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 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL, 
 
 BY 
 
 HELEN MATHERS, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'COMIN' THRO' THE RYE,' ETC, 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, 
 
 $3ttblishcrs in QDrbimtrg t0 ^)cr #bijc3tji3 the (^vtccn. 
 
 1884. 
 
 [All Bights Reserved.]
 
 / had happier died by thee 
 Than lived on as Lady Leigh.*
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 Digitized by tine Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 witin funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/eyresacquittalse01mathe
 
 ^ 
 
 O) 
 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ' But think na ye my heart was sair, 
 When I laid the mool on his yellow hair ; 
 ! think na ye my heart was wae 
 When I turned about, away to gae V 
 
 HE remote village of Lovel was 
 one afternoon electrified by news 
 of the death of its Squire, and 
 the intimation that his body might be ex- 
 pected to arrive before night, under the care 
 of his friend. Lord Lovel. 
 
 In less than an hour, Mr. Eyre's grave 
 was being dug beside that of the woman 
 whose lover and husband he had been, and 
 of whose murder he was secretly believed 
 
 1—2
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 to be guilty ; though if he had killed her, it 
 had been for love — because, though he could 
 endure to see her die, he could not brook 
 the sight of himself degraded in her eyes, 
 or, as others said, know himself supplanted 
 in her love by his friend. 
 
 He had never been accused of the crime, 
 nor even for some time suspected of it, and 
 this was partly due to the fact that at his 
 instigation a woman named Hester Clarke 
 (formerly his mistress) had been tried for 
 the murder, and, by circumstantial evidence, 
 so nearly convicted, that her acquittal was 
 indignantly declared by the Judge to be a 
 gross miscarriage of justice. 
 
 But some extraordinary disclosures made 
 by Mr. Eyre in the course of the trial had, 
 in the eyes of many of those present, 
 reversed the position of accuser and accused : 
 while the ruthless lifting by his own hand
 
 EYRE\S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 of the curtain that had screened his ioner 
 life appalled the gazers, who in one scathing 
 flash of light saw him stripped naked of his 
 worldly robes, and as the man that God and 
 his own heart had long known him. 
 
 He stood before them a man who for 
 years had been at the mercy of a secret 
 sin, himself the fatal moving power out of 
 which had sprung three successive tragedies 
 of unspeakable pathos and horror, upon 
 which he gazed impassive and unsubdued 
 — less repentant of his misdeeds than 
 callously bold in vaunting them — tearing 
 in shreds the honourable life he had worn 
 in those years when he had 
 
 ^ Built God a churchy and laughed His Word to scorn,' 
 
 and by his inhumanity rather than his sins 
 cutting himself off from oil sympathy with 
 his kind.
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 As betrayer and deserter of the woman 
 Clarke in her youth, and remorseless bringer 
 to justice of her only friend and servant for 
 the murder of his unacknowledged child, 
 though of such murder she was practically 
 innocent, and privately exerting his great 
 influence to hang her ; as the man who first 
 robbed his best friend of his sweetheart, 
 then filched his good name and wore it 
 before the world ; as the assassin who at- 
 tempted Hester Clarke's life because he 
 lived in hourly dread lest she should tell 
 Mrs. Eyre the truth ; as the accuser of that 
 unhappy woman of his wife's murder, and 
 as a magistrate committing her to gaol while 
 yet his child's corpse lay warm upon her 
 knee — thus, bit by bit, his character during 
 the trial painted itself to the terrified 
 beholders' gaze, till all felt themselves in 
 the presence of a man whose hand would
 
 eyjRe's acquittal. 
 
 not shrink from any deed to which his iron 
 will impelled him. 
 
 From that day the secret conviction grew 
 and strengthened that Mr. Eyre had himself 
 been the murderer of the wife he had so 
 passionately loved, the most popular reason 
 assigned being a violent jealousy of his 
 friend Lord Lovel, culminating in a fit of 
 madness in which he slew her. 
 
 But those who were best acquainted with 
 Mr. Eyre's haughty and inflexible character 
 said that he never needed to know jealousy, 
 and felt none ; but that, the complications 
 of his position with regard to Hester Clarke 
 becoming unbearable, rather than see his 
 wife endure those miseries that the know- 
 ledge of his sin must cost her, he had cut 
 the knot of his difficulties and her life with 
 a single blow, and so secured ignorance to 
 her for ever.
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 Others denied the murder to have 
 been one of either jealousy or pride, de- 
 claring it to be one of simple greed, com- 
 mitted for the sake of the magnificent 
 diamonds Mrs. Eyre had worn that night, 
 and which were found missing when she 
 was discovered stabbed to the heart, but 
 breathing yet, in her chair. 
 
 Strong suspicion had at the time attached 
 itself to the gardener, who was seized on a 
 ladder, placed against her window, within 
 a few moments of the deed, and whose 
 infatuation for Mr. Eyre's French nurse was 
 said to be powerful enough to precipitate 
 him into crime for her sake. 
 
 * Give me diamonds like Madame's, and I 
 will marry you,' she had said to him not half 
 an hour before the murder ; and the diamonds 
 had disappeared, and the gardener been 
 caught almost red-handed, yet Mr. Eyre
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 had refused for one moment to believe in 
 the man's guilt, all his energies being bent 
 to the conviction of the woman Clarke ; 
 and before setting out on that lengthened 
 journey, which extended to three years, he 
 had the man and maid married in his pre- 
 sence, and left them established in sole 
 charo-e of the Eed Hall, with certain funds 
 to be disposed of according to his directions. 
 And, however keenly watched by the village, 
 the oddly-matched pair had given rise to no 
 suspicion, and gradually people ceased to 
 believe in their guilt. 
 
 Of Mr. Eyre nothing was known. He 
 and Lord Lovel had set out for abroad 
 within a few days of each other, and were 
 conjectured to be together ; but as both pre- 
 served an unbroken silence, sending home 
 neither word nor sign of their existence, 
 the first positive news of them that reached
 
 10 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 the village was contained in the telegram 
 that announced the speedy arrival of living 
 and dead. 
 
 But those who gathered round to see the 
 digging of Mr. Eyre's grave whispered that 
 the real secret of Mrs. Eyre's death would 
 never be known now, since the key to it 
 was for ever locked within the cold heart of 
 the man whom she alone had so passionately 
 loved, while all other men and women feared 
 him.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 'Nae living man I'll love again, 
 Since that my lovely knight is slain ; 
 Wi' ae lock o' his yellow hair, 
 I'll chain my heart for evermair.' 
 
 |EEMS like yesterday I were dig- 
 ging her grave/ said the sexton, 
 jerking his head towards the 
 narrow green mound where Madcap Eyre 
 lay with her child on her breast, ' and I'd 
 sooner ha' dug his the first. ... I misdoubt 
 me if the daisies and crokuses '11 ever spring 
 as free above his, as they do out o' her 
 pretty head — God bless her !' 
 
 ' If he'd bin a poor man he'd lie at the
 
 12 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 cross-roads with a stake through his heart,' 
 said Nancy of the Mill, who stood with 
 arms akimbo. ' Lord ! to think that she 
 died as happy, like a baby in its mother's 
 arms — 'tis said she felt so safe-like, she 
 didn't even kiss him before she went . . . 
 And he'll never get near enough for her to 
 kiss him now — God A'mighty 'ud never 
 stand it.' 
 
 ' I niver thowt he'd a died till he'd swung 
 somebody or 'nother for her,' said the black- 
 smith ; ' to see his grave a-digging seems 
 like a story broke off short-like in its middle 
 — t'other world gets the end o't, and neither 
 they nor us is a bit the wiser.' 
 
 ' Love begins all thino;s, and death ends 
 'em,' said the gravedigger sententiously ; 
 ' half the sin in the world's born of the taste 
 o' a cherry lip, and a gentle eye'll sink 
 many a soul as has kept the commandments
 
 eyre's ACQUIT! AL. 13 
 
 from his youth up — 'twas a most powerful 
 true love as turned th' Squire from a honest 
 man to a black-hearted sinner/ 
 
 'He give his sowl for her,' said a sad- 
 faced woman who stood by, * and he couldn't 
 do more for her if 'twas ever so — he knew 
 that if ever she comed to know about Hester 
 Clarke and the drownded child, 'twould kill 
 her . . . 'Tis said that just afore she died 
 she said 'twas the happiest moment of her 
 life, and niver knowed she'd been murdered 
 — she went so quick after she'd come out 
 of the chloroform.' 
 
 ' There's a man for you !' cried Nancy, 
 lifting up her hands ; ' if so be as he did 
 stab her through jealousy, to bide beside 
 her all through that night, holding the 
 handkerchief to her mouth, and not letting 
 her come to herself one blessed minnit, and 
 the doctor saying, sez he, " If she dies, 'tis
 
 u eyre's acquittal. 
 
 murder ;" and the Squire looks up and sez, 
 *' What then V Lord, what a man !' 
 
 ' It minds me of Otheller/ said a village 
 pedagogue, whose rusty coat-tails swept his 
 heels ; ' he killed Ms wife for jealousy ; but 
 there was no knife or chloroform there^ only 
 pillows.' 
 
 ' The master had no call to be jealous,' 
 said Sally Genge, who had just joined the 
 group ; ' she never loved but him, and he 
 knowed it.' 
 
 ' Then what ailed her to go running away 
 from him with the young lord ?' said the 
 old man acidly ; ' didn't the whole county 
 ring with it, and wasn't the Squire a changed 
 man from that day V 
 
 ' A mother bird don't run away when she 
 flies straight home to see her little uns has 
 taken no harm while she's away,' cried Sally 
 indignantly ; ' she jest took an innereent
 
 eyre's acquittal. 15 
 
 morning ride, and the young lord overtook 
 her, and we all come out to our doors to 
 see 'em go by, he leading the ass so careful, 
 and lookin' so sorrowful, as if he know'd 
 the ride was beyond her strength, and she 
 so pale and sweet, a-wishing of us all good- 
 morrow . . . there never was two inner- 
 center young souls, or two as loved each 
 other so purely.' 
 
 ' And what a pair they made,' said the 
 graved igger, resting on his spade ; ' so 
 lightsome, spirity, and beautiful ! She'd 
 walk beside master, but dance along side of 
 t'other — seems like as if they two ought to 
 be lyin' here side by side ... he left his 
 heart wi' her the day we laid the mool above 
 her.' 
 
 ' She were well loved,' said the sexton's 
 wife softly ; ' and for her sake the two men 
 loved one another. 'Twas grand to see 'em
 
 16 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 standing; shoulder to shoulder at th' 'sizes — 
 'twas the only speck o' vartue in master's 
 character when he up an' said 'twas he, an' 
 not the young lord, as had brought Hester 
 Clarke to shame — seemin' as if he didn't 
 vally the wurld's opinion a groat, so long as 
 slie never heard the whisper o't.' 
 
 ' He was ever of a murderish sort of 
 mind,' said the pedagogue, shaking his head, 
 'as was clearly shown when he shot at 
 Hester, and killed a rook. 'Twas greatly in 
 my mind, when he set out so quick after 
 Lord Lovel, that revenge was at the 
 bottom ; for, though a man may kill his 
 wife for love, he mostly kills her lover for 
 hate.' 
 
 ' Very bookish talk !' said the sexton 
 disparagingly ; ' some more leavings of 
 Otheller, I s'pose ; but them as sits down 
 to write books is mostly pore creatures, and
 
 eyre's acquittal. 17 
 
 nat 'rally the folks they set struttin' on the 
 page is like theirselves . . . they ain't true 
 to human natur ; an' if you ticket a man 
 wi' a deadly sin, an' expect him to act 
 accordin', ten to one but he'll bust out with 
 a bit o' vartue as'll make you feel as if you'd 
 never knowed its right colour before . . . 
 an' if the master slew her as he lov'd best 
 of all upon earth, 'tis ten to one 'twas for 
 some reason as never entered into your 
 Otheller's or any of them dummies' heads.' 
 
 ' Dummies !' ejaculated the pedagogue, 
 furious at this insult to the creatures of his 
 own discovery — ergo his own ; but a push 
 from one of the crowd, nearly precipitating 
 him into the open grave, compelled him to 
 take an awkward leap backwards, in the 
 course of which his head met a tombstone, 
 that made him think of Othello with disgust 
 for a week. 
 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 The cause of the catastrophe was Job, 
 who came to the very edge, and looked 
 down with bitter hatred at the yawning 
 chasm. 
 
 ' Dig it deep,' he said ; ' he's been the 
 curse of the place this many a year, and 
 there's no knowing where his sins may 
 sprout up again ; but please God we've 
 done with bastards and murders now. A 
 bad man !' cried Job, striking his foot against 
 the crumbling earth ; ' he spoilt my little 
 Master Frank's life, and made him carry on 
 his shoulders a sin that wasn't his'n ; and 
 he spoke up the truth too late, for she never 
 knowed it . . . there's nought but hemlock'll 
 grow here, though them two sweet souls 
 laid alongside might save him . . . but, 
 thank God, he's dead, and my little Master 
 Frank*s above ground !' 
 
 His old voice ceased in a triumphant
 
 eyre's acquittal. 19 
 
 quaver as he turned from the grave to the 
 dwindling group of villagers, for the short 
 November afternoon was closing in, and a 
 chilly mist rising in spectral shapes about 
 the nearer tombstones, and gathering more 
 closely about the little group, formed a wall 
 that shut out all objects beyond. 
 
 ' Ay r said the sexton, looking down ; 
 ' but I'd rather to-day was to-morrer, and 
 we'd got him here. Th' Squire were never 
 warsted in anything yet, an' it seems 
 s'prisin' that he should be throwed in his 
 first wrastle, so to speak, wi' death. . . I 
 mostly gets a blink o' the dead face in its 
 coffin whiles I'm diggin' its grave, but 
 somehow I can't see the master's.' 
 
 ' You shall within the hour,' said Job 
 briskly ; ' and now I must be hastenin' 
 back, or the body '11 be there afore me ; and 
 my little Master Frank'll be expecting '
 
 20 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 What was it that froze the words on his 
 lips ? Whose was this tall shaj^e that 
 loomed gigantic through the mist, and from 
 which, after one shuddering glance, all fell 
 away, clutching at each other like drowning 
 creatures in a sinking ship ? Job, standing 
 erect, the vigour of youth rekindled in his 
 veins, withered and grew old, as, with a 
 lightning conviction of the truth, he 
 stammered, ' My master — where is my 
 master ?' 
 
 Mr. Eyre looked down at the half- veiled 
 chasm at his feet 
 
 * His grave is already dug,' he said, ' and 
 you have received my message. He lies at 
 the house yonder.' 
 
 * His grave ?' repeated Job slowly and 
 stupidly ; ' his grave . . . but he's alive — 
 the message was from him . . . 'twas your 
 body he was bringing . . . his dinner's pre-
 
 E YRE S ACQ. UITTAL, 2 1 
 
 paring, and his chair's set. . . . My little 
 Frank,' he sobbed, 'my dear, dear little 
 Master Frank ' — then seized Mr. Eyre's arm 
 and shook him like a reed ; ' did you kill 
 him as you killed your wife ?' he shrieked. 
 
 ' He was killed in battle on October 25/ 
 said Mr. Eyre, and his voice, hollow and 
 worn, might have been a ghost's. ' He had 
 been an hour dead when I found him. I 
 laid him in his coffin, and brought him 
 straight home. The message must have 
 blundered on its way.' 
 
 But Job did not hear ... by the side of 
 that empty grave his faithful old heart 
 broke, and, palsied and tottering, he had 
 crept away home to where, for the last 
 time, his little Master Frank was waiting to 
 receive him.
 
 CHAPTEK III. 
 
 * Sune as he yielded up his breath 
 
 I bare his corpse away, 
 Wi' tears that trickled for his death 
 
 I washed his comelie clay ; 
 And siker in a grave sae deep 
 
 I laid the dear-luv'd boy ; 
 And now for ever I maun weep 
 
 My winsome Gilderoy.' 
 
 ND so you dug my grave with a 
 will, my friend,' said Mr. Eyre, 
 looking keenly at the grave- 
 digger, ' and IVe disappointed you ; but it 
 shan't be love's labour lost. Lord Lovel 
 loved my wife, and she him, and there's 
 room for me on the other side. She should 
 sleep sound between two such friends.
 
 eyre's acquittal. 23 
 
 And they shall have no monument, and no 
 stained glass yonder, but only the flowers 
 they both loved, with the sun shining 
 through them ; and there'll be no briar to 
 grow out of either breast, but only a rose ; 
 and when my work's done, I'll lay my years 
 down beside them — ^just twice theirs — all 
 told. And so you thought I killed my 
 wife ?' he added, turning abruptly to the 
 terrified villagers, who began to smart 
 under a more wholesome fear of him in the 
 flesh than in the spirit. 
 
 ' Nay, sir,' said the sexton's wife, curtsey- 
 ing ; ' 'tis not for poor folks like we to judge 
 our master ; th' old man did but prate out 
 what he's caught up from his betters.' 
 
 ' Good God I' cried Mr. Eyre, like a man 
 violently awakened from a dream, ' is it 
 possible V then stooped and plucked a daisy 
 from her grave. * Poor, poor Madcap !' he
 
 24 eyre's acquittal, 
 
 said, so low that none might hear him ; 
 
 * and is that all my love hath brought thee X 
 
 Then, shrouding himself in his black 
 cloak, the mist swallowed him up from the 
 frightened gazers' eyes, and he was gone. 
 
 ' 'Tis well that Frank lies yonder, not I,' 
 he said aloud, as he crossed the churchyard, 
 
 * since that's the popular idea. I'll live to 
 disprove it, if only for her sake — as if the 
 sweet soul could have loved her murderer ! 
 And though I've thought of most things, I 
 never thought of that, though clearly some 
 fool did — most likely Busby — and set the 
 country farmyard in a cackle, because its 
 chief goose had laid another egg. But she 
 can't hear them, and she's happy ; and 
 Frank's found her by now ; and he loves 
 her too well to tell her the secret he wouldn't 
 tell me. What was it ?' he cried aloud, and 
 standing still in the darkness. 'Three
 
 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 25 
 
 years I've lost in hunting for it, and mean- 
 while the woman's escaped me. But I'll 
 find her yet.' 
 
 As he climbed the familiar hill to his 
 home, he thought of how often those two 
 bright young creatures, now sound in death 
 below, had trod it beside him ; and once he 
 drew back, as though physically unable to 
 face the empty house, across whose threshold 
 his Madcap would never dance to meet him 
 any more. He entered the courtyard, and 
 mechanically turned to that wing of the 
 house in which her chamber lay ; and 
 from the force of habit, looked up as if 
 he would have distinguished her window 
 through the darkness. But what was this ? 
 A clear light burned within, and as he 
 paused below, his foot struck against a 
 ladder placed against the wall. ' Good God !' 
 he thought ; ' has it stood here ever since
 
 26 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 that night ?' And then he remembered that 
 this was the very day and month of the 
 year upon which she had been murdered. 
 
 He had thought it unnatural that Hester 
 should climb the ladder unless with sinister 
 intent; yet he found his foot on the first 
 rung before he was aware; and as he rose, 
 step by step, put himself in her place, and 
 in the lighted room above seemed to see 
 Madcap, asleep and unconscious of her 
 doom. 
 
 As his head and shoulders rose above 
 the sill, filling the window from lintel to 
 lintel, he saw that it was unshuttered and 
 ajar, while through the clouded pane before 
 him he once more beheld the diamonds that 
 he had last seen on his wife's neck when he 
 left her in the drawing-room below with 
 Lord Lovel. 
 
 * I'd rather have the right to wear these
 
 eyre's acquittal. 27 
 
 openly, than own the finest farm in Canada,' 
 said a woman whose petticoat of linsey- 
 woolsey, drab stays, and coarse white bodice, 
 contrasted as cmiously with the jewels she 
 wore^ as did her personal beauty with the 
 sordid plainness of the man who stood at 
 some little distance from her, his features ex- 
 pressing a stupid admiration that struggled 
 with an almost abject terror. 
 
 * You're just doited to deck yersel' wi' 
 'em,' he said sullenly. ' M'appen but they'll 
 hang the two on us yet.' 
 
 * There's only we two in the house,' she 
 said ; ' the child's asleep, and every door 
 locked, and master's body's at the Towers 
 by now. There's none likely to come nigh 
 us to-night. Sit down, you fool,' she added, 
 as she turned herself this way and that 
 before the mirror, ' unless you fear to soil
 
 28 eyre's acquittal, 
 
 the chairs. Did ever you see fireflies give 
 out such a shine as yon ?' 
 
 ' Sit me down — here ?' he said, looking 
 not at his soiled fustian, but at the middle 
 of the room, his eyes fixed as if he saw 
 there some fearsome sight ; ' seems like as I 
 see her now as I seed her that night sittin' 
 in her white gownd, and the red blood 
 gurglin' out ' — as though involuntarily, his 
 earth-stained hand lifted itself, and pointed 
 to where his eyes dwelt. ' I wxre mad to 
 let mysel' be dragged here this night ; and 
 that poor soul, innocent of all save peeping, 
 and a most hanged for our sin — I'd ha' con- 
 fessed all, afore 1 saw her swinging. An' 
 all for nought but to see you wi' a halter of 
 diamonds round your weazle ' 
 
 * 'Tis handsomer than many a lady's,' 
 said the woman ; adding half aloud, ' Why
 
 eyre's acquittal. '29 
 
 should I go with the poor fool at all ? In 
 
 Paris I might wear 'em, and ' 
 
 * I see no murder there,' Mr. Eyre had 
 once exclaimed, gazing at his gardener's 
 features ; but as Josephine's half-dropped 
 words reached the man's ears and he strode 
 forward, his master knew that his study- 
 had been superficial, and that beneath yon 
 boorish exterior might lurk unsuspected 
 possibilities of crime. 
 
 ' So you'd like to give me the go-by,' 
 said Digges with a bitter curse, as he 
 crushed the woman's white arm in his 
 coarse hand; *jest you try it,' and he 
 breathed hard and thick. ' If so be as I've 
 sold my sowl for you, I'll git my penny's 
 worth ; an' where I go, you'll foller. I alius 
 knew you was a bad lot, but your first fancy 
 man'U be the last ; for I'll kill the pair o' ye, 
 an' you'll git a taste o' that hell as your
 
 30 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL, 
 
 covetin' the dimoncls pitched me into. I've 
 half the mind to tear 'em off yer body this 
 night, an' 'fess to the truth ' 
 
 The woman laughed as she put her free 
 arm about his neck and kissed him ; her 
 beauty held him in bondage yet. In the 
 lower ranks of life it is seldom that a man 
 ill-uses his handsome mate so long as she 
 is true to him ; when she is faithless he 
 usually kills her, and Josephine had not 
 tempted her clown so far yet. 
 
 ^ Didn't I promise to love you if you 
 could give me diamonds like Madame's?' 
 she said, sickening at the contrast of their 
 two faces in the glass ; * and I've worn them 
 once. To-night we'll unpick them from 
 their settings, and hide them for the last 
 time.' 
 
 ' We maun bide afore we makes a move,' 
 said Digges, who had relapsed into his usual
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL, 31 
 
 stolid self ; ' m'appen the neebours 11 keep 
 their eyes open yet awhile.' 
 
 ' They've given over suspecting long ago,' 
 said Josephine, who had during her three 
 years' marriage lost every trace of the 
 French idiom in speaking, and acquired the 
 English. ' Folks that dress themselves in 
 woollen must be virtuous ; and poverty's a 
 grand cloak under which to hide one's sins.' 
 
 She was flaunting backwards and forwards 
 before the mirror now, and beyond her lay 
 the pure, simple background of Madcap's 
 chamber, arranged just as she had left it 
 when she had ignorantly started on her last 
 long journey, without farewell kiss or word 
 to the husband and children she so passion- 
 ately loved. 
 
 There stood her white bed, and beside it 
 the table that held her Bible, Prayer-book, 
 and portrait of her husband alone, and her
 
 32 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 two boys . together ; near them lay the 
 broken toy that Dody had dropped when he 
 had paid her his last visit, and wept at 
 leaving her, not knowing how soon he 
 would share with her that sleep which 
 knows no wakino;. . . . Yonder, too, was 
 
 O 7 1 
 
 the cabinet, of which one unlocked drawer 
 held a secret that defied Mr. Eyre, while by 
 its side the easy- chair stood, in which Mad- 
 cap had been ' twinn'd of her sweet life ' 
 unknowing. . . 
 
 On the borders of the half-light Digges 
 hovered, fearful to remain, as to depart, 
 alone, his round eyes resting on anything 
 rather than his wife. All at once the black- 
 ness of the window attracted Josephine's 
 attention ; it would make a longer looking- 
 glass than the one in which she gazed, and 
 she approached it, seeing but night beyond, 
 for Mr. Eyre covered his face with his
 
 EVJ?£'S ACQUITTAL. 33 
 
 mantle as she advanced, so that she saw the 
 jewels flashing like sun-rays upon an inky 
 pool. 
 
 But as she looked, some horrible lightning 
 impression of gazing at dark against dark 
 seized her ; involuntarily she pressed 
 nearer, and as the heavy mantle slipped, 
 and Mr. Eyre's eyes met hers through the 
 glass, his features menacing and stern, pale 
 and haggard as a man new risen from the 
 tomb, icy terror congealed the very blood 
 in her veins, and slew in her the power 
 to cry out — to stir. Ignorant and super- 
 stitious, she never doubted that this was 
 her dead master in his cereclothes, come to 
 confront her with the witnesses to her crime 
 upon her body . . . and reason tottered, 
 but was not overthrown, till, dashing the 
 casement wide, he stretched his arm and 
 seized her . . . then her wits fled, and even 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 34 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 as Mr. Eyre knew it, and saw the chamber- 
 door open, and Digges gone, he knew that 
 once more the secret of Madcap's death had 
 escaped him.
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 Alas ! wlio did medicine thee to that siceet sleep f 
 
 R. EYEE cursed himself for a 
 melodramatic fool as he let the 
 woman go, and hastened to re- 
 gain earth, knowing that there were but 
 two exits from the Red Hall, by one or 
 other of which Digges was certain to effect 
 his escape. 
 
