, and my own sex cannot keep a secret. 
 If I could tell the whole, it would be easier to 
 bear."
 
 76 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 Mary's pity was not lessened by this statement, 
 and her curiosity was mucli increased. " You 
 may tell me/' she said, "without being afraid. 
 I can keep a secret." 
 
 "Canyon?" 
 
 Mrs. Fraser drew the hair from Mary's fore- 
 head, and looked at her in apparent admiration, 
 though with a cruel triumph also in her eye. 
 
 "I am sure you can keep your word, Mary, 
 and if you promise, you shall hear my history. 
 
 " I promise ; I will never tell." 
 
 " Sit down on the bed then, by my side. Let 
 me put my arm round your waist, for hence- 
 forward there is a bond between us till we die." 
 
 They sat down together. 
 
 " I was born," said Mrs. Fraser, " in a country 
 mansion in Sussex, and I lived there nearly 
 twenty years. My father was, and still is, a 
 county magistrate, of no large fortune, but of 
 an old and respected family. I was one of several 
 daughters: we were said to be handsome, and 
 of course we had many lovers. One of those who 
 fixed their fancy upon me was a gentleman ten 
 years older than myself: a man of prodigious
 
 MRS. FRASER'S VISIT. 77 
 
 wealth, but so questionable in his character that 
 my parents forbad me to encourage him. He 
 could make himself agreeable, however, and knew 
 how to hide his vices ; and he so displayed the 
 power of wealth before my eyes that I began 
 to long for its possession, and for some time 
 I showed him sufficient favor to keep him 
 dangling at my sleeve. He was in earnest in 
 his suit — he really wished to have me, and was 
 ready to settle half his wealth on me, as the price 
 of my hand ; but his love was the most selfish of 
 all his passions, which is saying a great deal. I 
 pleased his eye ; indeed, I more than pleased — 
 I fascinated it ; and he was ready to buy me on 
 my own terms. While I still hesitated, there 
 came another lover. He was nearer my own 
 age. He was handsome, noble, honorable; his 
 wealth was not dazzling, but it was sufficient. He 
 admired me, and made me see it ; I liked him 
 at our first meeting. In a week I loved him, 
 in a month I almost worshipped him. He asked 
 me to be his wife ; we were engaged, with the 
 approbation of my parents, and to my own intoxi- 
 cating bliss. My love had burnt rapidly, but
 
 78 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 it was because my whole nature was on fire. He 
 was made to win me ; he won me. The flame will 
 last while I have a heart for it to feed upon; 
 and longer, if anything survives the grave. We 
 quarrelled, nevertheless. I was headstrong, over- 
 whelmed with happiness, riotous with power. 
 He was born to be a master, and he could not 
 be otherwise. We quarrelled, therefore"; some- 
 times about trifles, sometimes on graver matters. 
 I tried my power, and found that I could conquer 
 even him ; that in the last extremity, he yielded to 
 my caprices rather than break with me. We had 
 had more of this than usual, and one day we 
 sat together in an arbor in my father's grounds. 
 I and my sisters were in the habit of amusing 
 ourselves by addressing ridiculous letters to one 
 another, tying them with love-knots, and putting 
 them under trees, on garden seats, or wherever 
 they were likely to be met with. One of these, 
 intended for me, had been put that day among the 
 leaves of the arbor, where it was known that 
 I and my lover often met. I did not see it in the 
 leaves, but a gust of wind brought it down, and 
 blew it to my feet. It was as if some one had
 
 MRS. ERASER'S VISIT. 79 
 
 thrown it there that moment, and as I picked 
 it up I saw my companion change color and 
 frown. I moved a little way from him, read 
 my letter, and put it in my bosom. He asked me 
 to show it, and I refused ; he commanded, and I 
 laughed at him. We were both in our haughtiest 
 humors ; I tried to conquer him as usual, and this 
 time I failed. His anger became fearful. He left 
 me at last, with the threat that if I did not obey 
 him when we met again, our engagement should 
 be broken. I was perfectly mad. To be threatened 
 where I had always ruled ; to obey perforce, and 
 at dictation ! He should have turned to see my 
 face as he went away ; but he did not turn, and 
 my former lover was in the garden. He had 
 come in a fit of despair, to try his fortune with 
 my next sister, who was a good deal like me. 
 He passed the arbor where I sat alone in my 
 madness. I called him in. The next night we 
 were married at Gretna-green. 
 
 I woke in a double sense the morning after- 
 wards : I woke from frenzy, as well as sleep ; 
 but my feelings need not be described. The bare
 
 80 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 fact was, that I had given myself over as a slave 
 to one of the vilest of human beings. My hus- 
 band's vices were unspeakable. He pursued them 
 in the most shameless way before my eyes. He 
 was cunning too, and saw at once all the advan- 
 tage I had given him. When I asked him for a 
 settlement, he laughed at me. While I was my 
 own mistress I might have had what I pleased 
 as purchase-money, but the purchase had been 
 made already, and on far easier terms. All 
 I could obtain from him was the bequest of 
 a laro-e leo;acv, indeed a fortune, in his will ; 
 and this, being revocable at any moment, was the 
 security for my submission to his pleasure. I 
 had no refuge, and no friend. My family, dis- 
 gusted and disgraced by my conduct, cast me off. 
 My parents even refused to see me. I lived in 
 this way two years, and you can no more imagine 
 here what my life has been than you can see 
 in your mountain brooks the horrors of the 
 ocean. You may see its traces in my face, in my 
 ruined beauty ; in the white hairs that you may 
 find already among these black ones ; but these
 
 MRS. FRASER'S visit. 81 
 
 are footprints only; you know nothing of the 
 Thing that made them. 
 
 A short time ago my husband was seized in his 
 chair with a sudden illness. He did not die then ; 
 he is not dead now ; but the attack was mortal, 
 and before the leaves fall^ he will be rotting 
 in his grave. Does it shock you that I can 
 speak so about his dying? The true wonder 
 is that I can talk of it without a burst of ]oj. 
 AVhen I knew the attack was fatal, I felt as a 
 woman may feel with a tiger's paw upon her, 
 when she sees a gun fired at his head. What 
 else could I feel ? It was the only blessing I had 
 tasted since my wedding-day. I seemed to live 
 again, and I resolved to do so, for with relief from 
 misery comes the thirst for happiness, and a great 
 hope rose on me at the same time. My love 
 for my real lover had neither slept nor faded. 
 I never saw him, and knew nothing of him except 
 that he was still unmarried ; that was enough for 
 me to know while my own bondage had no 
 visible end; but when the chain was breaking, 
 how could I rest without other knowledge? I 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 went in search of him, and found him; he had 
 engaged himself to another woman that very 
 day." 
 
 Mrs. Eraser paused, and hid her face in her 
 hands. Her own feeHngs were so much excited 
 by her story, that she half forgot her purpose 
 in telling it to Mary. 
 
 " You know now the fulness of my misery," 
 she continued ; " you may understand why I 
 wander about the earth. I am like a ship- 
 wrecked woman who has watched a sail of 
 deliverance approaching, and has seen it dashed 
 to atoms on the rock where she herself is 
 lost." 
 
 Mary had listened with a bewildering feeling 
 of astonishment to her companion's history. It 
 dealt with passions and frames of mind till then 
 unknown to her, and she felt uncertain whether 
 to be touched or horrified. She made some 
 incoherent remarks of a compassionate kind, and 
 asked Mrs. Eraser whether she had not better try 
 to sleep. 
 
 "I shall sleep better," she replied, '^now I
 
 MRS.FKASER'S VISIT. 83 
 
 have told you; you are the first woman who 
 has heard my story from my own lips, and you 
 shall be the last. Keep your promise to me: 
 I rely upon it." 
 
 There was a worse meaning in the words than 
 Mary dreamed of. She did not hesitate to repeat 
 the promise ; indeed, a tale like this seemed only 
 fitted to he buried. '' Tell me your name," she 
 said, innocently ; but Mrs. Fraser shook her head, 
 and answered that it was needless to burden her 
 with so wretched a one. They lay down side by 
 side, with a strange bond of knowledge and as 
 strange a bar of ignorance between them : both lay 
 long awake, and both were thinking of Anthony. 
 But Mary, when the candle was put out, had 
 gone quietly to the mantel-piece, and clasped 
 the jewelled bracelet, which she had laid aside 
 during the day, on her round warm arm in the 
 darkness. She fell asleep with her other hand 
 upon it, stroking it tenderly, while Mrs. Eraser's 
 fevered and impatient fingers were chafing against 
 her wedding ring. 
 
 Mrs. Fraser left the village early next morning, 
 
 a2
 
 84 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 regained her carriage, and returned as rapidly a^ 
 she could. She had accomplished one thing. Slie 
 had put a secret into Mary's bosom, and she 
 felt pretty sure that Mary's promise would be 
 kept. It was a secret that might be turned to 
 many uses ; and, not to lose time about it, she 
 stopped at Chester to write an anonymous letter 
 to Anthony in a feigned hand. The plan, like 
 most of Mrs. Fraser's, was rather clumsy, but it 
 had its consequences. 
 
 From Chester she went as quickly as possible 
 to her husband's mansion in the north. Two 
 letters were waiting for her there ; one was 
 from"! Mr. Fraser, announcing the fact that he 
 felt somewhat better, that he had changed his 
 mind^ and that he was going on the Continent, 
 whither he desired her to follow at her leisure ; 
 the other, from her confidential maid, who was 
 with him, advised her to follow if possible on the 
 wings of the wind : because Mr. Eraser's worst 
 associates were with him, his will had been sent 
 for, and there seemed reason to fear that he might 
 alter it in her absence in a way she had little
 
 MRS. eraser's visit. 85 
 
 reason to desire. Seized witli a sudden dread of 
 poverty, and feeling that not a moment was to 
 be lost, Mrs. Fraser hurried back to the carriage 
 she had just alighted from, and drove furiously 
 southward.
 
 86 TEUST FOR TRUST* 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 THE FIETH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 " Well, sir, and who gave you leave to make 
 a fool of yourself?" said Mr. Forrest tlie elder, 
 banker and magistrate in the borough of Por- 
 chester, sitting after breakfast with his boots off, 
 and his legs, covered with white ribbed stockings, 
 crossed over the fender. He wore white breeches, 
 a blue coat like his son's, and was [a fine, jolly- 
 looking old gentleman, with a large head [ of 
 curling white hair. His cheeks were marked by 
 deep but not painful lines, and came down in 
 ample folds below his chin. He had a large Ro- 
 man nose, a forehead of sound British sense, high 
 shoulders and stout limbs. On the other side 
 of the fire sat his wedded wife, who had loved, 
 honoured, and obeyed him, or, having done the 
 first and second, had vicariously placed them in
 
 THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 87 
 
 the room of the third also, during a period 
 of thirty years. She was still young; at least 
 she was of that persuasion, and her faith was 
 great. No one but her husband had ever seen 
 so much as a gray hair among her ringlets; 
 and he, on making the discovery, had been 
 rebuked for his curiosity. She was a tall, hand- 
 some lady, with regular features and of great 
 reputation. She had reared several children, 
 with becoming pride in her success, and a strong 
 assurance that they owed their existence and 
 growing up in a very small degree to the laws 
 of nature, and principally to the plan on which 
 she had fed, washed, clothed, and otherwise 
 nourished them. Her satisfaction, indeed, was not 
 without a tinge of melancholy, for neither her 
 daughters nor the wives of her sons could ever 
 be brought to put an adequate value on her 
 experience and her advice ; not that they agreed 
 in their own plans, but they all disagreed with 
 hers ; and she was compelled to see her grand- 
 children hurried on by their misguided mothers 
 to a destruction which she deemed inevitable.
 
 88 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 Her hope, however, still rested on her son Anthony. 
 He was not the youngest child, but he had always 
 been his mother's boy, and was now the 
 only one at home. His married life, she felt 
 assured, would be less disastrous than that of 
 his brothers and sisters. He, at least, would 
 certainly listen to the opinions of his mother, and, 
 his temper being a decided one, would insist on 
 the adoption of common sense as the basis of his 
 domestic management. 
 
 He was standing now between his parents, 
 leaning his back against the breakfast table. He 
 looked animated, and his color was greater then 
 than usual, for he had just related his love affair, 
 and put them in possession of his intentions. Mrs. 
 Forrest had listened with feelings not far removed 
 from satisfaction. She was not proud by nature, 
 and could even look wooden shoes in the face 
 without shuddering. Her other children had all 
 married into good families, and what was the 
 result ? Their offspring from the moment of their 
 birth, and indeed before it, were managed in a 
 manner thoroughlv false and ridiculous. She
 
 THE riTTH COMMANDMENT. 89 
 
 rather liked the idea of a peasant girl for a 
 daughter-in-law. Being, of course, ignorant of 
 everything, she might be teachable ; as one under 
 infinite obligations, she might behave with humi- 
 lity. In the present state of her family Mrs. 
 Forrest felt that her special endowments were 
 lying on the shelf. She was made to bring up 
 children. Nature would have acted judiciously in 
 providing her with them more continuously ; but in 
 default of anything better, a young daughter-in- 
 law from a Welsh cottage would give her powers 
 some exercise. In addition to these thoughts, which 
 may not appear to have been altogether unselfish, 
 I must add that her affection for her son was 
 boundless, and that in fact she had never been 
 known to oppose him in anything when once he 
 had set his heart on it. 
 
 Her husband, however, did not see matters 
 under exactly the same light. He was good- 
 natured and very fond of his son, but he was a 
 man of the world, and, as a magistrate, was 
 accustomed to look at more sides than one. 
 
 " Who gave you leave, sir, to make a fool of
 
 90 TRUST POR TRUST. 
 
 yourself?" he repeated^ as Anthony only bit Ms 
 lip at the first question, without making any reply* 
 
 " You must see, sir," he now answered, " that 
 I cannot admit your premises. I am no fool in 
 this matter. I look upon it as the wisest act of 
 my existence." 
 
 " Which may be saying very little for its 
 wisdom, sir. Let us talk like men of business. 
 In the first place this girl is poor." 
 
 ^^Your liberality in making me a partner has 
 raised me above that consideration." 
 
 " She is plebeian." 
 
 ^^ I thoroughly imderstand politeness, and shall 
 mstruct her." 
 
 "She knows nothing; can't read or write per- 
 haps; never heard of geography, and would take 
 the globes to be apple dumplings. Is that it, sir ? " 
 
 "On the contrary," Anthony said, "although 
 her knowledge is of course limited, she is not in 
 that respect much behind many of our neighbours 
 and acquaintances. On that point also I am well 
 qualified to be her director." 
 
 '^ You have a good opinion of yourself, young
 
 THE i^IFTH COMMANDMENT. 91 
 
 gentleman. The girl is too young to be mar 
 ried." 
 
 '' My mother, sir, was married at seventeen^ 
 and is the boast of Porchester." 
 
 The old man shrugged his shoulders, and looked 
 facetiously at his wife. 
 
 "He has me there, Nelly. You mean to say 
 this girl pleases you. Master Anthony ? " 
 
 " Her education excepted, she is everything I 
 could desire." 
 
 " And you think she'll make a good wife ? " 
 
 " I know she will." 
 
 " Then I recommend you to write her a letter 
 of condolence, inclose a check for five pounds, 
 and tell her your father is inexorable — inexor- 
 able," he repeated, pushing his lips out solemnly, 
 and puttmg his hands in his pockets. 
 
 Anthony's color rose still higher ; a spirit of 
 proud impatience flashed in his eyes. 
 
 " You astonish me, sir ; am I a boy, to be 
 dictated to? Do I deserve no confidence — no 
 respect? Can you possibly believe my choice 
 in such a matter to be guided by anything
 
 92 TEUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 but the soundest judgment — the most mature 
 deliberation ? I am twenty-five years old ; I am 
 neither a fool nor a madman; my passions are 
 at all times entirely under my own control — if 
 they were not, I should despise myself ; and yet 
 when I tell you my decision — when I, who am 
 chiefly interested — I who alone have any real 
 means of judging accurately — I, who never yet 
 formed an opinion which I was not able to justify 
 — when, I say, I have satisfied myself and made 
 my determination, you coolly tell me that you 
 are inexorable. It is preposterous, father. It is 
 not to be endured." 
 
 Mr. Forrest listened without moving a muscle ; 
 at the end he whistled. 
 
 Mrs. Forrest, who had been looking uneasily 
 from the son to the father and back again, now 
 put in a word ; 
 
 " I am sure, Anthony, you misunderstand your 
 father. He appreciates your character, I am 
 certain, and will do whatever is needful for your 
 happiness. You must have patience, my dear 
 son. I have no doubt myself that you are right.
 
 THE FIFTH COMMANDINIENT. 93 
 
 but elderly people like your father take in these 
 things rather slowly, you know." 
 
 " I have taken my resolution," said her son. 
 " My conscience is perfectly satisfied. I cannot 
 allow myself to be thwarted when I am in the 
 right." 
 
 " And what may that resolution be?" said his 
 father, looking round at him. 
 
 " To marry her, sir." 
 
 " What ! without my consent ?" 
 
 " I hope not, sir." 
 
 " You hope not 1 That is to say, I may give it if 
 I like, and if I don't, why the devil take it and me ? " 
 
 "Very well, sir, if you drive me to it; I 
 have w^on this girl's affection, and offered her 
 my hand. I am pledged to marry her. To 
 break my word to my equal in rank would be 
 cruel, base, dishonorable ; to do so to my inferior 
 would be contemptible and vile. I shall never 
 do it, father ; you are not yourself if you require 
 it. I shall marry Mary at all risks. You may 
 destroy our happiness, but I shall at least preserve 
 my honor."
 
 94 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 " My dear Mr. Forrest " his wife began, 
 
 but tlie old gentleman interrupted ber. 
 
 " Stop, Nelly, you need not say a word. Come 
 here, Anthony : you are a headstrong fellow, sir ; 
 you are a spoilt child, and you '11 have to sufifer 
 for it to the end of your days. But there 's a 
 deal that 's good about you, and I 'm fool enough 
 to be proud of you. If you like the girl 
 marry her, sir; use her well, and God bless 
 
 you." 
 
 Anthony was about to express his thanks. 
 
 " There 's one consideration," said his father : 
 " she must go to school first." 
 
 « To school, sir ? " 
 
 " Yes, to school, sir ; she 's young enough, and 
 it must be done. She may be pretty and clever, 
 and all that, but a lady in manners she can't be. 
 Your wife, Anthony, must be a lady, if you 're 
 to live happily with her after the honeymoon. 
 I know you, my lad, and for half a kingdom I 
 wouldn't see you with a wife you were ashamed 
 of. She must go to a first-rate ladies' school. If 
 she 's quick, as you say, a year or two may do
 
 THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 95 
 
 wonders, and wlien you can bring her in to dinner 
 and see lier go out without a blush for her, she 
 shall be yours." ; 
 
 Some resistance was made by the son ; but the 
 proposal was too sensible to be withstood. It was 
 agreed that Mary should be sent to school for one 
 year ; that Anthony should return to Wales in a 
 few days to get her parents' consent, about which, 
 indeed, there could be no hesitation ; and that as 
 soon as the needful arrangements could be made, 
 Mrs. Forrest herself should fetch her intended 
 daughter-in-law and should convey her to the 
 house where she was to receive her education 
 as a lady.
 
 96 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 STEPPING STONES. 
 
 In the dew of a spring morning, Mary GrifEtlis 
 crossed the little meadows, and the stepping stones, 
 and walked slowly by the brook. The sun was 
 up. His rays were streaming through the wild 
 pass, like God's word through a heathen nation. 
 Anthony Forrest was to come that afternoon. 
 She had a letter from him the day before ; the 
 first he had written to her. She walked a little 
 way with her head bent down; with her lips 
 shut and pouting prettily, and maiden -thoughts 
 heavy on her forehead. She stopped, and looked 
 back at her father's cottage. It was one of the 
 best in the valley, and was a pretty object in 
 many of its home scenes. It was built by the 
 road-side, of large stones, roughly whitewashed ;
 
 STEPPING STONES. 97 
 
 there was no window in front, but a wide gable, 
 the slanting roof coming on one side nearly to 
 the ground. On the other side, another smaller 
 gable covered a deep porch, with tubs on its 
 slated floor. Behind, a long building, like a 
 transept, was added to the front piece. The 
 roof was covered with heavy slates, and ridged 
 with tiles, and gray mossy lines here and there 
 were on the thick stone chimney and the 
 walls. 
 
 Mary looked tenderly, even tearfully, at her 
 home. She did not sigh, however. Anthony's 
 letter was in her hand. She glanced down at 
 it and smiled. Then she turned again, and con- 
 tinued her walk, looking at the brook where the 
 sunshine sparkled and bright bars swung to and 
 fro on the pebbly bottom. Coming to a little 
 inlet where the water lay quiet, as in a pool, 
 and the reflection was clear as that of a looking- 
 glass, she stopped and bent over it. 
 
 " I see everything," she said to herself. " How 
 clear it is ! " 
 
 Her face was there, to the minutest line ; she 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 TRUST FOE TRUST. 
 
 saw her secret thoughts in her own eyes. The 
 ground did not tremble, nor the wind stir, and 
 the liquid mirror, though moving slowly round 
 towards the current of the stream, was undis- 
 turbed by the imperceptible motion. She raised 
 her head and looked up at the mountains. 
 
 "Why does it burden me?" she said again. 
 Once more her eyes fell upon the water, and 
 she continued pondering over the perfect truth- 
 fulness of the image it received. " It must be 
 right — it ought to be so — I am sorry — I am 
 sorry." 
 
 A shade of regret came over her soft round 
 cheeks, and this time she really sighed. She 
 turned and walked slowly homewards. At the 
 stepping stones Owen Williams met her. She 
 bade him "Good morning," and would have 
 passed, but he stood in her way. 
 
 "Are you going to let me speak?" said he, 
 in his dogged voice, with slouched hat, and hands 
 in his pockets. 
 
 "Jf you have anything to say, Mr. Williams," 
 said Mary, timidly, and wishing herself at home.
 
 STEPPING STONES. 99 
 
 " I 've got this to say ; you 've made my life 
 bitter. I was good enough for you, and you 
 ought to have had me. If I cut my throat, 
 you '11 have murdered me, so help me God ! " 
 
 ^^You can't say so, Owen! You are cruel; 
 I never harmed you, and never would." 
 
 ^^ You've never harmed me? Didn't I say 
 
 I 'd have you, and didn't you tell me I shouldn't ? " 
 
 *^ I couldn't help it, Owen Williams ; it was 
 
 no fault of mine. You know I was very 
 
 sorry." 
 
 "You're proud, Mary Griffiths; that's it; 
 you 're proud. You 've got this young fellow 
 with his fine coat and dandy boots, and can't look 
 at your equals. But you '11 repent it ; see if you 
 don't. He 's bought you, I say. It 's his money 
 you care for. You think he '11 marry you, but 
 you 're a fool. He '11 just be the ruin of you." 
 
 " For shame, Mr. Williams," cried Mary, blush- 
 ing scarlet. " If you think that of me I wonder 
 what you came courting for !" 
 
 " I'll not come courting again, I can tell you. 
 He may have you and welcome ; and I wish he 
 
 H 2
 
 100 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 may serve you out. I'll be rich, too, one of these 
 days. It's in me and I'll do it. I'll make my 
 fortune, and when I do get a wife, it shall be 
 a better than you, Mary Griffiths.*' 
 
 ^' I hope it will, Owen Williams. Let me go 
 over the stones. I don't want to think worse of 
 you than I need." 
 
 " Think what you like, and tell the young 
 fellow, too. It won't be the first time he'll have 
 heard of me ; nor the last neither." 
 
 He said this, calling after her as she crossed 
 the brook. Mary did not look back, but hastened 
 to the cottage. Owen Williams turned suddenly 
 away, but there was still a human heart under his 
 coarseness and cruelty, and when Mary was out 
 of sight he sat down and cried. That same 
 afternoon he was seen with a bundle on his back 
 w^alking alone up the pass. In a day or two 
 it was found that he had left his work without 
 assigning any reason, and had entirely disappeared. 
 Some said he had enlisted ; some, that his father 
 was dead at Milford Haven, and that he had 
 inherited five hundred pounds. Nobody seemed
 
 STEPPING STONES. Id 
 
 to know, however; and nobody regretted him, 
 except a poor sickly boy in the slate quarry, to 
 whom he had taken a fancy and had been very 
 kind in a surly way. 
 
 Anthony Forrest arrived towards evening, as 
 had been expected, and after seeing him refreshed 
 Mrs. Griffiths directly found it necessary to go 
 to her husband who was in the fields, leaving 
 Mary and her lover alone together in the parlor, 
 at the same time instructing Jenny to continue 
 her washing in the little back room, and not to 
 leave the house until her mistress returned. 
 
 Mary, with blushing cheeks, took a seat by 
 the window where she could see an occasional 
 passer-by. There was a geranium on the low 
 window-sill which gave occupation to her hands, 
 as there had once been a decayed leaf upon it, 
 and she had reason to think a very diligent 
 search might bring her on the traces of an- 
 other. Mr. Forrest left his seat and stood near 
 her. He was not quite comfortable, and his 
 face would have shown it to a close observer. 
 But Mary for some time after his arrival was
 
 102 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 disposed to look at anything rather than his 
 face. Many shy glances she stole, indeed, under 
 the half raised eyelids, and Avhen by pm-e 
 accident she found him just before her ; but her 
 fixed regards were given to other things — her 
 hand, certain of the window panes, objects on 
 one side of her, or deeply hidden in the ground ; 
 towards these she gazed steadfastly, but they 
 told her none of her lover's secrets. 
 