 But the pitch-darkness aided the fugitive, 
 and Mr. Eyre felt so certain of his having 
 got off that he wasted no time in searching 
 the house, but descended to the village, 
 where he had the curious misfortune to l)c 
 
 3—2
 
 36 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL, 
 
 mistaken at every other step for his own 
 ghost. 
 
 The story of his appearance in the church- 
 yard was not yet fully circulated through the 
 place, and many believed his body to be then 
 reposing at theTowers,so that some hindrance 
 to the search for Digges was unavoidable. 
 
 * Save your cackles,' he said at last, sternly, 
 * and search for this man throughout every 
 yard of the village — a hundred pounds to 
 him who seizes and brings him to me alive ; 
 but let no one enter the Eed Hall,' he added, 
 as he mounted the horse that he had himself 
 hastily saddled, and set out at full gallop for 
 Marmiton. 
 
 Within five minutes the whole population 
 of the village w^as abroad, some with lailterns, 
 others with hastily made and kindled brands, 
 whose light they flung on outhouses and 
 startled fowl- cotes, beating each foot of field
 
 eyre's acquittal. 37 
 
 and wood, and even climbing to the steep 
 cliiF that rose sheer behind the Eed Hall, in 
 one upper window of which a light shone, 
 tempting the seekers to pursue their search 
 within. 
 
 But none dared withstand their master*s 
 commands — he had returned grimmer and 
 more terrible than he departed ; but surely 
 not the guilty man they had supposed, as 
 his search for Digges, and a few hasty words 
 he had let fall, pointed to a discovery on 
 his part that the gardener and his wife were 
 the criminals. 
 
 ' To be sure, a' said " Thank Gawd !" when 
 she heard th' master wur dead,' said one of 
 the seekers, gazing at the distant Avindow^ ; 
 * and her were a bit flighty an' dressy -like 
 wonst — but Lor, her sobered down an' got 
 a modest, hard-workin' drab enow arter her 
 married her mon.'
 
 38 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 ' An' he got as dour an' crabbed as if he'd 
 wed pison by mistake,' said one of the 
 women who had joined in the search. 
 ' M'appen he killed the missus to get the 
 dimonds for Josephine — an' Hester knowed 
 it, but wouldn't speak cos she and t'other 
 had been such fr'ens ?' 
 
 ' An' if so,' said another of the grouj), 
 
 * Where's the dimonds ? She'd never ha' 
 kep' her itchin' fingers off 'em all these 
 years ; an' no talk o' goin' to furren parts 
 neither, which folks mostly does wi' other 
 folks' wallerbles.' 
 
 *' God help the little un, all alone yon 
 with Josephine, if so be as Digges and she's 
 guilty !' said one of the women, shivering ; 
 
 * but he never dropped a word o' her . . . 
 an' no doubt he locked her safe in afore he 
 comed away.' 
 
 But more than one mother looked back
 
 E vice's acquittal. 39 
 
 wistfully at the shrouded pile that all had 
 been forbidden to approach ; and when, half 
 an hour later, Mr. Eyre rode through the 
 village, accompanied by mounted constables, 
 many were the seekers who volunteered to 
 accompany them to the Hall, only to be 
 peremptorily refused. Mr. Eyre's keen 
 glance at once discerned that no trace of 
 Digges had been found ; and, without 
 pausing to make inquiry, he and those with 
 him rode on to the house, where an entrance 
 was effected by breaking a window. 
 
 But for the gardener's fatal error in 
 leaving the ladder against the wall, no one 
 could possibly have surprised the woman 
 that night; and those who followed Mr. 
 Eyre uttered a cry of amazement as, pausing 
 on the threshold of what had been his wife's 
 chamber, he made a sign to them to look in. 
 
 Before the glass sat Josephine, laughing
 
 40 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 softly to herself, and playing with the 
 diamonds that now in the idiot's kingdom 
 were her own — to be worn without fear, and 
 gloated over to her heart's content. For the 
 first time in her life she was happy — ay, 
 and to the last day of it, for Mr. Eyre never 
 allowed them to be taken from her durino; 
 that long and weary time, through which he 
 waited patiently for the flicker of reason 
 that should cast its light upon the manner 
 of Madcap's end. 
 
 ' The man's not guilty,' said one of the 
 constables, who had been carefully watching 
 her ; ' if she'd only stolen the diamonds, the 
 shock of seeing you wouldn't have driven 
 her mad. Most likely she committed the 
 murder after Mrs. Eyre's maid had left this 
 room for the night, and went back to the 
 nursery just before Hester Clarke, mounting 
 the ladder through curiosity, discovered
 
 eyre's acquittal. 41 
 
 what had happened, and shrieked so as to 
 rouse the house.' 
 
 Mr. Eyre did not reply. His habitual 
 promptitude of judgment had deserted him ; 
 and though his conviction of Hester's guilt 
 was shaken, he knew his long search for 
 Frank to have been based upon a wrong 
 impression, and he felt incapable of passing 
 an opinion on the relative guilt of the two 
 wretches he had surprised that night. 
 When asked if the men should search the 
 house, he assented, but did not accompany 
 them, though with his own hand he locked 
 Josephine in a room whence egress was im- 
 possible, having previously placed bread and 
 water within her reach. 
 
 The happy idoit went willingly, but cried 
 when he took the light away, till she fell 
 asleep, hugging the diamonds in her arms. 
 
 He then returned to his wife's chamber,
 
 42 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 and sat down just within, not stiiTing till tie 
 heard approaching steps, when he rose, and, 
 standing on the threshold, asked the chief 
 constable if he had discovered anything. 
 
 ' Nothing, sir — leastways only a child, all 
 alone, and sound asleep, sir.'
 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ' He entered in his house, his home no more ; 
 
 For without hearts there is no home — 
 And felt the solitude of passing his own door 
 Without a welcome.' 
 
 *R. EYEE locked and barred the 
 liall-door upon the searchers, 
 then returned to his wife's bed- 
 room, and, closing the window, drew the 
 curtains before it. 
 
 Here the murderer had stood — what, 
 Digges f From here he must have seen 
 her asleep in the chair that stood midw^ay 
 between bed and window ; beside it the 
 diamonds, whose wicked shine in a dullard's
 
 44 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 eyes might have lit the way to an un- 
 principled, covetous woman beyond . . . 
 but the gardener Digges f 
 
 DrojDping the curtain, Mr. Eyre advanced 
 as though he were acting a part ; how easy 
 to aim one blow at yon sleeping shape — to 
 seize the diamonds, and escape by the open 
 window — to hide them and return, dragged 
 by the miserable power of the victim over 
 its destroyer — to encounter Hester Clarke 
 hurrying from the sight, upon which she 
 had privily looked — to seize and fasten the 
 guilt upon her, she keeping silence through- 
 out her trial, knowing that a word would 
 save her! Digges, the murderer . . . 
 mechanically he turned to a cabinet that 
 stood near him, and opened a certain drawer; 
 then brought the light, and stood looking 
 down fixedly on a dim outline traced upon 
 the wood within.
 
 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 45 
 
 Here the knife had lain that was after- 
 wards found in Hester Clarke's possession, 
 but who had placed it there ? and did the 
 same hand remove it ? He lifted his own, 
 and, as one who makes an experiment, 
 stretched it towards the cabinet, his will 
 making imperious question of his mind, as 
 though he would wrest from it some secret 
 that had been acquired against his know- 
 ledge, and must be forced to yield up to his 
 command. 
 
 But force of will would not unbar that 
 hidden chamber of his soul, locked even 
 against himself, whose key he had lost, and 
 his friend found. 
 
 ' God forgive you,^ Frank had written 
 when he had left Mr. Eyre's sick-bed to set 
 out on his journey. ' / hiow the truth.* 
 
 The truth . . . unless brain, car, and eye 
 mocked Mr. Eyre to-night, he knew that
 
 46 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 the clue held in Frank's dead hand out 
 yonder was worthless, that the mystery of 
 Madcap's death was for ever solved, and 
 himself the sport of an illusion that had 
 made the opportunity of a clown. 
 
 Hester innocent — for the gardener's over- 
 heard words cleared her of guilt — and he, 
 that poor worm, that clod, guilty. A fierce 
 sense of the meanness of the instrument 
 that had compassed so great a crime alone 
 moved Mr. Eyre's soul as, in that silent 
 chamber, he realized his own bitter, black 
 mistake. 
 
 ' Yet, as his accomplice, Hester is as guilty 
 as Digges !' he exclaimed aloud ; then loathed 
 himself for the stubborn pride that would 
 not accept defeat, but sought to snatch 
 aside the mirror which held him up to his 
 own implacable self- contempt and condem- 
 nation.
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 47 
 
 He took no comfort in the thouo^ht that 
 Madcap's death was in no way a conse- 
 quence of his sin, and thanked God neither 
 for his innocence in this matter, nor for 
 that of the woman he had well-nigh hanged. 
 Hard and impenitent, he lifted his eyes 
 not to God, but to self, and, with pitiless 
 eye, scanned it as an enemy might, learning 
 it through and through, its impotence, its 
 ignorance, its pride. 
 
 In one vivid flash of light he saw 
 illumined the puppet that had mouthed 
 and strutted in his likeness — purblind, 
 arrogant, the meanest actor in the tragedy 
 of which it had believed itself the control- 
 ling force and avenger . . . marked its 
 every antic and gesture, its insolent assump- 
 tion of the Divine right of vengeance, 
 while at its very side the Truth stalked, 
 invisible to its bandaged eyes.
 
 48 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 Yet even as he gazed on this vile travesty 
 of himself, the man's soul, defiant, unyield- 
 ing, exulted in the thought that at least 
 she had not known him thus, but from first 
 to last kept his image unblemished in the 
 soul that she had laid before her Maker. 
 Looking back, he had her love and honour ; 
 looking forward, his unquailing eye swept 
 heaven and earth, and found them empty 
 of love, duty, vengeance, ambition — and 
 betwixt him and the half of one narrow 
 chamber-room he coveted — nothing. He 
 took the daisy from his breast that he had 
 plucked growing above her head, and 
 thought that it was w^ell with her out 
 yonder — but how had Lord Lovel earned 
 the right to a long, deep slumber at her 
 side? 
 
 Mr. Eyre started to his feet as one 
 pierced by an intolerable pang, and, stand-
 
 eyre's acquittal. 49 
 
 ing erect, with hands hanging at his sides, 
 gazed straight before him, as if he actually 
 witnessed a scene that evoked his strongest 
 contempt and loathing. 
 
 And what did he see ? 
 
 Come with me to the storming of the 
 trenches before Sevastopol — see a sunny- 
 haired young fellow beckoning on his men 
 ... see him, struck by a cannon-ball, 
 reel from his saddle, while his followers 
 trample him beneath their feet as they rush 
 onward to victory . . . see how, amid a 
 storm of shot and shell, a man rushes 
 forward, and, lifting that yet warm body 
 up, bears it away to a place of safety, 
 where he tears aside the scarlet coat, only 
 to find that the heart beneath is still — the 
 heart that holds the lost clue to Madcap's 
 death ! 
 
 ' Silent, with closed lips, unconscious of 
 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 50 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 bravery,' so ^^oung that his mother in 
 heaven could not have forgotten his like- 
 ness yet, the soldier lay — beaten in the 
 fight, but with a gleam of victory shining 
 athwart his wide-opened blue eyes and 
 shattered features that, to one who loved 
 him, might have seemed more nobly beauti- 
 ful than the glance that had been his in 
 life. 
 
 Yet, as enemy rather than friend, Mr. 
 Eyre lifted that lifeless body and gently 
 laid it down. He and the man before him 
 had been comrades, sworn to one cause, and 
 it had been no part of Mr. Eyre's scheme 
 that either should die before it was won. 
 No pity for that gallant fate stirred him — 
 no memory of how he had loved his friend, 
 and stolen his Madcap from him, softened 
 his heart ; only a bleak and a bitter rage 
 filled his soul that, after tliree long years
 
 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 51 
 
 of pursuit, in which ho had wasted the 
 whole forces of his brain and body, he had 
 at last come up with the pursued to find him 
 — dead. 
 
 'He should have been shot through the 
 heart as a deserter, not buried as a hero,' 
 Mr. Eyre thought, as he folded his cloak 
 across Frank and left him alone in the rude 
 hut, while he himself went to search for 
 those proofs of the young fellow's identity 
 that he must take with him to Lovel when 
 he bore the body home for burial. 
 
 He carried his life in his hand that night; 
 but, as if he had been Belial's self, no harm 
 touched him, and day was breaking when 
 he found Frank's colonel — dying — but able 
 to recognise Mr. Eyre as an old friend, 
 and to answer his questions about Frank. 
 
 Lord Lovel had joined quite recently, and 
 seemed to court death. He had confided to 
 
 4—2
 
 52 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 him, a few days previously, a packet of 
 papers that he desired might l3e sent to Mr. 
 Eyre if he fell. 
 
 These papers were on the dying man's 
 body at that moment ; and as Mr. Eyre 
 drew them from above his heart, a fierce 
 throb of hope animated him ; for here 
 perhaps Frank, though dead, spoke to him 
 the truth. 
 
 As he tore them open, the dying man 
 suddenly cried out : 
 
 * Has anyone seen Methuen ? Take care 
 there's no mistake . . . their own mothers 
 couldn't tell . . .' then died with the un- 
 finished sentence on his lips. 
 
 A withered bunch of flowers . . . a faded 
 ribbon ... a pale photograph of a girl's 
 face made out of sunshine . . . half a dozen 
 letters written in childish characters, and 
 signed ' Your little sweetheart, Madcap '
 
 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 53 
 
 . . . one or two notes, of which the ink 
 was fresher, and tone sedater, with the name 
 of ' Eyre ' added to that of ' Madcap ' . . . 
 these and no more. 
 
 Not a word to his friend — not a syllable 
 to call back the awful burden he had laid 
 upon him . . . and as, later, Mr. Eyre 
 stood looking down upon that shrouded 
 clay, he could have spurned it with his foot 
 in loathing. 
 
 When the rude coffin had been made 
 ready, Mr. Eyre and his dead set out for 
 home, his mind a sullen blank, that last 
 stage of the impotent rebellion against 
 God that had for three years consumed 
 him. 
 
 As he landed with his burden on a bleak 
 November night, there occurred to him a 
 strange illusion. 
 
 Pure and sweet, like the far-off singing
 
 54 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 of a bird in a solemn aisle, suddenly rang 
 in his ears the lines of an old ballad which 
 Madcap had often sung, but to which he 
 had never consciously listened : 
 
 * " When will you be back, Lord Lovell T she said, 
 " When will you be back V said she. 
 "In a year or two — or three at the most . . ." ' 
 
 Ay, it was her voice, and she reproached 
 him with Frank's death, which, indeed, lay 
 at his door ; for had not Frank meant to 
 return ? And was not his own pursuit of 
 him the cause of that reckless throwing 
 of himself into the jaws of death ? Ay, 
 verily his friend's death lay at his account, 
 as did those other sinless ones whose memory 
 he bore always about his path and ways, a 
 weight to sink him to the remotest depths 
 of hell itself. 
 
 Yet, when the sound ceased, Mr. Eyre 
 was himself again, and busied with a scheme
 
 E YRE S A CQ UITTAL. 55 
 
 that he at once proceeded to put into 
 effect. 
 
 In Frank's name he telegraphed to Lovel 
 news of his own death, convinced that 
 Josephine would immediately communicate 
 the news to Hester, so that he would 
 probably find the two women together on 
 his arrival. No matter what hidden clue 
 Frank had held, in his soul Mr. Eyre knew 
 Hester Clarke to be guilty ; and it was with 
 the implacable determination to convict her 
 yet that he had approached his house that 
 night, expecting to find her within it. 
 
 And on his very threshold he had been 
 met by this sordid reading of the tragedy, a 
 mere clue to which had made him a wanderer 
 on the face of the earth for three long 
 years, a clue that had made him put even 
 Hester aside as one to be dealt with later ; 
 and now if Diggcs or Josephine were guilty
 
 66 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 — if — but what waste of time to speculate, 
 when by that hour of the following day the 
 man would be in the hands of justice, and 
 his confession or his evidence taken down ! 
 
 Hester guiltless, Frank exiling himself 
 for a chimera ! yet Mr. Eyre's stubborn soul 
 rose up in the teeth of fact against the 
 theory of Digges as the murderer, and 
 denied himself to be a fool who had be- 
 come the slave of a conviction, made blind 
 by the obstinate inflexibility of his judg- 
 ment, or that his strength had been his 
 undoing, his immutability his curse, so that 
 in the issues of his whole intellectual 
 strength he had been worsted by a clod. 
 
 And yet, as a man who knows that 
 across his eyes a film is stretched which 
 hinders his perceiving at his very feet the 
 object for which he painfully gropes, so Mr. 
 Eyre's mind, while passively accepting
 
 eyre's acquittal. 57 
 
 Digges as the murderer, sought within his 
 own breast for the true reading of a mys- 
 tery that, while clear as day to all others, 
 was dark as night to himself. 
 
 But as a side-thought will sweep a man 
 out of the track of sober fact, and bid 
 tragedy itself pause while he dallies with a 
 folly, so Mr. Eyre's mind started off at a 
 tangent to Madcap, and rested there, just 
 as a mariner in drowning looks up to the 
 patch of blue above him. So the darkened 
 chamber, the white chair, receded from Mr. 
 Eyre's eyes, and in their place he saw an 
 old-fashioned garden, and a young girl 
 stepping backwards down a ladder, as, 
 aloud, she carefully counted the plums on 
 the garden -wall. 
 
 Anon he saw the same young shape (but 
 three months older) seated beneath the 
 white plume of a thorn, whose blossoms
 
 58 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 were no paler than her cheeks, till a step on 
 the turf made her turn, and the next 
 moment two gentle arms, arms that 
 trembled, but not with doubt, stole round 
 his neck. ... A trysting-place (six hours 
 later), to which a young girl in a white 
 gown came stealing — all her worldly goods 
 tied up in her pocket-handkerchief, and 
 nothing in life to keep her warm but her 
 lover's arms. ... A hurried marriage, at 
 which an old friend of the bride's assisted, 
 and then six years of such happiness as 
 might make a wicked man in love with 
 virtue, and look back with loathing on the 
 pleasures he had found in sin. 
 
 And those arms had held her fast and 
 safe through those six short, happy years — 
 ay, and made to her so sure a haven that 
 dreamlessly she had sunk to her last rest in 
 them, knowing neither fear nor pain, so
 
 eyre's acquittal. 59 
 
 long as they were closed about her ; yea, and 
 even in the moment of death knew no pang, 
 but called it the happiest moment of her 
 life. 
 
 She had been happy to the last. Exul- 
 tantly in that lonely chamber, Mr. Eyre 
 lifted his brows to heaven, and cried aloud, 
 that no matter what his suffering, sin, and 
 shame might be, she had never suffered — 
 and never would. 
 
 If to the world a piteous tragedy might 
 have showed in the untimely death of one 
 so young, lovely, and beloved, to her hus- 
 band the thought was infinitely less moving 
 than to see her living, the springs of faith 
 and hope in her quenched — the soul and 
 heart dying gradually, the body last, and he 
 himself dishonoured in her eyes for time and 
 all eternity. 
 
 There lay the root of it — Idraself- — the
 
 60 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 fatal Ego that subordinated all things to 
 itself, that had cast its sins behind his back 
 and cried, ' Thus far and no farther ' — op- 
 posing his puny strength to that of his 
 Maker, and when overtaken by their pitiless 
 consequences, trampling them under foot, 
 arrogating to himself the Divine right of 
 vengeance or mercy upon the objects of his 
 hatred and his love. 
 
 Persons who had never studied human 
 nature pointed to Mr. Eyre's constancy to 
 his wife as a virtue ; yet for the secret of 
 such faithfulness one must look rather to 
 the woman than the man, since one woman 
 will fix what a hundred before her have 
 missed, and will miss again, if once the 
 touchstone to his faithfulness have not been 
 found in herself. 
 
 Again, the world had discovered no con- 
 gruity between the strong-brained man and
 
 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 61 
 
 the slender young mother of his children — 
 found fault with the pair, and suspected 
 some secret key to the riddle that to clumsy 
 eyes and fingers was found in the circum- 
 stances of Mrs. Eyre's death. None guessed 
 that his love for her had been selfish as his 
 whole life ; that it had neither humanized 
 nor taught him to love others ; how for her 
 very children he had felt no affection, and 
 if the thought of her son crossed his mind 
 to-night, it was only to dismiss it instantly. 
 Let the boy look to himself. Mr. Eyre 
 had been thrown very early on the world, 
 without a mother's guidance, and with the 
 example of a worse father than himself 
 before him ; and as to duty, why, the word 
 had never held any meaning to his mind. 
 Frank was dead ; and now there lived not 
 one soul w^hose heart might break for loss of 
 faith in him — not one whose sufFerinor it
 
 62 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 might break her heart to see ; so that he 
 was bucklered and panoplied against fate, 
 and with indifference could contemplate 
 those past sins that had power to hurt no 
 one now. 
 
 Perhaps if her little prematurely born 
 babe had lived (the babe that had been 
 dying when he set out on his search for 
 Lord Lovel), it might have borne some like- 
 ness to her, and he have loved it ; but as it 
 was, she had died, and so Madcap had 
 
 * Left the world no copy.' 
 
 Body and soul, he was worn out with the 
 fires of excitement and disappointment that 
 his three years' pursuit of Lord Lovel had 
 cost him ; and what wonder if, as the night 
 drew on, his wearied spirit envied Frank 
 his resting-place yonder, and for himself 
 coveted but the half of one narrow mound ?
 
 JSYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 63 
 
 Perchance, as in the exquisite old fable of 
 * Abelard and Heloise,' his true love's arms 
 would open to enfold his body to her breast, 
 and so at last they would sleep sound and 
 sweet together. 
 
 Suddenly he rose, and stretched out his 
 hands towards yon empty bed with the first 
 purely physical, passionate longing for Mad- 
 cap that had moved him since the fierce 
 longing for vengeance on her murderer had 
 steeled his heart against all natural love 
 and sorrow. 
 
 ' Madcap f 
 
 The starved cry rang through the silent 
 house as, pierced through all his armoury of 
 pride by that living thought of her, the 
 strong man awakened for the first time to 
 the full desolation of his miserable lot. 
 
 Hark ! what was that ? A movement, 
 rather than a sound, that stole through the
 
 64 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 empty house . . . then a faint stir as of 
 something that approached waveringly and 
 with many halts, till gradually the faint, 
 pattering sound as of a child's bare feet 
 upon polished boards drew nearer and 
 nearer, till, on the threshold of Madcap's 
 chamber, they paused, as though in fear or 
 doubt. Through the fierce wrestle of his 
 bodily weakness with the power that crushed 
 him, these footsteps sounded but faintly, 
 nor when a gentle hand pushed the door 
 open, and a little shape stood on the thresh- 
 old, did he move or turn, till, feeling some- 
 thing approach him, he tore his hand from 
 his eyes, and angrily pointed to the door. 
 
 AVho was it that dared intrude on him 
 thus % He looked, but at first saw nothing ; 
 then downwards, and saw close beside him 
 a child no higher than his knee. 
 
 He averted his eyes angrily, and, in a
 
 eyre's acquittal. 65 
 
 harsh voice, bade her begone. What did 
 the murderer's brat heve^ intruding her 
 paltry existence on him in this, the grand 
 reckoning-hour of his existence ? 
 
 Mr. Eyre understood neither the piteous 
 helplessness nor the beauty of childhood ; 
 he had never studied, never loved a child, 
 and this lonely, forsaken one touched no 
 chord of mercy in his breast. 
 
 ' Go !' he said, once more lifting his hand 
 in the fierce gesture of dismissal that Mad- 
 cap's children had so invariably obeyed. 
 But the harsh look that sped like a blow 
 fell faltering, for what was this ? 
 
 Did he not know this face by heart — its 
 eyes, its lips, the very sunshine of its glance, 
 ay, the very dimples in its cheeks ? was 
 not this the very dawn of his own bright 
 Madcap ? . . . and this was Jose'phines 
 child ! 
 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 66 EYRE S ACQUITTAL, 
 
 Unconsciously he sank to his knees, she 
 looking at him earnestly ; then, with one of 
 those angelic instincts of pity that will 
 move a little child's heart to the compre- 
 hension of a tragedy it cannot hioii\ and 
 with no fear of that terrible face above her, 
 she lifted a dimpled hand to his neck, and 
 left it there. 
 
 * Is 'oo miserbul ?' she said, in her tender 
 little voice, and looking at him earnestly ; 
 then finding something in his face that 
 satisfied her, put her other arm round his 
 neck, and gave him that first, best, purest 
 gift earth can afi'ord — a child's unbidden 
 kiss. He received it as if he were stone . . . 
 how long ago was it since anyone had kissed 
 him ? Then, putting her from him so 
 harshly that any but a child would have 
 been startled into the belief that he was 
 angry, cried :
 
 E VICE'S ACQUITTAL. 67 
 
 ' What is your name T 
 
 ' I'se Madcap,' she said, and laughed 
 aloud in the desolate chamber . . . and 
 then Mr. Eyre knew that his reckoning-hour 
 was stayed, for that betwixt him and God 
 had passed the shield of a little child. 
 