 Before leaving home the post had brought him 
 Mrs. Eraser's anonymous letter : it read thus, — 
 
 " Mary Griffiths is deceiving you. She may 
 seem honest, but she knows more than she will 
 tell." 
 
 " Pshaw ! " said Anthony, and threw it in the 
 fire. " This is Owen Williams' doing," he thought ; 
 but as it burnt away he fancied Williams was not 
 likely to write so good a hand, and he began to 
 feel annoyed. " It's not Williams ; it's Mrs. 
 Eraser. No ; it was a man's hand. Nonsense ! 
 Am I going to listen to anonymous slanders ? " 
 
 But feeling himself baffled as to its author, his
 
 STEPPING STONES. 103 
 
 anger rose and his irritation was at first extreme. 
 He had the greatest confidence in his own judg- 
 ment, and his judgment had pronounced Mary 
 an innocent and guileless girl. Who ventured to 
 deny what he had affirmed, and to mix, a second 
 time, the idea of doubt with the image of her in 
 his heart ? By degrees the doubt, from being an 
 idea only, became more or less a fact. Not that 
 he recognised it as such, but questions as to the 
 probabilities of Mary's secret life began to occur 
 to him. She was pretty: she might have been 
 tempted. He was rich : she might have designed 
 to win him by an assumed simplicity. Ilej)orts 
 against her had reached him now from two diffe- 
 rent and apparently unconnected sources. There 
 might be a fact at the bottom of them. He 
 answered all such suggestions with a peremptory 
 No ! but, as usual, they came again, and his peace 
 of mind was for the time disturbed. He went 
 on his journey, however, resolved to question 
 Mary more closely than usual, and trusting to 
 his sagacity to detect the presence of any taint 
 that could possibly have touched her.
 
 104 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 The first sight of her that afternoon made a 
 great deal of difference. He did not find his 
 questions answered, but he forgot them as soon 
 as he saw her. He was very much in love, and if 
 Mary had only known it, she might have done 
 whatever she pleased with him in the first half 
 hour after his arrival. By the time they were 
 alone together he was returning, however, to a 
 more judicial frame of mind. 
 
 " Mary," he said, " we must begin to talk of 
 business. In the first place my parents make 
 no objection to our marriage. They will receive 
 you as their daughter-in-law." 
 
 " That is very kind of them, sir." 
 
 "They make one condition, which I confess 
 was rather annoying to me, but feeling them to 
 be in the right, I could not of course oppose them. 
 They desire that you should go for a year to a 
 first-rate ladies' school." 
 
 Mary blushed rather painfully. She felt re- 
 minded of the difference between them, and was 
 at the moment afraid to speak, lest she should 
 say something vulgar.
 
 STEPPING STONES. 105 
 
 " Of course," Anthony continued, " you have 
 lived all your life in the country, and there are 
 many things in the habits and customs of a town 
 that can't be learnt among these mountains. You 
 would feel uncomfortable if you were ignorant of 
 them ; and at a good English school they will be 
 acquired easily." 
 
 This view of the case was so consolatory that 
 Mary brightened up, and answered — 
 
 " Oh, I shall be very glad indeed. I think your 
 parents are very right, sir." 
 
 " I'm glad to hear you say so. My mother will 
 select the school, and will come and take you to it 
 when the arrangements are made. Our marriage 
 will take place at the end of a year, which I shall 
 think an eternity." 
 
 " It will not be too long, sir, for me to make 
 myself fit to be your wife." 
 
 " I am sure you will use it well, Mary, and if 
 you do, my happiness will be unalloyed. Indeed, 
 the only thing that could interfere with it now 
 would be if you should cease to trust me entirely 
 — ^if any want of confidence on your part should
 
 106 TEUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 creep in between ns. I fear nothing of the kind, 
 but, as your future husband, I ought to caution 
 you against so serious an infraction of a wife's 
 duty." 
 
 Mary looked up brightly. 
 
 "Thank you, for saying so. I wish to con- 
 fide in you. I think my heart should be quite 
 open to you, and I wish to tell you my se- 
 crets." 
 
 Anthony*s face brightened also at this announce- 
 ment. He drew a chair towards her, and sat 
 down. 
 
 " Speak without restraint," he said, " a husband 
 is his wife's confessor, as well as her master. 
 Tell me everything without reserve." 
 
 Mary looked again at the geranium. 
 
 " In the first place, I have had seven lovers." 
 
 "You may have had seventy, Mary, so that 
 you listened to none of them." 
 
 " I did not listen to any of them ; they called 
 me proud, but I could not feel as if they were my 
 equals, and I could not love them." 
 
 " Mr. Owen Williams was the name of one
 
 STEPPING STOXES. 107 
 
 of them, was it not ? " asked Anthony, looking 
 closely at her. 
 
 "Yes; he was the last. I liked him least of 
 all, but I'm very sorry for him. He's very cross 
 and hard, though he has been kind to a poor 
 boy in the quarry, but I'm afraid he really cares 
 about me, and will get into bad ways because 
 I disappointed him." 
 
 " That's an affair for his own conscience. You 
 were at liberty to refuse him, and are free fi:om 
 responsibility as to the result." 
 
 " I believe I am, but it pains me all the same. 
 I hope that does not displease you." 
 
 "Not in the least: it is an excellent trait of 
 character. A woman cannot be too susceptible, 
 where the feelings of others are concerned. I'm 
 glad to hear you gave no encouragement to 
 any of your seven lovers. Are you quite sure 
 of it?" 
 
 " Quite sure," Mary answered, looking at him 
 again, and her face was so guileless, and unem- 
 barrassed in its expression, that his remaining 
 doubts vanished. Mary however turned away
 
 108 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 her face, and looked down timidly as slie con- 
 tinued : 
 
 "I never could have loved any of them; but 
 I was in love myself once; at least, I think I 
 was." 
 
 Anthony frowned at this intelligence. He saw 
 no advantage in a rival, and he did not quite 
 understand her. 
 
 " That's singular," said he ; *^ you have just 
 assured me of your indifference to all your 
 seven lovers." 
 
 "Yes; he was not one of them. He was a 
 stranger from England ; his parents brought him 
 here because he was ill, and they had lodgings 
 for a whole summer in the village." 
 
 '^ Worse and worse," Mr. Forrest thought, 
 growing warm, and taking out his handkerchief. 
 
 ^^ Where's this stranger now ? What's become 
 of him?" 
 
 " He died, sir." 
 
 "Excellent young man," thought her com- 
 panion, but he was not yet quite at his ease on 
 the subject. A rival in the grave was likely to
 
 STEPPING STONES. 109 
 
 be quiet, but a romantic passion for his memory 
 might be inconvenient. 
 
 " When did this take place ? " he asked, slowly, 
 wiping his lips. " Has it happened recently ? " 
 
 "Not very. It happened when I was twelve 
 years old." 
 
 Mr. Forrest put back his pocket handkerchief, 
 smiled very pleasantly, and took her hand in 
 an affectionate manner. 
 
 " Indeed, my dear Mary, if that is all you have 
 to confess, we have spent too much time over 
 it already. I began to fear something serious, 
 but I am quite easy about your love affairs at 
 twelve years old." 
 
 " I wished to tell you all my secrets, and this 
 was the chief of them. I was very much in love ; 
 it was very silly, I dare say, but I thought of 
 it for a long time, and was unhappy till I knew 
 you, on account of it. I have only one thing 
 more to say," she added; "I have one secret 
 that I cannot tell you. It's of no consequence, but 
 I must not say what it is." 
 
 Anthony grew dark again; he even dropped
 
 110 TEUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 her hand. The veins on it seemed to have 
 formed themselves into the words "Mary Griffiths 
 is deceiving you." 
 
 " How can it be, Mary, that there is anything 
 you must not tell me? The thing is out of the 
 question." 
 
 " I've promised, sir, that I would never tell any- 
 one. I'm very sorry I did so ; but I didn't think 
 about the confidence there should be between 
 us till I began to feel there was something in 
 my mind I might not tell you. Then it pained 
 me directly, but I had given my word." 
 
 "And I exonerate you from your promise, 
 Mary." 
 
 " Can you do so ? " She looked, doubtfully, at 
 him. 
 
 "Certainly I can. I have a husband's right 
 over you, and it is above every other claim." 
 
 " Is it above my promise, sir ? " 
 
 " Your promise, Mary, is, or at least will be, 
 to obey me. Scripture and the law define your 
 duty to be the same. Without even insisting on 
 obedience in this case, I may claim as much from
 
 STEPPING STONES. Ill 
 
 your respect. In deference to my judgment, you 
 doubtless ought to relate this secret to me, for my 
 ophiion is that your promise in such a case is not 
 binding." 
 
 Mary's face looked troubled. 
 
 '^ I wish I could obey you ; I Ve never studied 
 these things. I know I ought to take your judg- 
 ment." 
 
 "How can you hesitate? When I have no 
 doubt in the matter, ought you not to be imme- 
 diately satisfied ? " 
 
 " I never broke my word in all my life," poor 
 Mary answered, with tears starting to her eyes; 
 *^ I never made a promise without keeping it, and 
 it seems — I can't tell you how dreadful it seems ! 
 The more I think of it the more it pains my 
 heart!" 
 
 " This is all weakness, Mary. This is want of 
 confidence in my decision." 
 
 " Oh, sir," she cried, seizing his hand, and the 
 tears now falling in earnest, " don't ask me to do 
 it. I can't resist you, if you make it your com- 
 mand, but you would be sorry always afterwards.
 
 112 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 I should have broken my word ; I should feel 
 disgraced and humbled; you would have caused 
 me bitter pain, and after all, when you heard 
 this secret, you would find it was of no conse- 
 quence to either of us. It has troubled me very 
 much. At last I resolved to do what I have done, 
 and, as I couldn't tell you what it was, at least to 
 tell you I had it. I thought this would be better 
 than saying nothing and hiding it altogether." 
 
 Anthony did not answer immediately. His 
 desire to hear her secret was great ; his impatience 
 of opposition to what he regarded as his just 
 authority was great also. His doubts had been par- 
 tially revived, and their mere existence irritated 
 him. But to look at the weeping girl and believe 
 her insincere was next to impossible ; to hear her 
 sweet voice in tones of supplication without being 
 moved by it, was not the attribute of a lover. No 
 doubt she was speaking the truth. What she had 
 to tell was probably only some foolish gossip of 
 the village ; even the promise to keep it secret was 
 most likely of no more consequence than her girl- 
 ish love affair. It was the very simplicity of her
 
 STEPPING STONES. 113 
 
 nature that alone gave importance to any part of 
 the transaction. Lastly, the still vivid remem- 
 brance of another quarrel and its consequences 
 flushed his cheek, and checked the impatience of 
 his will. 
 
 '' Since you feel it so seriously," he said, after a 
 pause, " I withdraw my questionings. Forget the 
 secret if you can, Mary ; and remember to make 
 no more promises of the kind." 
 
 Mary's face was sunshine in a moment. She 
 looked her best, and he was proud of her. She 
 entered with winning interest into the arrange- 
 ments he had to propose ; and if uneasy thoughts 
 again occurred to him, it was not till after he had 
 left her. A few weeks afterwards Mary went to 
 school; and as it was thought desirable that her 
 studies should be uninterrupted, Mr. Anthony 
 Forrest took a long journey on the Continent. 
 
 Now those who love flowers, but care nothing for 
 the roots they grow on ; those who listen passion- 
 ately to the nightingale, but do not ask how his nest 
 is made ; those whose pleasure is to imagine life as 
 a rainbow spanning the world, vivid in light and 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 TKUST TOR TRUST. 
 
 color, but guiltless of foundation stones; those, 
 in short, who read a book as they hunt a butterfly, 
 for the wings only and the fluttering, may as 
 well treat the next chapter as a bundle of blank 
 pages. The pages are pretty full, but they tell 
 only of a root, a nest, and a basement ; things 
 entirely useless to the butterfly hunter, although 
 without them there would have been no story of 
 Trust for Trust.
 
 115 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE BOKOUGH WALL. 
 
 When Csesar in the latter end of summer stood 
 with his legions on the coast of Gaul, a forest of 
 British Oak, in the heart of the island they were 
 ahout to conquer, grew on the southern bank 
 of a small river, and was the stronghold of a 
 barbarian tribe. The river ran through a con- 
 siderable plain, but on its northern bank there 
 was a low hill, or rather a raised platform of 
 sandstone rock, at the foot of which it flowed. 
 Bending like a sickle, it embraced a portion of 
 the rock, which rose higher than the rest, over- 
 looking the trees on the other side of the river. 
 Opposite to this eminence, however, the southern 
 bank rose gradually, in a line parallel with the 
 stream, till it reached a height nearly equal to 
 that of the sandstone platform, and then declined 
 
 I 2
 
 116 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 again in like manner to the usual level of the 
 plain, so that at one point the river flowed between 
 two perpendicular walls about sixty feet high, 
 where a bridge might have been thrown across 
 with ease by a modern architect. About five hun- 
 dred yards east of this point, at the spot where 
 the bank began to rise, the river, being wider and 
 shallower than usual, was fordable at most seasons ; 
 and as here the sandstone rock opposite sloped a 
 little down to the water, instead of rising abruptly 
 from it, this ford was the usual crossing-place 
 for those who lived in the neighbourhood. Near 
 the ford, a portion of the forest was enclosed by 
 a ditch and a rough wooden fence, and within it, 
 among the trees, were a number of round huts, 
 their walls a kind of rude basket-work, plastered 
 with clay, and whitewashed; their roofs, made 
 of straw, conical in shape, and answering the 
 purpose of a chimney. This was the chief city 
 of the tribe who inhabited the forest. Here 
 warriors clustered round their chief for battle, 
 or returned with him for security. Here Druids 
 taught, and judged, and sacrificed, and Britain
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL. 117 
 
 savagely nursed her elder children, preparing 
 them for the destiny that was to grow up with 
 the acorns shaken that very autumn to the 
 ground. 
 
 This forest stronghold fell before the Romans. 
 They crossed the river, and established a camp 
 on the sandstone hill. As time went on, the camp 
 became a town, while the huts on the other bank 
 disappeared. "When Alfred drove the Danes 
 back to their ships and their own melancholy 
 coasts, he found this town in ruins, and rebuilt 
 it, for the inhabitants had fought bravely for him 
 and lost their all. He granted privileges to it, 
 and it prospered. When William of Normandy 
 had become William the Conqueror, he bestowed 
 it on one of his nobles, Hugo Rougemains by 
 name, who had with his battleaxe demolished 
 a strong stockade on the field of Hastings. It 
 was a Borough ' now. No authority had the 
 King's Sheriff over the freemen residing within 
 its walls. No jurisdiction might be exercised over 
 them but that of their own lawful courts. They 
 paid no toll in passing through the King's do-
 
 118 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 minions ; and the wise Norman continued and 
 even extended these immnnities, granted by the 
 Saxon Kings. A Charter of Privileges^ confirming 
 all the former rights of the Borough, was given 
 by King Henry the Second, and King John added 
 the grant of an annual fair. From Henry the 
 Sixth it obtained a Charter of Incorporation, 
 one of the first, giving to its mayor and burgesses 
 the pomp and circumstance of an embodied per- 
 sonality, qualified to hold and to grant possession, 
 to sue and to be sued. From time immemorial it 
 had sent Burgesses to the National Parliament, 
 but during the Wars of the Roses, having generally 
 espoused the unsuccessful side, the town decayed, 
 and became so far impoverished that the wages paid 
 to its representatives began to be felt as burdensome, 
 and by degrees the privilege was allowed to drop. 
 In those good old times, indeed, the functions of 
 the King's Parliament men were not greatly 
 different from those performed by the cattle of 
 the King's dairy — both being brought together 
 with noise and hubbub at milking time, and dis- 
 missed again, with a kick perhaps, immediately
 
 THE BOKOUGH WALL. 119 
 
 after the squeezing of their udders. Indeed the 
 cattle had the best of it, for they parted with what 
 they would not willingly have retained, while 
 the lieges found their burdens only the heavier 
 when the King's pails were filled. The British 
 House of Commons, however — indigenous to the 
 soil, and the stubbomest weed in Christendom, 
 resisting the plough and the scuffle, choking the 
 foreign herbage sown over it, and tripping up 
 Majesty itself, when, armed with weapons of exter- 
 mination, it has trusted its sacred feet among the 
 pricks and the tangle — had not only survived the 
 storms of civil war, but stoutly began to grow again 
 as soon as the air was quiet. Under good Queen 
 Bess the representatives of shires and towns were 
 found wilHng to wear their dignities at their own 
 costs and charges, instead of receiving wages from 
 their constituents as heretofore, and the inhabitants 
 of the old Borough forthwith thought it worth their 
 while to revive again their abandoned franchise. 
 When the Queen was dead, the House of Stuart 
 found the town a loyal one. It fought for that 
 race of demigods; was battered by Cromwell's
 
 120 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 cannon ; revived again at the Restoration. When 
 pious King Charles the Second, yeammg, like 
 most of his sacred name, to save his country from 
 the curse of freedom, demanded from his boroughs 
 the surrender of their ancient charters, the loyal 
 town was one of those which submitted to the 
 Lord's anointed. When his excellent brother 
 James, willing to blot out the sin of hating him 
 from the record of his people's crimes, proclaimed 
 at the eleventh hour the restoration of all that 
 had been surrendered, his royal bounty was 
 received with fitting gratitude. The Borough had 
 from that time maintained a steady course of 
 improvement ; its inhabitants increasing annually, 
 and each generation becoming prouder of its 
 history, its relics, its modern progress, and its old 
 name of Porchester. 
 
 This name, indeed, had become the subject 
 of inquiries so profound, discussions so warm, and 
 finally, of differences so important in the politics 
 of the place, that I must carefully inform the 
 reader of the nature of these questions, and of 
 the matters thereon depending. It will be neces-
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL. 121 
 
 sary, first, however, to describe the good town 
 itself with somewhat of minuteness, and this I 
 shall do with the less scruple, as it was the scene 
 of most of the events I shall have henceforth to 
 record. The town then, which contained about 
 twenty thousand souls, was built, it will be 
 remembered, on the flat top of the low sandstone 
 hill, partly encircled by the river running past its 
 base on the southern side, and dividing it from 
 the extensive plain below. The southern entrance, 
 which was the principal one, was at the old ford 
 already described. Here the high road from 
 London, after traversing the plain, crossed the 
 river at its broadest and shallowest point, a solid 
 stone bridge having been built there in the reign 
 of Queen Anne. After crossing the bridge, you 
 found yourself immediately in the High Street of 
 the town, built of tall brick houses and paved 
 with large stones. The street was straight for a 
 short distance, ascending the hill, which, as has 
 been said before, rose less abruptly from the river 
 at this point than at most others. Then you 
 turned suddenly at right angles to the left, con-
 
 122 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 tinuing the ascent in tliis direction till the highest 
 point was gained, when a second bend, equally 
 sudden, and to the right this time, brought the 
 street back to its original direction, and it passed 
 thus to the centre of the town. In this centre 
 was a large, oblong, open market-place. The 
 High Street entered it at one of the angles. In 
 the middle of the opposite side was the chief 
 hotel ; near one of the corners stood the market 
 cross, a circular, open building, raised three steps 
 from the ground, and formed of half-a-dozen stone 
 pillars supporting a dome-shaped roof. The other 
 buildings were chieflj shops, with here and there 
 a private house among them. On the western 
 side of the market-place the Bank stood, between 
 a lawyer's office and a grammar-school, and at 
 the other end, the Town Hall. Two other streets 
 branched off; one from the angle behind the 
 cross ; the other 'from the middle of the eastern 
 side. 
 
 The principal traffic of the place passed along 
 the High Street, and it will be perceived that 
 by reason of the two sudden bends in the
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL. 123 
 
 rapid descent towards the bridge, the risk of 
 accidents to carts, carriages, and passengers 
 was very considerable. In point of fact, the 
 number of such occurrences was alarming, and 
 had for years been on the increase, as the busi- 
 ness of the borough, and the consequent crowding 
 of its chief thoroughfare, became annually greater. 
 In the course of one disastrous year, there had 
 been five coroner's inquests upon as many bodies 
 of the inhabitants, who had met their death in 
 various ways on the Bridge Hill, as it was called. 
 The dangers of this main street had often 
 occupied the attention of the burgesses, and 
 many town councillors had owed their seats to 
 the pledges they gave of adherence to various 
 plans proposed from time to time for the abate- 
 ment of the evil. It proved, however, as tough 
 a case as ever local parliament had to deal with. 
 The natural difficulties of the site were very 
 great, and when added to those arising from the 
 opposite interests involved in every scheme of 
 alteration, they had proved for many years to be 
 insurmountable.
 
 124 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 Of all the plans suggested hitherto, one had 
 recommended itself especially to the most philan- 
 thropic, and best provided for, of the burgesses. 
 It was proposed to turn the London road to the 
 left, outside the town, before it reached the present 
 bridge, and to carry it up the gradual ascent along 
 the southern bank of the river. Having arrived at 
 the top of this ascent, where the ground on that 
 side reached the height of the opposite sandstone 
 hill, this new road was to turn again to the right, 
 and to cross the river by a new bridge to be 
 thrown at this point over the ravine. The town 
 would thus be entered by a straight road and a 
 level one; the two bends and the whole of the 
 ascent being outside, where everything could be 
 seen at once, and no longer in the main street, 
 where the tall houses blocked up the view of all 
 beyond the turning. 
 
 On the hypothesis that the saving of life and 
 limb were the chief ends of road-making, there 
 could be no question about the advantages of 
 this plan over every other which the nature of the 
 ground made practicable, but the moment of its
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL. 125 
 
 proposal witnessed also the birth of a most violent 
 and determined opposition. All the tradesmen in 
 the High Street were found to be dead against it. 
 With a singular coincidence of judgment, rarely 
 found in the common affairs of life, they dis- 
 covered to a man that the foundation stone of the 
 new bridge would commemorate the destruction of 
 Porchester, that the present entrance was the 
 source of its prosperity, and that any councillor 
 who voted for the proposed alteration would be 
 totally unworthy of their votes or interest for the 
 remainder of his natural life. In addition, they 
 gave it as their decided opinion, and to this three 
 architects' names were attached, that from the 
 character of the soil no stable bridge could be 
 erected at the spot suggested, and that any 
 vehicles or other moveables attempting to cross 
 such a structure would certainly bring about a 
 catastrophe of horror, and be found, bridge and 
 all, at the bottom of the river, which ran sixty 
 feet below. 
 
 It may be doubted whether this opposition, 
 violent as it was, would have been successful if
 
 126 TEUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 unaided, but the tradesmen of tlie High Street had 
 powerful friends. 
 
 On the town side, at the spot where the new 
 bridge was to cross, there was a large field, which 
 had never been built upon, and in it was the chief 
 curiosity, the most precious relic, the pride and 
 boast of Porchester. It was a large mass of 
 masonry, about fifty feet long and nearly half as 
 high, the remains of a still larger pile from which 
 the rest had been rudely broken off, leaving 
 everything jagged and irregular. It was com- 
 posed of stones, large and small, granite, slate, and 
 limestone, with a mixture of red Roman tiles 
 thrown in; all being cemented together with strong 
 gritty mortar. Four arches of unequal width 
 penetrated about half way through the thick wall, 
 forming so many alcove s in it. They were turned 
 carefully with thin, broad tiles, placed edgeways, 
 and black with age and exposure, except where 
 some comparatively recent breakage showed their 
 original red. The back of one arch was filled in 
 with concentric layers of these tiles, looking in 
 their broken state like the remains of a gigantic 
 ammonite.
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL. 127 
 
 Yellow wall-flowers, dandelions, and tufts of 
 grass, grew on the rude ledges, and in the many 
 crevices of the rough old wall. On the top of it, 
 two lilacs, purple and white, had found soil 
 enough to grow in, and every spring the perfume 
 of their blossoms might be smelt round the jagged 
 ruin. At the western end, there was a sudden 
 depression of the ground, to the depth of several 
 feet, and old hawthorn bushes grew and flowered 
 on the lower level. This memorial of ancient 
 times, of former conquest, of Roman glories, 
 and the deep meanings of British history, was 
 regarded with almost religious awe by every 
 antiquarian in Porchester. It stood about twenty 
 yards from the precipitous bank overlooking the 
 river. Ivy had overgrown it ; three ash-trees 
 grew before it, on the side of the town. The 
 field, which was irregular in shape, but perfectly 
 level, except at the end of the ruins, was sur- 
 rounded by tall elms on every side but that of 
 the river banko These made it a secluded and 
 beautiful meadow, open to the south, entered by 
 a gate on the opposite side, and commanding from
 
 128 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 its position many fine views across the plain. A 
 stout railing gave protection from the danger 
 of slipping down the bank ; the water ran rapidly 
 below — briars, gorse bushes, and fern leaves hang- 
 ing over it ; rooks cawed in the high elms, and 
 nothing indicated the close proximity of a manu- 
 facturing town, except the occasional wreaths of 
 smoke from one or two chimneys, tall enough to 
 be barely seen over the trees. 
 