 Here was Madcap's message to him from 
 the grave, sent to him in his darkest, lone- 
 liest hour ; here, in his grasp, was that 
 divinest link between God and man — the 
 hand of a little child. 
 
 Here, in the very moment that his life 
 had practically come to a full stop, was a 
 heart put into it. . . Ay ! but through 
 which to suffer, to be made human, through 
 which to remember dead sins . . . though 
 he knew it not, was not here his punish- 
 ment, the instrument by which his stubborn 
 soul was to be brought to submission to his 
 Maker ? 
 
 5—2
 
 68 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 No such thought touched him as he 
 bowed his head on the little innocent breast 
 that took him with all his sins upon it, and, 
 neither questioning nor doubting, knew only 
 that he was in trouble, and that he was her 
 friend. 
 
 ' Can't find Joey anyivhere^ she said, 
 shaking the bright head that rested on Mr. 
 Eyre's raven locks, ' and I dont like being 
 left all by my lone self — has 'oo come to 
 stop V she added, suddenly. 
 
 ' Yes !' 
 
 ' What's oo' name V 
 
 ' I am your father.' 
 
 ' Oh no !' said the child, looking^ at him 
 with grave, lovely eyes ; ' daddy's dead — 
 Joey said so -this afternoon. They're going 
 to put him in the cold, cold pit to-morrow — 
 poor daddy !' 
 
 She shivered a little as she said it, as if
 
 eyre's acquittal. 69 
 
 chill or afraid ; and, as though it had been 
 his Madcap's body that his own carelessness 
 had put in danger, Mr. Eyre lifted the child, 
 and, wrapping her in his cloak, carried her 
 to the bed, and laid her down upon it. 
 
 She fell asleep soon, with her hand in his, 
 and a shower of bright hair falling over 
 them both ; but presently he lifted himself, 
 and took curiously a handful of that bright 
 gold, then loosed it and kneeled down be- 
 side the bed that but an hour ago had 
 seemed empty, beyond the power of God or 
 man to fill it. 
 
 But what weakness was this ? However 
 much Madcap's image, there could be but 
 one Madcap to him, and he had always 
 hated children. . . Why had "^ this one come 
 to him in his hour of weakness, when 
 broken, worsted, he knew himself alike 
 worthless in the sight of heaven and earth %
 
 70 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL, 
 
 His stubborn pride rebelled . . . uncon- 
 sciously he withdrew his hand from that 
 sleej)ing clasp. . . Yet morning found them 
 thus, a child wrapped in a man's grey cloak, 
 and a man who slej)t with his arm thrown 
 around her, as though, even in his slumbers, 
 he must clutch the one treasure that, in the 
 shipwreck of his life, had been cast up from 
 the very deeps at his feet. 
 
 •5'r -S'r -S'r -SC- -JC- 
 
 The same grey hour of dawn found Job 
 gazing broken-hearted on the dead likeness 
 of the only creature on earth that he loved. 
 Speechless, bereft almost of reason, he had, 
 on Mr. Eyre's departure from the church- 
 yard, tottered home, to find a shrouded 
 coffin in the hall, unwatched, unwept ; but 
 as the trembling old man sank on his knees 
 beside it, a wild hope, conviction — what 
 you will — seized him that the coffin did not
 
 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 contain Frank, but some other man whom, 
 for reasons of his own, Mr. Eyre wished to 
 pass off as Lord Lovel. 
 
 When the house was still that night, and 
 the women sound asleep in their beds, with 
 the key turned upon them, the gloomy hall 
 showed a flicker of light, and Job once more 
 approached, bearing certain tools that he 
 laid upon the ground, with his lanthorn ; 
 then, pushing the pall aside, with a beating 
 heart began his work. 
 
 The coffin was stout, and had been firmly 
 soldered down. The sweat poured from 
 Job's brows like rain as, with the strength 
 of desperation, he toiled on hour after hour, 
 the hollow blows waking ghostly echoes in 
 the lofty hall, and dying away in shivering 
 sounds along the vast corridors that for 
 three years had been silent to the master's 
 step.
 
 72 EYjRE'S acquittal. 
 
 But by daybreak the lid of the last inner 
 coffin was loosened, and Job had only to lift 
 it, to put the linen aside, and his doubts 
 would be set at rest for ever ; but when he 
 had lifted the lid, his hand refused to travel 
 farther, and, with a sob, the old man sank 
 on his knees to the ground. 
 
 Better to have kept his belief that his 
 idol was not there ... to have clung to 
 the hope that one day he would hear his 
 foot on the stair, his voice in the hall . . . 
 he would close the coffins up without look- 
 ing, and keep his belief, and his suspicions 
 of Black Eyre. 
 
 But even as he touched the lid to replace 
 it, an overmastering impulse made him 
 draw aside the linen below, to see before 
 hint, beautiful and calm in sleep, the 
 features of his fondly-loved, dear ' little 
 Master Frank.'
 
 eyre's acquittal. 73 
 
 The ball that had half- shattered the dead 
 man's face had left his lips untouched and 
 smiling, and the bright, frank expression 
 that had made him so irresistible, yet 
 lingered, while the impress of the gallant 
 death he had died gave a nobler beauty to 
 the young and almost boyish face of poor 
 Madcap's sweetheart, and Mr. Eyre's 
 friend. 
 
 For a while Job looked at him without 
 stirring, and with his heart frozen. Then 
 he stirred the short bright hair of his 
 " boy," as he always called this young 
 warrior of over six feet in height, and 
 touched the cold hand that had done its 
 life's work so early and so well ; but the 
 shouts of the conquerors, the honour of the 
 death that wrapped around his master 
 ' with cloak of pilgrim grey,' brought no 
 comfort to Job, nor made less bitter the
 
 74 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 agonizing tears that at last dropped like 
 lead upon his darling's breast. 
 
 He strove to replace the lid ; but when, 
 an hour later, the clamouring of the shut- 
 up women attracted a gardener, who forced 
 an entrance to the house, he found Lord 
 Lovel lying with peaceful, uncovered face, 
 and Job fallen in a fit beside him.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ' To identify ourselves with something wider and 
 greater, that shall live when we, as units, shall have 
 done with living, that shall work on with new hands 
 when we, its worn-out limbs, have entered upon rest. 
 The soldier who rushes on death does not know it as 
 extinction ; in thought he lives and marches on with 
 the army, and leaves with it his corpse upon the 
 battlefield.' 
 
 'Y eight o'clock came riding in hot 
 speed Colonel Busby, a magis- 
 trate of the neighbourhood, and 
 the most pestilential busybody within it. 
 
 But when he came to the vast hall, whose 
 lofty ceiling was still in gloom, while the 
 light from the stained-glass windows fell
 
 76 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 but faintly on Lord Lovel's uncovered face, 
 upon which, as yet, no change had come 
 (with such incredible rapidity had Mr. Eyre 
 brought him home), involuntarily he bared 
 his head, and, coming to the side of the 
 coffin, looked down with a real impulse of 
 sorrow on the young fellow's face. 
 
 How well he remembered Frank Lovel in 
 life, and how nobly the boy had taken on 
 himself Mr. Eyre's sins ! and now the one 
 lay dead, while the other lived and 
 flourished, ripening, perhaps, for some new 
 crime, and defying alike the justice of God 
 and the opinion of man. 
 
 The busybody had come in warlike guise, 
 secretly suspecting some mystery about 
 Frank's death, but outwardly to demand by 
 what right Mr. Eyre commanded the young 
 man's grave to be dug and the burial to take 
 place, before the process of identification
 
 E\RE S ACQUITTAL. 77 
 
 had been gone through, or the heir and his 
 advisers summoned. But as first one, then 
 another came in, those who had loved 
 Frank, those who had blamed him when he 
 lay under the shadow of Mr. Eyre's sin — 
 yea, and those who had pitied while they 
 honoured him — all these, I say, as they 
 wept, knew him ; and as the hours wore 
 on, and more and more people gathered. 
 Lord Lovel lay in state, however humble, 
 and was a hero, so that strong men wept 
 for the thought of the manner of his death, 
 and the women for the glimpse of the stain 
 on his scarlet coat, above which his hands 
 rested so quietly, their work being done. 
 The sight of him was open to all, for Job 
 was insensible, and the two women of the 
 house scared beyond the power of inter- 
 ference. All that morning the tide of life 
 ebbed and flowed about the dead soldier.
 
 78 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL, 
 
 for men's hearts at that time were aflame 
 with the war, and no Lovel had ever gone 
 so gloriously to his last resting-place as 
 would this young fellow, with none to 
 trumpet forth his deeds, and only the 
 eloquence of death to speak for him. 
 
 Last of all came Mr. Eyre, and, without 
 looking at those around, stood gazing down 
 upon him, and might have spoken that most 
 exquisite farewell which, addressed by 
 Arthur to Lancelot, has never yet been 
 matched in human language, nor ever will 
 be. 
 
 Vast and sinewy as a gladiator of Eome, 
 with a dark stern face, upon which the fires 
 of over forty years had legibly left their 
 mark, Mr. Eyre stood like a second KSaul 
 among those around, too negligent of their 
 presence to defy them. 
 
 If he were a humiliated man, if he knew
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 79 
 
 his panoply of pride and vaingloriousness to 
 have crumbled in ashes about him, and 
 himself beaten at every point, lie to whom 
 fate itself had seemed to bow, however 
 much in mockery, Mr. Eyre yet to-day 
 carried himself as proudly as if he had 
 neither sinned nor blundered, and the blood- 
 red day of Gilboa were as yet undreamed of 
 and unrisen. 
 
 Those around thought his face hardened, 
 as he looked down on his dead friend ; but 
 his lips moved neither in blessing nor 
 cursing, and none could have told whether 
 the stern restraint of pain or the callous- 
 ness of hatred held him motionless during 
 the minutes that he stood beside him. 
 
 When at last he moved, it was with the 
 old firm step and air of command, so that, 
 involuntarily, the women around curtseyed, 
 and the men pulled each his forelock,
 
 80 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 ashamed of their doubts of him, for Job's 
 recognition had cleared the way for Mr. 
 Eyre, and none durst suspect him of harm 
 to Lord Lovel now. 
 
 Colonel Busby, whose keen eyes had 
 never left Mr. Eyre's face since he entered, 
 hurried out after him, and overtook him as 
 he entered one of the avenues. 
 
 ' You seem out of breath,' said Mr. Eyre 
 by way of greeting to a man he had not 
 met these three years, and without offering 
 his hand. 
 
 *I am,' said Colonel Busby, who, being 
 extremely short and stout, resembled 
 nothing so much as a gasping frog ; * but 
 that telegram. Eyre ; it must be seen into. 
 What gross carelessness on the part of the 
 Post Office people ! It gave us all such a 
 shock to hear — to hear ' 
 
 ' That Fm alive,' said Mr. Eyre ; * exactly
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 81 
 
 — it must have been a great blow to you 
 after the telegram/ 
 
 'Well, well,' said Colonel Busby, colour- 
 ing violently ; ' it's a sad thing, you know — 
 poor young fellow I but fortunate you were 
 there to bring him home. Odd, too, as I 
 suppose you were not fighting yourself ?' 
 
 ' Not I,' said Mr. Eyre carelessly ; ' it 
 was a mere chance, my finding him.' 
 
 ' And yet you've been together these 
 three years V said Colonel Busby, his 
 inveterate curiosity not to be checked by 
 the fact that all this time Mr. Eyre was 
 walking away from him down the avenue. 
 
 ' Have we ?' said Mr. Eyre indifferently ; 
 * then I su23pose we're both dumb, for I 
 have not exchanged a syllable with him 
 since I left Lovel.' 
 
 The little man gasped with amazement 
 and lack of breath, as he tried to keep up 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 with Mr. Eyre's long stride, but the next 
 moment said : 
 
 ' Then about that poor woman, Eyre ; 
 what a fearful blunder you made ! And 
 that lout of a gardener guilty, after all.' 
 
 ' Ah, by-the-way,' said Mr. Eyre, pausing 
 suddenly in his walk, ' have you heard any- 
 thing about the woman ? Has she been 
 seen in the neighbourhood during my 
 absence ? You see, I look to you for all the 
 gossip.' 
 
 ' As a magistrate,' said the Colonel, 
 puffing himself out, ' I am compelled to 
 take cognizance of matters that do not 
 come under the heading of cjossip. I 
 have certainly made it my business to 
 inquire about this unhappy and persecuted 
 woman ' 
 
 ' By whom persecuted V said Mr. Eyre. 
 
 To do Colonel Busby justice, he was no
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 83 
 
 coward, and now he looked Mr. Eyre full in 
 the face. 
 
 * By you !' he said, with a touch of 
 dignity, not even to be marred by his 
 absurd appearance. ' It was an inhuman 
 persecution, since you could not have 
 believed in her guilt.' 
 
 ' Pshaw !' said Mr. Eyre, frowning ; ' but 
 I won't quarrel with you. "There is no 
 railing in an allowed fool ;" and for the first 
 time in my life, I find your conversation 
 interesting. And pray whom did you think 
 guilty V 
 
 'Well,' said Busby, hesitating for a 
 moment, but hardened by that allusion to 
 his folly, ' it was generally considered that 
 you ought to have changed places with the 
 woman, and been tried for it yourself ; but 
 being a fool, I only repeat what was of 
 common report.' 
 
 G— 2
 
 84 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 ' And what is your own opinion ?' said 
 Mr. Eyre grimly. 
 
 ' What my opinion ivas matters little, now 
 that there is not a shadow of doubt your 
 gardener is guilty/ said Colonel Busby stiffly. 
 
 ' Don't alter your opinion on that score,' 
 said Mr. Eyre carelessly. ' I'm not at all 
 sure that he did it — or if so, the woman 
 Clarke was accessory to the crime, and 
 deserved hanging. Now that I've done 
 with Lord Lovel, I must have her found — 
 I've been too busy to think of her these 
 three years.' 
 
 * You will remain here ?' said Colonel 
 Busby, curiosity mastering dignity. 
 
 ' To be sure,' said Mr. Eyre ; ' I've found 
 new ties ' (he laughed) ' that will keep me 
 here awhile ; and there are Lord Lovel's 
 affairs to arrange ; the new heir is a mere 
 lad, and I'm his guardian.'
 
 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 85 
 
 Colonel Busby opened his mouth, but 
 no sound came ; for once, wonder silenced 
 him. 
 
 New ties — what were they ? Mr. Eyre 
 guardian to the young heir — lie — this man 
 pre-eminent in evil, who carried things 
 with as high a hand in defeat as victory ! 
 
 ' By the way,' said Mr. Eyre, ' I heard 
 something about your coming over to have 
 Lord Lovel's coffin opened — did you think 
 I had killed him too ?' 
 
 'The proceedings were informal — irregu- 
 lar,' said Colonel Busby stiffly ; ' his next- 
 of-kin should have been asked to the 
 funeral, which, I am told, you have fixed 
 for to-morrow.' 
 
 ' Not 1/ said Mr. Eyre, ' but for next 
 day. You'll see the heir safe enough, and, 
 no doubt, the lawyer — and the rest of 
 them.'
 
 86 EYJ^E'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 ' It must be a great relief to you to know 
 that you are not morally responsible for 
 your wife's death/ said Colonel Busby, 
 gathering all his energies together to im- 
 plant one poisoned shaft in Mr. Eyre's 
 invulnerable hide. 
 
 ' Almost as great a one as to know that 
 I'm not physically responsible,' said Mr. 
 Eyre grimly ; ' and now you'd better run 
 back to Mrs. Busby, and retail your news — 
 if any ; you've filled my budget with food 
 for a week.' 
 
 And Mr. Eyre went on his way down 
 one of the three avenues that were the 
 glory of the Towers and the pride of the 
 Lovels — avenues that branched like three 
 spokes of a giant wheel from the very hall- 
 door, and gave endless variety to the out- 
 look through every season of the year. 
 
 Mr. Eyre had walked them in all times
 
 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 87 
 
 and all weathers, often with Madcap, oftener 
 with Frank ; and he knew them in their 
 every gradation of splendour, from their 
 first timid veil of green, to their dazzling 
 winter robe of white, when in dim per- 
 spective they stretched out like exquisite 
 solemn aisles that a footstep below, or a 
 bird's voice above, seemed to sound in only 
 to profane ; but this morning Mr. Eyre saw 
 the avenue he followed in a new light, 
 and, as it happened, was in a mood to 
 observe it. 
 
 Dull and sodden as the day before had 
 been, in the night the wind freshened, 
 and by morning a gale had sprung up. 
 The leaves of the trees, wasted to mere 
 skeletons, danced in their thousands to the 
 keen wind that smote them this way and 
 that, and produced (with the sun shining 
 through) an extraordinary effect, so that
 
 88 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL, 
 
 Mr. Eyre stood for a time looking, and 
 thinking that he had never really seen wind 
 before. 
 
 As he watched, its wild fierce spirit 
 entered into his blood, and with it his own 
 rose ; he was once more himself, and the 
 past night of his self-abasement vanished 
 like a dream ; he had been out of sorts, 
 fasting, and had conjured up thoughts that 
 the brisk morning air dispersed. His 
 interview with Colonel Busby had refreshed 
 him ; his weapons might have rusted, but 
 had not worn out ; and even as a sus- 
 pected murderer, he could hold his own 
 yet. 
 
 And at the end of this avenue, that ran 
 straight as the crow flies to the foot of the 
 Ked Hall, he would find somebody — some- 
 thing ; and then the dance, the whistle, 
 the rush of the leaves and wind blended,
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 89 
 
 held him no longer, and he went forward, 
 bent only on his thoughts. 
 
 Once he had gone this way with Frank 
 and Madcap, and he had moved beside 
 them like a ghost, feeling himself one, and 
 looking on at the young pair who enjoyed 
 the happiness that his death alone might be 
 able to give them. 
 
 And now he walked the same path living, 
 and knowing that, beyond any taking 
 away of Frank, or any other, she was his, 
 had been always his to the last beat of her 
 heart ; and even in dying had left him (so 
 loth was she to leave him quite) a lovely 
 message in her own image, that should 
 reach and stay him in the first hour of 
 physical and mental weakness that he had 
 ever known. 
 
 He gave no backward thought to the 
 dead now lying in the Towers. He had not
 
 90 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 forgiven him, and never would, even though 
 Madcap had loved the boy ; while to Mr. 
 Eyre's own heart there had been no living 
 soul (save her) so near to it as Frank 
 Lovel.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ' I want to take up my cross and follow the true 
 Christ — Humanity; to accept the facts as they are, 
 however bitter or severe ; to be a student and a lover, 
 but never a lawgiver.' 
 
 regular notification of tlie hour 
 of Lord Lovel's funeral was 
 sent out, or invitations to the 
 county given ; nevertheless, nearly every 
 man of any consequence in it came, so that 
 from the gates of the Towers to the church- 
 yard there was an unbroken procession of 
 men and women all on foot, as were the pall- 
 bearers, and not a sign of ostentation or 
 hired grief marred the spectacle.
 
 09 
 
 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 Some of those present remembered that 
 this was about the third anniversary of 
 Madcap's burying ; but there were no 
 flowers on this coffin, nor did Mr. Eyre 
 appear as chief mourner, but a bright- 
 faced boy brought fresh from Eton, and 
 looking round repeatedly for the only face 
 he knew among the bewildering crowd at 
 his heels. 
 
 But with his habitual contempt for 
 laws and appearances, Mr. Eyre came 
 last of all, leading a little child, whose 
 dressing had possibly delayed him, as she 
 had a boa tied on over her white pinafore, 
 and wore a bonnet that certainly was never 
 made for her, while a pair of her father's 
 gauntleted gloves extended to her shoulders, 
 and kept dry and warm the dimpled hands 
 and arms beneath. 
 
 Though they came last, the crowd divided,
 
 eyre's acquittal. 93 
 
 and the right of precedence at the grave 
 was given them ; indeed, a clear circle was 
 left around the pair, that might have 
 touched a less sensitive man than Mr. 
 Eyre. But the only sign of feeling he gave 
 during the Burial Service was when he 
 looked down at the child's feet, and for 
 the first time observing that she wore 
 shoes, snatched her up, and, having stripped 
 them off", chafed her feet, then wrapped 
 them and her in his cloak, and stood im- 
 passible as before. 
 
 Madcap the younger had been quite 
 happy as she trotted along beside him, and 
 the sight of so many people, and some 
 familiar faces, pleased her ; but she was 
 happiest of all when ' Dad ' took her up, 
 and from the eminence of his stature gave 
 her a bird's-eye view of the proceedings, 
 that ended in a long stare at a boy wdiose
 
 94 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 head did not reach her father's elbow as he 
 stood behind it. 
 
 When that droll little head popped over 
 Mr. Eyre's shoulder, the boy looked up, 
 and fell in love at once with her ; so that 
 when her eyes dropped to him, and her 
 rosy lips pouted to him in token of satis- 
 faction, it was natural enough that he 
 should reach up to, and kiss her. 
 
 He blushed for shame the next moment 
 (being but a boy, and so much more modest 
 than a girl of less thau half his age), but 
 presently a dimpled hand, hung temptingly 
 over the blackness of Mr. Eyre's back, en- 
 couraged attention, and the boy put up his 
 own, and allowed her to hold it. Colonel 
 Busby was a witness to the little scene, and 
 considered it unseemly to the last degree. 
 The villagers whispered that here was the 
 old story over again — a Lovel would love a
 
 eyre's acquittal. 95 
 
 Madcap, even to his own undoing, to the 
 end of time. Most of those present thought 
 of how Frank had led Doune at the older 
 Madcap's funeral ; and one or two saw, 
 grudgingly, how Providence, in meting out 
 its bitters, had kept some sweets for Mr. 
 Eyre yet. His innocence, too, was clear, 
 and men wondered that they could have 
 doubted him ; even Colonel Busby, with a 
 sigh, swallowing his suspicions, and hating 
 him worse than before. 
 
 Those who saw him that day — this 
 terrible man, this monster of evil incarnate, 
 who had stalked tearless, unheeding through 
 tragedies at which an angel might have 
 wept — with a little child clinging to his 
 hand, prattling, looking up into his face 
 with perfect trust and love, somehow felt 
 their conviction of his Satanship rudely 
 shaken, and in nearly every breast was
 
 96 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 wrought a revulsion of feeling towards 
 him. 
 
 For children rarely love the bad, the cruel, 
 and the coarse ; their little hands o-o straiorht 
 to the heart, and they know where they 
 may love in safety; no deliberate murderer, 
 no unclean heart, ever wins the childish 
 trust that is divine, unerring, given royally 
 at the first glance, and never taken back, 
 save when most j^iteously misused. 
 
 Perhaps some of the men thought of 
 how great had been his wife's love for 
 him, and she had not been one to love 
 unworthil}'; perhaps every woman present 
 saw that he had dressed the child himself, 
 and more than one mother's heart yearned 
 to him as she marked the laboriously tied 
 bonnet-strings, the clumsily knotted boa, 
 and smiled, with a tear between, at the 
 masculine intelligence that had put warm
 
 E vice's acquittal. 97 
 
 stockings on, but shod the little one with 
 brown paper. 
 
 Mr. Eyre had glanced neither to right 
 nor left among the crowd, so that if his 
 compeers were present that day, he did not 
 know it, and from first to last gave no one 
 the opportunity of turning either a friendly 
 or a cold face towards him. 
 
 The day was wild and blustering; he 
 wrapped his cloak closer about the child as 
 the service drew to a conclusion, and once 
 made a gesture of impatience, as though 
 he would hurry it. 
 
 When the coffin was lowered, an incident 
 occurred that bid fair to reverse the favour- 
 able impression he had so lately produced. 
 He advanced to the very edge of the grave, 
 and for a full minute gazed down into its 
 depths, and with his child's face (his wife's 
 in miniature) pressed close to his own, Mr. 
 VOL. I. 7
 
 98 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 Eyre had never shown more unfavourably 
 than in that moment. 
 
 His look expressed a bitter unforgive- 
 ness, and undying anger, that deepened 
 moment by moment to one of hatred that 
 all who ran might read, and in one vivid 
 flash illumined his past relations with the 
 dead man, so that the old belief in his 
 jealousy of his wife and Lord Lovel 
 strengthened itself in the hearts of the 
 startled lookers-on. 
 
 He seemed neither to see nor heed them, 
 as he turned abruptly and left the church- 
 yard, leaving the young pair side by side, 
 without heeding the young heir, who obeyed 
 a little commanding hand that beckoned 
 him over her father's shoulder, so that the 
 three entered the Towers together. 
 
 When the lawyer and others (including 
 Colonel Busby, who must hear the will
 
 eyre's acquittal. 99 
 
 read, or die) came in, they found Mr. Eyre 
 drying his daughter's shoes by the library 
 fire, while she was feeding the heir with 
 cake, and kissing him when her own mouth 
 was not full. 
 
 He was like Doune, only older and 
 kinder, and her little heart went out to 
 him at once ; while the boy (who had no 
 sister, and only a fine-lady cuckoo-mother, 
 who had never loved him), if he hung his 
 head, and blushed a little (boys, as I have 
 said, being so much more modest than girls), 
 loved her, too, and took her image back 
 to school with him that day, so that often, 
 when alone, he would colour again at the 
 thought of her, and long to feel the touch 
 of those velvet lips again. 
 
 The Duke of Marmiton, who had been 
 one of those passed unnoticed at the grave, 
 on entering the room took Mr. Eyre's hand 
 
 7—2
 
 100 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 very warmly (not seeming to notice that it 
 was his left, the right iDeing occupied with 
 Madcap's shoe), and bade him a hearty 
 welcome home after his wanderings. 
 
 Mr. Eyre met these good wishes kindly, 
 inquired for the Duchess, and, having dried 
 the shoes to his satisfaction, put them on, 
 and told the children to go and play quietly 
 in a corner till he wanted them. 
 
 Meanwhile all waited, as people were 
 wont to wait for this man, no matter what 
 might be the rank of those who attended 
 him ; and when he came back to the fire- 
 place, and gave the signal to begin, the 
 lawyer commenced to read like an auto- 
 maton, and in less than two minutes, 
 so simply was the will worded, every 
 soul present (save the children) knew its 
 
 gist. 
 
 It was dated three and a half years ago,
 
 eyre's acquittal. 101 
 
 and immediately after Lord Lovel had re- 
 turned from his long absence with his regi- 
 ment abroad. 
 
 He bequeathed everything that belonged 
 to him, unentailed, to Madcap, wife to 
 Doune Hamilton Eyre, of the Eed Hall ; 
 and failing her, to her daughter, should she 
 have one ; if not, to her younger son, Dody ; 
 and failing him, to her elder son, Doune 
 Hamilton Eyre. 
 
 ' Ten thousand a year, if it's a penny !' 
 said Colonel Busby, almost before the lawyer 
 had ceased to read ; ' but it seems to me 
 that the money and property will be kept 
 together;' and he nodded towards the corner 
 in which the two young heirs were playing, 
 indifferent to the business talk of their 
 elders. 
 
 ' As guardian to young Lord Lovel,' said 
 the lawyer, folding up the will, and ad-
 
 102 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 dressing Mr. Eyre, 'you will, of course, 
 arrange for his holidays, his education, and 
 so forth, as you have done before. I drew 
 up his father's will, in which you were ap- 
 pointed his guardian (though at that time 
 no one ever supposed he would succeed to 
 the title), and his mother has asked me to 
 say that from henceforth she trusts you will 
 assume a more active guardianship than you 
 have hitherto done.' 
 
 ' Let him come here when he pleases, or 
 — stay — to the Eed Hall ; he cannot be 
 much older than Doune, and they can 
 amuse each other. Tell that very fine lady, 
 his mother, that she need never try to stifle 
 herself with country breezes as long as I'm 
 alive, or leave her young new husband for 
 an hour to concern herself about her boy — 
 the only creature his father ever loved.' 
 
 * Geoffrey Lovel did well to leave his son
 
 eyre's acquittal. 103 
 
 in your care,' said the Duke gravely ; ' but 
 I wish we had Frank here, though he could 
 not have died better.' 
 
 ' Would to God he lived !' said Mr. Eyre, 
 with a passion that he had never before 
 betrayed ; and one man present thought 
 how finely he wore his mask of hypocrite, 
 while the others blamed themselves the 
 more for any doubts they might have 
 harboured of him. 
 
 For gradually (there being no one to keep 
 order) the room had filled, and many a 
 friend and tenant of Frank, and Frank's 
 father, heard Mr. Eyre's words ; so that 
 when he had picked up his little daughter, 
 and bade the young heir ' Good-bye till 
 Christmas,' nodding in farewell to the 
 lawyer and the rest, he passed out among 
 men who had already half forgiven him for 
 his strange behaviour by the grave.
 
 104 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 * A most extraordinary will, and a strange 
 guardianship/ said Colonel Busby, approach- 
 ing the Duke, who was drawing on his 
 gloves, and feeling that while he loved, he 
 understood Mr. Eyre as little as ever, ' and 
 a most extraordinary business altogether, I 
 take it !' 
 
 ' I see nothing strange in any part of it,' 
 said ^ the Duke coldly. 'The Lovels and 
 Eyres^have been friends for many genera- 
 tions, and these two men were extra- 
 ordinarily attached to each other, in spite of 
 — of — each wanting to marry the same 
 lady. As to the guardianship, it is perfectly 
 natural. Mr. Eyre and Geoffrey Lovel 
 were intimates, and of about the same age ; 
 and Mrs. Lovel being a handsome woman ' 
 (the Duke had almost said 'jade,' but just 
 checked himself in time) and likely to 
 marry again, he did not wish to leave his
 
 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 105 
 
 son's prospects at the mercy of a step- 
 father.' 
 
 ' Well, well,' said Colonel Busby ; ' there's 
 nothing succeeds like success. He is to 
 crow over us all, I suppose, just as he did 
 formerly ; and what's black in other folks is 
 white in him ; and he'll learn no lesson 
 himself, but be for ever teaching us ours.' 
 
 ' He has suffered severely,' said the Duke 
 gravely. ' I was shocked at the change in 
 him ; and I think ' — here the Duke raised 
 his voice so that all around heard him — ' it 
 would be more seemly if further reference 
 to past scandals ceased, the more especially 
 as certain infamous rumours spread to Mr. 
 Eyre's discredit have, during the past few 
 days, been refuted beyond the shadow of a 
 doubt.' 
 
 His people were in waiting without, and 
 he went away after he had spoken, bearing
 
 106 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL, 
 
 himself well, iu spite of his sixty-five years ; 
 and immediately after him came the young 
 heir and the lawyer, who had travelled 
 down together, and were leaving by the 
 afternoon train for town. 
 
 ' He's handsome enough, but none so 
 bonnie as our own Lord Lovel,' was the 
 verdict passed upon him by the crowd, that 
 had encroached to the very doors of the 
 Towers; but as the boy strode on through 
 the early November dusk he thought nothing 
 of his inheritance, but only of the Christmas 
 holidays, when he would once more see 
 little Madcap — that was her name, as she 
 had been careful to tell him in the corner 
 — Madcap Eyre.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 And in the heavens we now do dwell, 
 While ye maun drie the fierce fires of helV 
 
 EOM the moment that Mr. Eyre 
 had shut the police out, he had 
 admitted no one to his house 
 save a stout kitchen wench, whom he had 
 himself fetched from the village and in- 
 stalled in the kitchen, forbidding her to 
 move beyond it, or to receive company 
 therein, on peril of her instant dismissal. 
 He did the foraging himself, and w^ould 
 stalk in with an armful of loaves and flesh ; 
 but the only culinary point upon which he 
 showed anxiety was the child's bread and
 
 108 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 milk, and this he would have boiled to a 
 nicety, standing over her so as to confound 
 the woman, who had hitherto only curtseyed 
 to him, trembling, from afar. 
 
 No trifle that afi"ected the child's health 
 or happiness was beyond his care or dignity ; 
 in the recesses of the scullery the woman 
 often marvelled how ' master ' managed to 
 keep her so clean and neat, since, by all 
 accounts, he had never troubled himself 
 about his other children, or probably seen 
 one of them dressed or undressed in his 
 life. 
 
 Poor Moll, cut ofi" from the village and 
 that wing of the house in which the maniac 
 slept, while only a flickering light in the 
 nursery revealed Mr. Eyre's whereabouts, 
 sometimes shuddered of nights, and won- 
 dered if she would be murdered in her 
 sleep as Mrs. Eyre had been, and none be
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 109 
 
 hanged for her murder. For Digges had 
 not been caught yet ; and at every stray 
 sound the woman started, thinking she 
 heard his tread, for she was possessed by a 
 belief that Digges was in the house, having 
 doubled on his escape, and, knowing every 
 nook and corner of the place, hidden him- 
 self in one of them, issuing forth at night 
 like a wolf to seize upon food. But such 
 issuing forth was dangerous, since, with 
 pistol in hand, lynx-eyed, and keen of 
 hearing, each night Mr. Eyre watched from 
 nightfall till dawn, having by day explored 
 each place in which a suicide might hang, or 
 a murderer hide. 
 
 The man was here, and, dead or alive, 
 none but Mr. Eyre should find him ; this he 
 had vowed when, on the second day after 
 his return, it became certain that DisfSfes 
 had never left the immediate neighbour-
 
 110 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 hood. The keenest intelligence of Scot- 
 land Yard had not been able to discover 
 one single trace of him beyond the spot 
 where he had dropped from the nursery- 
 window ; but Mr. Eyre's firm belief that 
 he was somewhere uithin the house was 
 negatived by the fact that no muddy foot- 
 print or sign of such return was visible in 
 any portion of the house. 
 
 One room only had been kept sacred 
 from the detectives and other seekers ; this 
 was the bedroom of the late Mrs. Eyre. He 
 went to it some two or three times daily, 
 but spent the greater part of his indoor 
 existence in the nursery, where, in feeding, 
 washing, dressing, and amusing Madcap's 
 child, he found himself sufficiently busy. 
 
 He could not endure to call in some 
 rough village girl to take charge of her ; he 
 had written to town for such a person as he
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. Ill 
 
 wanted, and meantime he could leave the 
 child alone as often as he pleased, always 
 happy, always singing, in all things the 
 promise of that other bright, fondly- 
 cherished Madcap, whose spring and early 
 summer-time had belonged to Mr. Eyre. 
 
 He found his own independence of 
 thought and power of endurance curiously 
 reproduced in this little child of hardly 
 three years, and perhaps was the more 
 drawn to her that, though outwardly Mad- 
 cap's very copy, inwardly she was himself, 
 with his own strain of character, courage, 
 and will. 
 
 He blessed Josephine that at least she 
 had not taught the child fear; however 
 negligent or unprincipled the Frenchwoman 
 might have been, she had clearly not been 
 unkind to her, and she had kept the child's 
 j)erson and linen exquisitely, so that Mr.
 
 112 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 Eyre had no trouble on the score of clothes, 
 and with clumsy hands kept her as fresh 
 and clean as a new pin. 
 
 From the first she had assisted him with 
 her superior knowledge of buttons and 
 strings, accompanied by low gurgles and 
 chuckles of amusement at his expense that 
 brought smiles to his grim face, and en- 
 couraged her to further liberties of love. 
 
 When, on the night after his return, she 
 kneeled up close to his breast and said her 
 evening prayers, he hearkened to her like 
 one in a dream ; how long ago was it he had 
 heard such words ? — 
 
 ' hi the Kingdom of Thy grace 
 Give a little child a place /' 
 
 it had been something like this that Dody 
 was saying one morning when he surprised 
 the young mother and her boys together,
 
 eyre's acquittal. 113 
 
 and he had harshly sent them away from 
 her. 
 
 Oh, heavens, how cruel he had been to 
 her ! He knew now what it must have 
 cost her to unwind Dody's arms from about 
 her neck, how his stifled sobs must have 
 wrung her heart as the little brothers went 
 heavily away. . . . she had said to him 
 once that he knew not the kingdom of love 
 he missed in his children. Ay, but those 
 were boys, and this was Madcap ; and the 
 only true love, the universal love, was as 
 far from Mr. Eyre's heart now as ever. 
 
 The old jealousy of his character, too, 
 was strong in him yet ; he had winced that 
 day when the child ran to the heir (for of 
 the little pantomime by the grave he was 
 ignorant) and kissed him ; he was jealous 
 even of Doune, whose name she mentioned 
 with love in her confidences, revealing her 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 brother in a new light to that in which 
 Mr. Eyre had viewed his silent, stubborn 
 son. 
 
 To-night, when she had fallen asleep in 
 her little cot, Mr. Eyre sat for awhile 
 watching her as a poor man may who hugs 
 himself in the joy of a miraculously-found 
 treasure ; then, taking a light, went to his 
 wife's room, and, as usual, bent himself 
 to unriddling the puzzle that room con- 
 tained. 
 
 Sooner or later, he was convinced that 
 his mind would recover the lost clue that so 
 eternally baffled him. Some day he would 
 remember something that had happened in 
 this room on the night of the murder, and 
 that he had forgotten ; for the knowledge 
 was in his brain — perchance in some 
 diseased cell of it, but it was tlieve — and he 
 knew it.
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 115 
 
 To-night the grim tussle between will 
 and memory again began, but with the 
 usual result ; only that towards midnight 
 came a strange interruption, and one that 
 might have chilled the blood of a less strong- 
 nerved man than Mr. Eyre. 
 
 Moll was sound asleep in her distant 
 kitchen ; the child asleep in the nursery 
 wing that faced Mr. Eyre as he sat, and in 
 which a light showed. Josephine's room 
 was empty, as she had been removed that 
 morning to the County Asylum, still wear- 
 ing the diamonds that Mr. Eyre ho^^ed 
 might inspire her with some gleam of 
 memory or revelation. 
 
 All, as I have said, being absolutely still, 
 a slight curious movement in the room at- 
 tracted Mr. Eyre's attention, and as he looked 
 to see whence it proceeded, gradually the door 
 of a large hanging press in the dim distance 
 
 8—2
 
 116 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 opened, so slowly and deliberately that it 
 seemed to be half pushed, half detained, by 
 an invisible hand. 
 
 As Mr. Eyre gazed, he saw through the 
 widening aperture the face of Digges, pale, 
 and with a look of reproach, but neither 
 advancing nor retreating, as Mr. Eyre sprang 
 up and approached him. 
 
 His feet were on the ground, his arms 
 hung to his sides ; but as Mr. Eyre seized 
 one of them, the figure swung forward 
 loosely, and as if it trod on air. 
 
 As Mr. Eyre shook it, he realized the 
 truth, and knew that once more, and this 
 time finally, the truth had escaped him. 
 The man had probably been hanging here 
 since within an hour of his master's first 
 return, selecting the very room in which 
 the murder had been committed to put an 
 end to his own life.
 
 eyre's acquittal. 117 
 
 Here might have been found by some an 
 evidence of his guilt ; but Mr. Eyre had 
 studied the man's face to some purpose 
 before he called in the police next morning, 
 and though he found intense terror and 
 agony stamped on the gardener's features, 
 he could not detect the look of the murderer 
 who leaps into Eternity, fearing to come 
 face to face with his victim. 
 
 But none held with Mr. Eyre's belief in 
 the man's innocence ; and it was only by 
 the exertion of great influence that the 
 master of the Ked Hall obtained for him 
 Christian burial, while for many years to 
 come the little children at play in the 
 churchyard avoided the grave of one who 
 was now accepted by all as the murderer 
 of Mrs. Eyre.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 But curse not him ; i^erhaps now he, 
 Stung with remorse^ is blessing thee. 
 Perhaps at death ; for who can tell 
 Whether the Judge of heaven and hell 
 By some p'oud foe has struck the blow .?' 
 
 'R. EYRE was now at leisure to 
 think about Hester Clarke, and 
 the very day after Digges' hardly- 
 won burial, he went into the village, and 
 going first to the house in which she had 
 lodged, got there nearly all the information 
 he wanted. 
 
 The house was his own ; the woman who 
 answered his questions a tenant who paid 
 her rent irregularly ; yet she replied to
 
 eyre's acquittal. 119 
 
 Mr. Eyre's questions with bare outward 
 respect, and the curtest answers that truth 
 permitted. 
 
 Hester Clarke had left the place on the 
 morning after the funeral of Mrs. Eyre and 
 her child. She had announced her intention 
 of joining her former servant, Janet Stork, 
 now undergoing penal servitude for the 
 murder of Hester Clarke's child. 
 
 Mr. Eyre asked if there had been any 
 interview between the woman Clarke and 
 Lord Lovel the night before she left. 
 
 ' Woman, sir I' said Mr. Eyre's tenant, 
 as if she felt keenly his insult to the whole 
 sex ; ' well, none but a woman would have 
 spent a whole November night face down- 
 wards on wet sods. When I got her home 
 at dawn there was as little life in her as her 
 worst enemy could have wished.' 
 
 * She saw Lord Lovel before she left V
 
 120 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 said Mr. Eyre, reading the woman's soul like 
 an open page. 
 
 * Ay ; but I don't know all lie said to 
 her. It seemed to me, from a word or two 
 I caught, as if they was agreed to shield 
 some guilty person ' — here the woman's 
 cold eyes scanned Mr. Eyre ; ' but I heard 
 nought about the innocent being made to 
 suffer, and Digges deserved honest burial as 
 much as I do.' 
 
 ' So whatever secret knowledge Frank 
 had, Hester shares it,' thought Mr. Eyre, 
 looking round at the humbly furnished 
 room that he had only hitherto seen from 
 without, then turned to the woman and 
 said : 
 
 'You have heard from Hester Clarke ?' 
 
 * Ay — once by whiles.' 
 
 ' She is permitted to see Janet Stork ?' 
 ' Ay — once by whiles.'
 
 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 121 
 
 ' She has thoughts of coming back T 
 ' That's as may be. There's some to 
 whom she'd be none so welcome.' 
 
 ' Tell her, when you write/ said Mr. 
 Eyre, ' that the sooner she comes home the 
 better ; and, if she doesn't, that I shall go 
 out to fetch her. We have some scores to 
 settle, she and I.' 
 
 * I'll tell her, sir,' said the woman, drop- 
 ping an abrupt curtsey as he opened the 
 door to depart ; ' but I think the place is 
 hardly safe for her — she's best where she 
 is.' 
 
 * But she will come here, all the same,' 
 said Mr. Eyre carelessly. ' By-the-way, 
 you have altered the arrangement of this 
 room ; that chair used to stand lieve^ and 
 he pointed to a particular spot. 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' said the woman, in her rigidly 
 civil, sullen way; 'but after the tramp's
 
 122 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 evidence at the trial, I moved it, lest folks 
 might be tempted again to shoot if any- 
 one happened to be sitting there by 
 night. ' 
 
 ' To shoot ?' said Mr. Eyre, looking at her 
 keenly. 
 
 'Another murder besides the one com- 
 mitted at the Red Hall three years ago, was 
 as near as possible committed in this room 
 that night, as you are well aware, sir,' said 
 the woman ; ' only the man who dodged 
 about with his pistol outside yonder 
 window thought better of killing Hester 
 Clarke, and went away, perhaps to kill that 
 poor young lady, your wife ; but God alone 
 knows.' 
 
 ' Ay,' said Mr. Eyre, ' and I'll know, too, 
 before I've done. So you never thought 
 her guilty V he added, his eyes reading the 
 woman's soul.
 
 eyre's acquittal. 123 
 
 ' She V said the woman incredulously. 
 * I got to know her through and through 
 in the six months she was here — and she 
 was a good woman to her heart's core.' 
 
 Mr. Eyre thought of Madcap, and how 
 she might be alive now but for Hester 
 Clarke's crossing his path, and bringing to 
 light a buried sin, and his stern features 
 darkened as he turned to go. 
 
 ' She has bribed you, I suppose/ he said. 
 *Well, give her my message when you 
 write ;' and he went out. 
 
 The woman stood looking after him 
 awhile as he mounted his horse and rode 
 away, the hatred of her glance dying out 
 in slow, bitter tears, that seemed to furrow 
 her cheeks as they fell. ' 
 
 ' Loved her, wronged her, hated her, and 
 would have hanged her if he could — he 
 tried hard enough,' she muttered aloud, as
 
 124 eyre's acquittal, 
 
 Mr. Eyre disappeared ; ' and Hester never 
 did him any harm, never thought it, but 
 just stayed on and on, because she couldn't 
 tear herself away from his child, the image 
 of her own, that got drowned by Janet's 
 misadventure ; for Janet never meant to 
 kill it, though she's got fifteen years' penal 
 for it, and I doubt if she'll ever come out 
 alive. And Hester will stick by her — only 
 to think of that beautiful creature set 
 among felons ! I never saw her match 
 for looks ; even our poor young lady (God 
 bless her, and God pity her for being 
 wife to such .a man !) couldn't touch her 
 there.' 
 
 The woman dried her eyes, and looked 
 round before she pulled down the blind 
 that she had drawn up in Mr. Eyre's 
 honour. 
 
 ' So he remembered that, and how the
 
 eyre's acquittal. 125 
 
 chair stood ; I wonder he wasn't afraid to 
 say so — but he fears nothing ; he's the 
 Devil himself ! And she never said a word 
 agen him — 'twas only what I heard at the 
 trial, and through the keyhole when Lord 
 Lovel came, that I glimpsed her heart. 
 P'r'aps I'd been a bit cold-like at first when 
 she came to lodge here — knowing she'd 
 been a mother and no wife, and Lord 
 Lovel said to be the father of the child. 
 But not a blink of harm could I ever see 
 between the two ; and he never crossed the 
 threshold but once, the morning Lord 
 Lovel set out for foreign parts. I'll write 
 the message, sure enough, and tell her 
 Digges is found out to be the murderer — 
 for dead tongues can't speak, and perhaps 
 those that can, won't ; and so here's the 
 Devil over-riding us all again, as if there 
 was no heaven above. Write to her ! To
 
 1:^6 EYJ^E'S acquittal. 
 
 be sure I will, and warn her, too — we want 
 no more murders here.' 
 
 But Mr. Eyre, as he rode homewards, 
 thought little of the w^oman's significance 
 of manner : his mind was occupied with the 
 main fact that Hester Clarke was within 
 reach of a month's voyage, and that at any 
 given time he could lay his hand on her ; 
 and this certainty enabled him to turn with- 
 out haste to the remodelling of his establish- 
 ment, and other affairs that had fallen 
 somewhat into neglect during his long 
 absence. 
 
 To be sure, he had left an agent in 
 charge of his estate, and the man had done 
 well, but not too well ; so that Mr. Eyre 
 for many days found duty out of doors, 
 after which he took his pleasure w^ithin. 
 
 The nurse had arrived from town, a 
 woman in early middle age, who had lost
 
 eyre's acquittal, 127 
 
 both husband and children, and so under- 
 stood little Madcap, who now occupied her 
 new nurseries opposite Mr. Eyre's bedroom, 
 so that he could see her at any moment, 
 whether he crossed to her, or she to him. 
 
 People marvelled that he should care to 
 sleep in his late wife's bedroom, the scene 
 of two tragedies ; but since the child had 
 no fear of the room, neither had he, and 
 their pranks were carried on morning and 
 evening, as Madcap Eyre would have loved 
 hers with her boys to be, had their father 
 only permitted it. If a housemaid crossed 
 the threshold shuddering, and Mr. Eyre saw 
 it, he sent her away, saying he would have 
 no servant with diseased nerves in his house; 
 and as the regular staff of domestics was 
 gradually made up, assuredly none but 
 strong -nerved persons found themselves 
 appointed, though they experienced little
 
 128 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 enough to alarm them. Mr. Eyre neither 
 walked in his sleep, rose at unholy hours, 
 nor ^ot into rages ; and the household 
 quickly became as quiet and orderly an 
 one as was to be found in the whole 
 county. 
 
 Where he had laid his routine of life 
 down, three years ago, he now took it up, 
 without a lost stitch ; nothing was omitted 
 or forgotten. And when he took his place 
 on the bench with his brother magistrates, 
 it was with the old impulse of admiration 
 that they welcomed him. 
 
 He had done amiss, but in their thoughts 
 they had wronged him, and the Duke's 
 example was not to be gainsaid ; while 
 those who had a secret sin or two on their 
 consciences felt the more warmly to him, 
 as one who had vicariously borne their 
 punishment, so that the attitude of the
 
 eyre's acquittal. 129 
 
 whole county was friendly, and a consider- 
 able surprise to Mr. Eyre. This was the 
 second time that he had rehabilitated him- 
 self in his world's esteem ; and Colonel 
 Busby, standing aloof, mused to some pur- 
 pose on the folly of human nature, though 
 to very little effect on his own. 
 
 His curiosity was so insatiable, that he 
 could not give up visiting at the Eed Hall, 
 and so consenting to the iniquity of Mr. 
 Eyre's presence among his peers ; but he 
 found little enough to reward his investiga- 
 tions there. Mr. Eyre's life was that of a 
 simple, everyday country gentleman of large 
 estates, who devoted all his spare time to 
 a little daughter ; so that often you would 
 meet the pair on foot, or even on horse- 
 back, she on the saddle before him, with 
 the reins in her hands (though he held 
 them too), and delighted with the fancied 
 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 130 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 skill that urged on or restrained the 
 favourite black that Mr. Eyre invariably 
 rode. 
 
 They came to be a familiar enough sight 
 in the village, where formerly Mr. Eyre had 
 been rarely seen, save by his wife's side ; 
 and the women pitied, and the men forgave 
 him his past as, day by day, he went among 
 them, always with the little child, whom he 
 led carefully, and not as an ignorant or 
 heedless mother would, suffering her to fall 
 into danger ; while his cloak was ever ready 
 to receive her when she showed fatigue ; 
 and in all this no touch of ridicule attached 
 itself to the stern, proud man. 
 
 But though outwardly her slave, he de- 
 manded, and got, a due subservience of 
 conduct, both at home and abroad, that he 
 had not obtained by coercion, but by a 
 curiously mutual concession of wills.
 
 eyre's acquittal. 131 
 
 She was so fearless, and his own fibre 
 was so strong in her, that anyone but he 
 might have taken her courage for obstinacy ; 
 but he knew better, and by no restraint or 
 harshness would have shaken a feather 
 from the crown of independence that sat 
 so well upon her baby brows. For when 
 the child came to him in the depths of his 
 despair, he got a glimpse of a life beyond — 
 as a streak of light on the ocean will show 
 to one who stands in the darkness on a 
 storm-encircled promontory: and beyond 
 himself he saw something for which he 
 might live, while for himself he could 
 only die. 
 
 Here was the aftermath of his life, as 
 the furze cropped by the lambs in spring 
 bursts out defiantly in golden autumn 
 blossom, delighting the gazer with unex- 
 
 9—2
 
 132 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 pected riches, and knowiDg itself secure 
 from any such second destruction. 
 