 This field, with the ruins it contained, was the 
 private property of Mr. Forrest, the banker ; and 
 had been for many years in the possession of his 
 family, but immemorial usage had given a right of 
 entrance to all who wished to visit the Borough 
 Wall, and the individual good nature of the 
 present owner had thrown it entirely open to 
 the public on Sunday afternoons, and on all other 
 occasions when space was wanted for a fete or 
 a public holiday-making. For the rest, the 
 grass was kept in good order, and archery and 
 cricket clubs were allowed to make use of it in 
 summer. 
 
 Now to construct the proposed new road it
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL. 129 
 
 would have been absolutely necessary to pull 
 clown the Borough Wall and destroy the meadow, 
 and it was this that gave such powerful aid to 
 the arguments of the High Street tradesmen. 
 
 The antiquarians of the town were horror- 
 struck, the archers and cricketers were alarmed, 
 the working people in general bethought them 
 of their pleasant holidays, and on this evidence 
 made up their minds ; and, not less important 
 perhaps as a practical fact, Mr. Forrest, the 
 actual possessor, fond of his meadow, and proud 
 of the opportunities it gave him of making him- 
 self popular, declared that nothing but an Act 
 of Parliament should ever bring the road over 
 Ills ground. 
 
 So the matter stood with regard to the road ; 
 and having introduced the reader to the town 
 itself, and one portion of its politics, I shall be 
 better able to explain that other portion in which 
 its name was especially concerned. 
 
 The existence of so remarkable a piece oi 
 antiquity as the Borough AYall was in itself 
 sufficient to awaken an archjEological spirit in the 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 130 TKUST rOK TEUST. 
 
 breasts of the inhabitants, and accordingly every 
 well-informed person among them, whether male 
 or female, knew more or less about Roman camps, 
 Celtic weapons, and the habits of the Saxons. 
 In the researches of the most learned, the origin 
 of the name of Porchester had naturally occupied 
 a good deal of attention, but instead of a satis- 
 factory agreement there arose a violent dispute, 
 which, to all appearance, might last as long as the 
 town itself. Two principal theories were started 
 and maintained. The latter part of the name 
 presented no difficulty; the place had doubtless 
 been a fortified camp ; but while one party among 
 the inquirers derived the first syllable from the 
 word " Porticus," a porch, they were opposed by 
 an equally strong division, who found its origin in 
 the word " Porcus," a pig. The arguments of the 
 first were in this wise : The Borough Wall, said 
 they, was part of the porch, or entrance, of a great 
 Roman temple. The temple had been destroyed 
 early. The porch remained standing; from its 
 size, beauty, and situation, it became a noted 
 object in the neighbourhood, and naturally enough.
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL. 131 
 
 the name of Porchester — the walled city of the 
 porch, was originated. 
 
 In opposition to this view of the case it was 
 denied that the famous ruins formed any portion 
 of a Eoman temple, and as to the porch of a 
 temple, they were said to be utterly destitute 
 of any resemblance to it. The name, said these 
 objectors, has a totally different origin. The 
 plain below was once covered with a forest of 
 oalis. On the acorns of this forest a multitude 
 of swine were fed. The place became famous 
 for its Pork, and the prefix to its name com- 
 memorates this celebrity. Hereupon ensued a 
 conflict of opinions, which was carried on with 
 so much vigor and learning, that the adherents 
 of the two hostile theories received party names, 
 and became consolidated into distinct sects, con- 
 cerning their antiquarian faith. The advocates 
 of the temple derivation were known as Porticites, 
 while their opponents bore the title of Porcites ; 
 and these names, though given partly in derision, 
 were soon adopted as badges of honorable dis- 
 tinction. The dispute had many branches. The 
 
 K 2
 
 132 TRUST EOR TRUST. 
 
 Porcite argument was so managed as to involve 
 a question about tlie date at wliicli the pig became 
 domesticated in England ; while, on the other side, 
 the peculiarities of Roman architecture had to be 
 determined, and the result defended. Both parties 
 appealed to the Town Seal in support of their 
 pretensions. On the obverse it bore unmis- 
 takably a boar's head, and this was regarded as 
 the stronghold of the Porcite argument. On the 
 reverse, however, was an enigmatical figure, 
 composed of three straight and two crooked 
 lines, which was declared* by the Porticites to 
 represent the porch of a temple. The weight 
 of evidence in this respect would thus have 
 rested in exact equilibrium, but that, while 
 the boar's head could not be denied, the resem- 
 blance of the aforesaid lines to a porch or any 
 other part of a temple was disputed no less 
 vigorously than the fact concerning the Borough 
 Wall itself. This figure, said the Porcites, in- 
 stead of being a porch, is manifestly a bridge 
 over a ravine, and commemorates the existence 
 of such a structure in former days at the spot
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL. 133 
 
 whereon tlie proposed alterations in tlie road 
 would again require one. The Porticites naturally 
 opposed this theory with the warmest indignation; 
 and the question whether such a bridge had ever 
 existed, became in consequence one of the hottest 
 points of controversy. The final result was not 
 a little curious. What had been an antiquarian 
 distinction only, grew into a political one, and 
 Porticite and Porcite became the names of the 
 two great parties into which the town w^as divided. 
 For the Bridge Hill dispute was always pending. 
 It was animated with new life by every fatal 
 accident ; as if the souls of the departed entered 
 into it as into another body on leaving their 
 broken tenements of clay ; a species of metem- 
 psychosis the possibility of which as a matter 
 of fact might be referred to certain of our great 
 thinkers and metaphysicians. For if a solid may 
 be merely an idea, it seems very fair to suppose 
 also that an idea may be merely a solid. Or 
 again, if matter can have ideas without a soul, 
 it must be difficult to deny that ideas may have 
 substance without a body. However this may be.
 
 134 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 it is certain that an influx of active life miglit be 
 felt and seen in the quarrel about the dangerous 
 street, whenever a new victim was offered up on 
 its paving stones. Now, with those who were 
 opposed to any alteration, it was a favorite 
 argument to affirm that, from the peculiarities of 
 the site, a safe bridge could not be constructed 
 over the ravine. To admit that the Town Seal 
 bore the effigy of such a bridge was to acknow- 
 ledge its former existence. To say that what 
 had once been built could not now be restored, 
 was paradoxical ; and they were reduced there- 
 fore, of necessity, to a denial of the whole theory 
 about the bridge, e^gy and all. To do this, 
 however, was practically to believe in the Portico, 
 and a consistent advocate of the present state of 
 things on Bridge Hill became a Porticite by the 
 force of logical necessity. 
 
 There was considerable confusion, it is true, 
 when the matter first assumed this phase, for 
 during a long lull in the agitation of the subject, 
 many persons had espoused the Porcite theory 
 without perceiving whither it might lead them.
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL. 135 
 
 When it became evident that a consistent Porcite 
 must also be an advocate of the proposed New 
 Street with all its consequences^, a sudden recon- 
 sideration of the archseological evidence occurred. 
 On the one hand, there were found among the 
 staunchest of the Porticites- who oua;ht to be 
 the opponents of the change, certain persons 
 who had reason to think the alteration would 
 increase the value of their land; certain architects, 
 who foresaw the building of new houses ; several 
 lawyers, who took pleasure in conveyancing; 
 and the landlord of a very quiet inn at some 
 distance from the present thoroughfare, but in a 
 direct line between the Borough Wall and the 
 market-place. On the other hand, the Porcite 
 school nmnbered among its old adherents some 
 highly respectable tradesmen of the High Street, 
 the best batsman among the cricketers j and a 
 few resolute sticklers for things as they are, 
 whatever that might happen to be. All of these 
 renewed the inquiry with ardor, and a rapid 
 change of opinions took place on the antiquarian 
 question. There was some bashfulncss and a
 
 136 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 good deal of satire on the occasion, but after a 
 time the sect of Porcites became identical with 
 the promoters of the new road ; that of the Por- 
 ticites, with its adversaries. 
 
 The doctors of the town were almost the only 
 individuals who were not openly attached to one 
 party or the other. They, as is their wont in 
 political affairs, looked at the matter from a 
 judicial point of view ; that is, they heard both 
 sides and deferred their judgment. It was cur- 
 rently whispered, indeed, that they were in 
 secret strongly opposed to the alteration — con- 
 sidering the accidents on the Bridge Hill as 
 events of the highest value to a science for whose 
 advancement they were ready at any moment 
 to lay down the lives of their best friends. 
 But these whispers were undoubtedly libellous; 
 and I have never heard that they w^ere even 
 proved to be true by evidence satisfactory to a 
 jury. In the meantime, through the whole debate, 
 there remained a satirical few who, whenever the 
 name of Porcite or of Porticite, or any question 
 as to the origin of the name of Porchester, came to
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL. 137 
 
 be mentioned, Invariably shrugged tlieir sliouklers, 
 curled tlieir lips, and, either from the profundity 
 of their own knowledge or the depth of their 
 ignorance, muttered something contemptible in 
 the extreme about Learning and Latin in the 
 provinces.
 
 138 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A SIGN OF PROMISE. 
 
 The reader who lias not already acquired a pretty 
 accurate notion of the local politics detailed in the 
 last chapter may set his heart at rest concerning 
 one point in his future destiny. 
 
 He may have been born to be hanged, to head 
 the British army, or to write a novel ; in fact, to 
 fill any office for which a certain thickness in the 
 frontal and parietal bones of the head offers no 
 particular disqualification ; but he has not been 
 born to settle the Bridge Hill controversy or to 
 become the leading man in Porchester. Were 
 he even predestined to this honorable post in 
 terms as stringent as the book of fate can bear 
 without collapsing, he would find his right to it 
 disputed nevertheless, and by no meaner rival
 
 A SIGN OF PROMISE. 139 
 
 than Mr. David Hornbeam, builder and town 
 conncilman, the present leader of the Porcite 
 faction, which he ah-eady knows to be identical 
 with the promoters of the new road. 
 
 About a year after Mary Griffiths had been 
 removed from her native valley, Mr. Hornbeam, 
 one morning m the early summer, walked out 
 before breakfast to look after his workmen who 
 were building a factory cliimney, and having 
 corrected a mistake in the scaffolding and blown 
 up two or three carters who were late with 
 their materials, he strolled onwards towards the 
 quiet inn already mentioned, whose landlord was 
 of his owai way of thinking in regard to the 
 Bridge Hill. Mr. Hornbeam was a tall thin man, 
 with large lips, and kmgs like a catapult; for 
 when charged with words, and properly expanded, 
 they hurled forth the shot with force sufficient to 
 pierce the uproar of a popu.lar meeting, or, in 
 still weather, to hold the whole area of the 
 market-place within its range. Through the 
 sheer \igor of liis voice he -had gained a liigh 
 position in municipal affairs ; people listened to
 
 140 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 him the more wiHingly because when he was 
 speakmg there was not the least occasion to 
 strain their necks, to put their hands to their 
 ears, or to be angry if a pin felL When not a 
 word was audible in the speeches of his oppo- 
 nents, not one was lost of his answers to them,. 
 and these answers appeared accordingly to be 
 conclusive in the highest degree. Indeed, when 
 after half an hour of inarticulate tumult, the 
 words "Mr. Chairman" are distinctly heard, 
 rising over all in clear victorious utterance, the 
 ear experiences a relief like that of which the 
 eye is conscious when, on a railway jom-ney, 
 rushing between close banks, where nothmg is 
 apparent but mdistinguishable hues in chaotic 
 motion, a sudden vista opens, and a tree is seen 
 standing still at the bottom of a field. The 
 traveller, charmed with the quiet landscape, 
 tliinks it more excellent than usual, and in 
 like manner the listener catclung the sound of 
 his mother's tongue again, is ready enough to 
 believe the argument as powerful as the voice 
 that utters it.
 
 A SIGN OF PROMISE. 141 
 
 Mr. Hornbeam had other elements of popular 
 success in him. Those brazen gates by which 
 the meaning of a hostile argument may be 
 excluded from the understanding, were in his 
 case very strong indeed ; nor had he ever been 
 careless enough to leave them open when the 
 enemy was abroad. The result of this was a 
 solidity of conviction with regard to his own 
 opinions, which gave him a great advantage over 
 those who, thinking it possible they might be 
 in the wrong, produced their views with a hesita- 
 tion unknown to Mr. Hornbeam. He was besides 
 this an energetic man, and a successful one in 
 his business, and seemed on the whole to have as 
 good a chance of becoming King of Porchester 
 as any commoner could desire. 
 
 The inn towards which he was now walking 
 stood just outside the town, in a quiet road lead- 
 ing westward. Few houses could be seen from it, 
 and there were fields in front and on either side. 
 It was a square brick house, with a door in the 
 middle, and over the door, besides the lawful 
 inscription of " Richard Fowkes, licensed, &c.,"
 
 142 TKUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 was a long board bearing a curious sign. The 
 sign consisted of four figures with four mottos 
 under them. The figures were those of a king, an 
 admiral, a bishop, and a farmer. Their mottos, 
 in the same order, read respectively, " I govern 
 all," " I fight for all," " I pray for all," " I pay for 
 all," and the inn was known as the Four All's, 
 in consequence. The painting of the figures 
 may be imagined by those familiar with similar 
 works of art, especially when mellowed down 
 by time, and worked upon by those great picture 
 cleaners the sun and rain. The artist's power 
 had been cliiefly thrown on the last figure, that of 
 the farmer, on whose jolly face he had labored 
 hard to impress a certain air of slyness and a 
 wink of the eye, as if he were enjoying the wit 
 and satire of the whole conception, which was 
 concentrated in himself and his motto. The 
 house looked shabby, as indeed it had a right 
 to do, for smartness and gentility are meant to 
 be looked at, and the road was so quiet that 
 they would have been thrown away upon it. 
 
 In the open doorway, with his legs pretty wide
 
 A SIGN OF PROMISE. 143 
 
 apart, and his hands in liis pockets, the landlord 
 stood breathing the morning air. He was some- 
 thin o; like his own farmer's figure in the sign 
 above — tall and stout, capacious below the waist, 
 and of a red complexion. He looked like a good- 
 hearted fellow, a little soured ; for which, indeed, 
 he had two good reasons. The first was in his 
 matrimonial arrangements, but on these, bemg 
 personal matters, I will not enlarge. The second 
 lay in his declining circumstances, and the bitter- 
 ness of hope deferred. He had taken the Four 
 All's from a man whom it had already ruined, 
 believing himself, through his acquaintance with 
 Mr. Hornbeam, to be in possession of an important 
 secret, namely, that the scheme for the new road 
 would shortly be carried ; that an Act of Parlia- 
 ment would be procured ; that the quiet inn would 
 find itself in the middle of the chief thorouo-hfare ; 
 and that he should make his fortmie. 
 
 This had happened four years ago, and in that 
 time the scheme, instead of being carried, had 
 been temporarily dropped. Mr. Fowkes began 
 to find that quarter-day came inexorably round
 
 144 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 witliont the least compunction for liim ; and tliat 
 Fortune, if indeed she meant to have him at last, 
 was keeping hnn waiting a confounded length of 
 time, and plaguing the very life out of him. 
 
 " Well, Fowkes," said Mr. Hornbeam, comino- 
 up the road, and stopping before the doorway, 
 "how do you do this morning?" 
 
 " Why, well enough, Mr. Hornbeam, but 
 plaguey cross." 
 
 " Just parted company with Mrs. Fowkes, eh ? 
 You should have taken better care of yourself, 
 and lived a bachelor like me." 
 
 " I'd take ten wives, Mr. Hornbeam, to get shut 
 of the Fom' All's, and my money back. A wife's 
 not half as bad as rent and taxes. She can't 
 bother you all day long, whatever she does." 
 
 "Have patience, Fowkes; have patience. I 
 would n't sell your lease for a thousand pomids." 
 
 "Will you buy it for five hmidred now?" 
 says Mr. Fowkes, energetically stretching out 
 his hand. 
 
 " Well, that's another matter, but take my word 
 for it the new road will be made. I've got news
 
 A SIGN OF PROMISE. 145 
 
 about it. Do you know young Forrest's coming 
 home next week ? " 
 
 "No; I don't know and I don't care. He's 
 done me the worst turn of any man living. Told 
 his father I kept bad company in the house, and 
 very near took my licence away." 
 
 " I know that, Fowkes ; I know that. He's 
 coming home to be married." 
 
 " Serves him right," said Mr. Fowkes. " Who's 
 going to have him? I hope she'll give it him, 
 that's all." 
 
 " It's some girl from a boarding school," replied 
 the builder. " They've kept it very quiet, but we 
 shall hear all about it soon. However, it matters 
 little who it is. He's going to be married. Now, 
 you see the wedding will give him and his father 
 and a good many more of them enough to think 
 of this summer, and the elections will be cominir 
 on before they've done with it. I'm going to 
 work the thing as quietly as possible ; we've 
 almost a majority in the Council already. We'll 
 turn out two of the other side, put in two of our 
 own men, and the thing will be done. We shall 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 TKUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 vote the new road, go to Parliament next year, 
 and be at work in less than eighteen months. 
 It's the nick of time, Fowkes, and just what I've 
 been waiting for." 
 
 The landlord looked rather woefal : ^^ Eighteen 
 months ! that's six rent days," said he. 
 
 " Oh," said Mr. Hornbeam, cheerfully, « you'll 
 pull along, you knoAV ; we shall have our meet- 
 ings at the Foui' All's, and talking is dry work. 
 I came to see you, Fowkes, to tell you about it, 
 and I want you to have the ]3arlor quiet for 
 us next Tuesday at six. Not a word, you 
 know ; we must keep still, and the day's ours." 
 
 Mr. Fowkes brightened at the prospects of a 
 succession of committee meetings in his parlor. 
 The arrangements were soon made, and he w^as 
 entering into close political converse with the 
 builder when an mterruption put an end to it 
 for that morning. 
 
 " Fowkes !" cried a shrill voice from the interior. 
 He looked over his shoulder. 
 
 "Well, what's up?" 
 
 "Fowkes!"
 
 A SIGN OF PROMISE. 147 
 
 " Well, I say ; what's up ?" 
 
 " What the mischief do you stand shouting 
 for ? Here's the beer running out like mad, and 
 I wish I may die if I know how to stop it ! " 
 
 "God bless my life!" cried the landlord, 
 tm'ning suddenly, and disap23earing down his 
 cellar stairs. 
 
 Mr. Hornbeam smiled after him, chuckled, 
 and wallied home to his bachelor breakfast. 
 
 L 2
 
 148 TEUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 BOWS AND ARROWS. 
 
 Mr. Anthony Forrest vras coming home, as 
 Mr. Hornbeam had affirm^ed, and was coming 
 home to be married. When Llaiy Griffiths had 
 been a year at school, she was fetched away by 
 her futm-e mother-in-law, who took her to her 
 own house, and at once introduced her to the 
 society of Porchester. This had been arranged 
 from the first, and Mrs. Forrest would not have 
 broken faith with her son on any consideration ; 
 but it must be confessed that when it came to 
 the point she vras not a little nervous about 
 Mary's introduction, and greatly feared to find 
 her committing herself by some ludicrous vul- 
 garity before the searching eyes of the Porchester 
 ladies. Mary, however, had notliing \Tilgar in her 
 nature, and had made such good use of her time
 
 BOWS AND ARROWS. 149 
 
 at school, that there was little either in speecli 
 or manner to distinguish her as one of plebeian 
 birth. Her accomplishments, indeed, were few, 
 and of necessity imperfect ; and her knowledge 
 of life, in the fashionable sense, had not yet had 
 so much as a beginning ; but on the whole she 
 was a very presentable person, especially when 
 her good looks were taken into account; her 
 youth made inexperience excusable, and there 
 was a certain reticence in her character, which 
 kept her from placarding her want of knowledge 
 on everything she saw or spoke of — an occupation 
 industriously followed by many, who might appeal 
 sufficiently well-informed in most matters if they 
 could only be selfish enough to keep their infor- 
 mation to themselves. This, however, would 
 lessen the amount of talking in the world, and 
 human speech, be it good or bad, is oil upon 
 the wheels of life, which soon go heavily when 
 we stop its flowing. I abstain, therefore, from 
 making any recommendation on the subject. The 
 world is full of sacrificial offerings, and a credit 
 for profundity, when laid down to redeem us from
 
 150 TRUST rOR TRUST. 
 
 the great monster Silence, is to be accepted witli 
 the rest. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Forrest, senior, had lived OA^er 
 the Bank in the market-place for many years. It 
 was arranged that Anthony and his wife should 
 occupy this house hereafter, wdiile the old people 
 removed to a villa about a mile out of the town. 
 The Banker had built it several years before, 
 bu.t had never made up his mind to live there 
 until his son's approacliing marriage rendered 
 a decision necessary. He was no loser perhaps 
 by the delay, for it had given time both to art 
 and nature, and the two together had at last 
 made liis villa, with the surrounding pleasure- 
 grounds, one of the pleasantest places in the 
 neighbourhood. There were large trees about 
 it now ; shady walks, perfected roses, and full- 
 bearing vines. The house was square and white, 
 with wide overhanging eaves, and a verandah 
 festooned by flowering creepers. Its chief fi'onts 
 were to the south and west, from the latter of 
 wliich there was a pleasant view of a range 
 of hills, about three miles distant. The sun
 
 BOWS AND ARROWS. 151 
 
 went clown beliind tliem, flaming over eacli peak 
 and ridge successively, from tlie winter to tlie 
 summer solstice and back again. Here Mary 
 was brought by Mrs. Forrest, and here she w^as to 
 remain till her marriage took place; a fortnight 
 being excepted, for the purpose of a farewell 
 visit to her own parents. 
 
 "Anthony comes home about seven on Wed- 
 nesday evening," said Mrs. Forrest, one morning 
 at breakfast, after opening a letter she had just 
 received. " He landed the day before yesterday 
 at Dover; all safe, he says." 
 
 "And all in a hurry it seems," replied her 
 spouse. " The rascal ; I 'd a week's work for 
 him in town. It looks bad, Mary, very bad ; 
 you '11 never hold him in. I '11 swear, he means to 
 run away with you." 
 
 Mary, who was sitting with them at the table, 
 had blushed up to her eyes at the first announce- 
 ment. She blushed down to her shoulders now, 
 and said she was very glad Mr. Anthony was 
 safe; in a voice not calculated to excite fears 
 of rivalry in the breast of Mr. Hornbeam.
 
 152 TEUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 " Oh, he 's safe enough, depend npon it," said 
 the Banker. " He 's got Cupid looking after 
 him, and Hymen to back him, and half a dozen 
 fairy godmothers, I '11 be bomid. Why, Nelly, 
 Wednesday's the archery night: we must go. 
 I laid a wager last week with Daniel Hobbes." 
 
 " That's out of the question ; some one must 
 be at home to receive Anthony. He has been 
 a year away." 
 
 " So much the better, he shall have a novel 
 reception. As for you and me, he won't care 
 twopence about us till Thursday morning, and 
 Mary will look just as well on the archery ground 
 as under the verandah. He'll go to the Bank 
 first to change his clothes, and I '11 leave word 
 we're in the Borough Wall meadow." 
 
 " Really," said his wife, hesitating ; " it seems 
 hardly comfortable for him." 
 
 " Comfortable ! it's better than comfortable, 
 there's romance in it. Mary looks uncommonly 
 well in her hat; and as she can't shoot, he can 
 have her all to himself. The plan's capital, 
 Mrs. Forrest."
 
 BOWS AND ARROWS. 153 
 
 " Well," said the lady, " I don't know ; perhaps 
 it is. What do you say, Mary ? " 
 
 Mary's heart had been going pretty fast, and 
 the thought of meeting her lover in public had 
 not much relief in it. She was umvilling, how- 
 ever, to oppose any arrangement made in her 
 behalf, and had bravely resolved to do battle 
 with her bashfulness, at every lawful opportunity. 
 So she said she would do whatever Mr. and 
 Mrs. Forrest thought best, whereupon Mr. Forrest 
 patted her head good-naturedly, and his wife 
 fell to considering how Mary should be dressed, 
 and what other matters needed attention before 
 her son's return.
 
 54 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL MEADOW. 
 
 On Wednesday afternoon, abont five o'clock, 
 the targets were pitched in tlie Borough Wall 
 meadow. Mr. and Mrs. Forrest, with Mary 
 Griffiths, were first on the ground. 
 