 By the time little Madcap was grown up, 
 the story of her mother and his own sin 
 would be forgotten ; and as he had shielded 
 her mother from that knowledge, so he 
 would make shift to shield her daughter 
 after her. 
 
 Already he was used to the strong, fresh 
 current of healthy life that a child brings 
 with it ; already he was learning the un- 
 selfishness that a child's daily presence 
 teaches one, and by degrees his soul and 
 mind opened to the beauty and precious- 
 ness of that ' children's kingdom ' that is 
 ever among us, and by which we might 
 keep our hearts pure and undefiled, would 
 we but oftener seek to enter it. 
 
 For in the love for little children is no 
 passion, only a yearning tenderness, through
 
 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 133 
 
 which the universal, the only true love is 
 learnt ; and those who watched Mr. Eyre, 
 said that the will of the man was learning 
 submission to his Maker through his heart, 
 and that by the hand of a little child was he 
 being led back to God. 
 
 For every Sunday you would see the 
 pair in church, though in his wife's lifetime 
 he had not gone there a score of times, and 
 this regularity of attendance had been 
 inaugurated by the little one herself in 
 those first days when Mr. Eyre was entirely 
 her slave. 
 
 ' Bells going — church-time,' she had said, 
 standing still to listen, the first Sunday 
 morning after Mr. Eyre's return ; ' come 
 along,' she added, pulling at his hand. 
 
 And so they went through the village 
 together, past the older Madcap's grave, and 
 Frank's fresh one, appalling the sancti-
 
 134 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 monious, and rejoicing the villagers by the 
 unorthodoxy of their appearance. 
 
 I think that most of us are conscious of a 
 desire sometimes to be able to 2:0 back to 
 the traditions and beliefs of our youth. A 
 line from an old hymn, the turn of a well- 
 remembered tune, will for a moment renew 
 in us the devout, unquestioning faith of our 
 early years, so that we return to our every- 
 day life with a curious sense of its worth- 
 lessness and our shame. 
 
 And as a man who thrusts a cup of heal- 
 ing from his lips, crying out that he 
 loathes, though he has never tasted it, so 
 until now Mr. Eyre had disliked children — 
 those crystal shapes that, so long as we do 
 not try to cast them to our own mould, 
 keep their Divine freshness. 
 
 His books became stale to him beside 
 this fresh and exquisite page of child-
 
 E YRE 'S A CQ UITTAL, 135 
 
 hood, over which he gathered fresh 
 draughts of strength and happiness as he 
 read. 
 
 To hear her sing, in that little pure, thin, 
 sweet voice, unlike anything else in the 
 world (and that is to sound what the 
 freshness of dawn is to morning), gave him 
 a queer thrill of joy ; while her prayers, 
 said at his knee, brought to his eyes that 
 intolerable smart which is a strong man's 
 way of weeping. 
 
 ' You not a bad man,' she cried one 
 night, in a passionate burst of tears, when 
 some hasty expressions of anguish escaped 
 him ; and in this, perhaps, lay her strength , 
 that she trusted, and was absolutely fearless 
 of him, as her mother had been ; so that 
 she reinstated him in his self-esteem, and, 
 secure in the worship of the only thing he 
 loved, Mr. Eyre faced his world defiantly,
 
 136 eyre's acquittal, 
 
 as of old, not caring one rush for its evil or 
 good opinion. 
 
 Children grow towards you, men and 
 women away from you ; and every day Mr. 
 Eyre felt more secure of his treasure, tested 
 more jealously the docility, courage, and 
 beauty of the spirit that had his wife's finer 
 qualities, and his own strength. 
 
 Harshness was not needed here, and on 
 one occasion only he had nerved himself 
 to punish her, and then by solitary confine- 
 ment. 
 
 But, as he turned the key on her, he felt 
 as though it were his own idolized wife that 
 he treated thus harshly, and anxiously 
 listened for the first sound from within. 
 
 For a full minute there was silence ; then 
 toddling steps approached the door, and a 
 young, sternly rebuking voice said through 
 the keyhole :
 
 E vice's acquittal. 137 
 
 ' Dad ! are you good now T 
 
 Before the inexhaustible dignity of child- 
 hood, the man's sank, leaving only the better 
 part, so that he was often engaged in offices 
 for her that he would formerly have de- 
 spised. 
 
 But his was not that fondness for her 
 which would — 
 
 * Nourish the frame, destroy the mind. 
 Thus do the blind mislead the blind, 
 E'en with a mother's love . . .' 
 
 only as yet he found no seeds of evil to 
 check, nor any one of those outbursts of 
 temper that he had often observed in his 
 eldest son. 
 
 Yet, on looking back, Mr. Eyre prided 
 himself on the thought that, if he had been 
 harsh with his boys, he had at least never 
 oppressed or punished them. And, indeed, 
 the struggle for supremacy between the
 
 138 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL, 
 
 grown-up being and the child must always 
 be an ignominious one ; the result is always 
 a foregone conclusion, and the crueller we 
 are, the surer we are of the victory. And if 
 we cannot think with the child's mind, we 
 are apt to look upon his troubles as trifling, 
 though, if our memory for suffering were 
 not so faint, we should remember what 
 agony those childish troubles were to us 
 once ; how their intensity was increased by 
 the narrow scope of a child's mind, every- 
 thing to it bounded by the present, the ut- 
 most stretch of imagination never carrying 
 it beyond * to-morrow.' Its miniature 
 powers do not enable it to look around, and 
 take comfort in reflection ; it only intensely 
 comprehends its present hour of misery. 
 And if one doubts that children suS*er even 
 more keenly than grown people, let them 
 read from time to time in the newspapers
 
 eyre's acquittal. 139 
 
 of some poor maddened child, wlio, in the 
 unbearable agony of spirit that possesses 
 him at some needlessly harsh reproof or 
 barbarous punishment, wanders out, his 
 numbed, helpless brain in a whir], and, 
 unable to look heyond, as a grown person 
 would, takes the irrevocable step that 
 plunges it into Eternity. 
 
 For the harsh, cruel words that would 
 take no effect on a man or woman, are 
 literally accepted by a child, and may 
 prove the turning-point of his life (if it do 
 not drive him to despair), hardening firm- 
 ness to obstinacy, gentleness to cowardice, 
 and weakness to vice. 
 
 To such a fate as this, Mr. Eyre had uncon- 
 sciously done his best to drive the boy whom 
 he took pride to himself that he had never 
 punished. True, he had never beaten him, 
 nor even been unduly harsh, save when the
 
 140 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 child diverted his mother's attention from 
 himself ; but when that mother died, the 
 mother whom the boy worshipped, and who 
 had been the religion of his young life, the 
 father had not a thought to give to the five- 
 year -old boy whose heart was silently 
 breaking in the loneliness of his nursery, 
 and in whose mind was slowly growing a 
 repressed, bitter sense of ill-usage that 
 might warp his character for ever. 
 
 Doune knew that his younger brother 
 Dody had been his mother's favourite child ; 
 but this could not affect his silent, intense 
 love for her, and full well he knew that she 
 had loved him too. If she had j^etted his 
 brother more than him, it was because the 
 tw^o were so utterly unlike in disposition — 
 Doune all strength, Dody all sweetness ; 
 Doune passionate, proud, unforgiving, very 
 rarely showing a sign of affection for even
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 141 
 
 his mother, in all essentials the opposite of 
 Dody, who seemed made expressly to win 
 love. An impression once made upon the 
 boy seemed indelible, and his father's harsh- 
 ness had gradually alienated the child's 
 heart from him so entirely that it seemed 
 impossible there could be any cordial under- 
 standing between them in the future. 
 
 But the one tie that bound the boy to 
 life, that saved him from some rash deed of 
 despair, was the baby-sister that his mother 
 had left in the nursery when she went away, 
 and Dody had so gladly and quickly 
 followed her. 
 
 It was a girl, and it had been named 
 after his mother, and might grow up like 
 her ; and hour after hour the boy would sit 
 by the little frail babe, whose every hour 
 threatened to be her last, so that when he 
 was taken away to school, he kissed the
 
 142 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 tiny face with a bitter black despair in his 
 young heart, thinking that he would see 
 her, too, no more. 
 
 Mr. Eyre was entirely ignorant of the 
 antagonism to him in his young son's mind ; 
 he had never given him half a dozen con- 
 secutive thoughts in his life, and, having 
 sent him to school before his departure for 
 abroad, did not even remember him till the 
 night of his return home. The boy was 
 well enough, no doubt ; as to his holidays, 
 no doubt the lawyers had provided about 
 that, or so Mr. Eyre thought, till one day 
 little Madcap began talking about her 
 brother, she having to all appearance 
 entirely forgotten him, until an accident 
 brought him to her mind. 
 
 Mr. Eyre was holding the younger Mad- 
 cap up to the portrait of the older one, 
 which had been painted in the heyday of
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 143 
 
 her youth and love ; but the child, after 
 gravely looking at it, shook her head and 
 said : 
 
 * I dont remember her !' 
 
 ' That is your mother/ said Mr. Eyre. 
 
 ' No ! that's a young gell,' said little 
 Madcap, still disbelieving ; ' but Doony 
 come here every day, and talks, and talks, 
 and talks to her, and sometimes he fall 
 sound to sleep, and Jocey and me cant 
 wake him up. P'raps he doesn't like to 
 leave her up there all by her lone self.' 
 
 The little wistful ignorant face smote Mr. 
 Eyre with the first pang for his son that he 
 h'ad ever known, but there was jealousy in 
 his voice as he said : 
 
 ' You love your brother Doune V 
 
 She nodded her bright head emphati- 
 cally. 
 
 ' When's Kismus V she said. ' Doony
 
 144 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 come home Kismus, and Dad shall make us 
 a Kismus-tree !' 
 
 Mr. Eyre made a grimace as he carried 
 Madcap away ; but to her every extortion 
 he submitted, since for each sin of omission 
 to Dody, he now paid with fifty of self- 
 sacrifice to his little daughter, perhaps with 
 some secret hope that his wife knew it, and 
 accepted this expiation of his hitherto 
 neglected duties of fatherhood. He would 
 be kind even to Doune for her sake ; and no 
 doubt the boy still remembered his mother, 
 though he had been a stubborn, silent child, 
 without a trace of her nature in him, and 
 full now, no doubt, of his school -pursuits 
 beyond the comprehension of a baby-sister. 
 
 Yet already that instinct of jealousy, 
 which had never so much as a shadow to pass 
 betwixt him and what he loved, was 
 awakened in Mr. Eyre, and unconsciously he
 
 eyre's acquittal, 145 
 
 watched the child each day, feeling himself 
 wounded if in her talk Doune's name 
 was uttered. 
 
 That night he wrote to his lawyers for an 
 account of Doune's holidays in his absence, 
 and by return of post read that no arrange- 
 ments having been made for the boy's 
 Easter, Midsummer, and Christmas, he had 
 spent them at the Eed Hall with his sister, 
 having resolutely run away homewards 
 from school each time his holidays were 
 due, till, to save scandal, he was formally 
 permitted to return, as no doubt Mr. Eyre 
 (though he had accidentally overlooked the 
 matter) would have wished. It was early 
 in December when Mr. Eyre got this letter, 
 so that in a fortnight, or thereabouts, the 
 boy would be here ; but perha-ps he did not 
 realize how profound a change Dounc 
 might work in his everyday life, till one 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 morning when little Madcap ran into his 
 bedroom, in her hand an unopened letter. 
 
 It was addressed to her own sweet, small 
 self, and she kissed it lavishly before she 
 laboriously undid the envelope and per- 
 mitted ' dad ' to read it to her. 
 
 ' "Darling Madcap '" (ran this letter from 
 the eight-year-old boy, laboriously written 
 down to the comprehension of three years), — 
 ^ " I shall be home very soon. You get Joey 
 to put fourteen apples in a row, and you eat 
 one every day, and when you come to the 
 very last one, you will see me. I hear 
 father has come home, but don't you be afraid 
 of him ; he won t beat you, and soon you'll 
 have me to take care of you. Tell Joey to 
 be sure and dust mother's picture every day. 
 I shall be able to do it myself without the 
 steps soon, and tell Digges, with my love,
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 147 
 
 not to forget the flowers for the place where 
 you and I go every morning, and where 
 we'll go again when I come back. I have 
 got you a doll that opens and shuts its 
 
 eyes 
 
 * I'd rather have you or Doony to talk 
 to,' said Madcap the younger, wrinkling up 
 her small nose with an air of disgust ; ' dolls 
 never says nothink /' 
 
 ' "And a white rabbit,'" resumed Mr. Eyre, 
 reading ; * " and I'm going to teach you your 
 alphabet ; mother taught me mine when I 
 was only two. I shall make the white rabbit 
 a hutch in the nursery, so that you can run 
 in through my room of a morning to look at 
 it without catching a cold ; and I hope 
 Joey keeps your feet dry, because poor 
 Dody died from getting his feet wet, you 
 know.'" 
 
 10—2
 
 148 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 ' Going out without any shoes or stock- 
 ings to pick a birthday-gift for mamma,' 
 said little Madcap, nodding. 
 
 ' " And if you were to die, I should drown 
 myself, and no one would be sorry except 
 Digges. And don't you cry, if father is un- 
 kind to you ; only cowards cry ; and Til 
 take care of you safe enough when I come 
 back. Good-bye, and God bless you, ducksy 
 little Madcap, and with my dearest love 
 and a kiss, 
 
 ' I am, your ever-loving brother, 
 
 '"DOUNE."' 
 
 ' Dear Doony !' said the child ; ' and a 
 w^hite rabbit ' — she hugged herself all up 
 together for joy. ' Have to go back to my 
 nursery now, and leave dad — poor old dad ! 
 Naughty Doony, to say you're cross ; you're
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 149 
 
 always kind to me, and I'm kind to you, 
 arent I V 
 
 But for the first time since those 
 dimpled arms had stolen round his neck, 
 Mr. Eyre unloosed them, and set her 
 down, his jealous soul angrily realizing 
 that he possessed only a half-share — not the 
 whole of her heart, and that Doune had got 
 three years' start of him in her love. 
 
 From that moment the silent struggle 
 between father and son began ; and in both 
 hearts the hostile spirit burned clear and 
 strong, for the man had learned no lesson ; 
 here was his old selfishness of character 
 over again, and he was repeating the very 
 sin (his only one in her eyes) that had so 
 wounded his wife, and made her exceeding 
 love for her children as a joy but half- 
 tasted, since he would not share it. 
 
 But after that one impulse of anger
 
 150 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 against his little daughter because he was 
 not the only human being that she loved, he 
 devoted himself to her more than ever, 
 riveting her to himself more closely with 
 fresh chains each day, and putting forth his 
 every charm and power of commanding 
 love to win the simple, tender heart of the 
 three -year- old child, in whose breast he 
 must be first or nothing. 
 
 And out of the full cup of her childish 
 tender heart she repaid him richly, looking 
 to him more and more each day, so that 
 she even forgot Doune's home-coming, and 
 did not remember the fourteen apples that 
 she was to count and eat, one for each day, 
 though Mr. Eyre reckoned the very hours 
 grudgingly, enjoying them with a zest that 
 uncertainty always roused in him, though 
 other men might meet it with dread. 
 
 He was paltry in nothing, and that very
 
 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 151 
 
 day gave orders that Doune's old room 
 should be prepared, and Madcap's abandoned 
 nurseries refreshed and made comfortable 
 for her return. However he might miss 
 the little morning footsteps that were 
 wont to patter over to his door so early 
 that he had given up reading of nights 
 since he was wakened at cockcrow, he never 
 thought of dividing the children. He would 
 be no tyrant ; not one single restriction of 
 duty to himself should hedge in his little 
 daughter's heart. Free as air she should 
 come and go, make her choice between him 
 and Doune ; for that any human being 
 could love two persons equally was beyond 
 Mr. Eyre's understanding. 
 
 Yet his wife had been able to love — not 
 one, but three — equally; she had fused 
 children and husband alike into one perfect 
 love that had filled her life with a song of
 
 152 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 joy, to which soul and body danced a measure 
 far beyond the power or comprehension of a 
 Mr. E3n:e. 
 
 Grimly he counted the hours to Doune's 
 return — even took down from his library- 
 shelves some of those books that had grown 
 stale to him since his new readings had 
 begun, and arranged to go into certain 
 matters of business with his steward that 
 had for above a month been waiting his 
 attention. He would have time enough 
 for all such things when once the children 
 were together ; but the night before Doune's 
 return Mr. Eyre sat so long by his little 
 daughter's bedside that the nurse fell asleep 
 from weariness in the adjoining room.
 
 
 ,^>m$ 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 * Alone among his young com])eers 
 Was Brian from his youthful years. ' 
 
 K. EYRE did not go down to the 
 station to meet his son, but sent 
 little Madcap and her nurse ; so 
 that when the tall, handsome lad jumped 
 out of the train, a little unexpected toddling 
 shape rushed into his arms with a shout of 
 joy, and kissed him with all her soul. 
 
 ' Darling, ducksy Madcap !' said the boy, 
 devouring the velvet cheek of his idol; 'and 
 I've got the rabbit here all safe — and what 
 a smart little girl it is !' he added, as he 
 put her down.
 
 154 eyre's acquittal, 
 
 ' Dot a new muff,' she said, showinor her 
 unusual finery with pride ; ' and a new 
 bonnet ' (she pushed it to one side), ' and 
 new boots — lots of buttons,' and she ex- 
 tended one pretty leg, and held up her 
 petticoats to show it ; ' and lots of new 
 frocks at home — haven't I, Nan V 
 
 ' Yes, Miss Madcap,' said the nurse ; 
 ' you've got plenty.' 
 
 ' But where is Josephine V said the boy, 
 looking at the woman ; ' has father sent her 
 away?' and the hot blood showed in his 
 cheek as he spoke. 
 
 ' Oh no,' said little Madcap, as her nurse 
 hesitated ; ' I think she's sick ; she's dorn 
 away ever so long ago. Oh, what a dear 
 little rabbit !' she added, peeping into the 
 covered basket Doune carried. 
 
 And in her excitement over it, the boy's 
 frown vanished ; and soon the young pair
 
 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 155 
 
 were driving towards Lovel, the nurse 
 being seated beside the coachman, so that 
 there was no hindrance to the children's 
 talk. 
 
 ' How is Digges ?' said the boy presently. 
 
 * I hope he's kept my dog all safe, 
 and ' 
 
 ' Oh, Digges is dorn too,' said little 
 Madcap ; ' he w^ent away before Joe}'- ; 
 'specks something's happened to him — poor 
 Digges r 
 
 ' So that's how my father is beginning,' 
 thought the boy, with darkening brows ; 
 
 * they were good enough to take care of 
 Madcap for years, but he cleans them out 
 directly he comes back ;' only perhaps he 
 did not use these exact words, though this 
 was the gist of his eight -years -old 
 thoughts. 
 
 'Never mind, ducksy,' he said, as he put
 
 156 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 his young arm round her, ' Til take care of 
 you now ; and we'll have a merry Christmas 
 all to our own selves, for he won't trouble 
 us much.' 
 
 But Madcap was too much taken up with 
 the white rabbit to notice the allusion to 
 her father, and had, indeed, altogether for- 
 gotten him till some accident should bring 
 him to her mind. 
 
 The sun was setting in blood-red behind 
 the furze -crowned rock that gave Mr. Eyre's 
 house its name, as the children approached 
 it ; but Doune looked first towards his 
 mother's room, the window of which now 
 stood open. 
 
 At the house-door there were servants 
 only to receive them ; and at once the boy 
 suffered himself to be led away to the 
 nursery, where, finding everything just as 
 it used to be, his spirits rose, and he busied
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 157 
 
 himself about looking over old belongings, 
 and arranging fresh ones. 
 
 The nurse had gone to the garden to 
 fetch food for the rabbit, and not until the 
 two were half-way through a gorgeous tea 
 did Madcap remember her father. 
 
 Doune saw her eyes suddenly widen as 
 she put the morsel down untouched she was 
 carrying to her lips, and wondered what 
 was coming, as she lifted two dimpled hands 
 in a child's dramatic way, and, nodding with 
 intense gravity, ejaculated : 
 
 Doune stared. When had he and Dody 
 ever called that terrible man anything but 
 ^father'? 
 
 ' Poor old dad /' said Madcap, in an 
 accent of intense pity. * I'se (juite forgot 
 him ; come along of me and see him.' 
 
 She had got down from her high chair,
 
 158 E VICE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 and pulled at the boy's hand as she spoke ; 
 but though he went with her, it was un- 
 willingly, and with his heart hardening at 
 every step. 
 
 Mr. Eyre, busy with his steward, heard 
 those short and longer steps approaching 
 his study, but did not look up, even 
 when the door opened, and the young pair 
 came in. 
 
 ' Dad /' cried little Madcap, rushing to 
 her father and throwing her arms round 
 his neck in an irrepressible burst of joy, 
 * here's Doony — Doony's come 'ome !' 
 
 The boy stood where his sister had left 
 him, and over Madcap's head the eyes of 
 father and son met, and the hostile spirit in 
 each heart strengthened ; but as the boy 
 did not stir, neither did Mr. Eyre ; and if in 
 this moment the former failed in respect, so 
 assuredly did Mr. Eyre in his duty towards
 
 eyre's acquittal. 159 
 
 the motherless lad whom he had not seen 
 these three years. 
 
 If the one had made a single step forward, 
 if the other had beckoned ; or perhaps if 
 the slender, dark, stubborn boy had borne 
 ever such a faint resemblance to Madcap, or 
 owned a tithe of Dody's winning ways, Mr. 
 Eyre might have given him some cold 
 corner in his affections ; as it was, in every 
 line of the boy's defiant face and figure he 
 saw himself— that ugly self from which he 
 had lately turned aside with loathing. 
 
 The scene that made father and son 
 avowed enemies lasted scarcely as long as 
 the kisses little Madcap was remorsefully 
 showering on her father. 
 
 'Me and Doony having tea now/ she 
 said, scrambling out of the arms that held 
 her but loosely; * we'll come back bimeby.' 
 
 And, without a backward thought or look.
 
 160 eyre's acquittal, 
 
 ran to Doune, and vanished with him through 
 the open door. 
 
 Mr. Eyre resumed his business on the 
 instant, as if no frivolous interruption had 
 occurred ; but when the man had left, he 
 went to the window, and looked to see 
 what lights had been kindled in the nursery 
 wing facing him. 
 
 There was only one in the day-nursery, 
 but Mr. Eyre remembered Doune's care of 
 his little sister's feet, and had no fear that 
 the two were abroad ; only as he dropped 
 the blind it struck him that his wife from 
 opposite might even thus have watched Ms 
 light, as hour after hour he sat among his 
 books, leaving her lonely, save for her 
 children. 
 
 On the very night that she died, he had 
 so left her on some paltry errand of scrib- 
 bling, though on this occasion she had
 
 eyre's acquittal. 161 
 
 Lord Lovel to bear her company, and to 
 Mr. Eyre the hours had passed unheeded, 
 till the cry of ^ Murder ' roused him, and he 
 had ascended the private staircase to find 
 her unconscious, and stabbed to the heart. 
 
 But to-night the neglect lay not with 
 him, but with Madcap's daughter, who had 
 not a thought to give to the man who pre- 
 sently ate his solitary dinner and dessert 
 without a ripple of the tender voice that had 
 been wont to adorn it. His dinner-hour 
 had long been put back to six in recogni- 
 tion of her bedtime, which was seven ; but 
 eight had struck, and Mr. Eyre was in his 
 study, when a knock at the door sounded, 
 and Madcap's nurse set her down inside it, 
 half asleep, and bundled up in shawls. 
 She climbed on to his knee with difficulty, 
 and pushed his book away. 
 
 ' Come to say my "pairs /' she said ; and 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 162 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 the next moment had fallen sound asleep on 
 his shoulder. 
 
 Mr. Eyre signed to the woman to go, 
 and with exultation thought that at least 
 the child had remembered him twice in all 
 the rapture of Doune's return ; and when 
 in an hour's time he carried her back to the 
 nursery, he had so far softened towards the 
 boy that had they met then, a better feel- 
 ing might have been established between 
 them. 
 
 But Doune was not there ; with jealous 
 heart, and counting each moment an 
 eternity, he had for a long while waited 
 his little sister's return ; but when half an 
 hour had passed, he went where he had 
 always gone when in trouble — to his 
 mother's picture. No matter that the room 
 was in darkness : she was there, a livinof, 
 abiding reality to him, and all things good
 
 eyre's acquittal. 163 
 
 and evil in his heart he laid before those 
 lovely mother's eyes that never failed to 
 bring healing to his soul. 
 
 ' Mother,' he said aloud, and with his 
 hand on the picture, ' she is my little baby ; 
 you gave her into my charge, and I've 
 taken care of her ; and now father's taking 
 her away from me, as he used to try to take 
 you away. If only you could come down 
 and speak to me, mother, mother !' 
 
 But next morning broke fair and bright, 
 and the boy was wakened by little Madcap, 
 who ran in, guiltless of offence ; and when 
 they had breakfasted together, went out on 
 one of those delightful rambles that in- 
 cluded every kennel, piggery, and dovecot 
 upon the estate. The boy missed Digges 
 at every turn ; but, as by Mr. Eyre's express 
 commands Doune was kept in ignorance of 
 what had lately occurred, he supposed that 
 
 11—2
 
 164 eyre's acquittal, 
 
 Josephine and her husband had been sent 
 away for some fault displeasing to his 
 father. 
 
 Both man and wife had been kind to the 
 neglected children in their way, and served 
 them honestly, whether from fear of Mr. 
 Eyre's unexpected return, or in part to 
 expiate their secret guilt might never be 
 known. 
 