 The Banker was very fond of his bow. He 
 drew it as well as most men have cared to do 
 since gmipowder took the reins of government 
 into its sulphm'ous hands ; was sceptical, however, 
 as to the recorded feats of his ancestors ; thought 
 butt-shootmg at two hundred and twenty yards 
 a pretty theory, but not likely to be a pretty 
 pastime, and chose rather to take his pleasure 
 idly at about thu^ty paces fi'om the target, with 
 plenty of arrows in the red, and not much walk- 
 ing to do.
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL LIEADOW. 155 
 
 The afternoon was very fine, and tlie wind was 
 still. "Just tlie day for us," said Mr. Forrest, 
 as he strung Ins bow. " I shall win my wager 
 with Hobbes." The Roman Ruin, streaked 
 with long lines of shade where the light fell on 
 blades of grass growing in its crevices, stood 
 before them, partly hidden by the three ash-trees 
 in front, and the yiew beyond it stretched out 
 in evening colors to a blue horizon. The rooks 
 were profoundly cawing round their nests, and 
 the tops of the long chimneys gave out only light 
 brown vapors, curving upwards and melting 
 away. li 
 
 " We must set Mary up with a bow," said the 
 Banker, and he bade her try his own. Mary, 
 bred among the mountains, knew how to use 
 her arms ; drew the bow stoutly, with more 
 vigor than knowledge, and letting the string 
 slip, bruised her wrist pretty severely. Mrs. 
 Forrest was distressed, and was ready to carry 
 her home, but Mary only laughed, and wrapped 
 her handkerchief round her arm, much to the 
 Banker's admiration.
 
 156 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 " All," said he, " you girls slioot well enough 
 in your own way. Straight to the heart ; straight 
 to the heart; and mankind m general for a 
 target." 
 
 " We must shoot very badly," said Mary, 
 "for we never mean to hit you when you say 
 it's done." 
 
 She blushed at the idea of having said any- 
 thing so fine to Mr. Forrest, for she was far 
 from being at ease in his presence, yet. He 
 patted her on the shoulder in a fatherly way. 
 " True enough, my girl ; true enough, as far as 
 you know. But there's plenty of other archery 
 in the world, as you'll grieve to find. String 
 your bow, Nell ; here they come ; " and he 
 turned to meet several people with bows in their 
 hands, who began now to enter the field. Mary, 
 squeezmg her wrist now and then, prepared to 
 encounter them, for she had not yet been intro- 
 duced to them all, and was not a little nervous 
 in the presence of strangers. Mr. Forrest's little 
 bit of praise had encouraged her, however ; the 
 bruise itself had rather raised her spirits, and
 
 THE BOKOUGH WALL MEADOW. 157 
 
 she felt less terror than usual as they approached. 
 Indeed, she had little reason for it to-day. 
 
 She was dressed in white, with an Indian 
 scarf round her neck and a straw hat with blue 
 ribbons on her head. Her hair, shining with 
 the sunbeams, and almost Hke them, was loosely 
 gathered up behind and fell again over her neck. 
 The year at school had removed all traces of 
 exposure from the natural fairness of her skin; 
 her figure had grown rounder, but not less 
 graceful, and the flushing of her face, if it took 
 something from its delicacy, added more to its 
 expression. 
 
 Mrs. Forrest looked and felt proud of her, as 
 she introduced her to the first comers. 
 
 "Miss Griffiths, Mr. Beaumont. You have 
 heard me speak of Miss Griffiths." 
 
 The gentleman bowed and examined her dryly 
 from top • to toe. His young wife was already 
 talking to Mary. 
 
 " Mr. Anthony's intended," she whispered to 
 her husband, as they passed on. 
 
 '' Oh ! the boarding-school miss," said he ;
 
 158 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 ^^ plenty of color." He was a tall pale man; 
 
 black-hairedj and self-collected; a lawyer, but a 
 
 Porticite nevertheless. 
 
 '' Good evening, Mr. Cane," said Mrs. Forrest 
 
 to a delicate-looking, mild man, who came by 
 
 himself with a muffler romid his neck. "Have 
 
 you got rid of your cold yet ? " 
 
 " Pretty nearly, I thank you. We are favored 
 
 with such mild weather, I have got about again. 
 
 It is charming — charming. There seems to be 
 
 no dew either on the grass. I am glad to see 
 you on the ground, Miss Griffiths. You will 
 find archery a very healthy exercise." 
 
 He was a chemist, with a shop in the market- 
 place, but was so much respected, and known 
 withal to be so well provided for, that the petty 
 aristocracy of the place admitted him into their 
 ranks on most occasions. He had a wife and a 
 large young family, but his lady, feeling herself 
 inferior in breeding to her husband, rarely accom- 
 panied him when he went among his grander 
 friends, and fomid, indeed, in her children a ready 
 excuse for staying at home. Following Mr. Cane,
 
 THE BOROUGH ^YAL1. MEADOW. 159 
 
 came a rather stout aiid somewhat pompous 
 gentleman, Mr. Clouclesley by name ; a man who 
 cut a considerable figm^e in the town. He was a 
 widower, and brought his two daughters, dashing 
 ladies enough. Mary had seen them before, and 
 they soon were gossiping with her. 
 
 " Oh, you must try my bow." 
 
 " And I '11 lend you some arrows." 
 
 " It 's very easy ; and you know you are just the 
 figure for it. You '11 learn in half an hour. Do 
 you know the very first arrow I ever shot went 
 straight into the bull's-eye, and then I couldn't 
 hit the target again all that evening? Do try 
 now. Leonora, where are the arrows ? What ! 
 have you hurt your arm already? Well, that's 
 unlucky, to be sure. Leonora did just the same 
 when she began, and she screamed so it sent me 
 into hysterics. Do let me look at it. Why, I 
 declare it's dreadful. Just see, Leonora; such a 
 mark ; yours wasn't half so bad." 
 
 "Dear me!" said Leonora. " How you must 
 have screamed. I'm sure I wouldn't try again 
 to-night."
 
 160 TRUST EOR TRUST. 
 
 " I don't think I could very well," said Mary ; 
 " my arm feels rather stiff; but I shall soon learn, 
 I hope. Who is that gentleman commg across 
 the field?" 
 
 The two girls looked and burst out laugliing. 
 
 " Oh, that 's Martin Dove. See how he comes ; 
 he '11 walk right through the target." 
 
 He was a slim, pallid youth, with lanky hair, 
 and a hat pushed back as far as possible from his 
 forehead. He had his bow under one arm, an open 
 book in both hands, and he walked rapidly forward 
 across the meadow, reading, unconscious of every- 
 thing besides. In a minute he reached the target, 
 struck up against it, and overthrew it ; recoiled, 
 and looked round astonished at the groups near 
 him, who were all laughing heartily. 
 
 " Why, Martin Dove, Martin Dove," cried Mr. 
 Cloudesley, "do you knock our targets about in 
 that fashion? Can nothing stop you, man? 
 Are you a bolt from a balhsta or the club of 
 Hercules, or what other monstrous weapon of 
 offence ? " 
 
 The youth blushed a little, and replied.
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL MEADOW. 161 
 
 " The target got here before I expected it, but 
 I can pick it up again." 
 
 He was answered by another general laugh ; but 
 two or three of the gentlemen went to his assis- 
 tance, and, no harm being done, the mishap was 
 soon remedied. The Miss Cloudesleys chattered 
 away about the young man and his eccentricities, 
 and Mary learnt that he was an orphan, a book- 
 worm, a surveyor by profession, but with very 
 little to do, and that in their opinions he was 
 privately smouldering away with a passion for 
 a certain Lucy Hathorne, whom Mary knew, and 
 to whom, as they believed, he would offer himself 
 the very first day on which he should have the 
 smallest prospect of being able to keep her. 
 
 " But see," cried Leonora, " here comes another 
 of the Porchester oddities. Do you know Mr. 
 Daniel Hobbes?" 
 
 Mary looked round and saw an elderly man, 
 rather bent in the shoulders, short and tolerably 
 stout, approaching. He had a large massive face 
 and head, the features all made up of straight hues 
 and angles, from his straight, thick eyebrows to 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 his square chin : his eyes were rather small and 
 twinkling; the cheek bones, two clumsy projec- 
 tions under them ; a long upper lip, with a good- 
 natured smile about it, and the hair stiff and 
 partly grey. He walked in a rather shuffling 
 way, with quick short steps, and had his left 
 arm in a sling. Mrs. Forrest met him and imme- 
 diately asked what accident had befallen him. 
 
 " Ah, Mrs. Forrest, I am staunch, you see ; 
 staunch as ever, though an incapable to-day. 
 Can't stir my arm out of the sling ; but I got it 
 in a good cause, ma'am, in a good cause. I was 
 passing the new quarry yesterday, just walking 
 round the top; saw a lad six feet below me 
 breaking a stone with a fossil in it. I saw it with 
 half an eye, but he didn't. In a minute he'd 
 have smashed it. Down I jumped and caught 
 hold of the stone. 'Bless your heart,' says I, 
 ' don't you know what you're doing ? Why, you're 
 tearing a book older than Adam, — tearing a book 
 older than Adam,' says I. You never saw such 
 a face, Mrs. Forrest: he couldn't have stared 
 more if I 'd been a fossil myself."
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL MEADOW. 163 
 
 " But liow did you get your hurt, Mr. Hobbes?" 
 
 " Oh, my arm, ma'am ? Caught it against the 
 side of the quarry in jumping down. A hard rub, 
 I can tell yovi ; but I got the fish, ma'am, I got 
 the fish, and a very curious specimen it was. A 
 great fellow with a little one half down his throat. 
 He was going to eat it, you see. Ah, the rascal ! 
 caught in the fact, and punished on the spot. 
 Solitary confinement for the Lord knows how 
 long, followed by public exposure and disgrace. 
 Think of the villain's sensations when he felt him- 
 self going to his last account with the little fish 
 half swallowed. No time to eat him ; no time to 
 let him go ; judged and executed without the 
 comfort of either satiety or penitence ; a warning, 
 madam, a warning." 
 
 " Very true, Mr. Hobbes ; we must see the fossil. 
 Will you let me introduce you to Miss Griffiths ? " 
 
 "With the greatest delight, ma'am. My dear 
 young lady, I am sorry I camiot johi you to-day 
 in tliis noble and ancient game, but the long 
 bow must have a fulcrum, you see. Certainly, 
 fire-arms have this advantage, that a pistol can 
 
 M 2
 
 164 ' TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 be used with one hand only, though the weapon 
 is ineffective and the range is small." 
 
 " Miss Griffiths has lamed her arm also, so you 
 can sympatliise together." 
 
 " Lamed her arm ? I am sorry to hear it, 
 ma'am. But we must make the best of these little 
 misfortmies ; we shall represent the Avounded, and 
 lie by while the fight goes on. But where's Miss 
 Lucy to-day? I see many fair faces, but I miss 
 Miss Lucy's." 
 
 " She should be here. I am not aware what 
 detains her and her brother." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Mr. Hobbes, with a kind of sigh. 
 " It's pleasant to see Miss Lucy shoot. You must 
 go, ma'am ; you must go. The battalions are 
 forming; your arrows are wanted, I can see. I 
 and Miss Griffiths must look on and applaud the 
 yictorious." 
 
 The evening's sport had begmi, and Mrs. 
 Forrest jomed the shooters. Mary and Mr. 
 Hobbes stood together a little beliind and on one 
 side, where a good view of the others could be had. 
 She was amused with her companion, and glad to
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL MEADOW. 165 
 
 be so, for at every unoccupied moment her heart 
 beat fast with the expectation of Anthony's return 
 and tlie indefinite fear that she might disappoint 
 him. She had heard him spoken of repeatedly 
 that evening. Many questions had been asked; 
 many compliments paid; everybody seemed de- 
 lighted to hear that he was coming home again ; 
 and when she saw these marks of interest and 
 regard, though it increased her pride in him, it 
 made her shrink into herself, and feel as if he 
 could not like her best of all, where there were so 
 many others, her superiors, she thought, in all 
 tilings. 
 
 There was a large garden behind the Bank in 
 the market-place, and from it a private footpath 
 between two thick hawthorn hedges led to the 
 Borough Wall meadow, entering it by a little iron 
 gate near the ruins. Mary's eyes turned to this 
 gate at every plausible opportunity. She knew 
 Anthony could not pass through it till after the 
 church clock had struck seven, but that mattered 
 little. It seemed always to be swinging open 
 when her face was set towards any other part of
 
 166 TEUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 the field. Mr. Hobbes^ supposing tlie Roman Wall 
 to be the object of her frequent glances, entered 
 warmly upon a learned description of it, but I 
 am afraid the only part of its history wliich he 
 succeeded in impressing on Mary's recollection 
 was the fact that a subterranean passage existed 
 under it, whereby two lovers had taken flight 
 together half a century before. In a short time 
 Mr. Hobbes interrupted himself by exclaiming, 
 "Oh, here comes Miss Lucy;" and immediately 
 afterwards a young lady with a bow on her 
 shoulder was shaking hands with him, and saying 
 in answer to his question : 
 
 " Oh, we met Mr. Hornbeam, and my brother 
 and he got talking about the new chunney till I 
 began to wish they were m it. I wonder why 
 people employ Mr. Hornbeam. I'm sure if he 
 built me a house, I should expect the beams to 
 fall on my head. You should hear liim speak 
 to his workmen. Miss Griffiths; his voice is 
 enough to shake the mortar out while they are 
 building." 
 
 " Come, Lucy, we want you. Don't stand flirt-
 
 THE BOEOUGH WALL MEADOW. 167 
 
 iiig with Mr. Hobbes^" cried Miss Cloudesley, 
 from the target. Lucy blushed a little, and ran 
 off to the shooters, di'opping one of her arrows 
 on the way. This was immediately seized upon 
 by Mr. Martin Dove, who, getting his own bow 
 between his legs in his over haste, fell prostrate at 
 the young lady's feet, and narrowly escaped trans- 
 fixmg one of them with the point of her own 
 weapon. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ; I didn't mean to fall," 
 said he, rising on his knees and restoring the 
 arrow to its fair owner in that humble posture. 
 
 " A clever girl Miss Lucy ; a very clever girl," 
 said Mr. Hobbes to Mary, following Miss Hathorne 
 with his eyes, and looking pensive as he did so. 
 Mary had been already mtroduced to her, and 
 liked her better than any one else among her new 
 friends. She was about her own age, not quite 
 so tall, with dark brown hair and eyes, a skin like 
 the loveliest porcelain in its texture, less fair than 
 Mary's, but with its pink and white mimixed 
 except where they melted into each other. She 
 was accomited one of the beauties of the place.
 
 168 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 and was certainly one of the liveliest of its 
 daughters. She lived with a brother many years 
 older than herself, a manufacturer who occupied 
 one of the private houses in a street leading out 
 of the market-place. 
 
 Mr. Hobbes watched the flight of her first 
 arrowj and clapped his available hand against the 
 back of the disabled one, when it struck the 
 target. 
 
 " Capital, capital ! in the red, you see. Miss 
 Griffiths. A very good shot: there she goes 
 again ; ah ! Miss Lucy, that was too hasty ; no, 
 she's in again — a very clever girl." 
 
 " Hobbes," cried Mr. Forrest, raising his bow, 
 "this makes the first dozen. There — all in — 
 youVe lost your wager." 
 
 "Not a bit, Mr. Forrest. I didn't bargain 
 for such a day as this — an average day, sir ; 
 average wind and w^eather. The air is stagnant ; 
 why I'd have done it myself if that rascal of 
 a fish had only died like a Christian instead 
 of embalming his precious bones in a stone 
 quarry."
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL MEADOW. 169 
 
 . "Oil, oil! Hobbes: not a word about averages. 
 Send me the wine to-morrow, or I'll advertise 
 you!" 
 
 " Very well ; very well. I'll bring tlie bottle 
 myself, and we '11 drink it to the health of Mr. 
 Anthony that is, and Mrs. Anthony that shall 
 be." 
 
 This speech, which was received with applause, 
 brought everybody's eyes again on Mary, and 
 made her glad to turn to her companion, asking 
 him some haphazard questions about the Borough 
 Wall. He, however, was soon running forward 
 to see the exact position of Miss Lucy's arrows. 
 For the rest of the evening, he forgot his post as 
 one of the disabled lookers-on, and took an active 
 interest in the o-ame. 
 
 The church clock had struck seven, and Mary 
 had forgotten the archery. The little gate had 
 not moved, however. She mechanically followed 
 the rest as they walked backwards and forwards • 
 in the meadow. They were divided into two 
 opposing parties, and the game had reached its 
 climax. She heard some one say, —
 
 170 TRUST rOR TRUST. 
 
 '^ Now, Miss Hatliome, all depends upon jou. 
 Two bull's-eyes — or we are beaten." 
 
 Then she saw Lucy's arrow strike the outer 
 circle only, followed by groans of despair on one 
 side and a shout of victory on the other ; while 
 Lucy herself, saying, — " It's no use now ; we 
 can't win," drew her bow again at random, and 
 the second arrow, grazuig the edge of the target, 
 glanced off sharply and disappeared among the 
 foliage of one of the ash-trees in front of the 
 ruin ; she saw Martin Dove rmi towards the trees, 
 followed by Mr. Hobbes and Lucy ; but then the 
 little gate swmig open, and Mary, catching at 
 the target-stand for a moment, fomid the meadow 
 swingmg also, and lost sight of all human beings 
 except one. 
 
 Anthony had to shake hands with most of the 
 company before he could speak to Mary, for she 
 remained standmg by the target while the others 
 ran forward to meet him. He passed through 
 them as hastily as he could, and stood once more 
 face to face mth her. 
 
 There was some anxiety in his looks as he
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL MEADOW. 171 
 
 aj)proacliecl her, but when he took her hand it 
 changed suddenly to satisfaction and surprise. 
 The sun was behind her and had dazzled liis 
 eyes so that he saw her imperfectly till within 
 a yard of her. It threw her face into shade, 
 but lighted up stray locks of hair, gave the 
 brilliancy of mountain snow to the edges of her 
 wliite dress, and shot richer tints tlu'ougli the 
 oriental colors of the scarf upon her shoulders. 
 Her costume seemed to his fancy* not less perfect 
 than the sunset ; her blushing cheeks, not warmer 
 than the round, soft outlines of her figure : her 
 eyes, half-frightened as they were, looked frankly 
 into his own, and were as full of love as of 
 timidity. 
 
 ^'You have come back at last," she said; as 
 if it were not very easy to say anything. 
 
 ^^I have been away too long. I have been 
 forsal^^ing Paradise," he answered hastily, and 
 turned again to the company, who had followed, 
 and were close beliind. But Mary was content ; 
 his smile and the tone of his voice had swept 
 away her fears. He was not disappointed.
 
 172 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 She watched liim among his friends, and 
 thought he was handsomer than a year ago. 
 The warm welcome he received had naturally 
 delighted her ; she saw, too, how it gratified him ; 
 how easily he received the compliments offered 
 to him, as if conscious that they were not un- 
 merited ; how properly he took his place at 
 once as a chief among the rest; deciding ques- 
 tions as if by right; appealing to nothing else 
 in support of his opinions ; satisfied himself, and 
 to all appearance satisfying others also. jMary 
 saw the nobleness of this without seeing its 
 weakness, and gloried in it — as one glories in 
 a bright smiset cloud, though, after all, it is but 
 vapor, crimson and gold in smishine, but dark 
 in shade, and not verily either an angel's winrg 
 or an island of the blest. 
 
 ^So much time was spent in giving Anthony 
 welcome, and asking the shower of questions 
 which, like manna in the wilderness, would have 
 spoilt by keeping till the morrow, that further 
 sport was given up for that evening, and the 
 archers began to unstring their bows and wipe
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL MEADOW. 173 
 
 the dew from tlieir arrows. At the first favor- 
 able opportunity, Anthony drew Mary away from 
 the rest. 
 
 "These people have had their full share of 
 me," said he ; " let us have a quiet walk behind 
 the ruins while they pack up their weapons." 
 
 They passed under the ash-trees, but, instead of 
 finding themselves alone, discovered Mr. Hobbes 
 and Lucy standing by the ruins, and Martin 
 Dove, just over their heads, holding on by a 
 projecting piece of masonry, with one foot on a 
 thick ivy branch, and the other swinging in the 
 air. A yard or tAvo higher still Lucy's arrow was 
 sticking in the mortar of the wall. 
 
 "Why, Hobbes! how do you do? Miss 
 Hathorne, I have the happiness of being at home 
 again, and the pleasure of seeing you look well. 
 Is there any need to introduce Miss Grifiiths ? 
 I thought not. Halloa, Martin ! are you making 
 war with the owls ? " 
 
 "My dear Mr. Anthony," cried Mr. Hobbes, 
 holding out his square hand, "we were quite 
 unconscious of your arrival, I have just been
 
 174 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 pointing out to Miss Lucy a most interesting 
 discovery made by myself last week ; the mark 
 of one of Oliver's shot in the old Porticus. My 
 firm belief is, that the shot itself is embedded in 
 the brickwork, and if it were not like cutting 
 one's own flesh, I should get my chisel, probe the 
 womid, and extract the missile. But, God bless 
 you ! my dear su% you Ve played the truant ; we 
 must tie you up ; we can't do without you ; a ring 
 and a chain. Miss Griffiths ; a ring and a chain." 
 
 " Would any one take hold of my legs ? " said 
 Martin Dove, in a faint voice, overhead. " Miss 
 Hathorne, will you be kind enough to move a 
 little ? I might hurt you, for I think I am going 
 to fall." 
 
 " Hold fast ! " said Anthony, but before he could 
 do anything, the poor youth, who had climbed 
 after Lucy's arrow, and had for some time been 
 hanging on the stretch at a point from which he 
 could neither advance nor retreat, slipped off 
 exhausted, and came down, braising his knees 
 and biting his tongue, for the ivy branch chucked 
 him under the cliui in his descent, and the wall
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL MEADOW. 175 
 
 was roiigli and jagged. Miss Hathorne kindly 
 offered liim an arm, as he limped and seemed 
 in pain, and Mr. Hobbes thinking it necessary 
 to support him also, all three walked off together, 
 leaving Anthony and Mary to themselves. 
 
 " Come to the other side of the ruins, Mary ; 
 the tankard and cakes have come into the field, 
 and they are all clustering romid them. They 
 won't want you yet. Let us see the prospect 
 together." 
 
 They went round, and stood by the railings 
 at the edge of the precipitous bank, where the 
 river flowed below, and the wide plain spread 
 out its fields of yellow green, and its long, 
 evening shadows. He let go her hand ; walked 
 a yard or two away from her, and then turned to 
 look at her with eyes full of admiration. 
 
 " I am surprised, Mary ; I am delighted beyond 
 expression ; you have surpassed all my expecta- 
 tions, and reaKzed all my wishes. In dress, 
 bearing, movement, you are a perfect lady — you 
 will do honor to my choice, and credit to my 
 table. I am proud of you ! "
 
 176 TRUST EOR TRUST. 
 
 Mary could not stand still to be looked at and 
 praised after this fashion. She went timidly up 
 to him and hid her face on his shoulder. 
 
 " I am so glad — I was afraid — I thought you 
 might think me vulgar." 
 
 '' Vulgar, Mary! I should like to see who 
 would dare call you so." 
 
 " And my voice ? Do I speak as others 
 do?" 
 
 "You never spoke badly. There are a few 
 faults in the tone, but not half so many as our 
 Porchester ladies are guilty of — you need not be 
 nervous about your voice ; it contents me, and 
 you will improve it. Now lift up yom' face. Let 
 me look at you again." 
 " No ; not now." 
 
 " Yes ; immediately. The light falls exactly as 
 it should." 
 
 " Please don't — you shall to-morrow." 
 "To-night as well. Bashfulness is vulgar, 
 Mary." 
 
 She let him put her at arms' length for a 
 moment, but longer than that, submission to his
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL MEADOW. 177 
 
 scrutiny was impossible, so she hurried away and 
 ran to the Borough Wall. Anthony followed, 
 laughing. 
 
 " Take care," he cried, " that dark recess 
 among the bushes leads to a passage under- 
 ground, and there is a legend about it." 
 
 Mary stopped, and turned romid. 
 
 '^ I know the legend," she answered, " so you 
 had better mind how you treat me. I may meet 
 Mr. Hobbes or Mr. Martin Dove here, and run 
 away with them." 
 
 Her words seemed to recall unpleasant thoughts 
 to her lover's mind. The cloud melted in the 
 pure light shining out of her countenance; but 
 he wished it never had been there. 
 
 " Come away from that dark hole," said he. 
 '"'' What have you done to your arm ? " 
 
 " I tried Mrs. Forrest's bow, and found myself 
 only a clumsy country girl." 
 
 "What! did they let you try it without a 
 guard ? How careless ! " 
 
 "Mine are peasant's arms, you know. They 
 did not expect me to be so strong." 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 Anthony flushed a little. '' They are a lady's 
 now, Mary; we may as well forget what they 
 have been." 
 
 Mary looked up doubtfully at him. He was 
 examining her bruised arm. 
 
 ''My mother ought to have known better; I 
 shall tell her so." 
 
 " No : pray, say nothing about it ; you see it is 
 nearly well." 
 
 " I see it is bruised and blackened ; they ought 
 to have taken better care of what I loved and 
 valued. I have a right to be seriously angry." 
 
 He almost looked so, and it troubled Mary. 
 
 '^ They have been so kind to me," she said, " I 
 could not bear to have them blamed. Besides, 
 a little pain is nothing, and a bruise soon wears 
 away." She put her hands into his, and turned 
 towards the sunset. 
 
 '' See how it glows ! " she said. As Anthony 
 looked and softened, he put his arm romid her, 
 and kissed her passionately. 
 
 " It is like my love, Mary," and they samitered 
 on together over the space between the ruins and
 
 THE BOROUGH WALL MEADOW. 179 
 
 the railings. It formed a kind of grass terrace 
 about twenty yards wide. 
 
 Presently, voices called them from the meadow. 
 Rejoining the company, they fomid the Banker 
 and his wife ready to take Mary home. Of 
 course Anthony went with them, and the stars 
 were out when he left his father's house, walk- 
 ing back alone to his own residence in the 
 market-place. 
 
 He did not look at the stars or perceive the 
 darkness. He passed through the garden into 
 the road, and turned in the right direction to- 
 wards the town ; but it was done mechanically, 
 for his thoughts were lost in Mary and were 
 too entirely happy to occupy themselves with 
 anything besides. He had been a year away, 
 travelling much, and mixing in the gaiety of 
 foreign cities. Perhaps the contrast between 
 Mary's simple girlhood and the charms of fashion 
 was in some degree the source of the extreme 
 delight she had inspired him with. His satisfac- 
 tion was certainly complete, and as the wedding- 
 day had been fixed that evening he had nothing 
 
 N 2
 
 180 
 
 more to ask for but patience| during the short 
 interval. 
 
 His dream, however, as is usually the case with 
 dreams, was broken into by a sudden interrup- 
 tion. While the garden gate swang behind'him, 
 Mrs. Fraser crossed the now solitary road and 
 stood before him on the pathway.
 
 181 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SPECIAL PLEADING. 
 
 We lost sight of Mrs. Eraser a year ago, when, 
 on the sudden : news of her husband's determi- 
 nation to go abroad, and of the risk she ran of 
 finding some ruinous codicil to his will if she 
 left him to his bad associates, she abandoned for 
 the moment her schemes against Anthony's matri- 
 monial views, and galloped southward in a fit 
 of terror. She found that, with the restlessness 
 of disease, Mr. Fraser had already crossed the 
 Channel. He had crossed the Alps when she 
 arrived in Paris ; and it was after a chase of a 
 week or two that she caught him at last in 
 Naples, where he had stopped to rest, worn out 
 by his rapid journey, and, apparently, on the 
 very eve of that final one, which, for all its
 
 182 ^ TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 infinite and unknown stages, man begins at 
 nightfall and must finish by the break of day. 
 She was only just in time; not indeed to see 
 him die, but to prevent him from leaving her a 
 beggar. She had a certain influence over him, 
 or at least her beauty had, and when he saw her 
 again he refused to sign what had been prepared 
 for him. His death seemed imminent, and 
 Mrs. Eraser waited patiently, satisfied from what 
 she had heard that Anthony's marriage could 
 not take place immediately, and that she should 
 speedily be in a position to pursue her own plans 
 without impediment. But Mr. Fraser lingered 
 and lingered, and it was late in the autumn 
 before his coffin was lowered into its Italian 
 grave, and his widow, rich and unfettered, but 
 worn with the excitement of her own impatience 
 and suspense, returned a free woman to England. 
 She came back in a mood of black despair. — 
 Her long compulsory absence and the impossi- 
 bility of interfering with the natural progress 
 of Anthony's love affairs left little room for her 
 own hopes to expatiate on the future. She had
 
 SPECIAL PLEADING. 183 
 
 corresponded with Mr. Fowkes, however ; and had 
 such consolation as the knowledge that Mary was 
 at school and Anthony abroad might give. It 
 was not miach, for her anonymous letter had, as 
 she perceived, led to nothing. It seemed that 
 either Anthony had paid no attention to it, or 
 that his temper had changed, or that Mary had 
 broken her promise and told her secret. In the 
 latter case, a complete explanation had probably 
 followed, and if the engagement had survived it, 
 there was little more to be done. This, however, 
 Mrs. Fraser did not believe. She had an irresist- 
 ible confidence in Mary's truthfulness ; and on 
 this single point she was right in her estimate 
 of her rival's character. Had she known Mary 
 better still, or if her own temper had been a 
 more generous one, she w^ould have seen that 
 the most likely way to separate the two lovers 
 would be to take a step which did in fact 
 occur to her, that is, to tell Mary at once that 
 Anthony himself was the hero of her unhappy 
 story. But the idea suggested itself only to be 
 discarded. In Mrs. Fraser's view of the case, Mary
 
 184 TRUST FOPt TEUST. 
 
 had so much to gain by her expected marriage that 
 all considerations either of jealousy or generosity 
 must be outweighed immediately. 
 
 Weary and wretched, without any practicable 
 plan before her, but with her passionate love for 
 Anthony increased even by the obstacles in its 
 way, Mrs. Fraser could decide only on settling 
 herself for a time in the neighbourhood of Por- 
 chester, to wait for his' return from the Continent 
 and for such opportunities of action as might pre- 
 sent themselves afterwards. Lying thus in ambush 
 for the purpose of robbing an innocent girl of 
 her wedding-ring was not a very hallowed oc- 
 cupation, but, hke most people m pursuit of a 
 selfish end, Mrs. Fraser had laid before her 
 conscience a complete justification of her own 
 conduct. She and Anthony had been on the 
 very eve of marriage; their attachment had been 
 reciprocal; they were plighted to each other, 
 and made for each other. What had happened in 
 the last two years was a dreadful e2:>isode, but it 
 was over, and the blame of it must be shared 
 between them. If her love had lasted through it
 
 SPECIAL PLEADING. 185 
 
 all, could she believe tliat Anthony's was less 
 enduring ? That night in the pass, indeed, he 
 had treated her with cruelty and scorn, but that 
 was because she had been hurried on prematurely, 
 and, at the moment, he no doubt saw in her con- 
 duct, not the renewal of their former confidence, 
 but a shameless offer of love from a married 
 woman. He would comprehend her better when 
 she could tell him that her chains were no longer 
 breaking only, but broken for ever. His very 
 choice of Mary showed that his heart was still 
 pre-occupied. How could a peasant girl content 
 him, except on the supposition that he had relin- 
 quished the idea of finding mental sjmipathy 
 again ? To see him marry her was to see him 
 exiled like herself from that paradise of congenial 
 love at whose open gate she had so madly left 
 him. 
 
 So eloquently Mrs. Fraser argued in defence of 
 herself, till, as we see, she reached the happy 
 climax of proving her own wishes to be coincident 
 with Anthony's true happiness. So cunningly the 
 mind asserts its logic to confomid its instincts
 
 186 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 when the one bends more complacently than the 
 other before the nod of its desu'es. 
 
 Two or three miles from Porchester, on the 
 western side^ was a hilly district of considerable 
 extent. The hills^ without being lofty, were just 
 high enough to give the features of momitain 
 scenery on a reduced scale. Being chiefly com- 
 posed of slate, they abounded with sharp peaks 
 and jagged ridges. They were ftdl of narrow 
 gorges and picturesque hollows, and could boast of 
 several brooks, tributary to the neighbouring river, 
 and of not a few waterfalls among the rocks. 
 Part of this district, which had the general 
 name of Chosen Forest (nobody could tell, even 
 in Porchester, how it had acquked the name), 
 was well cultivated and sprinkled over mth farm- 
 houses and the seats of county people; another 
 portion, enclosed, but hardly cultivated, w^as held 
 chiefly for its mineral treasures, and the remainder 
 still belonged to no one in particular, and was a 
 wild nursery for game. Certain anomalies m the 
 geological structure of these liills made them 
 especially dear to the scientific souls of the county.
 
 SPECIAL PLEADING. 187 
 
 aad added even to the pleasure of tlie imlearned 
 by giving great variety both to the forms and the 
 foliage for which Chosen Forest was remarkable. 
 
 In one of the hollows among these hills a 
 Roman Cathohc gentleman, seeking seclusion, built 
 a red brick house in Queen Elizabeth's reign. 
 Two centuries later his descendant planted the 
 hollow and the hill-sides above it with larches, 
 and, dying with a flaw in his will, left the pro- 
 perty to the tender mercies of a Chancery suit. 
 The suit halted for want of funds, but the larches 
 kept growing, and in a generation or two the 
 timber had become so valuable that proceedings 
 were renewed. Nothing had come of them, 
 however, except that certain trees were cut down 
 annually to pay expenses, and that the house 
 was let for a trifle to any one who chose to take 
 it. It happened to be empty when Mrs. Fraser 
 returned to England, and it seemed to suit her 
 purpose. She took a fancy to it, and became the 
 tenant. The house was about tliree miles from 
 Porchester market-place. The road to it was 
 good but unfrequented, the retirement was com-
 
 188 TRUST rOR TRUST. 
 
 plete, and the place having been occupied by 
 several tenants in succession, who had proved to 
 be uninteresting people and had stayed in it only 
 for short periods, the neighbours had ceased to 
 be inquisitive as to its inhabitants. Mrs. Fraser 
 put a farming man and his wife into it; made 
 it understood that she came there for the benefit 
 of her health, and endeavoured, by wandering 
 in the larch woods and on the hills, by rambles 
 about Porchester, and by secret inquiries concern- 
 ing the movements of Mary and her friends, to 
 while away the long months until Anthony's 
 return. He came — she knew the hour of his 
 arrival, and was resolved to lose no time. 
 
 She had made a cm'ious discovery connected 
 with the Borough Wall, and by means of it she 
 became an unobserved observer of the archery 
 meeting and of the little scene behind the ruin. 
 In granting herself this indulgence, Mrs. Fraser, 
 as usual, was not wise. The sight of Anthony, 
 Mary's beauty, and his evident admiration, tm-ned 
 her brain and upset her judgment at the moment 
 when, if her designs were to be successful, the
 
 SPECIAL PLEADING. 189 
 
 most artful policy was required. She did indeed 
 prevent herself from breaking in upon the lovers' 
 meeting, but she followed them to the Banker's 
 house, paced up and down the road with her 
 thoughts in complete disorder the whole of the 
 evening, and when at length Anthony came, as 
 she expected, alone from the garden gate, she 
 approached him with all her passions uppermost, 
 and with little chance therefore of furtherino; her 
 own purpose. 
 
 There was barely light enough for recognition, 
 but there was no mistaking Mrs. Fraser's voice, 
 as she touched Anthony's arm and stopped hirn. 
 
 *^ What ! " he exclaimed, turning angrily, " are 
 you still insane, Mrs. Fraser ? Have you no more 
 self-respect than you had a year ago ? " 
 
 " Are you still infatuated, Anthony ? Has not 
 a year been long enough to cure your passion for 
 this girl ? " 
 
 " A year has been long enough to justify my 
 choice, and to make it irrevocable. A year has 
 brought me to within a few weeks of my wedding- 
 day, Mrs. Fraser, and has made your society
 
 190 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 anytliiiig but desirable. Let me pass on, if you 
 please." 
 
 "Not now, Anthony; not now," she replied, 
 her hurried breathing showing her inward agita- 
 tion. '' I have a right to keep you. I have a 
 claim upon you. That wretched girl has never 
 had a claim lil^e mine." 
 
 ^^Mrs. Fraser, will you have the decency to 
 keep these feelings to yourself? Such speeches 
 from a married woman " 
 
 "Hush!" she cried, "I am not a married 
 woman. I am as free as a child born yesterday. 
 The man I married and hated, died six months 
 ago. Have I no right to speak now to the only 
 man I ever loved ? " 
 
 ^* If that is the case," he answered, " you are 
 less unhappy than you deserved to be. Be grate- 
 ful for your release, and, if you can, make a 
 better use of yom- liberty than you did before." 
 
 *^ Is this cold cruelty aU you feel towards me, 
 Anthony ? Or are you waiting for me to speak 
 more plainly? I have no reason for modesty. 
 We have been betrothed lovers; we have told
 
 SPECIAL PLEADING. 191 
 
 oiu' feelings a liundred times to one another. 
 Do you not feel ? can you not understand ? must 
 I tell you in actual words that it was madness 
 only that divided us? Must I ask you audibly 
 to give me your heart again ? " 
 
 " You are too late, Mrs. Fraser ; and what 
 you are saying can only bring confusion upon 
 yom'self. To know that you entertain these 
 feelings is doubtless painful to me, but they can 
 have no influence on my conduct, and you might 
 have spared me this additional injury." 
 
 " Anthony, Anthony, do you forget so soon ? " 
 
 "No, Catherine, I forget nothing; not even 
 my duty and my plighted word ; matters which 
 have little hold upon some memories." 
 
 It was the first time he had called her by 
 her Christian name, and she felt his sarcasm all 
 the more bitterly. 
 
 *^Go, then," she cried, in a fit of frenzy; 
 ^^take the peasant girl, marry her, and blush 
 for her. Let her cm'se you; let her be false 
 to you. \Yhen you send her back to her momi- 
 tains, it will be time enough to think of me."
 
 192 TRUST EOR TRUST. 
 
 Slie threw away liis arm, and walked rapidly 
 from him. " Fool, fool I " she muttered to herself, 
 when, after walking half a mile in little more than 
 five minntes, she stopped suddenly for breath; 
 '^ to think of meeting him again by night ; in 
 darkness even. I might have conquered him 
 by dayhght, and I have thrown my best w^eapon 
 away." 
 
 She was probably mistaken ; but Anthony was 
 still standing where she left him, Avith a flush 
 on his cheeks, which the night concealed, but 
 which was not simply a flush of anger. We 
 cannot annihilate the past. Om' best or our 
 worst efforts can only lay it in ruins ; and some- 
 times, stumbling on a broken column, we are 
 tempted suddenly to build again what we have 
 most studiously destroyed. To think of Mrs. 
 Eraser, not as he had hitherto thought of her, 
 as the wife of his rival, but as the woman whom 
 he still might love and marry if he pleased, was, 
 even in Anthony's present frame of mind, to 
 receive for the moment one of these sudden 
 impulses. It only lasted, however, till Mary's
 
 SPECIAL PLEADING. 193 
 
 image as he had left her, had time to wind its 
 timid arms about him. He pushed the broken 
 cokmm out of sight, and went home to Porchester. 
 
 Ahnost at the same moment a chamber window 
 in the Banker's villa was opened slowly and 
 silently, and Mary leaned out bare-headed into 
 the placid night. She did not look at the earth or 
 the shadowy trees ; her eyes were on the lighted 
 firmament, and her thoughts soon followed. " I 
 am so happy ; he loves me so," she said at first. 
 Then her head drooped on her folded hands, and 
 a whisper came out into the an* : " Make me 
 worthy; make me worthy." 
 
 She looked again into the sky. The Great Bear 
 hung before her, and her father's favorite star. 
 She spread her arms as if something in the air 
 were near her. 
 
 " Father, father, I am still your child ; I shall 
 never be any other." Some stray lamb bleated 
 in the dark fields near at hand. She smiled 
 then, and listened, but it did not bleat again, and 
 the smile passed into thoughtfulness as the scenes 
 of her mountain life floated by her through the 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 starlight. Mary drew back lier head and closed 
 her window. A few footfalls on the floor; the 
 rustle of light garments in the room ; and then 
 there was only a warm face lying with closed 
 eyelids and pouting lips; and over it^ a vision 
 of angels.
 
 195 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ANTHONY AT HOME. 
 
 The present generation already nearly forgets 
 what was meant by an English Municipal Corpo- 
 ration, before the year of grace 1835. In our 
 days these worthy bodies are the general guar- 
 dians of our principal towns, represent pretty 
 fairly the wishes of their inhabitants, do most of 
 the public work that is done within their juris- 
 diction, and are on the whole as honest and 
 disinterested in their doings as the major part of 
 their constituents. The Mayor of a Borough is 
 a respectable man, the Town Clerk a reputable 
 lawyer, the Common Councillors are fair samples 
 of the British burgess elect, and the proceedings 
 of all of them matters of public notoriety. The 
 
 2
 
 196 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 public property is not generally embezzled, the 
 public officers are not always poKtical partizans, 
 the local charities are not dispensed chiefly to the 
 dispensers, nor do the members of the Council 
 Chamber sit down principally to dine. These 
 be great changes. Middle-aged men remember 
 the things that were changed, but, like the pains 
 and nausea of a disease long past and cured, they 
 no longer find any place in the current thoughts 
 of Englishmen. In those days the principle of 
 self-government in our borough towns had very 
 nearly disappeared. The corporate bodies were 
 in general self-elected and irresponsible ; out of 
 some two hundred mmiicipal corporations, not 
 more than about a dozen had escaped this process 
 of decay. In these, however, the free burgesses 
 did, as of old, possess and exercise their power of 
 choosing their local governors, and Porchester was 
 one of them. Not that even here the constituency 
 was a large one, for the burgess rights belonged 
 exclusively to the freemen of the town, and its 
 freedom could only be obtained by birth, purchase, 
 or apprenticeship, or by marriage with a freeman's
 
 ANTHONY AT HOME. 197 
 
 daughter. It belonged in fact to a small minority 
 of the inhabitants, who annually renewed by their 
 vote one half of their Common Council, the elec- 
 tions taking place at the end of October, and the 
 contest being at times severe. Never had they 
 been more severe than in those years in which 
 the struggle between the Porcites and the Porti- 
 cites, that is, between the advocates and opponents 
 of the new bridge, waxed strong. The debate 
 had often died out for a time, but the smoulder- 
 ino- ashes never failed to break ao;ain into flame 
 after a season of quietude; for the Porticites 
 had always succeeded in having a majority in 
 the Council Chamber, the new bridge had not 
 been built, the dangers of the old one remained 
 unabated, and reasons for renewing the strife 
 could never fail while matters were in this con- 
 dition. The Corporation possessed already certain 
 powers for effecting local improvements ; the 
 land, moreover, through which the new street 
 would pass was chiefly in their hands ; there 
 remained, however, the Borough Wall meadow, 
 and Mr. Forrest's resolution not to part with it.
 
 198 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 so that the particular question in dispute had 
 come to be whether an Act of Parliament should 
 be applied for, to compel the Banker to sell his 
 land to the town. So matters stood when An- 
 thony took Mary Griffiths from the altar to be 
 mistress of his married home in the market- 
 place. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Forrest sat together 
 at their tea-table on a September evening. The 
 wedding and the honeymoon were over. Gossip, 
 like the chirping of birds, had risen and subsided. 
 A few intimate friends knew the circumstances 
 of Anthony's courtship, but the current idea was 
 that Mary was a poor girl whom his parents 
 had educated, and that he himself fell in love 
 with her while she was at school. From her own 
 parents her separation was for the time absolute. 
 They were not even present at her wedding, 
 though Mrs. Griffiths had intended to be, and 
 had pleased herself with the notion that her good 
 breeding would be recognised among the grandees 
 of Porchester. But John Griffiths dissuaded her 
 from the experiment.
 
 ANTHONY AT HOME. 199 
 
 ^^ Our Mary is taken from us," he said ; " it 's 
 no use hiding it. She 's going to another country 
 and a Hfe that's not ours. We must give her 
 up ; the Lord bless her ; we must part with her, 
 and not think to follow her. She '11 come to us 
 by times ; I know she '11 come ; and it 's best and 
 fittest for her. You and I should be out of place 
 where Mary 's going ; we should only maze her 
 and trouble her; but be she the finest lady in 
 the land, she'll never be out of place herself 
 when she comes to her father's cottage." 
 
 So Mary left them once more m the momitam 
 valley, when the fortnight given to her parting 
 visit was ended, and went back to Porchester 
 under Mrs. Forrest's protection, with streaming 
 eyes and many sobs, but with the light of her pm'e 
 love for Anthony making rainbows in the storm 
 and clearing it at last away. 
 
 They were married. Their house, over the 
 Bank, was large and comfortable, though old- 
 fashioned and in the midst of the to^vn. Not so 
 very much in the midst of it, however, for the 
 thickest part of the population lay on the other
 
 200 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 side of the market-place. There was a good 
 walled garden behmd the Bank, and over it an 
 uninterrupted ^dew as far as the Borough Wall 
 meadow, which was about a quarter of a mile 
 distant, and connected, as I have said, by a 
 narrow private path with Mr. Forrest's garden. 
 The garden consisted of a grass plat in the 
 middle, a gravel walk round it, and a deep 
 border, edged with box, at the foot of the wall. 
 The grass plat had some beds in it, and was large 
 enough besides to be used as a bowling-green, and 
 had an old aj)ple-tree at one corner. The veteran 
 branches, though darkened by the smoke and soot 
 with whose growing hosts they had fought from 
 year to year, still burst out into blossom every 
 spring, raised every summer the green bamier 
 of life among their enemies, and ripened in the 
 autumnal sunshine a crop of pippins, streaked 
 with blood -red lines, like trophies from the 
 battle. 
 
 The best rooms in the house overlooked 
 the garden, and were removed therefore from 
 the noise of the market-place. Mary and her
 
 ANTHONY AT HOME. 201 
 
 husband took tea in one of these which was 
 called the library, because of its book-shelves, 
 but was furnished in other respects more taste- 
 fully than any other apartment in the house. 
 It was hung with blue and gold : had a white 
 marble mantel-piece supported by caryatides, 
 and ornamented with a time-piece representing 
 a Roman temple, two tall alabaster vases, a 
 pair of lustres, and a large mirror behind. The 
 fender and fire-irons were polished steel ; the 
 carpet rich and warm ; and the furniture modern, 
 comfortable, and abundant. 
 
 The town was partly lighted with gas, but 
 it had not entered the houses, and four wax 
 candles in the room showed in those days that 
 Mr. Anthony Forrest did not stint his wife in 
 her housekeeping. 
 
 The weather being cold, a bright fire was 
 burning. The tea-table was a romid one. An- 
 thony, sitting by it at one side of the fire-place, 
 had been eating his toast in silence for some 
 minutes. Mary sat before the tray, opposite to 
 him, and had fallen into a pleasant reverie.
 
 202 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 " My love," said he, " a man's life should be 
 an active one." 
 
 " Yes, dear ; I suppose it should." 
 
 " The Bank parlor is not my proper place 
 among my fellow-creatm-es. I am wasting my 
 powers m it." 
 
 " It looks like a very dull place. I wish you 
 would let me take the carpet up, and have the 
 walls painted." 
 
 " I am certain I might do great good, Mary, 
 I am not half occupied except on market-days. 
 The old gentleman sticks to liis post and manages 
 to be all day doing liis business, but I could finish 
 his work and my own in half the time. Of 
 com'se one of us must be at hand through bank- 
 ing hom's, but I have a great deal of spare time 
 notwithstanding." 
 
 "Do you think, dear, of tr3dng something 
 else besides the Bank ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I shall enter mto politics." 
 
 "What! shall you be a member of Pai'- 
 liament ? " said Mary, in some alarm. 
 
 " No," he replied; '' Parliament is not the thing
 
 ANTHONY AT HOME. 203 
 
 for me. It's better to lead others than to be one 
 in a crowd. I'd rather be the head of a borough 
 than the tool of a Ministry." 
 
 "I am sm-e you are clever enough to be the 
 head of anything, if you tried. Who is the head 
 of the borough now ? " 
 
 " The borough, Mary, is just a flock of geese, 
 and has no head whatever. The nearest approach 
 to it is that fellow Hornbeam. He shouts the 
 loudest, and the geese rmi a little when he does 
 so." 
 
 " I don't thuik your voice is as loud as Mr. 
 Hornbeam's," said his wife, laughing. " How will 
 you get the flock to go ? " 
 
 " Drive them. They may be driven if one h^s 
 energy enough. The fact is, Mary, the affairs 
 of Porchester are in a pitiable state. The con- 
 stituency is corrupt. The Town Councillors are 
 nearly all low fellows. His worship the Mayor 
 opened a public meeting yesterday with some 
 remarks about the 'hobjects' of the assembly. 
 The local revenues are wasted ; the charities 
 are robbed; and instead of doing their best to
 
 204 TRUST POR TRUST. 
 
 improve the town, our precious Corporation go 
 on amusing the good folk with the confounded 
 old scheme about the Bridge Hill ; their ^A^sdoms, 
 luckily, being divided on that question hitherto. 
 It is a national disgrace, and will remain so till 
 some one with the needful quahfications puts his 
 soul into the work and becomes the renovator of 
 Porchester." 
 
 He got up during this harangue, and began to 
 walk about the room. 
 
 " Mary, I feel that I could do it. I could defeat 
 these ignorant curs and that loud speaking-trumpet. 
 Hornbeam. I could beautify my native town; 
 clear out its filth, mental and physical ; make its 
 poor, happier, its rich, humbler ; raise the tone of 
 its public life ; put down its vices ; shame away 
 its selfishness and corruption ; make myself the 
 head of a restored community, helping and obey- 
 ing me. You would share my pre-eminence; 
 you would increase it by your own superiority 
 among your own sex. It would be a noble 
 work, Mary." 
 
 Mary thought a little before she answered.
 
 ANTHONY AT HOME. 205 
 
 "Yes, dearest; I think it would be a noble 
 work, though I would rather do all the good 
 without being pre-eminent, as you say." 
 
 " Impossible, Mary ; and quite wrong if it were 
 possible. Those Avho are fit to lead are bound 
 to do it, and great benefits deserve great rewards. 
 I have a serious purpose and an upright intention. 
 I shall use my power for worthy ends, not for 
 pettifogging or dishonest ones ; not like those 
 who pretend at present to watch over the inte- 
 rests of the town, and really watch over nothing 
 but their own stomachs and the pockets beside 
 them." 
 
 He had taken his seat again. Mary went 
 and knelt on the rug by him. 
 
 " I am sure of that, dearest ; I know you are 
 noble and generous in all you do." 
 