 Doune's spirits had been steadily rising 
 all the morning ; and when, with blooming 
 roses on their cheeks, they returned home a 
 little after one, to find a real schoolboy's 
 dinner ready in the nursery, the boy (who 
 had been dreading lunch with his father) 
 threw off the last of the jealous fears that 
 had tormented him over-night, and, kissing 
 his ' darling, ducksy Madcap,' sat down with 
 her joyfully to their feast. 
 
 Nothing had been forgotten that a boy
 
 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 165 
 
 fresh from school could desire, and the 
 nurse smiled as she served him ; and Mad- 
 cap thumped the table approvingly with 
 her spoon when he ate three helpings of 
 pudding. 
 
 The woman thought Mr. Eyre was be- 
 having very well in thus giving up the 
 child to her brother, not knowing that he as 
 equally avoided the appearance of jealousy 
 as hitherto he had avoided its reality, 
 regarding it as a despicable vice of the 
 weak — not one that ever attacked the 
 strong: . He remained within doors all that 
 day ; but none came to disturb him, though 
 afar off he heard the children's voices, and 
 even caught a glimpse of them once or 
 twice in the garden. 
 
 He recognised the carefulness that housed 
 Madcap safely before the dews fell ; but 
 when lights were kindled in the opposite
 
 166 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 wing, he wrapped himself in his cloak, and 
 went through the village to a spot that he 
 rarely left unvisited for a day. 
 
 But others had been before him on this 
 occasion, for a wreath of daisies lay on his 
 wife's grave, and sprigs of sweet -smelling 
 things laid here and there, by a boy's 
 formal hand ; and Mr. Eyre thought 
 jealously that his son claimed the older as 
 well as the younger Madcap, though she 
 had never for one second placed her children 
 before her husband. 
 
 Or so he had believed — did he believe it 
 now, when the living Madcap was shoulder- 
 ing away her mother's image, and his 
 thoughts to-night were less of grief for the 
 lost than jealousy for the living ? 
 
 His life was emphatically a march on- 
 wards. He could die, but he could not 
 stao^nate ; and stao;nation seemed to have
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 167 
 
 come to him to-night, as he told himself 
 that Doune was first, would always be first, 
 in the child's heart. And if so, then, no 
 matter what it cost him, he would leave 
 her, let her cling to Doune, make him her 
 sole idol ; for himself, no second place in 
 any human heart would he accept. 
 
 On his way home he went to Synge Lane, 
 and asked Hester Clarke's friend if she had 
 delivered the message he sent. 
 
 The woman replied that she had sent it, 
 but did not expect a reply. 
 
 ' Then I shall have to go to her,' said Mr. 
 Eyre, as he departed ; and at the thought 
 the blood stirred like sap in his veins, for 
 vengeance (though put by during the past 
 weeks) had yet to be satisfied, and it would 
 require no great effort to break his home- 
 fetters, and go forth once more on the quest 
 that hitherto had ended but in failure.
 
 168 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 But when, long after his dinner-hour, Mr. 
 Eyre reached his study, to find a token of 
 little Madcap's late presence in the shape of 
 a dropped shoe-knot, he picked it up, and 
 half forgave her, though not the faintest 
 intention crossed his mind to return her 
 good-night visit. 
 
 Next day was cold and wet, and the 
 children did not stir abroad ; but, lest dul- 
 ness should draw her to him, Mr. Eyre 
 went out for a long ride, that lasted 
 till after dark ; and on his return home, 
 knew well enough that no such spasm 
 of recollection as had seized her the 
 night before had reminded her of him 
 to-night. 
 
 For a child of three is essentially one- 
 ideaed, and has no memory (save at odd 
 moments) ; it goes where love is, but rarely 
 seeks it, so that Mr. Eyre receded into the
 
 eyre's acquittal. 169 
 
 background, and Doune occupied Madcap's 
 whole thoughts just now. 
 
 The man had girded up himself to the 
 fight ; but who can fight with a child's 
 whim ? Fickle ? No more natural phase of 
 Nature can be found than a healthy child ; 
 and Nature knows no such word as 'faithful- 
 ness/ and in its very elements is opposed to 
 the strained idea that has brought about 
 half the tragedies the world has ever seen. 
 
 But as Mr. Eyre's jealousy grew, Doune's 
 slackened, so that the boy in his turn 
 softened towards his father, and prompted 
 those excursions to the other side of the 
 house, from which each day she returned 
 more quickly, with no account to give of 
 herself, save that dad was ' busy.' 
 
 The boy was honourable, and never tried 
 by word or look to set her against her father. 
 There was no bad blood in his veins, and
 
 170 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 with other treatment might yet grow up 
 the noble ' might have been ' of Mr. Eyre's 
 own youth. 
 
 But while the children played, and were 
 happy, he was unconsciously preparing his 
 revenge in the invitation he had carelessly 
 given young Lord Lovel, and which he had 
 supplemented by a letter to his mother, 
 the answer to which he received a w^ek 
 after Doune's return. 
 
 She would be only too rejoiced to send 
 the boy to Mr. Eyre ; he always drove her 
 mad during the holidays, and no doubt at 
 the Eed Hall he would be able to rampage 
 to his heart's content ; and her own young 
 babies required all her care, and her health 
 was so indifferent, etc., etc. ; and she could 
 never stand more than a week in the 
 country, even for dear Algy and his hunt- 
 ing ; and in conclusion, her son (w^ho seemed
 
 eyre's acquittal. 171 
 
 to have come in for nothing but a house 
 and an empty title, which his father never 
 expected) would arrive at his guardians 
 house the very next day by a certain train 
 that she was particular to mention. 
 
 Mr. Eyre smiled grimly as he read the 
 letter, and thought of the writer, a faded 
 beauty, who at thirty-five had taken for a 
 rich second husband a young man of 
 twenty, and hated the boy who reminded 
 her perpetually of the date of her first 
 marriage. 
 
 Mr. Eyre ordered little Madcap's late 
 room (opposite his own) to be made ready, 
 and the same day drove over alone to meet 
 Lord Lovel's heir. 
 
 Doune heard by chance of the expected 
 arrival, and thought bitterly that it was 
 like his father to give the welcome to a 
 stranger that he refused to his own son.
 
 172 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 No doubt the fellow would be a proud, 
 supercilious ass, who would look down on 
 his own and Madcap's pursuits ; and this 
 would be so much the better if he would 
 only stick to Mr. Eyre's own side of the 
 house, and not trouble them. 
 
 He said nothing to his sister — how could 
 she understand ? x\nd he did not know 
 that the two had already met at Lord 
 Lovel's funeral, and become friends beside 
 his grave. 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Eyre received the boy, 
 who came eagerly to meet him, thinking of 
 little Madcap, and rejoiced to escape from 
 the tyranny of holidays in Eaton Square. 
 
 As Mr. Eyre looked at the clear-faced 
 lad, sunny -haired, and ^ bright of blee,' as 
 all the Lovels were, it struck him for the 
 first time that he and Doune could not be 
 more than a year apart in age, yet how
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 173 
 
 different in looks, bearing, and attractive- 
 ness! 
 
 Mr. Eyre thought he might have loved 
 such a son as this, as they went back to- 
 gether to the Eed Hall, for the boy was 
 fearless of him, and had, moreover, taken a 
 liking weeks ago to the stern -faced man, 
 against whom his mind had not yet been 
 poisoned by scandal. 
 
 Doune heard the carriage return, and 
 listened sullenly for a summons to go below ; 
 but none came, and Madcap and he had 
 their short evening alone, as usual, until 
 suddenly ' dad ' popped into her head, and 
 down she jumped from her high chair to go 
 to him. 
 
 Doune wrapped her up with his usual 
 jealous care, and saw her depart in the 
 nurse's arms ; then sat down with darkening 
 brows, and the old bitter feelings rising in
 
 174 EYIiE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 liis heart. As he had felt when his mother 
 died, and before the softening influence of 
 his little sister had come upon him, so he 
 felt to-night as he sat alone, and thought of 
 how short his holidays were, and how com- 
 pletely Mr. Eyre would win her away from 
 him in the end. 
 
 By a hundred trifles, and without ques- 
 tioning her, the boy had, during the past 
 few days, discovered how close was the 
 bond of sympathy between the pair ; how 
 n everything Mr. Eyre had anticipated 
 him, even to teaching her the alphabet ; 
 how in every smallest detail of her nur sery 
 and dress Mr. Eyre's hand appeared, and 
 was recognised by the little one. 
 
 ' Dad carries me better than you do ;' or, 
 * Dad tells much fittiev stories than you 
 does.' Such expressions would now and 
 then fall from her lips, and it required the
 
 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 175 
 
 exercise of all the boy's powers to keep her 
 beside him, and for an hour together forget 
 the existence of the lonely man who pored 
 over his books in the opposite wing. 
 
 Too young to understand the situation, 
 she accepted it with the unhesitating trust 
 of childhood, and trotted from one to the 
 other with a heart brimming over with love 
 for each. But the servants and outsiders 
 thought the state of things between father 
 and son unnatural, and said there was bad 
 blood between the tw^o, because the boy 
 knew Mr. Eyre had been suspected of the 
 murder of his wife, but was not permitted 
 to know^ that Digges had tacitly proved 
 himself guilty of the crime. 
 
 But here they erred. Doune had heard 
 nothing and knew nothing ; yet those who 
 loved him might well tremble for its effect 
 upon him when such knowledge came.
 
 176 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 He was thinking of his mother to-night, 
 when a step sounded without, follow^ed by a 
 chuckle, that announced Madcap. And the 
 boy started up, thinking it was his father ; 
 but a tall lad brought in the child, who ran 
 to Doune, crying out : 
 
 ' Doune, Doune! here's that nice 'ittle boy 
 me saw at the fooneral !' 
 
 The two lads, near of a height, though 
 there was a year between them, offered in 
 appearance a most striking contrast, as for a 
 moment, boy-fashion, they looked askance 
 at each other; then the one held out his 
 hand, and the other took it with an honest 
 enough grip, and without speech or any 
 other preliminaries, there was at once a 
 good understanding betw^een them. 
 
 ' What's 00 name ?' said Madcap, with 
 hands behind her back, and a much-tumbled 
 pinafore fully disclosed.
 
 eyre's acquittal, 177 
 
 ' Gordon Lovel. ' 
 
 Doune looked at him earnestly. So this 
 was the new Lord Lovel ; and how fondly 
 he remembered the old one, the ' Frank,' 
 who had been his and Dody's playmate, 
 none but he himself knew. 
 
 ' Come and have a ride on my rocking- 
 orse,' said little Madcap, pulling at Gordon's 
 hand ; and so the two boys were given 
 time in which to take each other's bearings, 
 as the best sort of boys always will, before 
 rushing into a friendship that is no true 
 one, if it do not last a lifetime. Doune had 
 endured his schoolfellows, but never had a 
 real boy-friend ; neither had Gordon ever 
 found one completely to his liking, so that 
 before the evening was over, and in spite of 
 Madcap's frivolous interruptions, the two 
 boys had got so good a glimpse into each 
 other's minds as made them part reluctantly, 
 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 eyre's acquittal, 
 
 and with eager thoughts of the morrow. 
 The three children breakfasted together, 
 and it was afterwards that Mr. Eyre's un- 
 intentional evenge upon little Madcap 
 began. 
 
 The boys, entirely taken up with one 
 another, found the three-year-old child in 
 their way ; and, though both adored her, 
 presently found an excuse to take her back 
 to the house, then rushed away from her 
 laments, and spent their morning gloriously. 
 
 For there are so many perils and dangers 
 into which mettlesome boys of eight and 
 nine can get, even in a morning's excursion 
 round a small estate, and so many pursuits 
 through which a baby might not be carried, 
 and how could they have climbed, leaped, 
 and raced with the little one toiling behind 
 them ? 
 
 iVnd they were happy, as boys can be
 
 eyre's acquittal. 179 
 
 happy — as man, woman, or girl never was 
 nor ever will be ; and of all heartsome, 
 healthy sights, commend me to a lad who, 
 in the full flush of his youth and vigour, 
 follows those innocent pursuits that are 
 storing up strength wdthin him against his 
 manhood. 
 
 Mr. Eyre had seen the premature return, 
 heard the childish sounds of lament, saw the 
 little figure that ran, with socks down at 
 heel, after the retreating boys, returning 
 shortly with every sign of grief and dis- 
 order, and sobbing her heart out as she 
 climbed the steps that led from the garden 
 to her nursery. Surely she would come to 
 him, Mr. Eyre thought ; but she did not, 
 and presently he swallowed his pride and 
 went to her, though not even lie could heal 
 the wound her brother's desertion had 
 inflicted upon her faithful heart. She per- 
 
 12—2
 
 180 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 mitted herself to be consoled at last, and 
 even ran with smiles to meet the faithless 
 ones when they appeared ruddy and hungry 
 in the distance, close on the dinner-hour. 
 
 Doune snatched her up, and kissed her 
 fondly ; then, seeing his father beyond, 
 felt the colour of his spirits change ; but 
 Mr. Eyre demolished a difficulty, and 
 established a right order of things, by in- 
 cluding both boys in his inquiries as to how 
 they had amused themselves that morning. 
 
 Doune flushed, and was tongue-tied for 
 awhile ; it gave him a new sensation to 
 address the father who had not spoken to 
 him for three years. But he forced out a 
 few words, so that Gordon saw nothing 
 amiss, and, liking both, was struck once 
 more by the extraordinary resemblance 
 between father and son. 
 
 But if Mr. Eyre did not hold himself
 
 eyre's acquittal. 181 
 
 aloof from the children, he never intruded 
 on them. 
 
 They could come to him when they 
 pleased, but he never went to them ; their 
 meals, their hours, were different, and, 
 having resumed his duties as magistrate, 
 there were days when little Madcap, seeking 
 him for consolation, found none, so that 
 thus early there were thorns in her babyish 
 lot, and she learned to suffer before she 
 understood the meaning of the word. 
 
 For that first day in which she found 
 herself neglected had, with variations more 
 or less cheerful, repeated itself during the 
 ensuing forty, so that sometimes Madcap 
 would be carried first by one boy, then the 
 other, through all sorts of adventures, and 
 anon found herself neglected for some rat- 
 catching or bird-snaring exploit, from which 
 her small presence was rigorously tahooed.
 
 182 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 But, no matter what mioht have been 
 their shortcomings to her during the day, of 
 evenings they were her devoted slaves, and 
 would play at every game possible to the 
 whim or intelligence of a three-year-old 
 child. 
 
 Hide-and-seek was perhaps the fa,vourite 
 one, and bursts of merriment would often 
 be wafted to Mr. Eyre on the other side of 
 the house, who about this time marked an 
 almanac with the date at which a reply 
 might be expected to the message he had 
 sent Hester Clarke. 
 
 For if she would not obey his summons, 
 he had made his mind up that he would go 
 to her immediately. 
 
 And little Madcap ? Well, she had dis- 
 appointed him, as her mother had never 
 done, and he loved her, to be sure, 
 but
 
 eyre's acquittal. 183 
 
 And yet it wanted only the touch of two 
 velvet lips, the love and trust of two gentle 
 arms round his neck, to make the strong 
 man weak as water, and vow to forego 
 vengeance, if only he might hold the first 
 place in the heart of his lost Madcap's 
 daughter. As the holidays drew to a close, 
 the boys were more than ever inseparable, 
 and one day Mr. Eyre asked Doune if he 
 would like to join young Lovel at Eton 
 after Easter, to which Doune replied in 
 eager affirmative, colouring for joy, but too 
 tongue-tied to utter the gratitude he really 
 felt. 
 
 But a better feeling had slowly grown up 
 during the past weeks between the two, 
 that Gordon's sunny temper and ways had 
 done much to promote ; for his was exactly 
 the right influence for Doune, and came, 
 too, in the very nick of time, and when it
 
 184 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 was most urgently needed. Nothing morbid 
 could live in the healthy atmosphere Gordon 
 made around him ; while for Doune's strength 
 of character and brilliancy of intellect the 
 elder boy had the deepest admiration, so 
 that the bond between them was one of 
 unbroken harmony from the first. 
 
 Often they would talk of what they would 
 do w^hen grown up, and, the estates being 
 so close together, not a day passed but the 
 boys went through the Lovel w^oods, some- 
 times even entering the house itself, and 
 roaming through its neglected, desolate 
 rooms, invariably ending in a visit to Job, 
 who sat by the fireside, but would never be 
 able to do any active work again. 
 
 He had come out of his fit perfectly 
 clear in mind, save for the one fixed hallu- 
 cination that it was not his young master 
 who had been buried under the name of
 
 EYRE S ACQUITTAL, 185 
 
 Lord Lovel, but some other man who re- 
 sembled him, and whom Mr. Eyre had 
 thought fit to bury thus for some reason 
 of his own. 
 
 He never acknowledged Gordon as the 
 heir, but invariably addressed him as Master 
 Lovel, and bade him not grow up idle, or 
 looking to the inheritance, as any day 
 ' little Master Frank ' might walk in and 
 claim his own. 
 
 The boys humoured him in his fancies, 
 and he liked them both ; but best of all he 
 loved little Madcap, who sometmies came 
 with them, and concerning whom the old 
 man had a supernatural belief that she was 
 her mother born over asfain — that mother 
 who had once been his master's girl-sweet- 
 heart, and who had been stolen from him by 
 Mr. Eyre. 
 
 So between the old and broken man and
 
 186 EYRES ACQUITTAL. 
 
 the young fresh child a strong and faithful 
 love grew with the years, and by the time 
 she was ten there was not a story of Frank's 
 beauty, bravery, and truth that she had not 
 got by heart ; and he had become that 
 perilous, often most disa]Dpointing creature 
 upon earth — a child's hero ; and for every 
 flower that she laid on her mother's grave, 
 she laid one beside it for Frank. 
 
 * * * :^ * 
 
 The last few days of the holidays passed 
 in perfect bliss to Madcap, as the two 
 boys (blaming themselves for their neglect) 
 took her with them everywhere — carried 
 her over wet places, but in dry ones allowed 
 her to trot like a little dog at their heels, 
 and if she got a tumble or two they were 
 none the wiser, for she did not mind what 
 bumps and bruises she got so long as she 
 might follow them
 
 eyre's acquittal, 187 
 
 Neither of them could make enough of 
 her during this time, and each night the 
 boys went sorer-hearted to bed, and dreaded 
 the parting with her more. On the night 
 before they were to start, travelling together 
 as far as town, Doune went to his little 
 sister's cot before she fell asleep, and sat 
 down beside her. 
 
 ' Madcap, my little ducksy darling,' he 
 said, ' I've not been very kind to you 
 these holidays ; but I'll be better next time, 
 
 and it won't be long ' he stopped a 
 
 moment, with that smarting pain in the eye- 
 balls which is a brave boy's way of crying, 
 then went on — ' and you'll be a good little 
 girl, and get nurse to write me a letter 
 once every week, telling me how you are, 
 and I'll write to you often — and you must 
 love me always ' 
 
 ' Oh yes I' said Madcap, * you and Dad
 
 188 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 — and Geordie/ she added, as an after- 
 thought. 
 
 ' Don't you love me better than Dad V 
 said the boy, his courage giving way, and 
 the question forcing itself out. 
 
 ' You and Dad !' said the child, dancing 
 up and down in her cot. ' Dad and Doony 
 — love 'oo both !' and she kissed him fondly. 
 
 He thought to himself bitterly of how 
 often he had neglected her, thus driving her 
 to Mr. Eyre to be consoled ; and indeed this 
 fresh boy-love had for the time swept him 
 off his feet, so that one day he actually 
 forgot his usual visit to his mother's 
 picture. 
 
 And when the fatal moment of parting 
 came — when Madcap, drowned in woe, was 
 splashing Doune and Geordie impartially 
 with her tears, and throttling them with 
 her kisses, even then the boy could not for-
 
 eyre's acquittal. 189 
 
 give his father that equal share with himself 
 in his little sister's heart. 
 
 ' Good-bye, sir,' said Geordie, taking Mr. 
 Eyre's hand warmly ; ' and thank you for the 
 brightest, happiest holidays I have ever had 
 in my life.' 
 
 * Come back at Easter,' said Mr. Eyre, 
 who really liked the lad in his way. 
 
 ' Good-bye, sir,' said Doune, his cold 
 hand barely touching his father's ; and if he 
 had not been so tall of limb, and resolute of 
 glance, his independence might have pro- 
 voked a smile ; as it was, Mr. Eyre met him 
 in his own spirit, and in a final storm of 
 sobs from Madcap, the schoolboys departed.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 ' " Does the sun shine with you ; and does heaven 
 drop rain upon you ?" said a King of Africa, who had 
 just made a noble award to his own loss. 
 
 ' Alexander answered, " Yes." 
 
 ' " Then must it be," said the King, " on account 
 
 of the innocent animals that dwell in your land ; for 
 
 over such men ought no sun to shine, no heaven to 
 
 rain." ' 
 
 Gesta FiOmanorum. 
 
 HEN Mr. Eyre next went to 
 Synge Lane he found Hester 
 Clarke's reply to his message in 
 the form of a sealed letter to himself. 
 
 It had neither beginnino- nor ending; and 
 contained very few words ; but these were 
 significant.
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL, 191 
 
 Janet Stork was dead, and she herself 
 returning to England immediately. She 
 had heard Mr. Eyre was resolved to seek 
 her out, and most solemnly warned him to 
 desist from any such attempt, since she 
 could not tell him more than he already 
 knew of, and, for the sake of both the dead 
 and the living, no power on earth should 
 force her to open her lips to him on the 
 subject. 
 
 ' Justice may yet,' said Mr. Eyre aloud, 
 as he folded the letter. ' Tell her this 
 from me when you write, that she shall 
 speak, and I'll have the whole truth from 
 her lips yet before I die.' 
 
 And he went out, with a curious feeling 
 that the battle was beginning over again, 
 and that the peace of the last few weeks 
 had been but a rest before the coming 
 struggle.
 
 192 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 So the clue that had dropped from 
 Frank's dead hand was held safe in Hester's 
 living one, and he would find, and wrest it 
 from her, though it took him a dozen years 
 of search. 
 
 She could tell him nothing that he did 
 not know already. Ay, that was true 
 enough, for he knew her guilty of the 
 murder, and to-day was more rooted in his 
 belief of it than ever. 
 
 His spirits rose as he w^alked home, and, 
 pausing at the churchyard, he thought that 
 in time he might even come to forgive 
 Frank, whose mind had no doubt been 
 poisoned against him by the woman's lies. 
 
 Within an hour Mr. Eyre had tele- 
 graphed to the governor of the convict 
 settlement in which Janet had died, for any 
 information obtainable about the woman 
 who had visited her and been her friend.
 
 EYJ^E'S acquittal. 193 
 
 Before night the answer came back that 
 nothing was known of Hester Clarke's 
 plans beyond the fact that her destination 
 was England, for which place she had set 
 out some weeks before in a sailing-ship, of 
 which the name was given. 
 
 Here was material upon which to work, 
 but inquiry only elicited the fact that 
 Hester Clarke had left the ship at a port 
 half-way home, though the captain did not 
 think that her circumstances warranted the 
 loss of half her passage-money. 
 
 He had therefore returned it to her, and 
 was much amazed when, by return of post, 
 he received a cheque from Mr. Eyre, and a 
 request for an immediate interview. 
 
 This duly took place at Poplar, the 
 honest, bluff fellow refusing the money, but 
 willing to give Mr. Eyre all the information 
 lie had. 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 He said that he had been told she was 
 going home because the friend for whom she 
 had come out to the settlement was dead, 
 and she had been heard to say she wished 
 she had died with her, as she had no friends 
 to return to in her own country. 
 
 ' And her appearance '?' said Mr. Eyre. 
 
 ' The handsomest creature I ever saw in 
 my life,' said the sailor, with a weather- 
 beaten blush that did not escape the other ; 
 * but with that look on her face ' 
 
 'A look of guilt f said Mr. Eyre 
 swiftly. 
 
 ' Lord bless you, no !' said the honest 
 sailor indignantly ; — ' she wouldn't hurt a 
 fly ; but she looked like one who's seen 
 sorrow, and maybe worse things in her 
 time. I asked her to marry me, sir — and 
 now the murder's out — but she wouldn't, 
 and there's an end on't,' he added, w^onder-
 
 eyre's acquittal. 195 
 
 ing what this stern, dark man might have 
 had to do with her past life, or what with 
 her future? 
 
 ' You may thank God that she would not,' 
 said Mr. Eyre drily. ' You will be going 
 back before long ?' 
 
 'This day month.' 
 
 'Keep a berth for me,' said Mr. Eyre, 
 'for I'll go with you.' 
 
 ' The accommodation's rough, sir,' said 
 the man, feeling a curious unwillingness to 
 set Mr. Eyre on Hester's track. 
 
 ' What will do for a woman will do for 
 me,' said Mr. Eyre carelessly. 
 
 And, having paid for his passage, he 
 entered the day and hour of the ship's 
 sailing in his pocket-book, and, shaking the 
 captain's hand, left him. 
 
 ' I wish I may be doing her no ill turn,' 
 thought the captain (honest and thorough 
 
 13—2
 
 196 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 as surely sailors are above all other men) ; 
 ^ but I doubt if he finds her there — she's 
 not the sort of woman to be caught, if she's 
 minded to give any one the slip.' 
 
 But, as it turned out, Mr. Eyre was not 
 one of the half-dozen passengers who sailed 
 in the good ship Arizona. 
 