 "I try to be so, Mary. Like most yomig 
 men I have wasted a great deal of time, but 
 I shall make amends for it now. I shall not 
 rest till Porchester is a city set on a hill, in 
 more senses than one. I shall work hard, Mary, 
 and it shall be your privilege to help me."
 
 206 TRUST FOE TRUST. 
 
 " I will indeed. It ■v\all be a happy life for 
 us to be doing good together. Those poor women 
 whose husbands neglect them and use them badly, 
 we shall have them better cared for, shall we 
 not? And the poor little children gi'owing up 
 in wickedness, we may save them for better 
 lives." 
 
 " Yes, my love ; those will be among the minor 
 consequences of the change I mean to effect. 
 The first thing is to establish better principles of 
 management, that is, to get a totally different set 
 of men at the head of our affairs. This will be 
 the great struggle. When that is gained, im- 
 provements will follow as a matter of course." 
 
 " I have sometimes wondered," Mary said, 
 '^whether it Avas quite right to oppose the 
 Bridge Hill alteration. The street seems very 
 dangerous. A child was killed there the other 
 day." 
 
 *^ My dear Mary, never let me hear you express 
 a doubt on that subject. The scheme is got up 
 by builders and inn-keepers for merely mercenary 
 ends. The street is certainly an awkward one.
 
 ANTHONY AT HOME. 207 
 
 but any one mth common sense can pass along 
 it as safely as I can in my own garden. Their 
 plan to compel my father to sell his land 
 would be a gross 'violation of private rights, 
 and the destruction of the old Borough Wall 
 would be a perfect crime. Into the bargain 
 the carrying out of the scheme would give a 
 signal triumph to the worst party in the town 
 and throw us back for half a century. Shut 
 your ears to any arguments to the contrary; 
 they are not to be listened to for a moment." 
 
 Mary laughed, and promised to shut her ears. 
 She had perfect confidence in her husband's 
 judgment ; and indeed, in this case, her feelings 
 were all on his side, except in so far as the 
 death of the little child, who had as usual 
 been run over on the Bridge Hill, made her 
 •wish to get rid of the cause of danger. Anthony 
 continued talking about the steps he had in 
 view for the regeneration of the Borough ; and 
 told her he intended to ask three or fom- friends 
 to dine with him next day, staunch Porticites 
 and influential citizens, whose help he wished
 
 208 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 to engage in the contest with the reigning 
 powers. 
 
 Mary entered with more and more ardor 
 into his plans, and began to imagine his success 
 with the pride of a young wife tliinking of 
 her husband's glory.
 
 209 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 PRIVY CONSPIRACY. 
 
 Early next morning Anthony was walking by 
 himself on the road leading to the Four All's. He 
 was not one to let a new-born resolution die in 
 the cradle. Having made up his mind to become 
 the head of the Borough, he at once threw all his 
 energies into the work before him, and began 
 that course of single-eyed determination which is 
 usually the golden road to political success. A 
 rumor had reached him concerning the plans of 
 Mr. Hornbeam and his party, and his object was, 
 if possible, to learn what they were doing before he 
 unfolded his own design to his friends. At some 
 distance from the inn he met the landlord, Mr. 
 Fowkes, walking with Mr. Hornbeam himself 
 in the direction of the town. Anthony gave them 
 VOL. L p
 
 210 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 a salutation, and passed on smiling. " The land- 
 lord is out," tliouglit lie. " All the better. His 
 wife must be left at home." He fomid the inn 
 door open, and entered. There seemed to be 
 nobody there. He walked up to the bar and 
 tapped on the comiter. A voice, somewhere at the 
 top of the stairs, made immediate answer : 
 " Who's tapping there ? You must wait." 
 *^ I should like to have a word with you, Mrs. 
 Fowkes," said Anthony, w^ho knew her voice. 
 
 " Who are you ? What do you want ? You may 
 go away and come again. Fowkes is out, and the 
 girl's ill a-bed. My gowTi's off; and I wish I may 
 die if I come do^^i like tliis." 
 
 '^ I can wait a few minutes, Mrs. Fowkes, if you 
 will be kind enough to put on your go^^^i." 
 
 ^^What do you want then? Why can't you 
 speak? Are you one of the gentlemen, I 
 wonder?" 
 
 " You had a meeting of them here last night, 
 hadn't you?" said Anthony. 
 
 "Yes, to be sm-e there was, and last Wednes- 
 day, and the Wednesday before; and I wish
 
 PRIVY CONSPIRACY. 211 
 
 they were further with their meetuigs for all the 
 good they do." 
 
 ^^ Can you tell me, Mrs. Fowkes, whether Mr. 
 Hathorne was with them yesterday?" 
 
 '^ Yes, I can, but I shan't ; so you needn't ask 
 any questions. I wish I may die if I speak 
 anothei- word." 
 
 " Ah ! he came with Mr. Hornbeam, and went 
 away with him, no doubt." 
 
 " Yes, he did ; and what do you ask me for if 
 you know? Just take yourself away, and shut 
 the door after you." 
 
 ^' Why, Mrs. Fowkes, when the new road is 
 made you'll have your house too full to shut the 
 door." 
 
 '^ Hold yom- tongue about the new road. 
 There'll never be a new road for all their tallv ; 
 and if they get their new men in they'll just be 
 like the old ones. It's the very ruin of Fowkes ; 
 he'll think of nothing else, the fool. It's all a 
 cheat, and I wish " 
 
 " Good morning, Mrs. Fowkes," said Anthony, 
 and he walked, with a look of satisfaction, out of 
 
 r 2
 
 212 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 the house. He had learned all he wanted, and 
 hearing indications of the gown's adjustment and 
 preliminary movements as if the wearer were 
 about to descend, he thought a closer interview 
 might as well be avoided. 
 
 In the course of the day Anthony had a con- 
 versation with his father. The old gentleman was 
 not at all inclined to put his own grey head into 
 the jaws of local politics, and gravely warned his 
 son of the danger, not only to life and limb, but 
 to peace and comfort, involved in the experiment. 
 He made no opposition, however, and even pro- 
 mised a tacit support. Having settled that mat- 
 ter, Anthony went home to dine with his friends. 
 He had chosen fom^ whom for various reasons he 
 thought would be most serviceable and trustworthy. 
 They were Mr. Cloudesley, the retired gentleman ; 
 Mr. Beaumont, the lawyer; Mr. Cave, the di'uggist; 
 and Mr. Daniel Hobbes. 
 
 As soon as Mary had left the dinner-table, her 
 husband opened up his plan. 
 
 " My fi'iends," said he, " I believe we are all 
 true Porticites."
 
 PRIVY CONSPIRACY. 213 
 
 To the backbone," said Mr. Beaumont. 
 
 a 
 
 To the marrow," said Mr. Cloudesley. 
 
 " To death and glory," said Mr. Daniel 
 Hobbes. 
 
 "Most certamly," said modest Mr. Cave, the 
 druggist. 
 
 "It has pleased Heaven," continued Anthony, 
 "' to make us burgesses of Porchester, and we owe 
 a duty to the town which I think we have hitherto 
 neglected." 
 
 " Then, my dear sir, let ^us go and do it," said 
 Mr. Hobbes. "Repentance and reformation are 
 among the chief privileges of the human species 
 — repentance and reformation." 
 
 " Exactly what I am going to propose," said 
 Anthony. "The state of Porchester as a civil 
 commmiity is disgracefid; I need not describe what 
 you all know so well ; I wish rather to dwell on 
 our o^\m shortcomings in this matter. We stand 
 quietly by while everything is corrupted; the 
 town has large funds, and we see them wasted ; 
 great opportunities, and we let them go unim- 
 proved. We are bringing up a new generation
 
 214 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 in dirt^ pestilence, ignorance and vice, and we 
 suffer our local institutions to foster and aggra- 
 Yate everjtliing that is bad amongst us, instead of 
 making tliem tlie remedy. This is scandalous; 
 it ought not to be ; I have got you together here 
 that we may resolve it shall not be. " 
 
 "Capital!" cried Hobbes. "The best resolu- 
 tion that has been made since Mrs. Anthony 
 Forrest gave her consent. Ah, my dear friends, 
 wisdom comes with marriage like mirth with wine. 
 Let us drink to Porchester restored." 
 
 "To Porchester restored/' said the others, 
 emptying their glasses, for Mr. Daniel Hobbes 
 had a pleasant way about him which made 
 his enthusiasm generally contagious, though often 
 enough it w^as premature. 
 
 " But now as to means," said the lawyer. " We 
 have passed our abstract resolution ; what measure 
 can we found upon it ? " 
 
 " There is the difficulty," said Mr. Cloudesley. 
 "What can we do?" 
 
 "It would be very acceptable if Parhament 
 were to inquire into these things," Mr. Cave
 
 PRIVY CONSPIRACY. 215 
 
 observed ; " our corporate towns are really in sad 
 want of some measure of reform." 
 
 " We may liave to wait long," replied Anthony, 
 *^ before Parliament interferes, and in tlie mean- 
 time tliere are speedier means at our disposal. 
 The evils we have to get rid of spring from 
 a single source, and admit of a single remedy. 
 The management of the town is in bad hands : 
 this is the root of all the mischief. We must 
 change its managers. Let five gentlemen of high 
 prmciple and united resolution be introduced into 
 the Town Council, and they would be strong 
 enough to carry all before them, and to change 
 everything." 
 
 ^' Five gentlemen of high principle," repeated 
 Daniel Hobbes. " Why, here we are ! We 've 
 nothing to do but to offer ourselves at the next 
 election, and, ahem ! get ourselves elected." 
 
 " Which is another matter," suggested the 
 lawyer, with a smile. 
 
 " Mr. Hobbes has understood my meaning," said 
 Anthony, '^ and you, Mr. Beaumont, have correctly 
 estimated the difficulty we shall have to overcome.
 
 216 TEUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 But vre are not to shrink from a difficulty, and 
 on careful consideration I believe it will turn out 
 a less serious one than might be supposed. You 
 see, gentlemen, the case stands thus — the liigher 
 classes in the town have for many years withdrawn 
 themselves from any share in its local manage- 
 ment. The work is looked upon as a bore, and 
 the party squabbles involved in it as mibear- 
 able. In default of better men, a set of ignorant 
 fellows have been chosen, and now rule over us. 
 Hence the corruption of the whole. Now my per- 
 suasion is, that if a number of respectable indi- 
 \'iduals, such as ourselves, came forward as can- 
 didates, they would receive very extensive support. 
 No doubt we should have opposition also, but 
 that must be overcome." 
 
 "The High-street tradesmen tm-n the scale," 
 said ]\Ir. Beaumont. " Do you think we should 
 have their votes? You might, with the Bank 
 ledger to back you; but they are a terrible set 
 of fellows, as jealous as King Pharaoh, and 
 afflicted with a most . unwholesome dread of 
 lawyers in generaL"
 
 PKIVY CONSPIKACY. 217 
 
 "Scalded dogs, Beaumont," said Mr. Cloud- 
 esley. ^^ You drew their leases." 
 
 " Not I ; I wish I had. They're such precious 
 loiiix ones. I don't think a lease has run out these 
 ten years." 
 
 " I know they turn the scale," said Anthony, 
 " and I think we can manage them. The new 
 road agitation has been quiet for the last two 
 years, and the scheme is sujoposed to be abandoned. 
 Now, I have ascertained that Mr. Hornbeam and 
 his party have entered into a conspiracy to do by 
 stealth wliat they have failed to do openly ; they 
 intend at the next election, which takes place 
 in six weeks, to turn out some three or four 
 Porticites from the Council, introduce as many 
 thorough-going Porcites, and immediately after- 
 wards raise again the question of the road. Their 
 measures are being taken in private, and the thing- 
 is to be done in such a way as to occasion no 
 suspicion. Mr. Hathorne, I am sorry to say, has 
 joined them, though it is not generally known. 
 He employs a number of freemen in his factory, 
 and makes their party very strong. Now, I think
 
 218 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 "we may turn tlieir weapons against them, and 
 defeat them with them. My plan is to be before- 
 hand with Mr. Hornbeam ; to get one of our own 
 party in the Council to feign a change of senti- 
 ment, and propose a reconsideration of the new 
 road plans before the elections come on. All 
 High-street will be in arms immediately. We 
 come forward then, and offer om-selves as candi- 
 dates in support of the old road. We shall 
 have the votes of every one of them, and win the 
 election." 
 
 There was a short silence; the glasses were 
 emptied, and then most of the confederates put 
 their hands in their pockets, and stretched out 
 their legs for reflection. 
 
 " It looks feasible," said the lawyer. 
 
 "Gentlemen, I pronounce it a noble scheme, 
 nobly planned, and leading to the most astonish- 
 ing results," said Daniel Hobbes. 
 
 " A truly English proposition. I cordially 
 give m my adliesion," was Mr. Cloudesley's 
 remark. 
 
 "I approve entirely; yes, it certainly should
 
 PRIVY CONSPIRACY. 219 
 
 be clone^ in justice to our fellow-creatures," said 
 the druggist. 
 
 " My friends/' said Anthony, '' you respond as 
 I expected. We have a task before us worthy of 
 our best energies. Our reward will be a proud 
 one. We shall become, I doubt not, the ruling 
 spirits of our native town." 
 
 " To the confusion of the Porcite heresy ; to 
 the glory of the old Roman Temple; to the 
 immortal safety of the Borough Wall," cried 
 Hobbes. 
 
 " To arms ! " exclaimed Mr. Cloudesley ; " where 
 shall we strike first. General ? What's to be the 
 order of battle? You see the war-horses scent 
 the combat, and snort defiance." 
 
 " I glory in your enthusiasm," Anthony replied. 
 '^ I propose as a first step that we form ourselves 
 into a society or committee, and pledge mutual 
 faith and perseverance.'* 
 
 All gave the pledge with acclamation. 
 
 " Baptize us, name us, give us a corporate 
 title," exclaimed Mr. Cloudesley. " Suppose we 
 call ourselves the Council of Five."
 
 220 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 " The Reform Committee," suggested the lawyer. 
 
 " The Borough Wall Club," cried Daniel 
 Hobbes ; and his suggestion was immediately 
 declared most suitable, and at once adopted, 
 Anthony being voted the permanent chah^man, 
 and Beaumont undertaking the secretarial 
 duties. 
 
 "Now," said the new secretary, after a few 
 rules had been drawn up and agreed to, " every- 
 thing depends at first upon secrecy. I pro- 
 pose, therefore, that for the present, we pledge 
 ourselves dutifully to say nothing to our 
 wives." 
 
 '' Oh, ho ! oh, ho ! " cried Mr. Hobbes. " Law 
 versus gallantry ; prudence against conjugal bliss. 
 Leave the cause to me; you four are interested 
 parties ; leave the cause to me." 
 
 " Our secretary forgets," said Anthony, " that 
 if we are married men, we are not foolish hus- 
 bands. Our wives, I hope, are in such due 
 subjection to us, and have learned from us so 
 far to respect the confidence we repose in them, 
 that no secret of ours, which we think it wise
 
 PRIVY CONSPIRACY. 221 
 
 to trust them with, is in danger of being exposed 
 hy their indiscretion. If any one of us should 
 feel otherwise, he will of course act accordingly. 
 I myself should consider my whole character 
 and authority as a husband called in question 
 by a pledge which involves the idea that my 
 wife could be so far forgetful of her duty." 
 
 The married men colored and laughed, and 
 declared the cause well disposed of, and the 
 proposition fell to the ground. Then Anthony 
 entered earnestly into the details of his plans ; 
 explained that his father, though indisposed to 
 take any active part in politics, would give them 
 his interest and countenance; produced various 
 statistics which he had been preparing, and finally 
 had his health drunk heartily as the renovator 
 of Porchester. The club adjourned in high 
 spirits to the library, where Mary made tea for 
 them; and, politics being dismissed, an evening 
 of lively conversation followed. Anthony was 
 hi the highest spirits, and his friends were not 
 less disposed to enjoy themselves. 
 
 Something being said about some quarries in
 
 222 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 which Mr. Cloudesley had an interest, Daniel 
 Hobbes soon found an opening for a discourse 
 on fossils, one of his favorite subjects. 
 
 " Talking of fossils," said he, ^' a very singular 
 circumstance happened the other day; a very- 
 singular cu'cumstance. I knocked off a new spe- 
 cimen in the dusk, and took him home. Found 
 next morning I had got him all except his tail, 
 so I went off to the quarry to get it. Not a 
 trace of it to be found ; but while I was looking 
 about to be sure there was no mistake as to 
 the place, who should I see but old Jones, ray 
 father's clerk that was, pokmg about the quarry. 
 Hadn't seen him for twenty years. He always 
 had an eye for fossils, and a notion that human 
 bones would some day turn up among them, 
 to confound all misbelievers about the Flood 
 and the Book of Genesis. I 've known him 
 out days and days, looking for an antediluvian 
 rib. He left the town when my father died, 
 and has been keeper of a museum in the north 
 ever since. 
 
 "^Why, Jones!' said I, seeing him poking
 
 PRIVY CONSPIEACY. ^223 
 
 among tlie rocks. ' Why, Mr. Daniel ! ' says 
 he. We knew each other directly. ^So you 
 haven't done lookmg for Noah's grandfather,' 
 says I. ' No,' says he ; ^ but he hides very close.' 
 " I should thuik he did ! Ha, ha ! I should 
 think he did I " and Mr. Hobbes laughed heartily, 
 joined by all the rest. 
 
 " However/' he continued, " that's not what 
 I was gomg to say. I and Jones fell talking, and 
 we got on the old Porticus question, and had 
 good fan of it. Now, you know, my father was 
 Town Clerk of Porchester for thirty years, and 
 Jones was articled to hun and stayed with hiui 
 till he died. Ah ! Mr. Forrest, those were grand 
 days ; we've all been under the clouds since 
 then ; but it's breaking, it's breaking ! well, not 
 to talk pohtics before ladies," (here Mr. Hobbes 
 winked at Mr. Beaumont, and Mr. Beamnont 
 smiled with closed lips at Mr. Cloudesley, who 
 nudged Mr. Cave with his elbow, and glanced at 
 Mary,) " not to talk politics before ladies, I was 
 saying to old Jones what a world I 'd give for 
 some great discovery that woidd shut the mouths
 
 224 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 of the Porcite heretics past openmg again. Says 
 he ; gentlemen, pray, observe ; ^ I remember,' says 
 he, ' when I was a boy, once seeing in the Town 
 Clerk's office an old parchment deed with the 
 name of the Borough in it, and spelt, not Porches- 
 ter, but Porti-ceaster.' 'Jones,' cried I, ^that's 
 worth more than the skeletons of Gog and Ma- 
 gog.' Only think, my friends, of the circmnstance. 
 Why, the question is settled by it. If the town 
 was ever known as Porti-ceaster, the derivation 
 from Porticus, the absm^dity of Porcus, is mathe- 
 matically clear. The misfortune is, old Jones can't 
 for the life of him recollect what the document 
 was, or what box it was kept in, ' but,' says he, ' it 
 was in the Town Clerk's office then, and is in it 
 now, I '11 be sworn.' " 
 
 " Yery cm-ious, indeed," said Mr. Cave. 
 
 " Couldn't a search be made ? " said Mr. 
 Cloudesley. 
 
 " I went next day to the present Town Clerk," 
 Hobbes answered ; '' but he 's as hard as a fossil 
 himself to do anything with. If I could only 
 get authority, I 'd search the office till I found
 
 PRIVY CONSPIRACY. 225 
 
 the document, please God to spare me long 
 enough." 
 
 '^ Well, Hobbes, the time may come," said 
 Mr. Beaumont. " When I am Town Clerk, you 
 shall search till you're tired." 
 
 The party broke up soon afterwards, and 
 Anthony, left alone with Mary, related to her 
 the substance of what had passed in the dining- 
 room, the success of his first plans, the formation 
 of the Borough Wall Club, the steps about to 
 be taken by it, and the near prospect of political 
 power which had opened before him. Mary 
 listened with delight, and in her pure admiration 
 and unbounded sympathy, Anthony tasted the 
 first sweets that fall upon the way to fame. His 
 young wafe, indeed, took exception to one part 
 of the scheme. " Is it quite right," she asked, 
 " to get one of your party in the Town Council 
 to pretend he has changed his opinion about 
 the new road, when he has not really done so? 
 Of course, I don't understand much about it, 
 but it looks like deceiving." 
 
 ^^ My love," he replied, " women are no judges 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 of these matters, and many things are necessary 
 in politics which none of ns would approve of in 
 private life." 
 
 Mary supposed it must be so, as he said it 
 was.
 
 227 
 
 CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 REBELLION. 
 
 Now Mary Avas very young, and altogether 
 inexperienced in the ways of the world. The 
 windings of her native streams had taught her 
 nothing of political intrigue; the rocks never 
 chid her when she broke their silence, nor the 
 mountain flowers when she carried them from 
 lonely places to set them in a playmate's bosom. 
 Her husband, with his natural energy, scarcely 
 able to sleep while his plans were unaccomplished, 
 was up and at work before Mary was w^ell awake 
 next morning. They had no further conversation, 
 therefore; and Anthony, carried away by his 
 own enthusiasm, had forgotten to say anything to 
 her on the necessity of secrecy. A little thought 
 might perhaps have shown her that it was best 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 TKUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 to be quietj but Mary's heart was full of her 
 husband's future fame and power, and was yearn- 
 ing to well over and share its sweet waters with a 
 sister soul ; so after breakfast, a solitary and hasty 
 one, she went across to her friend Lucy Hathorne, 
 and told her the greater part of what she knew. 
 Lucy sympathised with her to her heart's content. 
 " Dear Mrs. Forrest," she said, " I never knew 
 anybody like you ; you have all sorts of happi- 
 ness — such a husband to begin with, and then 
 such prospects to think about. If ever I get 
 married, the first thing I shall care about is to 
 be proud of my husband. Oh, I should so like 
 to hear people praising him, and see him up above 
 all the rest. But you deserve it all ! I wish I 
 deserved it as well as you do, but sometimes 
 I think I must be half-crazed, I do such silly 
 things. I spoilt my new bonnet last Tuesday 
 with only setting it down in a hurry by an open 
 window where the rain came in. It was done 
 for in ten minutes; all the colors ran, and you 
 never saw such a mess. Indeed, this week is 
 full of misfortunes for me. Do you know I lost
 
 REBELLION. 229 
 
 my poor little dog yesterday ? Poor little thing ! 
 it was ruii over in the High Street. You never 
 knew such a sensible dog ! It was a dog I would 
 not have parted with for anything, and the poor 
 creature was brought home almost smashed : oh ! 
 such a sight ! I was so glad to see you this 
 morning, to put me in good spirits; for, do you 
 know, ever since the little dog was brought 
 home, I've felt as if something was going to 
 happen." 
 
 " Well, something is going to happen, you 
 see," said Mary, "but not at all a misfortune. 
 I suppose your brother is on my husband's side ? " 
 
 " Upon my word, I can't tell you ; Richard 
 is so reserved m some things. He never talks 
 about politics, but I do believe he has had some- 
 thing to do with them lately, for he's been out 
 so^often in the evening with Mr. Hornbeam, and 
 I 'm sure it isn't all about the new chimney he 's 
 building." 
 
 " Why, Mr. Hornbeam is the chief man on the 
 other side, Lucy." 
 
 " Is he ? Really, my dear, you see how much
 
 230 TRUST EOE TRUST. 
 
 I know. But I '11 ask Richard right out. I don't 
 tliink he can be on the wrong side, and i£ he is, 
 you and I must convert him. Nobody has cared 
 about the town matters, you know, except the 
 low sort of people; but, of course, everybody 
 will think about them now Mr. Forrest is taking 
 them up. Do come, dear, and see my poor little 
 dog's grave in the garden. I gave hun an old 
 pocket-handkerchief for a winduig-sheet, and 
 bm-ied him like a Christian." 
 
 Mary spent tlie mornmg mth her merry com- 
 panion. In the afternoon she was busy mth 
 household matters. Anthony was so much en- 
 gaged, that instead of coming to diimer he had 
 a sandwich m the Bank parlor, and it was late 
 in the evenmg before Mary saw him again. She 
 liad got the tea-tray ready, and a hot dish of 
 meat, to make up for the partial fast she thought 
 he had been endurmg. He came in rubbmg his 
 hands, and with his eyes sparklmg. He had 
 done a good day's work, and everytliing was 
 satisfactory. 
 
 "We shall triumph, IMary," he said, kissing
 
 EEBELLIOK 231 
 
 her, and sitting down with a good appetite. 
 ^^ Hornbeam's power is at an end." 
 
 He detailed the progress he had made during 
 the daj, and having finished his meal, drew an 
 easy chah beside his -wife, and stretched himself 
 out in it complacently. 
 
 " I talk to you of these things, my love," said 
 he ; "I wish you to imderstand them and enter 
 into them with me. I need hardly say that my 
 confidence must be met wath the strictest secrecy 
 on yom- pai*t. Nothmg on this subject must be 
 repeated to yom' friends." 
 
 Poor Mary turned pale at these terrible words. 
 Her mornmg's conversation with Lucy stared her 
 m the face upon the instant. What had she 
 been doing ! 
 