 The very hour of his departure he de- 
 ferred to the last moment, that he mischt 
 wish little Madcap good-bye in her sleep, 
 and so spare herself, and him, a scene of 
 pain ; but at the very moment when, 
 cloaked and gloved, he entered the nursery, 
 he was startled to hear her sinmng; at the 
 top of her voice, the tune abruptly changing 
 to a horrible barking sound that tore his 
 heart-strings as he stood ; then saw the 
 child struggling to rise, and terrified, gasp- 
 ing, fighting for breath, seemingly in the'act 
 of dying before his eyes.
 
 EYRE S ACQUITEAL. 197 
 
 He tore at the bell, cursing the nurse for 
 her neglect ; but, swifter than any bell 
 could travel, the woman, when those shrill 
 clear notes of singing burst upon her ear, 
 had fled downwards to order blankets and 
 boiling water, and was back in the room 
 before the look of agony had died from Mr. 
 Eyre's face, as he sat with the convulsed 
 child in his arms. 
 
 * Croup, sir,' she said, and whipped a 
 bottle ofi" the mantelshelf, and j)oured out a 
 teaspoonful ; ' the hot water will be here 
 directly,' and she poured the stuff' dow^n the 
 child's throat. 
 
 But though the hot water came as by 
 magic, and Madcap's stiff'ened limbs were 
 plunged in it, dose after dose of the ugly 
 brown stuff" had to be administered before the 
 gasping struggles for breath grew quieter, 
 and the contorted limbs became still.
 
 198 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 ' Dad, ivhat is it f she paid, looking up 
 at him once, as, helpless, he hung above her, 
 his agony greater than hers. 
 
 And all his life long he never forgot that 
 piteous voice, the sight of her little terrified 
 face in the midst of the steam and blankets, 
 damp curls clinging to her brow. Surely 
 that other Madcap must see it, and blame 
 him for his neglect of the child during the 
 past weeks. He remembered now that she 
 had never been strong, though she seemed 
 so — the little prematurely -born babe, that 
 no one expected to live ; and she had been 
 running wild with the boys, and fretting 
 over their departure ; and if Mr. Eyre him- 
 self had left half an hour earlier, she would 
 have been crying out in her misery for 
 ' Dad,' and there would have been none to 
 answer. 
 
 He said to himself then that if she re-
 
 eyre's acquittal. 199 
 
 covered lie would never again leave her — 
 revenge might go, but he would care for 
 her as she would have done, whose very 
 heart and body seemed to tremble with his 
 as he gazed ; and when at last the crisis of 
 the attack was jDast, and the child lying 
 exhausted, but out of pain, in his arms, the 
 man's stubborn soul died in him, and he 
 recognised the God that had granted the 
 life that He might have forfeited. For this 
 disease by which the child is rudely shaken 
 out of its slumber, and brought face to 
 face with appalling suffering, and often 
 death, is one before which the strongest 
 man, the most skilful surgeon, must shrink ; 
 and the sight of the broken nerve, the 
 child's terror of the recurrence of the 
 agony, are, even in the days of recovery? 
 sadder still. 
 
 The weak voice, the pallid check, the
 
 200 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 overheated atmosphere of the room, remind 
 the watcher of how precarious is the life 
 that has once been so threatened. 
 
 And when Mr. Eyre heard later the fiat 
 of a famous surgeon, that nothing but the 
 most devoted care and watching would 
 shield her from constantly recurring attacks 
 of a similar nature, he buried Hester Clarke 
 and vengeance fathoms deep in his memory, 
 and forbade them to rise again until sum- 
 moned. 
 
 Only to-night, as he sat with the child in 
 his arms, it struck him that somewhere he 
 had seen something similar, and in this 
 very room . . . and the child had been his 
 own ; but it was dead, and he had come 
 hither as magistrate, with the ministers of 
 justice at his heels, to arrest the woman 
 upon whose knees it lay for the murder of 
 his wife.
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 201 
 
 Had the inevitable law of nature repro- 
 duced itself ? was God to bring the sinner's 
 heart to humanity through its nearest and 
 best? 
 
 All that night Mr. Eyre watched beside 
 the little steam-enshrouded figure. At day- 
 break the Arizona sailed ; and as she parted 
 her cables, her captain rejoiced that she 
 carried one passenger the less than had been 
 booked. 
 
 Mr. Eyre himself put ship and man out 
 of his mind, and on the day when he might 
 have reached Hester's landing-place was 
 wholly engaged in enjoying the frolics of a 
 child who, in the sparkle of a young 
 March day, had recovered some of the 
 brightness that she lost in an illness that, 
 though five weeks old, she had not hitherto 
 been able to forget. 
 
 In one bitter short experience jMadcap
 
 202 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 had learned the meaning of the word death, 
 and shrank away from it — shrank even from 
 visiting her mother's grave, and knew safety 
 nowhere out of her father's sight. 
 
 She had been taken back to her old room 
 opposite his, and not even Doune could have 
 found the heart to oust her from it when, at 
 Easter, he came back to find her languid, 
 half her beauty of rounded outlines gone, and 
 threatened daily and hourly with the deadly 
 complaint that had already seized her twice 
 since the attack that had appalled Mr. Eyre. 
 
 Perhaps the hearts of father and son 
 merged their bitterness then at her side, and 
 in their common love joined forces to pro- 
 tect her ; perhaps jealousy showed as a mean 
 and common thing as they watched over the 
 little frail life that was the all of each ; and 
 the first fibre of respect in Doune stirred to 
 his father w^hen, after a long watch, Mr.
 
 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 203 
 
 Eyre laid his hand on the boy's shoulder, 
 and bade him go to rest. But first Doune 
 went to his mother, and, light in hand, looked 
 in her eyes for reasons why she should so 
 have loved her husband. 
 
 Perhaps the boy found them there, so that 
 he could subordinate himself to her child's 
 happiness, and when, a few days later, 
 Geordie came, Madcap's satisfaction was 
 complete. 
 
 No need to tell the boys now to take care 
 of her. Carried over every puddle, and up 
 every hillside, little Madcap daily gained 
 fresh strength and tone, so that the village 
 folks smiled to see ' the master ' and the 
 boys go by with her. The black drop of 
 blood between father and son was o^one, 
 they said, praying Heaven that when he 
 grew older he might not take the tragedy of 
 his mother's end amiss, and read Mr. Eyre
 
 204 Eire's acquittal, 
 
 wrongly, as in their secret souls they them- 
 selves had done. Some of the women said 
 that in making an idol of the child, he had 
 made a phantom of the mother, and that he 
 was more ' foolish ' over the second Madcap 
 than he had been over the first ; and this 
 was true in a sense, for while he had felt him- 
 self master of his wife's fate, here he knew 
 himself helpless, and his love was all the 
 purer that it was so much the less master- 
 ful. If outwardly he wore as proud a front, 
 and carried things with as high a hand as 
 ever, inwardly he knew himself a changed 
 man, who looked out on life with new eyes, 
 and in whom the very lust for vengeance 
 was for a time extinguished, so that he 
 hardly thought of the Aiizona, or of how 
 each day his chances of tracing Hester 
 lessened. 
 
 About this time Mr. Eyre received a
 
 eyre's acquittal. 205 
 
 letter that puzzled him, since he could see 
 no good reason why it should be addressed 
 to Mm more than to any other person. 
 
 It was his way to read his letters through 
 without first looking at their signature, so 
 that only at the end of this one did he find 
 enlightenment, and then only of a partial 
 kind. 
 
 The writer said her son had joined the 
 — th Foot (against her most urgent en- 
 treaties) in the thick of the Crimean War, 
 that his name had never appeared among 
 the list of killed or wounded, nor had his 
 effects been forwarded to her ; though on 
 inquiry at the War Ofiice, she elicited the 
 fact that he had returned to England 
 invalided at the close of the w^ar. But home 
 he had never come, and she feared some 
 brain-injury had kept him apart from her, 
 or that he had fallen into bad hands, for he
 
 20G EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 was said to have had a large sum of ready 
 money in his possession when he sailed. The 
 mother went on to say that having seen in a 
 newspaper an allusion to Mr. Eyre's return 
 with the body of the late Lord Lovel, who 
 had joined the regiment about the same 
 time as her son (she was able to fix the 
 date by a letter from her boy), she ventured 
 to write and ask if Mr. Eyre had seen or 
 knew anything of him, the Colonel and 
 more than half the officers being dead, and 
 the remainder now in India. 
 
 She added that he was twenty- six years 
 of age, tall, fair, and blue-eyed — her only son, 
 and she a widow. His Christian name was 
 Francis. Mr. Eyre's memory was accurate, 
 and he remembered Colonel Lindsay's 
 mentioning young Methuen, and also some 
 odd words that had escaped ]iim in dying ; 
 but these he did not think worth repeat-
 
 £YRES ACQUITTAL. 207 
 
 ing to the poor lady when he wrote to tell 
 her that he had no knowledge of her son. 
 
 He received a more memorable letter 
 some weeks later, perhaps the longest one 
 that bluff sailor Captain Pye ever wrote. 
 
 He said he had stopped two days on his 
 outward passage at the port Mr. Eyre 
 would have visited, and had spent his 
 whole time in making inquiries about 
 Hester Clarke. Several people remembered 
 her landing, as she was unveiled, and her 
 beauty uncommon, and she was seen to 
 enter a food-shop close to the harbour ; but 
 from the moment she left it, not the 
 slightest trace of her could be found. 
 Many ships, both homeward and outward 
 bound, touched at the port that day, and 
 the captain could only suppose that she had 
 gone away in one of them. She had 
 effected some change in her dress at the
 
 208 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 shop (said the woman who kept it), and 
 veiled herself so closely that her features 
 could not be seen. 
 
 And the sailor concluded with the hope 
 (meaning no offence) ' that since it was 
 clear the poor soul did not w^ish to be 
 traced, and had tried to burn her boats 
 behind her, why, to his mind 'twould be 
 only honourable in any man not to set sail 
 in pursuit of her ; and he begged to 
 remain Mr. Eyre's faithful servant, Joseph 
 Pye.' 
 
 Mr. Eyre wrote a brief reply, in which 
 he thanked him, and said that he still 
 meant to take a sail in the Arizona one of 
 these days, and should make it his business 
 to know when Captain Pye's ship was in port. 
 But somehow the ' convenient season ' for 
 that sail did not come. As years went by, 
 and gradually little Madcap outgrew the fell
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL, 209 
 
 complaint which had threatened her life so 
 often, she still required all his care ; and 
 home-ties, and those connected with his 
 estate, bound him more and more closely 
 to the life that had so fully satisfied him 
 in the days before Hester Clarke came to 
 trouble it. 
 
 If now and then a restless thought rose 
 in his mind — if at odd moments the old 
 puzzle rose and confronted him, demanding 
 its solution, he put it by. Perhaps some 
 inward sense told him that this time of 
 peace was but the pause before the final 
 struggle of his storm-tossed life. But the 
 pause was a long one ; and the years went 
 by as days to the man who at no period of 
 his life had found a day too long for its 
 work. 
 
 And so in the eternal freshness of the 
 ' children's kingdom ' Mr. Eyre lived and 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 210 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 renewed his youth. So, by slow but sure 
 degrees during these happy, healthy years, 
 the old antagonism between father and son 
 died out ; for beside and between them 
 stood Madcap with her love, and a hand in 
 the hand of each.
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 14—2
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ' Our present sunsets are as rich in gold 
 As when the Iliad's music was out-rolled.' 
 
 BOY was singing ' As pants the 
 hart for cooling streams,' and 
 the exquisite voice soared, as it 
 were, to the very gates of heaven, then 
 sank down and down like silver into the 
 depths of a clear well — sank into the very- 
 souls of some of those who heard him, and, 
 by some curious association of ideas, caused 
 Mr. Eyre to start violently, and lean forward 
 to gaze at the singer. 
 
 Why, this was the very boy whose voice 
 had so enchanted Mrs. Eyre one hot May
 
 214 EYRKS ACQUITTAL. 
 
 morning that she had compared it to cool 
 rills of running water that refreshed body 
 and soul as they fell ; and Mr. Eyre, who, 
 for a wonder, had accompanied her to 
 church, had laughed, saying she only found 
 the voice uncommon, because in looks the 
 boy happened to be a cherub. 
 
 And there stood the boy, cherubic, sweet - 
 voiced, singing the very same words, and 
 looking as if he had never done anything 
 but sing ever since ; and yet it was im- 
 possible that he should be the same. This 
 must be a younger brother. . . With a 
 sudden gesture Mr. Eyre brushed his hands 
 across his eyes, then looked around him, 
 much as Eip van Winkle may have done 
 when he wakened from his long dream. 
 
 The boys and girls had grown into youths 
 and maidens, the middle-aged folk had 
 become old, and many of the old men and
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 215 
 
 women were missing from their places ; the 
 very clergyman had grown white-headed, 
 and the clerk and sexton become bowed 
 with rheumatism and age. 
 
 His glance came back to rest on the 
 occupants of his own pew, and again he 
 started, for it seemed to him that his wife 
 stood before him ; this was not the child 
 who had drawn him hither each Sunday 
 morning, but his lost Madcap, just as she 
 had looked in the early days of her mar- 
 riage ; no whit older, or sadder, or less lovely 
 than the girl at whom Mr. Eyre now so 
 intently gazed. 
 
 The tall handsome lad beside her was 
 Doune, the living image of what his father 
 had been at twenty, and just now so deep 
 in thought that his prayer-book had, un- 
 noticed, slipped from his hand ; but it was 
 on the fourth occupant of the pew that Mr.
 
 216 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 Eyre's gaze dwelt longest, a frown slowly- 
 gathering upon his brow. 
 
 The young man who had caused it to 
 gather would scarcely have heeded one of 
 Jove's thunderbolts just then, for his ardent, 
 eager eyes were fixed upon Madcap, who 
 seemed unconscious of his presence, and 
 intent only on her devotions. 
 
 There was too much of the lover in the 
 look, thought Mr. Eyre, experiencing that 
 odd sense of repulsion which most fathers 
 feel when the lover comes to woo the 
 young and delicate daughter . . . perhaps 
 some jealousy is at its root ; perhaps the 
 father's instinct has its origin in something 
 nobler, and he trembles for the future of 
 the tenderly-nurtured creature whose truest 
 safety is by his side. . . 
 
 * I'll have no boy-and-girl love-making 
 here,' thought Mr. Eyre, looking keenly at
 
 EYI^E S ACQUITTAL. 217 
 
 Madcap, who caught the glance and half 
 smiled. ' Fm first with her yet,' was the 
 continuation of his thought, as, folding his 
 arms and with gaze that went past her 
 through the open door, he set himself to 
 think of how it was that these twelve years 
 had passed so swiftly that he had taken no 
 count of them till to-day. 
 
 Madcap's rearing, and the gradually 
 acquired mastery of Doune, had occupied 
 him a long while; and then, to be sure, 
 there were the perilous years of the two 
 young men to be watched over at school 
 and college, and his own duties as land- 
 owner and magistrate to be performed, so 
 that the ' trivial round, the common task ' 
 had filled his days ; and he had not room 
 even for the episodes of ambition and love 
 that had on two several occasions threatened 
 him. The first came when a neighbour
 
 218 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 died, and Mr. Eyre was entreated, in the 
 Conservative interest, to stand for the ad- 
 joining county ; but to such entreaties he 
 turned a deaf ear, not because he felt any 
 outward stain, or inward unfitness for the 
 position, but because his home-ties so closely 
 bound him that ambition offered no charms 
 to him now. 
 
 The second episode came in the deter- 
 mined siege of him by the Duke of Mar- 
 miton's widow, a beautiful woman, with 
 whom Mr. Eyre had flirted before his 
 marriage, and, as some said, since ; but he 
 was never in any danger from her, though 
 her courtship lasted many years ; and, 
 since he would not run away, it was 
 openly wondered that he did not marry 
 her, if only to free himself from her perse- 
 cutions. 
 
 For the rest, he had without an effort
 
 eyre's acquittal. 219 
 
 won back that position which he had once 
 so entirely lost, and, in the eyes of his 
 world, stood forth a man who had entirely 
 lived down the one terrible, far-reaching sin 
 of his youth, that in its consequences had 
 so nearly wrecked his life. 
 
 He neither sought society nor eschewed 
 it ; but if found at home when his neigh- 
 bours called, met them with his old fascina- 
 tion of manner and habit of intellectual 
 supremacy over other folk's minds. 
 
 One must live under the world's eye to 
 be accounted cleanly ; and it is part of the 
 uncharitableness of human nature that one 
 is suspected of wrong-doing if one refuses 
 to be subjected to the microscope. To be 
 loved by one's neighbours one must lay 
 both heart and life bare for their dissection, 
 and our very vices will be viewed with 
 affectionate toleration if only we will permit
 
 220 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 our friends to take a bird's-eye view of their 
 progress and range. 
 
 But Mr. Eyre appeared to meditate no 
 new surprises in the way of wrong-doing, 
 and men and women alike found him greatly 
 changed, and for the better ; his face, too, 
 wore a look of peace that made him appear 
 years younger than when his wife died. 
 
 But to-day, the old grim lines in his face 
 showed and deepened ; in his stubborn 
 heart the old fierce question rose like a 
 spectre, and demanded its reply. The 
 time of peace was over, the moment for 
 uprising at hand ; and the ice that during 
 the past years had frozen hard over one 
 hidden volcano in his heart shivered at 
 a breath, when in that hour of awaken- 
 ing he realized how, amidst all his duties, 
 she had been forgotten. Out yonder by 
 Frank's side she lay ; he could see the
 
 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 221 
 
 tombs from where he sat, as he had seen 
 them Sunday after Sunday — ay, as he had 
 been content to see them, he thought, as 
 with a passionate gesture he rose and left 
 the church. 
 
 Madcap had seen the light flash to his 
 eye, the colour to his cheek — marked the 
 throe that seized him ; and her eyes followed 
 him anxiously to where he stood, looking 
 down on her mother's grave, immovable as 
 a man carved out of stone. 
 
 Presently he stooped and plucked a daisy, 
 placing it beside another that his pocket- 
 book held ; but with the second he laid 
 away a vow. 
 
 Ay ; but once before, and by her scarce 
 cold clay, he had sworn an oath to her and 
 forgotten it ; he had been content to eat, 
 drink, and sleep while yet her blood cried 
 out unavenged from the earth ; he had been
 
 222 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 happy in his home-life, while she, who had 
 no share in it, lay yonder neglected and 
 alone, while, secure from pursuit, her 
 murderer walked the earth. 
 
 He had been supine, had loved his ease 
 (for as such showed to him now the finest, 
 best endeavour he had made in his life) ; 
 but now he was awake y and to the bitter 
 end would pursue that scheme so abruptly 
 broken off by his little daughter's first 
 illness. 
 
 She was strong enough now, and, besides 
 (here a wry smile twisted Mr. Eyre's lips), 
 there were others to love her if anything 
 happened to himself, for fathers have no 
 such hold on their daughters' hearts after 
 marriage, as their mothers are declared in 
 the old distich to possess. Then there was 
 Doune : the boy's splendid training at his 
 father's hands had left few doubts as to his
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 223 
 
 moral future ; it was only from an intellec- 
 tual standpoint that his father had fears 
 for him, and dreaded that abuse of applica- 
 tion to his studies which usually resulted 
 in sleepless hours, and latterly in one or 
 two curiously prolonged attacks of sleep- 
 walking. 
 
 But this tendency he would outgrow, 
 and as to those issues involved in Doune's 
 future knowledge of the manner of his 
 mother's death, Mr. Eyre never troubled 
 himself with conjectures concerning them ; 
 the boy knew him — ay, and loved him, as 
 the father was very well aware. 
 
 He did not look back to the day when 
 his life of peace was rudely assailed by 
 influences from without, and over which he 
 had no control ; if he had clung to his 
 peace then, he did not cling to it now, and 
 from within the fatal impulse came that set
 
 224 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 him once more marching forward to meet 
 his fate. 
 
 Before he left his wife's grave, and long 
 before that homily misnamed a sermon 
 was half over, he had chalked out his 
 plans, arranged his campaign ; and, on 
 reaching home, consulted a Slii'p'pincj 
 Gazette, in which, as by a miracle, he 
 found the very information he most 
 desired. 
 
 His daughter's eyes still followed him as 
 he left the grave ; but Doune had scarcely 
 seemed to notice his father's exit, w^hile 
 Gordon thought that the flush on her 
 cheeks, the unwonted restlessness of her 
 movements, w^ere due rather to her thoughts 
 than to Mr. Eyre's abrupt departure. 
 
 It was the young fellow's last day here ; 
 to-morrow he would return wdth Doune to 
 keep his last term at Oxford, and then
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 225 
 
 would come home to settle down at the 
 Towers for good. 
 
 ' Don't 'ee clean up or alter over-much, 
 Master Geordie,' had said Job to him — 
 'you'll have to give an account of it all 
 to the master one of these days ; and 
 the less spent, the less there'll be to pay 
 back.' 
 
 For the old man still lingered on, refusing 
 to die till his young master's return, when, 
 as he said, he would be only too glad to lay 
 down his life and depart in peace. 
 
 Gordon never contradicted him, even 
 when Job persisted that he couldn't some- 
 how see Madcap the younger there as the 
 young man's wife. 
 
 But Gordon saw her there clearly enough, 
 and meant to turn the old place upside 
 down before he took her home to it, which 
 would be somewhere about next year, he 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 226 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 supposed, for then she would be full sixteen 
 winters old. 
 
 Her mother had been engaged to his 
 cousin Frank when as young ; for, of 
 course, Gordon knew the whole story, and 
 thought the accident extraordinary that had 
 kept Doune ignorant of the truth. For 
 himself, his knowledge affected no whit his 
 love and respect for his guardian ; to Mm 
 Mr. Eyre would be always the first, best, 
 noblest man living, only he wished that his 
 little sweetheart had not loved her father so 
 well, since in that father alone he found a 
 rival in her heart. 
 
 There were no others to fear, the county 
 just then being signally deficient in either 
 young or middle-aged men equal to the 
 calibre of those to whom she had been 
 bred ; and if a young fool named Busby 
 came riding often to the Ked Hall, why, no
 
 EYRES ACQUITTAL. 227 
 
 doubt he would be finally despatched with 
 some such flea in his ear as Mr. Eyre had 
 always been able to muster on the de- 
 parture of the fool's father, who, having 
 kept a stone in his pocket seven years, had 
 long ago turned it, convinced that the time 
 for its use would come yet. 
 
 No lovers showed on the horizon ; but, 
 with one of those presages of love or fear 
 that often we call supernatural, the young 
 fellow longed for some sign or promise of 
 love from her before he left on the 
 morrow. 
 
 He would be gone such a little while, 
 and surely there could be no hurry ; yet, as 
 Madcap's eyes travelled past him down 
 that gradually diminishing perspective of 
 aisle and churchyard that ended in her 
 mother's grave, he said to himself that he 
 would within the hour put his fate to the 
 
 15—2
 
 228 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 touch, without the leave of Mr. Eyre or any 
 other. 
 
 As the preacher's dull, booming voice 
 sounded faintly from afar, Gordon (uncon- 
 sciously following Mr. Eyre's steps) went 
 through a kind of retrospect of the past 
 twelve years, in which the foremost figure 
 was always — if with a hundred variations — 
 Madcap. 
 
 If at three years he had slighted while he 
 adored her, at six she had assumed airs of 
 sovereignty to which he had submitted, 
 while each succeeding year gave her fresh 
 superiority over the lads who grew so fast, 
 and must pass through all those awkward 
 stages of youth through which the girl 
 herself danced and played without the loss 
 of a single grace or charm. 
 
 She was at heart a romp, as her mother 
 had been before her, yet could walk sedately.
 
 eyre's acquittal. 229 
 
 and say her prayers instead of repeating 
 them ; had been known to go rat-catching 
 (though she never went twice), bird's- 
 nesting, and often jumped a five-barred 
 gate when no one was looking ; took first- 
 class honours in the fine art of snowballing, 
 yet might be discovered in wet weather 
 walking on pattens with soup in her hands 
 for some sick villager ; and withal was her 
 father's close companion, and 'thorough,' as 
 only a girl who has associated with the 
 best sort of English man and boy ever 
 is. 
 
 Tricksy as a brook that laughs over 
 pebbles, but anon sinks into silence between 
 high banks, with a depth of character that 
 ran hand in hand with those wild madcap 
 spirits from which her mother had taken 
 her name ; as clear-brained as she was 
 simple, as innocent as she was strong.
 
 230 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 Gordon's mind had never held but one idea 
 of womanhood from his birth ; and Madcap 
 filled it. 
 
 His love exactly matched that pure, 
 boyish, ardent one that his dead cousin. 
 Lord Lovel, had felt for Madcap's mother 
 when, as mere boy and girl, the two had 
 become engaged, and, but for Mr. Eyre 
 stepping in between them, might have been 
 alive and happy in each other yet. 
 
 Sixteen and eighteen, these had been the 
 ages of the young pair ; and now Gordon 
 was nearly of age, and the younger Madcap 
 fifteen and a half; and why might he not 
 speak, and secure his happiness before some 
 other man appeared to dull or destroy his 
 hopes ? 
 
 In her education had been included no 
 forward thoughts of men, and no self-con- 
 sciousness marred that virg-inal look which
 
 eyre's acquittal. 231 
 
 we sometimes see in very young girls, who 
 from their birth have been kept far out of 
 the reach even of a chance smirch of evil, 
 and whose souls have been left as God 
 made them, not moulded to the lives of 
 those to whom their training has been en- 
 trusted. 
 
 Such a look of purity is compatible with 
 every charm, roguish or saintly, that a 
 woman ought to possess ; and to his heart's 
 core Gordon reverenced its preciousness, as, 
 all ablaze with the first passionate love of 
 early manhood, he longed for the sermon 
 to be over, so that he might speak. 
 