 " Oh, dear ! " she said, her pallor changing to 
 blushes, " I am so sorry ; I never thought of it. 
 I told Lucy Hathorne this mornmg what you 
 were gomg to do ! " 
 
 Anthony sprang to his feet as if electrified, 
 the blood flying to his forehead, and astonish- 
 ment in his face.
 
 232 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 "Thoughtless girl!" he cried; "is it possible 
 you know what you are saying ? Tell my secrets 
 — your husband's secrets — to Lucy Hathorne ! 
 Why, Mary, it's ruin, destruction, failure, and 
 disgrace ! Good heavens ! Richard Hathorne 
 has made himself Hornbeam's absolute tool; a 
 member of his secret committee! and my wife 
 — my wife — Mrs. Anthony Forrest — tells my 
 plans to his sister ! " 
 
 He struck his hand on the mantel-piece, and 
 stood looking at her as if doubtful of his own 
 senses. Poor Mary had never heard a really 
 mikind word from him before ; had never 
 offended him, never crossed his purposes till 
 now; had nowhere in her trusting and loving 
 heart a dream of what mio;ht be a husband's 
 anger. She got up from her chair, very still ; 
 crept to her husband's side, and took his hand. 
 
 " Dear Anthony, I am so sorry. Have I done 
 so very wrong ? " 
 
 " Wrong ! Wrong, Mrs. Forrest ! You have 
 done unpardonably wrong. Where was your 
 respect, where your obedience, where was every
 
 REBELLION. 233 
 
 quality that befits a wife, when you betrayed a 
 confidence which it was an honor to receive, and 
 a sacred duty to preserve ? " 
 
 "Dear love," she said, "you did not tell me." 
 
 " What ! do you try to shift the blame upon 
 me, whom you have so offended, so mjm'ed, 
 so humbled? I had the folly, the absurdity, 
 to pledge my word for your trustworthiness. 
 Henceforth I am a branded man ; my plans de- 
 stroyed, my hopes frustrated, my name a laugh- 
 ing stock. Heaven ! to think it possible ! " 
 
 " Dearest " Mary tried to speak again, but 
 
 her voice gave way, her knees shook under her, 
 and she sank down sobbing at his feet. He 
 seemed not to notice her. She had let go his 
 hand, and he walked up and down on the rug 
 with repeated exclamations. Mary started to her 
 feet, and again clung to him. 
 
 "Let me go to Lucy, directly; she may not 
 have seen her brother. She may not have told 
 him." 
 
 "Fruitless folly," he cried. "Hathorne went 
 home hours ago. I saw him enter the house.
 
 234 TKUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 Lucy 's a sieve — that is, she 's a woman. He 
 knows the whole of my plans, and is laughing at 
 me for my wife and my pains." 
 
 The first heat of his anger had passed, and 
 lookmg down at his wife's face, he was struck with 
 her appearance. He put her in a chair. 
 
 " Sit down, Mary. Are you ill ? " 
 
 "I am wretched," she said, clinging to him. 
 ** Dear love, I am young and ignorant ; forgive 
 me!" 
 
 Anthony thought she Avas on the point of 
 fainting, and, already half-ashamed of his own 
 violence, he turned hastily to get some water 
 from the table. This little act of kindness was a 
 better restorative. Mary bm'st into fresh tears, 
 and threw herself into his arms. When she was 
 a little more composed, he said, gravely — 
 
 " Mary, you have been gtiilty of a great error. 
 I will not say you have destroyed, but you have 
 shaken your husband's confidence in you : here- 
 after I can never trust you without fear. The 
 injury you have done me cannot now be estimated. 
 To-morrow I shall know the worst, and shall try
 
 REBELLION. 235 
 
 to overcome it. Dry your eyes, and remember 
 the lesson of this evening." 
 
 They were sitting in one of the front rooms 
 looking upon the market-place, and while Anthony 
 spoke, a hubbub was heard outside. Glancing 
 at the windows, he saw bright flashes of light 
 appearing through the curtains. He threw up 
 the sash and looked out. There was a stream 
 of people hmTying past; the rattle of rapid 
 wheels, a confusion of cries, and behind the 
 opposite houses the ^ ivid light of a great fire. 
 "Hathorne's factory!" was the general burden 
 of what was said. 
 
 "Hathome's factory!" said Anthony; "yes, 
 it must be so ; there 's the chimney, in the midst 
 of the glare. I must go out, Mary, and see what 
 is being done." 
 
 He left her, and was away an horn*. Mary 
 stood at the window watching the rise and fall of 
 the great mass of light, the hurrymg crowd, and 
 the upturned faces. Fear for Lucy's sake, lest 
 her brother should be suffering ruin from the 
 destructive flames, was in part taking the place
 
 236 TEUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 of her own personal trouble ; but, on the other 
 hand, what she saw seemed to blend with what 
 she had been feeling, as if the scene she had just 
 acted in with grief so sudden, were reproduced 
 externally before her eyes. The night, still and 
 star-lit an hour ago, was herself and her young 
 happiness ; the fierce, unexpected fire, her hus- 
 band's anger"; the unknoT^ni multitude rushing 
 past, was like her own strange and startled 
 thoughts, and within, as well as without, there 
 was a sound of alarm and a foreboding of evil. 
 The flames sank by degrees ; so Anthony had 
 calmed his passion. But where the fiery tongues 
 had been quivering, she knew there was now a 
 wreck and a ruin ; what was there in her own 
 house? Her husband came back. He came in 
 with a look of exultation. Mary's eyes brightened 
 as she saw it, but then grew doubtful. She could 
 not tell why, but his look did not make her 
 happy. 
 
 " All destroyed," he said. " He is not more 
 than half insured ; he is in my power. We shall 
 have him at the bank to-morrow, wanting ad-
 
 KEBELLION. 237 
 
 varices. He shall be crushed. It is a providential 
 accident, Mary." 
 
 Mary caught his meaning in a moment. His 
 anger, sparing her, would fall on Lucy's brother. 
 The mischief she had done would be counter- 
 balanced by the destruction of a political enemy. 
 All her heart rose up against it. Not giving her- 
 self time to hesitate, she put her round arm on 
 his shoulder, and drew herself close to him. 
 
 " Dearest, could you ruin him for this?" 
 
 " I can leave him to bear the consequences of 
 his own carelessness, Mary, and as he is a hin- 
 drance to an excellent cause, I shall certainly do 
 so. It will make amends for what your indis- 
 cretion has done." 
 
 But Mary,only drew nearer. 
 
 " Husband, I am sick at heart." 
 
 "You have been excited. It's late; go to 
 bed." 
 
 ^^I shall never sleep in peace; I shall never 
 lie down happily, if Richard Hathorne is ruined." 
 
 " Then you are very wrong. Leave him to
 
 238 TKUST rOE TEUST. 
 
 *' Dearest, I will indeed, but it would crush me 
 utterly, if I felt that my own thoughtlessness had 
 brought your anger on him, and helped to ruin 
 him and Lucy. I have no right to speak, I know, 
 after my great fault, but I 'm sure you will never 
 deal harshly with him. Dear love, help him, 
 instead of harming liim: win him over with 
 generosity ; let him feel how noble you are. None 
 know it so well as I, but all the world should do 
 so, and it shall, husband." 
 
 She looked at liim with breathless, almost Avild 
 eagerness. She wondered how she had dared to 
 speak. She felt as if another burst of anger must 
 be the consequence. Anthony stood silent for 
 a few moments; then he stroked her head and 
 kissed her forehead. 
 
 " Mary, I never change my purposes for merely 
 sentimental reasons, but my judgment is open to 
 conviction, and what I think it right to do, I am 
 not afraid of doing. At present you may be satis- 
 fied. If Mr. Hathorne asks for help, he shalLhave 
 it. It may even win him over, as you suggest ; 
 I think it will ; at all events, it shall be done."
 
 EEBELLION. 239 
 
 His words seemed to wipe out tlie sorrow of 
 the evening. Mary clung to him with new pride 
 and affection, and he himself seemed to take her 
 back at once to his former confidence. But from 
 that day there was a change. He never entirely 
 trusted her again. The faidt had been chiefly his 
 o"\vn, but he never saw it. He had no right to 
 look for a politician's prudence in an inexperienced 
 gu'l, but he did look for it ; he had no right to 
 blame her when, being herself unwarned, she was 
 ignorant or thoughtless of the need of secrecy; 
 but he did blame her, and nobody besides. After 
 that day's experience, he might have trusted 
 her with the secrets of heaven itself; but that 
 he never understood. She had told his secret to 
 his injury. He must be guarded with her ever 
 after. 
 
 Husbands, who lead your own separate lives 
 with your own independent interests — ^who have 
 your plans and pleasures, your hopes and fears, 
 your successes and failures, of which your wives 
 know nothing, because it is dangerous to trust a 
 woman — I have a little secret to tell you. You
 
 240 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 may be very fine fellows, but you know nothing 
 about the truth of marriage. There are few 
 young wives, I dare say, who would not once in 
 their lives fall into a mistake like Mary's, with 
 a husband like Anthony ; but there are none who 
 would not bitterly repent it and deserve a greater 
 confidence instead of a less thereafter. Suppose 
 the- case to be otherwise ; I wish to know whose 
 fault it is, and what kind of remedy you are 
 suggesting ? A man who woos, wins, and marries 
 a girl to whom he dare not trust every secret in 
 his soul, has already proved his own judgment 
 to be so worthless, and his OA'vai discretion so in- 
 discreet, that he may be sm^e, once for all, his 
 wife cannot be more foolish than himself, and 
 to keep his own counsel from her, for the sake of 
 prudence, is to lock up his house for safety with 
 a thief inside. 
 
 You smile at the idea ; you have a manly scorn 
 for sentimentalism, and you satirize the writer. 
 You beg to tell that individual that conjugal con- 
 fidence is very charming in its way, but that 
 although we have found the North-west Passage
 
 REBELLION. 241 
 
 and the Mountains of the Moon, ^Ye have not yet 
 found Utopia. Yeiy well. 
 
 It tm^ned out that Lucy Hathorne had not 
 delayed relating to her brother what she recollected 
 of Mary's conversation, and he again had imme- 
 diately communicated the facts to Mr. Hornbeam. 
 But Lucy's version was far from being a correct 
 one, and little was really known concerning the 
 plans of the Borough Wall Club. The town, 
 however, was soon placarded by Mr. Hornbeam 
 with accounts of a conspiracy for overturning the 
 prescriptive rights of the freemen, and the advan- 
 tage of secrecy was thus lost to the reformers. A 
 fierce struggle ensued. The election was looked 
 forward to with doubt and impatience by all 
 parties. In the meantime, Hathorne, overwhelmed 
 by the disastrous fire which had destroyed his 
 principal factory and entailed an almost ruinous 
 loss, had, as Anthony foresaw, applied to the Bank 
 for temporary aido He went in fear and trembling, 
 remembering that but a feiv hours before he had 
 been doing his best to frustrate Anthony's designs 
 and excite his enmity. He came away full of 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 TKUST EOR TRUST. 
 
 gratitude and admiration. His wishes liad been 
 complied with in the handsomest manner, and 
 his political offences had only been alluded to so 
 far as to make him understand that they were 
 perfectly well known, but, in the hour of his 
 misfortune, entirely forgiven. Mr. Hathorne was 
 quite overcome. He went at once to Mr. Horn- 
 beam, explained what had happened, and told 
 him it was impossible for him, imder the circum- 
 stances, to take any further part in opposition 
 to Mr. Forrest. Mr. Hornbeam, in a loud 
 voice, denounced him as a turncoat ; but as 
 the new chimney was not yet either finished 
 or paid for, he reconsidered his expressions and 
 acquiesced in the retirement of Hathorne from 
 party politics.
 
 243 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 FLIGHT SHOOTING. 
 
 So it stood on tlie day before the annual election. 
 The Borough Wall Club had separated on the 
 previous eveiung in somewhat lower spirits than 
 usual. Their afFau's had prospered tolerably well, 
 till an unexpected appearance of coolness on the 
 part of some of their supporters had alarmed 
 them not a little, and given rise to a suspicion 
 of foul play working secretly on the other side. 
 Strenuous efforts had been made to fathom the 
 matter — Mr. Beaumont's legal subtlety, An- 
 thony's active talent and the zeal of Mr. Daniel 
 Hobbes, had all been exerted to the utmost, but 
 still in vain, and it was the mutual acknow- 
 ledgment that the mischief undoubtedly kept 
 growing while nobody had succeeded in lajring 
 
 R 2
 
 244 TKUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 hold of it, that sent the Club to their several 
 beds with anything but light upon their counte- 
 nances. Mary saw that Anthony was out of 
 spirits, and gathered from the little he said that 
 his success had become more doubtful. Since 
 the night of his anger she had been too timid to 
 inquire into the details of his proceedings, and 
 he had not volmiteered anything more than 
 general information. She took this for a sign 
 of his continued distrust, and grieved over it 
 not a little. In reality, it arose chiefly from the 
 preoccupied state of his mind, which would have 
 made it burdensome to him to relate the parti- 
 culars of what he had already done, while his 
 thoughts were constantly on the stretch towards 
 things that were yet to do. 
 
 The last day of preparation came. Anthony, 
 as usual when there was much work to be done, 
 began it very early, came hastily to breakfast, and 
 was gone again before the urn had done hissing. 
 Mary had growii restless and very anxious ; and 
 finding it hard to settle down to anything, she 
 went across to Lucy Hathorne. Lucy was in her
 
 PLIGHT SHOOTING. 245 
 
 breakfast-room, making a nosegay of autumnal 
 roses at a side table. Mr. Daniel Hobbes stood 
 on the rug, looking at her, and Mr. Martin 
 Dove, with a book in his hand, leaned against 
 the window and looked at the flowers. 
 
 *^ I feel ashamed of you ; yes, indeed, upon my 
 word I do," Lucy was saying, when Mary entered 
 the room. " Dear Mrs. Forrest," she cried, run- 
 ning to her, " now do come in and help me to 
 put some spirit into these gentlemen; I declare 
 they might as well be stocks and stones." 
 
 "My dear madam. Miss Lucy is perfectly 
 right ; I am a deserter from the camp ; you catch 
 me in the fact," said Mr. Hobbes, shaking Mary 
 by the hand, " but there are extenuating circmn- 
 stances, madam; the fight is for to-morrow, and 
 we may come out of it with grave countenances. 
 To-day, you see. Miss Lucy smiles, and I steal 
 away for a little preliminary sunshine." 
 
 ''And he shan't get it, my dear," said Lucy. 
 "I declare I'm frowning at them both if they 
 could see my mind. Why, the election is just 
 going as wrong as ever it can, and we shall be
 
 246 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 iDeaten for certain, and they know it, if sometliing 
 isn't done to-day. I 've been trying to make 
 them ashamed of themselves for standing still a 
 minute, but it 's no use ; it's always tlie way 
 with men; when they think it can't be helped 
 they just take it quietly, mstead of struggling 
 and screaming all the more, as a woman would do ! " 
 
 " Is it so yery bad ? " Mary asked, anxiously. 
 " I know we are not safe, but I thought it was not 
 at all hopeless." 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Forrest," said Mr. Hobbes, 
 '' we must hope for the best, but, certainly, cor- 
 ruption is going on, and we can't trace it out, 
 and whether we shall be up or doAvn to-morrow 
 is a great mystery. Unscrupulous enemies, you 
 see ; a terrible fellow that Hornbeam, and there's 
 nothing weaker than Inunan nature." He looked 
 at the roses and sighed. Martm Dove sighed also, 
 and said, suddenly — 
 
 " I have no vote. Miss Hathorne. I -wish I had 
 a vote." 
 
 ** Why, Mi\ Dove, you might do ten thousand 
 things besides voting."
 
 FLIGHT SHOOTING. 247 
 
 "Could I do ten thousand things, Miss Ha- 
 thorne?" 
 
 " Yes, to be sure ; or one of them." 
 
 *' Which one of them do you think I could do, 
 MissHathorne?" 
 
 "Oh, you must find out for youi'self — I can't 
 pretend to know ; but if I were you I 'd go about 
 the town from morning to night till I hunted up 
 some of their secrets. Never mind those roses ; 
 they may tumble down if they like ; I was going 
 to make nosegays of them to-morrow for some of 
 you, but I shan't give one away. Nobody deserves 
 them now." 
 
 " May I have them, Miss Hathorne, if I deserve 
 them to-morrow ? " said Martm Dove, with mi- 
 usual energy. 
 
 " Well, you won't ; so it's no use promismg. 
 I tell you what," said she, turning to Mr. Hobbes, 
 who had gone round to the table and was smell- 
 ing the flowers, " the whole bunch shall go to 
 whichever of you two idle gentlemen does the 
 best service before the election's over — a lady's 
 favor, you see ; just a badge of honor to boast
 
 248 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 of. If that won't stir you, you might as well 
 , be lying with my poor little dog in the garden." 
 
 She blushed a little as she made this offer of a 
 prize, and said, laughingly, to Mary — 
 
 " Mrs. Forrest, I did use to envy you so, but 
 I don't one bit this morning. I do thmk if my 
 husband was going to stand an election I should 
 worry myself to pieces ten times over till I knew 
 whether he had won." 
 
 Mary was worrying herself quite sufficiently, 
 and had as good a chance as most people of 
 going to pieces under the operation, but her 
 feelings were not so near the sm-face as Lucy's, 
 and you must have put yom- hand upon her 
 heart to know what was going on there. Lucy's 
 challenge seemed strongly to affect the gentle- 
 men. Mr. Hobbes took up his hat, and buttoned 
 his coat. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Lucy," said he, " you drive me 
 away ; I can't stay idle now. Come, Martin ; 
 let us start fair. Upon my honor, I don't be- 
 lieve there 's another stone to be tm-ned ; but 
 who knows ? — who knows ? We '11 shake the
 
 ELIGHT SHOOTING. 249 
 
 rocks ! we'll do prodigies ! we '11 rob Miss Lucy 
 of her roses ! " 
 
 Martin Dove, who had been looking grimly at 
 the floor, suddenly raised his head, and exclaim- 
 ing, " Yes, I can. I can do something," walked 
 rapidly to the door. There he turned, and 
 walking back to where Lucy stood, he shook 
 hands with her, and bade her "good morning," 
 passed by Mary without observing her, and 
 the next minute was striding across the market- 
 place with his hat in one hand, his book in the 
 other, and his looks conversing with the stones. 
 Leaving Daniel Hobbes to perform his own 
 prodigies, he walked on alone, and took the road 
 towards the Four All's. On the way he became 
 conscious that his head was bare, and w^ent back 
 some distance to fetch his hat. Discovering it 
 in his hand, he uttered an exclamation of joy 
 at having come upon it sooner than he expected, 
 and immediately retraced his steps with all 
 speed. 
 
 Mr. Dove was far from being a fool, and where 
 his thoughts concentrated themselves they were
 
 250 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 clear and luminous. The misfortune was that 
 the concentration went so far as to leave every- 
 thing blank and black except the one single 
 pomt of brightness. That point at present was 
 Mrs. Fowkes, the landlady of the Four All's. 
 Mrs. Fowkes was not entitled to pm-money by 
 her marriage contract, neither was her husband 
 in chxumstances to overwhelm her with voluntary 
 gifts of a pecuniary kind. To console herself 
 under these disadvantages, she was in the habit 
 of taking m washing. Her customers were not 
 numerous, for Mrs. Fowkes' temper had a private 
 residence in her fingers, and as washing-day 
 generally brought its o^vn peculiar causes of 
 exasperation, the garments passing into her 
 hands were apt to come out of them in a state 
 which, while it would have done honor to . a 
 repentant patriarch, accorded very badly with 
 the economy of modern days. Martin Dove was 
 conscious that his linen was short-lived on the 
 average, and that his buttons in particular held 
 their situations on the most precarious terms ; but 
 as his perceptions had not yet been concentrated
 
 TLIGHT SHOOTING. 251 
 
 on the cause of these phenomena, he was still on 
 Mrs. Fowkes' books, and was perhaps the most 
 favored of her remaining patrons. 
 
 On tliis particular morning he discovered the 
 inn without first walking beyond it ; and going 
 round to the yard behind, he tapped at the 
 washhouse window, which was partly open, 
 with a wreath of steam curling through the 
 aperture. 
 
 " You can't come in. It's full of tubs^ and 
 the dolly's going," said the voice of the landlady 
 through the steam. 
 
 " I don't want to come in, Mrs. Fowkes : I 
 only want to tallv to you, if you please." 
 
 " I can't talk a word to-day, Mr. Dove. I 'm 
 just washing your shirts, and I wish I may die 
 if I don't wring their necks off if you come 
 bothering." 
 
 " I don't care very much about tlie shirts 
 to-day, Mrs. Fowkes — I want to know something 
 about the election. Do tell me, if you please, 
 what they are doing in the committee." 
 
 '^ They're doing no good, I can tell you.
 
 252 THUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 They're the ruin of Fowkes, — they'll bring us 
 to the parish, and I wish they may be dead 
 beat to-morrow ; that's what I do," and a loud 
 splash testified to the vigor of Mrs. Fowkes' 
 feelings. 
 
 " Why, I wish they may be beaten too," said 
 Martin. "Don't you think we could manage it 
 between us ? " 
 
 '' No, I don't. They're bribing half the town 
 with gold guineas, and who's going to vote against 
 them after that ? " 
 
 ^^ Mrs. Fowkes, I owe you five shillings ; I 've 
 got a pound in my pocket, and I shan't want any 
 change. Now you don't mean to say they are 
 bribing ? " 
 
 There was a louder splashing, and a thicker 
 volume of steam, but no verbal answer. Martin 
 put his hand through the steam, and dropped 
 somethmg in at the window. The splashing 
 ceased for an instant, and was then renewed less 
 noisily than before, while a voice once more issued 
 from the interior. 
 
 " They're a pack of fools, and so's Fowkes.
 
 PLIGHT SHOOTING. 253 
 
 They've got their list made out^ and it's on the 
 mantel under Adam and Eve; and the door's 
 locked, and Fowkes has got the key, and the 
 window's on to the field, and they'll not any 
 of them be there till six o'clock." The voice 
 ceased abruptly, and the dolly was put into 
 rapid motion. 
 
 "Mrs. Fowkes," said Martin, " if you could 
 only get me that list " 
 
 *^Give over your bothering. I can't, and I 
 shan't, and you may get it yourself." 
 
 '' If you could get me into the room, Mrs. 
 Fowkes " 
 
 '^ Just go away ; I '11 hear none of your talk ; 
 if I don't call Fowkes this minute I wish — " The 
 rest was inaudible by reason of the splashing. 
 Martin stood silent for a minute or two, durinof 
 which the sound of the dolly went on increasing, 
 and then lifting up his head as if he had formed 
 a resolution, he turned away, and entered a grass 
 field at the back of the Four All's. One window 
 on the ground floor looked upon the field. Martin 
 went up to it. It was a sash window, not very
 
 254 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 iaar from the ground. Looking through the glass, 
 he fomid the room to be a small parlor, indiffe- 
 rently furnished with a round table and some 
 high-backed chairs. The fire-place was near 
 the window. The black mantel-piece was orna- 
 mented with a dog's head in cliuia at one end, 
 and at the other, a second work of art of the 
 same material, representing Adam and Eve under 
 an apple-tree. Beneath the latter lay a folded 
 paper, whereon Martin fixed his eyes as eagerly 
 as if it had been a wmdfall of the forbidden fruit. 
 He had scarcely made this survey, however, when 
 the stroke of a spade startled him. Turning 
 round, he fomid Mr, Fowkes himself mthin 
 twenty yards of him, digging a piece of ground 
 at the side of the field. Mr. Fowkes stopped; 
 stood up, and looked at him. Martin, who had 
 been contemplatmg a forcible entry and abduc- 
 tion, was on the point of being confounded, when 
 some good spirit held his thoughts together for 
 him and suggested a bold and sudden stroke of 
 policy. He walked straight up to the landlord 
 and held out his hand.
 
 FLIGHT SHOOTING. 255 
 
 "Mr." Fowkes," said he, "the towii is full 
 of nothmg but the election-, and I want to have 
 a quiet afternoon. May I bring my bow and 
 arrows and shoot in your field? I shan't hit 
 the cows." 
 
 Mr. Fowkes wiped his forehead, and looked 
 round the field. 
 
 «^ Well, yes, Mr. Dove, you can if you hke ; 
 but where's yoru* target ? " 
 
 '^ I want to try flight shooting. It's very good 
 for the mnscles, Mr. Fowkes; I wish to harden 
 my muscles." 
 
 ^^ It's a pity you don't dig then," said the land- 
 lord, gloomily, taking up his spade again. "I 
 should say it's a pity you don't dig, Mr. Dove." 
 Martin ac^reed with him, but thought it 
 desirable to try shootmg first, and went away 
 for his bow and arrows. His purpose was to 
 return with them while Mr. Fowkes should be 
 having his dinner, and, if he found the coast 
 clear, to attempt at once a seizure of the paper 
 whereon Adam and Eve were standing. Walk- 
 ing along, however, at a rapid pace, his eyes
 
 256 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 as usual fell upon the ground. There, if not in 
 factj at least in fancy, Lucy Hathorne's roses lay 
 strewed before him, miraculously multiplied, or 
 moving forward as his shadow did, for his quick 
 steps did not carry him past them. Treading 
 this path of flowers, smiling inwardly, and 
 free as any disembodied soul from consciousness 
 of space or time, Martin entered the town, 
 traversed the market-place, walked down the 
 High Street, crossed the bridge, and at the end 
 of a couple of hours was some miles distant 
 from Porchester and Lucy. How far his sportive 
 fate might have strewed the fairy rose-leaves, 
 is a question on which, for lack of evidence, our 
 judgment must be suspended. He was over- 
 taken by Mr. Forrest the elder, who, driving by 
 in his gig, pulled up his horse and asked Martin 
 if he would ride. 
 
 "Thank you," said Martin, looking up for 
 the first time ; and he got into the gig. 
 
 " Where are you going, Dove ? " Mr. Forrest 
 inquired, driving on. 
 
 "Thank you, I am going for my bow and
 
 PLIGHT SHOOTING. 257 
 
 arrows," the youth answered with much sim- 
 phcity. 
 
 " Bow and arrows, man ! Why, have you 
 left them m the stone quarry, or are you going 
 round by the South Pole ? " 
 
 Martin looked before him, and then behind him ; 
 after which he rubbed his eyes, and looked again. 
 
 " I suppose I have come too far," said he. 
 " Will you let me get down, if you please ? " 
 
 Mr. Forrest put him down again with a hearty 
 laugh, told him to be of good cheer, as he had 
 accomplished just half his journey, and recom- 
 mended him to run straight up against the first 
 house in Porchester. " For fear," said he, '' we 
 should have you going like a pendulum till your 
 legs are spavined." 
 
 By great good fortune, Mr. Forrest's fears on 
 this account were not realized. Martin was once 
 more treading the path of roses when he crossed 
 the bridge, but a waggon coming down the street 
 so nearly ran over him at the dangerous turn- 
 ing that the cries of the bystanders, the gruff 
 oath of the waggoner, and the sudden rubbing 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 of a horse's nose against his cheek, brought him 
 hastily back from fairy-land and enabled him 
 once more to concentrate his mental powers on 
 the expedition to the Four All's. 
 
 He arrived there in due time, bow in hand. 
 It was late in the afternoon. Mr. Fowkes had 
 dined long ago and was again strengthening his 
 muscles by spade exercise. The window could 
 no longer be attacked unnoticed, so Martin re- 
 considered his plans, became inspired with a 
 new one, and, chuckling to himself, began his 
 ilight shooting in the meadows. 
 
 About six o'clock in the evening, Mr. Horn- 
 beam, with three or four companions, entered the 
 inn. The landlord, hearing their voices, stuck 
 his spade in the ground and joined them. It was 
 quite dusk out of doors and nearly dark within, 
 so Mr. Fowkes lit two candles and led the party 
 of politicians into the locked-up room. They 
 seemed jolly enough ; were rubbing their hands 
 and joking. Mr. Hornbeam in particular in- 
 dulged Mr. Fowkes with a poke in the ribs 
 and a slap on the shoulder. The candles were
 
 FLIGHT SHOOTING. 259 
 
 put upon the table, brandv-and-water was called 
 for, and all sat down to business. 
 
 Mr. Hornbeam had just opened the proceedings 
 in a loud voice, when the glass from one of the 
 upper window-panes fell in with a crash, and an 
 arrow dropped on the table. The speaker stopped 
 short. Everybody rose in consternation. The 
 sash was thrown up, and a loud " hallo ! " from 
 several voices disturbed the silence of the field. 
 Martin Dove came running from no great distance, 
 his bow mider his arm. 
 
 " What are you up to, sir ? " " Are you going 
 to assassinate us, sir ? " " What the devil do you 
 mean by it, Mr. Dove?" and other warmer 
 ejaculations, met him at the open window. 
 
 " If you please I was only flight shooting ; I 
 beg your pardon; will you let me have my 
 arrow, if you please ? " and he climbed at once 
 into the room. 
 
 "Take your flight shooting to Jericho !" "Break 
 his arrow on his back !" " It's Martin Dove ; he's 
 a fool ! " " Make^^liim pay, Fowkes, and turn him 
 out, and " 
 
 S 2
 
 260 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 In the midst of these compliments, Martin had 
 reached the table, and taken up his arrow. Turn- 
 ing quickly round, a dexterous sweep of his bow, 
 by a seeming accident, overturned both candle- 
 sticks at once. All was darkness and confusion. 
 Martin had got himself close to the mantel-piece ; 
 feeling for Adam and Eve he found the coveted 
 paper, thrust it into his pocket, and jumping through 
 the window again, ran off as fast as he could. 
 Mr. Hornbeam followed him with his voice and 
 Mr. Fowkes with his legs for a considerable 
 distance, but the voice could not hurt and the 
 legs could not catch him, and entering his 
 lodgings out of breath, he threw his hat up to 
 the ceiling, lit his candle, and immediately sat 
 do"\vn to examine the stolen document, whose 
 contents, indeed, he did not know, although, trust- 
 ing to the tone of Mrs. Fowkes' voice, he had 
 little doubt of their importance. He was not 
 mistaken. The paper contained a list of voters 
 who had been bribed by the secret committee of 
 the Porcites. Martin carefully read it through, 
 put it back into his pocket, ordered his tea, had
 
 TLIGHT SHOOTING. 261 
 
 a grand vision of roses in the room, which kept 
 him there for the rest of the evening, and on 
 retiring to bed was visited by a dream of Adam 
 and Eve in Paradise receiving a bribe from Mr. 
 Hornbeam. 
 
 The loss of the paper was not immediately 
 perceived by the disturbed committee. On find- 
 ing that it was missing, they were struck with 
 consternation, which was by no means allayed by 
 the impossibility of conjecturing the cause or 
 manner of its disappearance. Their suspicions 
 never turned for an instant upon Martin Dove. 
 He was thought a fool and a simpleton, and his 
 complicity in an electioneering plot could not 
 be dreamed o£ The meeting in consequence 
 became a very gloomy and acrid one, everybody 
 fancying he saw traitors in the others, but feel- 
 ing afraid to say so at such a critical time.
 
 262 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 LUCY'S ROSES. 
 
 Pketty early next morning all Porcliester was 
 up and doing. The election of the new town 
 councillors took place in the Town Hall, and 
 thither the tide of interest soon set in, bearing men, 
 women, and children, along with it. The large 
 room of the hall was capable of holding all the 
 free burgesses of the borough, and the votes were 
 taken in it, a platform being also erected at one 
 end for the accommodation of the speakers and 
 public functionaries. The customary forms were 
 gone through, the hearts of the candidates began 
 to palpitate, and • the poll was opened. A few 
 votes had been taken when Martin Dove appeared 
 suddenly on the platform and seemed about to 
 address the electors.
 
 LUCY'S EOSES. 263 
 
 ^^ Not a freeman ! Turn him out ! " was the first 
 exclamation from those below. It was followed by 
 a laugh and a cry of, " Oh, it 's Dove ; hear him !" 
 " Speak up, simpleton !/' " Give him a book !" " Hear 
 him ! " for everybody thought some entertainment 
 must be in store. Martin himself, perfectly un- 
 concerned, and, indeed, quite in a state of abstract 
 speculation, opened his mouth at once, and delivered 
 himself of the following speech — 
 
 '^ Twenty seven at ten pounds a-piece, and five 
 at twenty pounds a-piece. I took it from the 
 mantel-piece in the committee-room last night, for 
 I was resolved to do something. You shall all 
 hear who have been bribed, for their names are 
 written down in Mr. Hornbeam's hand, and I 
 have got the paper in my pocket" 
 
 As Martm paused, a variety of sounds broke 
 out simultaneously round about him; cheers, 
 hisses, and laughter, mingled together, shook the 
 hall. Mr. Hornbeam was afterwards reported 
 to have turned pale and lost his voice for the 
 moment. Anthony and his committee, most of 
 whom were on the platform, pressed eagerly
 
 264 TEUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 round the young orator, and for the time the 
 pollmg was suspended. Martin triumphantly 
 thrust his hand into his coat pocket; all eyes 
 followed his hand ; it was^ drawn out : alas ! it was 
 empty. He thrust it in again, with a somewhat 
 anxious look, felt and fumbled, and then pulled 
 the pocket inside out for a more certain scrutiny. 
 There was nothing in it. He stood blank and 
 silent, holding the lining between his thumb and 
 finger, while the laughter rapidly became predomi- 
 nant over all other sounds. 
 
 *^ Oh ! " cried Martin Dove, with sudden recol- 
 lection ; " I changed my coat this morning ; the 
 paper is in the other one ! " 
 
 This announcement was followed by a storm of 
 louder laughter, and a number of ejaculations of 
 the least complimentary kind. In the midst of 
 them, Martin made his way to the door, and 
 hurried homeward as fast as he could run. But 
 woe to those who fire blank cartridges at British 
 bull-dogs! Martin Dove reached home without 
 molestation, changed his coat, and came out again 
 with the fatal paper in his hand. On his own
 
 LUCY'S ROSES. 265 
 
 threshold he was seized by four strong arms in 
 wait for him. In a moment the paper vanished ; 
 in another, he was lying, bound hand and foot, 
 at the bottom of a hackney carriage, the doors 
 closed, the shutters up, and the wheels rattling 
 away full speed. So they rattled for a couple 
 of hours. The details of that jomniey Martin was 
 not fond of rehearsing, but late at night the poor 
 youth was seen re-entering his lodgings, dirty, 
 tired, and footsore, having walked home upon a 
 path of thorns instead of roses, the space of about 
 twenty miles. 
 
 Mr. Forrest and his friends were of course 
 unacquainted with Martin's adventure at the Four 
 All's, and had seen him rush from the hall, after 
 the searching of his empty pocket, with smiles on 
 their countenances and a general belief that he 
 was dreaming in his usual way. Daniel Hobbes 
 alone, having more reason than the rest to think 
 there might be something of real importance at 
 the bottom of it, and observing the heads of 
 Mr. Hornbeam's party laid rapidly together, 
 resolved after some reflection to follow the poor
 
 266 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 youth and see what came of it all. The Porcites, 
 however, had been sudden and swift in action, and 
 had outstripped him considerably. When he got 
 within a hundred yards of Martin's lodging a 
 coach was at the door, a man stood at each door- 
 post ; he saw Martin come out of the house, and 
 was witness to his instant seizure and abduction. 
 One of the two captors jumped on the coach- 
 box ; the other, w^hom Mr. Hobbes recognised as 
 the landlord of the Four All's, put the paper he 
 had taken from Martin's hand into the pocket of 
 his trousers, and walked leisurely up the street. 
 Mr. Hobbes observed these things mth consider- 
 able excitement of spirit. It was plain enough 
 that Martin Dove had discovered something of 
 the greatest consequence, and that the secret of it 
 was now in the -trousers pocket of Mr. Fowkes. 
 Mr. Hobbes had been doing his best to win Lucy 
 Hathorne's roses, but hitherto the golden gates of 
 opportunity had apparently been closed against him. 
 He saw them swinging back upon their hinges 
 at this auspicious moment, and with the swift 
 decision of one born to conquer, he at once rushed
 
 LUCY'S ROSES. 267 
 
 in. Clothing his. courage in a suit of prudence, 
 and sharply stirring up whatever of the serpent 
 lay coiled in his inner soul, he stepped into a gate- 
 way and remained concealed till Mr. Fowkes 
 passed by. That happy spouse approached at a 
 quiet pace with looks of comparative contentment. 
 He had done a piece of excellent good service to 
 Mr. Hornbeam's party, and was no doubt walking 
 in the sunshine of placid self-congratulation. Mr. 
 Hobbes waited till he had gone past him, and then 
 following the landlord, he tapped him on the arm, 
 
 " So you've won the day, Fowkes : won the day, 
 and given us a thrashing." 
 
 Mr. Fowkes stopped and turned round. 
 
 ^' Well, Mr. Hobbes, it's early yet ; but I think 
 you'll get what you deserve." 
 
 " Not a doubt of it ; not a doubt of it ; there's 
 a providence over all, Fowkes, but we shall take 
 it like men, you see ; bear no malice and make 
 a joke of it; shake hands and be comfortable. 
 That's the way Fowkes ; that's the way." 
 
 "I should say it is, when you're beat," said 
 the landlord ; " I should say it is."
 
 268 TKUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 "Why, let us begin then," said Mr. Hobbes, 
 " we'll set an example to posterity ; we'll go and 
 drink a bottle of wine at my lodgings, and then 
 see how the poll stands. You shall drink success 
 to the conquerors; I'll drink consolation to the 
 vanquished; you shall see my fossils, and we'll 
 shake hands over the ammonites." 
 
 Mr. Fowkes looked towards the Town Hall. 
 His friends were there, waiting doubtless in gi-eat 
 anxiety to hear how his mission had been executed. 
 Their peril was over, however; the paper was 
 in his pocket ; he felt himself decidedly thirsty 
 in respect of wine, and felt that his late achieve- 
 ment deserved an immediate recompence. He 
 accepted the friendly invitation and went to the 
 lodgings of Mr. Daniel Hobbes, which were close 
 at hand. Mr. Hobbes was a bachelor, without 
 a profession, whose material wants depended for 
 their supply on the rent of a single large meadow 
 of about fifty acres, and not finding it necessary 
 to resort to extraordinary measures for the employ- 
 ment of his income, he lived quietly and cheaply 
 in two comfortable rooms. Into one of these
 
 LUCY'S ROSES. 269 
 
 he introduced Mr. Fowkes with the utmost cor- 
 diality, his thoughts, however, being chiefly fixed 
 on that gentleman's pocket, and his brain kept 
 on the stretch to discover some means of getting 
 at the contents thereof; for the trousers pocket 
 of an Englishman is not easily picked, the em- 
 ployment of force was difficult, and time was 
 pressing. 
 
 The room was of moderate size and was much 
 more than half-filled with evidences of its owner's 
 taste : cases of fossil specimens covered the walls ; 
 the skeleton of a small elephant stood before the 
 window ; on the rug lay several ribs of a mega- 
 therium, and the table, mantel-piece, and chairs 
 were strewed with the beasts, birds and fishes, of 
 a stony world. Clearing one of the chairs, which 
 was encumbered with nothing heavier than a pre- 
 Adamite dragon-fly and the lizard which might 
 have eaten him, Mr. Hobbes begged his guest 
 to be seated, and took the promised wine from a 
 shelf laden with various bottles and glasses, some 
 retorts, a few chemicals, and a telescope ; for the 
 sciences love to go hand-in-hand, and Mr. Hobbes
 
 270 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 did not condemn his favorite one to separation 
 from all the others. Mr. Fowkes emptied two 
 or three glasses in silence, his host joining him 
 sparingly, chatting pleasantly about the specimens 
 in the room, and watching with eager eyes for the 
 effect of the wine. 
 
 ''Do yon sit here of a night, all alone?" the 
 landlord asked at length, after looking slowly 
 round him and raising his glass again. 
 
 '^ Very often, very often ; a bachelor you see ; 
 no conjugal society here ; none of your happiness, 
 Fowkes." 
 
 '^ Because I should pitch that chap down-stairs, 
 if I was you," said Mr. Fowkes, stolidly ; pointing 
 sideways at the fleshless elephant, 
 
 "What, you don't like him, eh? He's very 
 quiet company ; very quiet." 
 
 "He's all bones," said Mr. Fowkes, with a 
 suspicious glance towards the skeleton. "He's 
 not my sort ; specially at night. I should say 
 it's time he was buried." 
 
 Mr. Fowkes appeared to be growing supersti- 
 tious, and his entertainer, taking this to signify
 
 LUCY'S ROSES. 271 
 
 that the wine was getting into his head, laughed 
 heartily, filled up the emptied glass again, and 
 hoped to find him changing mto a courageous 
 mood after another draught. But wine and 
 Mr. Fowkes had had many a trial of strength 
 together, and the latter, by long exercise, had 
 so far got the upper hand that any single bottle 
 became totally spent and exhausted before he 
 was fairly breathed. Daniel Hobbes watched in 
 vain for any favorable symptom. His guest 
 drank quietly and talked composedly, with fre- 
 quent looks of uneasiness when he turned towards 
 the elephant, but without the least appearance 
 of such a state of mmd as would make his pocket 
 insecure. The time passed, and Mr. Hobbes 
 grew desperate. That paper, charged with the 
 fate of Porchester and perfumed by Lucy's roses, 
 was within a yard of him, in his own house, 
 among his own fossils. Now for some lava stream 
 to make a fossil of the landlord! some sudden 
 rot upon his garments, some terror to hold him 
 frozen while the clock ticked twice ! If the 
 elephant would only fall with a crash, or shed
 
 272 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 even a single bone, it might be enough. But 
 things that had lain unmoved by the shocks of 
 ages were not likely to bestir themselves even 
 for the sake of the Borough Wall. Mr. Hobbes 
 looked round at his stony friends, and found no 
 help in them. '' Well," thought he, " it must be 
 done, nevertheless." His eyes fell despairmgly 
 on the shelf from which the wme had been taken. 
 Suddenly they lighted up. He looked quickly 
 round again, and took up a large fossil from the 
 floor. 
 
 " Fowkes, my good friend, you haven't looked 
 at my ammonites — the very finest specimens in 
 the county. There, take this great fellow in your 
 hands." 
 
 " What did you call him ?" asked Mr. Fowkes, 
 taking the heavy stone with an apparent 
 curiosity. 
 
 " An ammonite, Fowkes ; a magnificent am- 
 monite, upon my word." 
 
 " Don't tell me," said the landlord. *' It says 
 King Saul killed the Ammonites till the heat of 
 the day ; but he'd have a job to kill these."
 
 273 
 
 " Ha I ha ! so he would ! so he would ! They 
 were stone dead long enough before Saul was 
 king. A coincidence in nomenclature, my dear 
 fellow — Saul's Ammonites were men, and these 
 were fishes ; that 's all ! But let me show you 
 a little experiment. Did you ever see, now, the 
 effect of aquafortis on an ammonite ? " 
 
 " Never did," said Fowkes, re-examining the 
 stone. 
 
 " Ah ! I thought not — I thought not ; a very 
 curious effect, Fowkes. Keep hold of the stone ; 
 lie won't bite ; he 's as dead as if King Saul had 
 had him." Mr. Hobbes went to his shelf, and 
 took a small bottle from it. " Wait a bit," said 
 he, " you shall see ; you shall see." 
 
 Stepping forward with the uncorked vial in 
 his hand, he stumbled over another ammonite 
 on the floor, and falling against Mr. Fowkes, 
 contrived to spill the contents of the vial aver that 
 fjentleman's knees. 
 
 " Bless my soul ! " cried Hobbes, as he 
 scrambled up again. " Dear me, dear me ! it's 
 all over him! It's worse than lava ! Take your 
 
 VOL. I. ' T
 
 274 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 trousers off, my dear fellow; take your trousers 
 off. You'll burn like Hercules; you'll be as 
 black as Satan in three minutes ! Goodness 
 gracious, take your trousers off, or you won't 
 have a leg to stand on ! " 
 
 Stricken with sudden terror, Mr. Fowkes 
 dropped the ammonite, started from his chair, 
 and precipitately did as he was told. But no 
 sooner had the luckless garment left the heels 
 of his boots than it was seized on by Daniel 
 Hobbes, who, rushing with it from the room, left 
 the landlord in momentary bewilderment staring 
 after him. The truth was not long in flashing 
 upon him. Looking down in consternation at 
 his knees, he paused on the threshold of the 
 door ; . turned back, seized the unhappy ammonite, 
 and rushed towards the window. The skeleton 
 stood in his way, but between its ribs he could 
 see his . enemy already in the street. With a 
 loud crash Mr. Fowkes hurled the ammonite 
 through the glass. His wrath was impotent, and 
 his aim imperfect. The fossil broke into fifty 
 pieces on the pavement ; but Daniel Hobbes, with
 
 LUCY'S ROSES. 275 
 
 the trousers in his hand, ran as fast as he could 
 towards the Town Hall. 
 
 In the meantime the election had taken a turn 
 decidedly unfavorable to the Porticite interest. 
 Martin's unproven accusation had raised a laugh 
 against them and an impression that they were 
 at their wits' end for fresh resources, and when, 
 after some time, he failed to reappear, the op- 
 posite party rose in spirits and redoubled their 
 exertions. Slowly, but steadily, the polling went 
 the wrong way; the Borough Wall Club stood 
 in a decided minority; their supporters began 
 to think the cause a hopeless one, and the last 
 fatal stage of lethargy was on the point of setting 
 in. Anthony saw the unmistakeable signs of 
 defeat, and prepared himself to meet it with 
 fitting dignity ; while at the same time he re- 
 solved to stand his ground to the last, and to 
 show his conquerors that if they could out-vote 
 him they could not frighten him. 
 
 Mary had spent the morning of that day in 
 one of the front rooms of her house, from whose 
 windows she could see the Town Hall, hung with 
 
 T 2
 
 276 TKUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 flags, and surrounded by an excited crowd of non- 
 electors. Her own excitement, if less demon- 
 strative, was far more intense. Ambition for her 
 husband, irritation against herself, and a passion- 
 ate longing to forget in victory the indiscretion 
 which had taken from her at least a portion 
 of Anthony's confidence, all joined together now 
 to make the hours of suspense unbearable. She 
 walked about the room, she leaned out of the 
 window, she listened to the various cries — the 
 cheers, hisses, laughter ; and when by degrees 
 the signs all grew ominous, she became sick 
 with anxiety and alarm. From time to time 
 she sent her servants to make inquiries; their 
 reports were less and less satisfactory; and at 
 last Mary shut the window, threw herself on 
 the sofa, and had nearly given up the struggle 
 against her tears when Anthony came into 
 the room. He looked flushed and grave. Mary 
 stood up trembling. 
 
 '' Do you want anything, dearest ? " she asked, 
 but he answered the question of her eyes, and said, 
 
 "I believe I am beaten, Mary; but we shall
 
 LUCY'S ROSES. 277 
 
 fight to the last. Be worthy of jour husband, 
 my love; defeat and weakness need not go 
 together. Give me those papers from the side- 
 board." 
 
 She gave them, saying nothing ; trying very 
 hard to be composed. As he left the room again 
 she managed to ask — 
 
 " When shall you come back ? " 
 
 '^ It may be six o'clock," he answered, and 
 she was left alone. The room seemed very 
 dismal, there was no breathing in it. Mary put 
 her bonnet on, passed through her garden, and 
 went by the private footpath to the Borough 
 Wall. It was her favorite resort. She liked 
 the view and the gliding of the river down 
 below; the rough old ruin, the green meadow, 
 and the rooks in its tall elms. The elms were 
 touched now with autumnal gold; the lilacs on 
 the ruin were shedding their crumpled leaves ; the 
 three ash-trees had lost half their shade ; the river 
 was swollen with recent rains, and the fern leaves 
 hanging over it were turning brown. 
 
 " He aid not upbraid me," Mary thought. " He
 
 278 TRUST FOR TRUST, 
 
 is too kind and generous, but it is all my fault, 
 all my doing ; I have undone all he has labored 
 for ; he will never trust me as he used to do ; he 
 cannot, no, he ought not ; I am a foolish, thought- 
 less, gossiping girl, unworthy of him; and yet 
 so loving him." 
 
 She walked round the ruin; she leaned over 
 the high bank, she threw dead leaves into the 
 river. More than an hour passed, and her unrest 
 increased; she almost longed for evening and 
 the final news. Turning the corner of the wall 
 again, she saw Anthony coming across the 
 meadow. So soon ! had he given up the contest ? 
 was he looking for her? She stood still. He 
 approached the other end of the ruin and did not 
 see her. No! he was not looking for anybody. 
 His head was erect, his eyes were on the distant 
 landscape. He walked straight on, to the edge of 
 the bank, stopped there, and raised his hat, and 
 wiped his forehead, — then he folded his arms and 
 stood, tall, and like a conqueror, stUl gazing. 
 Mary came to his side. 
 " Dear Anthony!"
 
 LUCY'S ROSES. 279 
 
 He turned to her, smiling. 
 
 "You here, Mary! That's well. We have 
 conquered, Marj; I am elected: we are rulers 
 of Porchester." 
 
 « Oh, husband!" 
 
 He did not chide her for sobbing now. He 
 spoke some kind, energetic words, and then told 
 her how it had happened. How at the moment 
 of despair Daniel Hobbes had entered the Town 
 Hall with Mr. Fowkes' trousers on his arm ; 
 how, amidst a scene indescribable, he had drawn 
 the paper from the pocket, had told its history, 
 read its contents, and shown the writing to be 
 Mr. Hornbeam's. How the Porcite committee 
 had been hooted from the Hall, had declared 
 the resignation of their candidates, and had left 
 the Borough Wall Club in undisputed possession 
 of the field. 
 
 Thus the election ended, and thus several 
 things came to pass together. The apple of 
 discord between Mary and her husband was, 
 at least for the time, removed; Lucy's roses 
 were divided between Martin Dove and Daniel
 
 280 TRUST FOR TRUST. 
 
 Hobbes, at the generous suggestion of the latter ; 
 and these two gentlemen became the objects 
 of deep and lasting hatred to the landlord of the 
 Four All's. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 London : Printed by Smith, Elder and Co., Little Green Arbour Court. E.G.