 She was dressed in white, as it was Mr. 
 Eyre's whim that she always should be, and 
 wore a large hat softened and veiled with 
 snowy feathers, caught back in such a way 
 that the whole tender, velvety brow and 
 curling chestnut hair showed out as from an
 
 232 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 exquisite frame. A muslin kerchief that 
 left the rounded, slender throat bare was 
 knotted at her breast ; and, for the rest, 
 her gown was simply made, and reached to 
 her ankles, while long white silk mittens 
 that reached to her elbows were tied with 
 narrow ribbons ; and black shoes, with silk 
 stockings inside, shod the most beautiful 
 little foot in the county. 
 
 But when the benediction was spoken, 
 and the young pair paced down tlie church- 
 yard walk together, while the villagers 
 looked after them and smiled irrepressibly, as 
 people will at the sight of love, youth, and 
 beauty, all in full bloom together, Gordon's 
 heart sank, so that in silence they went 
 through the little gate, and took the path 
 that led homeward through Lord Lovel's 
 woods. 
 
 Softly as those who are shod in velvet
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 233 
 
 the two went ; and this silence was so 
 unlike his roguish, saucy Madcap that, 
 trembling, he thought she must know what 
 was on his lips, and that — oh, blessed and 
 unsuspected sign of love ! — she was shy as 
 himself. 
 
 The young May breezes stole ruffling 
 round their lips and cheeks, for here might 
 always be found freshness and shade ; but 
 even the beauty of her beloved woods could 
 not rejoice the girl's heart that day ; and 
 w^hen presently Gordon stooped down to 
 look into her averted face, he saw that tears 
 were running down her cheeks. 
 
 ' Madca'p /' he cried, moved to the soul 
 by these signs of grief that must surely be 
 for himself, ' don't cry ; I shall soon be 
 back. This is May the 10th, and I shall be 
 back the first week in July — come home/o?^ 
 good!
 
 234 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 * It's not you/ said Madcap ungrate- 
 fully, as she dried her eyes ; ' it's — it's 
 Doune /' 
 
 The young lover recoiled, and the words 
 of love died on his lips. 
 
 * Can't you see that he is killing himself 
 with over-work V said the girl, unheeding 
 Gordon's looks ; ' he has been up night 
 after night at his books, yet he rises at the 
 same hour as we do, and he gives himself 
 no rest. And now he is going back unre- 
 freshed to harder work still, and he will 
 take to walking in his sleep, and perhaps 
 fall off a chimney and be killed — my dear, 
 darling Doune I' 
 
 ' He has never gone farther than the door 
 of his chambers,' said Gordon, in unsympa- 
 thetic tones ; ' the bolts always wake him 
 up. Besides, Fm there to see that he comes 
 to no harm.'
 
 eyre's acquittal. 235 
 
 ' And yet you are going to leave bim,' 
 said Madcap, looking at him with eyes in 
 which reproach drowned itself in tears ; 
 ' and who is going to pick him up, pray, 
 if he falls out of a window ? or — or telegraph 
 to get me up in time ?' 
 
 ' You know, Madcap,' said the young 
 fellow coldly, ' that your father arranged 
 for me to leave college one term before 
 Doune did ; but if you are so anxious to 
 get rid of me for six months longer, why, I 
 will make you happy.' 
 
 * Do! she said, her face clearing up ; ' and 
 you and he shall come back together, and we 
 will all be as happy — as happy as can be !' 
 
 ' Shall we ?' said Gordon, rather wist- 
 fully. ' I don't know. I'm not given to 
 presentiments ; but somehow I feel as if 
 this were the last of our happy days, and 
 that trouble is closing round us.'
 
 236 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 The girl started as though a chill breath 
 had pierced the warm air around, and she 
 grew a little pale as she said : 
 
 ' I felt like that just now ; but it is only 
 that you are both going away to-morrow, 
 and so we have got out of spirits, and 
 superstitious. I even thought there was 
 something amiss with father when he went 
 out, and stayed so long by mother's grave ; 
 have you seen any signs of restlessness in 
 him lately V she added eagerly. 
 
 Now this was the last straw on Geordie's 
 back. To be questioned about an elderly 
 gentleman's bodily signs when you are 
 bursting with your first declaration of love 
 is surely beyond the endurance of any 
 proper man or boy of spirit living. 
 
 ' He is getting old,' said Gordon brusquely, 
 and turning his back on her. 
 
 ' Old ?' repeated the girl, in a startled
 
 eyre's acquittal. 237 
 
 tone. ' Dear old dad is growing old f How 
 dare you say such a thing, or turn your 
 back upon me, sir !' she added, stamping 
 her foot (and here I regret to confess that 
 she invariably stamped twice, where once 
 would have satisfied her mother), while a 
 flood of angry crimson rushed to her 
 cheeks. 
 
 * He is getting old,' said the young fellow, 
 turning round to face her, with eyes angry 
 as her own ; ' and of course he has whims, 
 and can't sleep at nights, and feels the heat 
 in church. But is all this any reason, pray, 
 why you should forget / am going away, as 
 well as Doune, to-morrow ?' 
 
 * Poor Geordie !' she said ; and he felt 
 that he hated his name, and wished it had 
 been any other. ' But you will come back ; 
 and you are so young ; and you say he is 
 getting old . . . why, there is no real work
 
 238 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 for which he is not fitter and stronger than 
 you or Donne !' 
 
 ' Thank you/ said Gordon, feeling the 
 insult to his youth keenly ; ' perhaps when 
 Doune and I are elderly men, there may be 
 one or two things that we can do to your 
 satisfaction.' 
 
 * Elderly men are so much more interest- 
 ing than young ones,' said the girl, stooping 
 to pluck a sorrel-leaf, and grimacing as she 
 ate it ; ' but what is the matter with you 
 this morning; ? You look as cross as two 
 sticks, and usually you are so good-tem- 
 pered ' 
 
 ' Good-tempered !' exclaimed the sorely 
 tried young man. ' Why, to be a good- 
 tempered man is to be the butt — the fool of 
 one's company ' 
 
 * Yes — but you are only a boy,' said Mad- 
 cap, slipping her hand through his arm as
 
 EYRES ACQUITTAL. 239 
 
 she spoke ; ' how dreadful it will be when 
 we are really grown up 1' and she sighed, as 
 at the thought of departing joys. 
 
 ' I don't suppose any of us will grow 
 much more/ said Gordon gloomily, and 
 feeling that his wooing was going from bad 
 to worse, ' though I have heard of girls 
 growing after they were sixteen.' 
 
 ' But I'm only fifteen and a half, Geordie/ 
 said the girl almost piteously, as she looked 
 up into his clouded face, and speaking 
 as one who laments to lose something 
 precious ; ' don't forget that every year I 
 grow older, father gets older too — as you 
 were cruel enough to remind me just 
 now !' 
 
 * And youth is the time in which to enjoy 
 yourself, and I am growing older too,' said 
 Gordon, with a ruthlessness that only the 
 pain of love could justify. ' Are we to be
 
 240 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL, 
 
 children alivays^ because Mr. Eyre is nearly 
 a century ahead of us V 
 
 Madcap drew her hand away, and, with 
 something of her father's odd sense of awak- 
 ening, looked at the young man before her. 
 
 ' You are grown up, I suppose,' she said, 
 after a minute's dispassionate survey of 
 him, ' and you have a moustache — I never 
 noticed it before — and Doune has none ; 
 but he is a year younger than you, and, 
 after all, I don't think one would suit 
 him!' 
 
 He answered nothing ; he was dumb 
 with helpless anger and misery as he walked 
 beside her. 
 
 Her instinct, usually so fine, was at fault 
 here ; for, preoccupied by thoughts of 
 brother and father, she never dreamed of 
 the turmoil going forward in the breast of 
 her companion, and who in her mind, and
 
 eyre's acquittal. 241 
 
 despite that unexpected discovery of his 
 moustache, was still a boy. 
 
 ' Let us sit down,' she said, as one sud- 
 denly fatigued ; and Gordon felt that the 
 sequel to his chapter of accidents had come, 
 when he found himself enthroned on moss, 
 in all the agony of those go-to-meeting 
 clothes that he abhorred. 
 
 His tall hat, at least, he might abolish 
 without indecorum, and this he sent flying 
 with a vigour that nearly wrecked it against 
 a neighbouring tree, and brought Madcap to 
 a more attentive consideration of him than 
 she had hitherto vouchsafed. 
 
 His good looks, though remarkable in 
 themselves, were of that Saxon order that 
 no one dreams of calling uncommon, and he 
 had always suff'ered in Madcap's eyes from 
 being placed in juxtaposition with Doune, 
 whose keen, dark, brilliant beauty was en- 
 
 VOL. I. l(j
 
 242 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 tirely peculiar to the males of Lis family, and 
 as proverbial in the country as it was shared 
 by no other save his father and himself. 
 
 ' Are you all bewitched together ?' she 
 said ; ' first father, then Doune, now you V 
 
 ' Yes, I am bewitched,' he said, not look- 
 ing at her, and thinking that no man of 
 mettle or sense ever sat down to a declara- 
 tion of love, least of all with such scant 
 encouragement as was his. 
 
 The love that meets one trembling, the 
 timid look, the blush, the involuntary 
 movement ; if she had shown any one of 
 those pretty flags of encouragement, so 
 easy to be supplemented by the lover with 
 more ardent signs still, how easy it would 
 have been to speak, how difficult to tell 
 afterwards whether he or she had said or 
 looked the fatal words that carried them 
 over the Kubicon!
 
 eyre's acquittal. 243 
 
 But to chaff him ; to call him a boy at 
 nearly one-and- twenty; to congratulate him 
 on a moustache, as if it were a new toy or a 
 pop-gun; to suggest sitting down when he 
 would have found it a better sign in her if 
 she had run away from him — were not all 
 these things sufficient to anger even one 
 of the gentle, sweet-blooded Lovels ? When 
 he had despatched his gloves after his hat 
 he felt better, but still looked cross enough 
 to amaze Madcap, who had not the clue to 
 his thoughts, and who now capped all her 
 other misdeeds by bursting into a peal of 
 laughter. 
 
 ' Why don't you send your coat after the 
 rest ?' she said ; ' I've seen you often enough 
 in your shirt-sleeves — though / don't lind 
 the day hot at all ; I am perfectly cool.' 
 
 ' You need not tell me that,' said the 
 young man, who had folded his arms on his
 
 244 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 breast, and^now looked as miserable as he 
 had before looked angry ; ' you are always 
 cool about everything that concerns me^ but 
 you put yourself into a fever if your father 
 or Doune gets a finger-ache.' 
 
 *Why, Geordie,' she said, opening her 
 eyes very wide, ' are youjealousT 
 
 * My name is Gordon,' said the young 
 fellow crossly. ' Whoever nick-named me 
 that detestable Geordie ought to be shot. 
 I may be only a boy, but I'll be hanged 
 if I answer to that name again !' 
 
 ' Shall I call you Lord Lovel?' she said, 
 in a gentle voice that made him turn 
 swiftly to look at her ; but, alas ! — 
 
 ' In her fair cheeks two pits do lie,' 
 and these pits were filled up and as brim- 
 ming over with laughter as the rest of her 
 face, and, while ravishing, served only to 
 enrage him.
 
 eyre's acquittal. 245 
 
 ' I'll tell you Avhat it is, Madcap,' he 
 said ; ' if you go on laughing at me this 
 way, I'll box your ears — or — kiss you.' 
 
 ' It would not be for the first time,' said 
 Madcap placidly, and with a shameless 
 disregard of her situation ; ' kissing me, I 
 mean. But as to the other, why, that's one 
 of my prerogatives ; for you know I've 
 boxed your ears almost ever since I was 
 born.' 
 
 ' Yes — that's just it,' said the young 
 man bitterly. ' I was fool enough to let 
 you ; whereas, if I had given you a lot of 
 trouble, and kept you in order, you would 
 think twice as much of me noAV. As it is, 
 Doune and your father make a double-first' 
 (he laughed angrily at his own bad joke), 
 ' and I'm not in it.' 
 
 ' Yes, you are,' she said, but rather 
 coldly, for she was offended at the rebellion
 
 246 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL, 
 
 of her slave; ' but, of course, they 2X^ first. 
 
 And — your stupid joke reminds me 1 
 
 wanted to ask you about Doune's first-class 
 honours.' 
 
 ' Hang first-class honours !' said Gordon, 
 letting go the last remnant of his 
 manners. 
 
 ' By all means, Lord Lovel,' said Mad- 
 cap, red with anger. ' To be sure, with you 
 it is a case of sour grapes, for you never 
 had a chance of winning any; your chief 
 laurels were earned in cricket and boat- 
 ing ' 
 
 'And a very good job, too,' cut in 
 Gordon ruthlessly. * If I had beeswaxed 
 my nose to my books as Doune did, and 
 not taken him down the river for a breather 
 now and then, he would be in an asylum 
 by now.' 
 
 ' Oh, there's no disgrace in rowing in the
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 247 
 
 Oxford eight!' said Madcap loftily, 'espe- 
 cially if you can't do anything else ' — here 
 Gordon bounced on his mossy seat, and felt 
 that a few more minutes of this would 
 finish him — ^ but then you kept rats in 
 your rooms, and ' 
 
 ' Uncommonly useful they were,' said 
 Gordon heartlessly. ' I trained them to 
 run up Doune's legs, and they sent him off 
 to bed every night a good three hours 
 before he would otherwise have gone.' 
 
 ' And you were had up before the 
 dons ' 
 
 'Old asses!' interpolated Gordon, his 
 manners growing worse and worse. 
 
 ' And were nearly rusticated,' said 
 Madcap, swallowing a smile, and with 
 her voice as stern as she could make it ; 
 ' but that was for some disgraceful piece 
 of business that you got into all by your-
 
 248 EYRES ACQUITTAL. 
 
 sel^ for ijoune and father could tell me 
 nothir !' 
 
 The youn^r fellow blushed angrily, but 
 
 sat his ground ; he knew that his youth 
 
 had passed honourably beyond that of most 
 men, and saw no reason why he should 
 not make a loyal husband to the prirl who 
 
 so -erenelv flouted him. 
 
 • That"s my b !' he said shortly: 
 • but I'm fretting tirea of being a mere care- 
 taker to Jjoune ' 
 
 •^1 (:arf:foXtr ■' said Aladcap. sitting erect, 
 and Avith fia-' " ■ •■';-: * i- he not stroncr 
 
 o 
 
 and clever enougii to take care of himself?' 
 'Is he?' said Gordon, still in that hard 
 tone. • Well. I gave up the Guards to 
 remain with him at Oxford " 
 
 • I thought it was because you wished to 
 Kettle down at the Towers.' said Madcap, 
 whose colour had begun to sink before the
 
 eyre's acquittal. 249 
 
 energy of the young man, so that in ten 
 minutes he had gained that place in her 
 esteem which twenty -one years of honest, 
 unselfish service had not bought him. 
 
 ' I could have settled down here all the 
 same,' said Gordon. ' I should have en- 
 joyed a few years in the army down to the 
 very ground. I was never cut out for pur- 
 suits such as Doune loves; for, as you say, 
 I have no brains — never had any.' 
 
 Madcap said nothing, but looked at him 
 with new eyes, as, with averted head, he 
 went on speaking. 
 
 ' I am talking like a sweep,' he said, 
 ' but you have provoked me into it; and 
 whatever I have done for Douiic, I take no 
 credit for it — it was not for him.' He 
 turned and looked at her; and through all 
 his anger and trouble, the yearning, eager 
 look in liis eyes showed like a rift of 1)1 ue
 
 250 EYRES ACQUITTAL. 
 
 sky through clouds, and touched Madcap to 
 the heart. 
 
 ' We have never quarrelled before, 
 Geordie, much,' she said, with a little 
 tremble of the mouth — 
 
 ' Like ony hinny pear ' — 
 whose lovely corners now drooped as 
 sadly as usually they curled up in mis- 
 chief ; ' and you are going away to-morrow 
 . . . . and I do not want you to go — 
 angry/ 
 
 His face changed as one may see a field 
 of grain that is colourless beneath a stormy 
 sky pass suddenly into a flood of gold — 
 one knows not how, one knows not whence 
 — but light is there .... and so, in a 
 human soul, love will work the self- same 
 miracle; and Madcap drew back startled at 
 the transfiguration her words had wrought 
 in the young fellow's face.
 
 eyre's acquittal. 251 
 
 ' Madcap,' he cried, forgetting to think of 
 whether he were sitting or standing (though, 
 in point of fact, he was kneeling), ' I have 
 been a brute to you — but I was so jealous 
 and so miserable — and you'll forgive me, 
 dear, won't you ?' he said humbly, as he 
 took the slender, mittened hand, prayer- 
 book and all, and kissed it passionately. 
 
 Now, if he had kept up his hard-hearted- 
 ness two minutes longer, perhaps if he had 
 boxed her ears soundly, as he had threat- 
 ened, she might have taken him as master 
 for once and all ' under good greenwood - 
 tree;' for her spirit had responded to his 
 manliness, and next to her father and 
 Doune she had always loved him best — 
 and often the second-best love ends by 
 becoming the first. 
 
 But that kiss made him once more her 
 slave, and the lesson of love was as yet
 
 252 eyre's acquittal. 
 
 beyond her comprehension, since there was 
 no inward teaching to enable her to learn 
 it ... . and so Gordon got a stone for 
 bread when she said, with her hand still in 
 his : 
 
 ' You know I love you, and I cannot bear 
 for you to go away; and to-morrow this 
 time I shall be crying over you both ' 
 
 '- Both !' He could have let go her hand, 
 but that he was ashamed of his late out- 
 break, and wanted to atone for it. And there 
 were tears in her eyes, rarely enough per- 
 mitted by her three faithful henchmen. Yet 
 he risked all as he said : 
 
 ' Are you crying for Doune, or for me f 
 
 She looked at him with the tears in her 
 eyes, trembling but still unfallen on her 
 cheeks, and perhaps (though so young) 
 some glimmering of love came to her then, 
 and unwittingly she stood on its brink,
 
 EYRES ACQUITTAL, 253 
 
 perhaps — for who shall ^^ to a moment 
 the turn of the tide, the decline of a sunset, 
 or the meridian of summer ? — she might 
 have taken the golden moment that led on 
 to happiness and safety, but that some 
 need from within, some lack from with- 
 out, stayed her. 
 
 Yet both were so young, and both so 
 beautiful, so inclined to each other, in 
 years, tastes, and every natural law of 
 affinity, that love between them might be 
 as natural and lovely as it only is when 
 like pairs with like ; yet Gordon felt that 
 the moment was missed and the opportunity 
 gone, as she said, holding up her face to 
 him like a scolded child who seeks to make 
 amends : 
 
 ' You'll kiss me, Geordie, and be 
 " friends" ? 
 
 Perhaps the sanctity of her youth sank
 
 254 EYRES ACQUITTAL. 
 
 into him then . . . perhaps the thought of 
 certain blemishes in his life shamed him 
 . . . but as they leaned their two yoimg 
 heads together, curiously alike, as a beauti- 
 ful youth and a maiden often are, he only 
 kissed her cheek. 
 
 Was he a fool ? I trow not.
 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 'Judgment and sentiment, each in their turn 
 replacing one another, give good counsel.' 
 
 OU have taken a long while to 
 walk home,' said Mr. Eyre, 
 as Madcap entered his study, 
 and came quickly to his side ; * had Gor- 
 don some entertaining story to tell you 
 to-day ?' 
 
 He held her from him as he spoke, and 
 looked at her keenly; but her colour neither 
 rose nor fell as she said : 
 
 ' Oh no, father ! but he was out of sorts, 
 and miserable, and we quarrelled; but it's
 
 256 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL, 
 
 all right noAV — we've kissed and made 
 friends.' 
 
 Mr. Eyre looked at the girl's cheek and 
 lips, as though he expected to find a stain 
 on them, then said : 
 
 * Pray, what did you quarrel about ?' 
 
 ' He thought I cared only for you and 
 Doune,' she said, hanging her head a little; 
 ' but I do love him — next to you two, better 
 than anyone in the world.' 
 
 ' So we are first ?' said Mr. Eyre. 
 
 ' Yes,' she said, looking at him wistfully 
 and tenderly, for with Madcap familiarity 
 had never bred contempt in her for her 
 father — ' you and Doune, Doune and 
 you.' 
 
 ^ Poor Gordon !' said Mr. Eyre, as, sum- 
 moned from the past, a girl's face rose up 
 before him, unkindled, with no light of 
 love on it — yet a betrothed wife, and pre-
 
 eyre's acquittal. 257 
 
 sumably beyond the reach of any other man's 
 love. 
 
 He sighed as he looked, and felt her arms 
 round his neck. After all, would not his 
 own Madcap have been happier with Frank 
 than she had ever been with Am, and should 
 he now seek to part two young souls who in 
 time might learn to conjugate the verb ' to 
 love,' as well as if they had begun with that 
 passion which almost invariably ends in 
 disaster ? 
 
 'Child!' he said abruptly, 'I am going 
 away.' 
 
 She lifted her head from his shoulder, 
 and drew back, a startled look in her 
 eyes. 
 
 ' Going away, Dad ?' she said, her voice 
 chilled by that curious foreboding that had 
 dwelt in her mind all day ; ' are you going 
 up with the boys ?' 
 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 258 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 
 
 ' N'o/ he said ; ' farther than that — at the 
 outside, I may be away two months.' 
 
 Two months ! and save for that one fly- 
 ing visit to PopLar, he had not slept out of 
 his bed a single night these twelve years ; 
 and tears were in Madcap's eyes as she 
 said : 
 
 ' Where are you going, father ?' 
 
 Here was a question he had not antici- 
 pated; but his answer came without a 
 pause. 
 
 ' I am going on business — business con- 
 nected with your mother.' 
 
 ' Is it so urgent ?' she said, looking anx- 
 iously in his face ; ' can anything do her 
 any good now, or make her happier than 
 she is ?' 
 
 For to the girl, who knew only that her 
 mother had died in childbirth, that mother^ s 
 lot had seemed a beautiful one ; for does not
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 259 
 
 the Virgin Mar}^ convey straight to heaven 
 all those who die in ' strono travailino-' ? 
 
 ' Yes, it is urgent enough,' he said, not 
 heeding her last question ; ' and yet it has 
 been waiting for my attention these twelve 
 years. I have been supine in my dotage, 
 but I am awake now ; and you'll be happy 
 enough, child, while I'm away.' 
 
 He looked at her, thinking that to lea^'e 
 her thus was a fainter pang than that which 
 a mere momentary absence from her mother 
 used to cost him ; for, as once he had 
 merged the older in the younger Madcap, 
 so now the child was merged in the 
 mother. 
 
 * Who was it that said "■ a woman of 
 forty is only beautiful to those who have 
 loved her in her youth"?' he said, getting 
 up, and pacing restlessly tlie room ; ' and 
 she would be verging towards that by now 
 
 17—2
 
 260 eyre's acquittal, 
 
 — yet more lovely than you are, or ever 
 will be/ 
 
 He looked searchingly at the girl, who 
 had paled but did not shrink before this 
 new and unsuspected phase of his character, 
 then said : 
 
 ' Does not the fashion change once in 
 twelve years ? For see here ' — he unlocked 
 a drawer, and brought out a full-length 
 miniature — 'here is her very dress, her hat, 
 just as she wore them to church on the 
 first Sunday after our marriage ; and you 
 are wearing their very doubles ' (he held 
 the portrait out as she advanced to look). 
 ' But the portrait itself is a wretched daub, 
 and you'll never get any real idea of her 
 from that, or her picture. You must 
 look in the glass if you want to see her 
 image.' 
 
 ' Am I so like her, father ?' said the girl,
 
 EYRE S ACQUITTAL. 261 
 
 looking at him steadfastly, and subduing 
 each sign of alarm at the excitability of 
 manner visible in the usually cold, proud 
 man. 
 
 ' Yes,' he said, looking at her fixedly, 
 ' you are so like her that you have reminded 
 me of her. Good God ! to think she has 
 lain out yonder, cold and forgotten — for- 
 gotten through twelve years !' 
 
 ' No !' said the girl firmly ; ' she has 
 never been forgotten. Not a day has passed 
 but I have laid flowers above her ; and 
 when Doune is at home we o'o to2;-ether.' 
 
 ' But I laid none,' said Mr. Eyre ; 'though 
 I have plucked a daisy or two ; and her blood 
 cries out to me.' 
 
 ' It is at rest/ said Madcap softly ; ' and 
 thouo'h we shall o'o to her, she will not 
 return to us ; and there are the living to 
 consider as Avell as the dead.'
 
 262 EYRE 'S A CQ UITTAL. 
 
 ' You will do well enough without me, 
 child,' said Mr. Eyre grimly : ' the book of 
 youth is more suitable to your reading than 
 that of age, and to-day I've woke up to the 
 fact that I am near sixty, and that whatever 
 work I have to do, I must do quickly.' 
 
 ' You are not old,' she said, with tears in 
 her eyes, as she remembered Gordon's 
 words ; ' yoa are a dear, beautiful, darling 
 Dad, as you always were, and ever will be ' 
 — and with a sob she reached uj) her arm, 
 and caught him as he would have passed her. 
 
 ' No, no, child,' he said ; ' I am old — I 
 have looked at myself in the glass, and 
 there are two lifetimes at least betw^een you 
 and me. There was only one between me 
 and your mother, so to-day she seems 
 nearer than you are. And you will be 
 happy enough with the boys — she was 
 never as happy with hers, as with me.'
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 263 
 
 He was walking quickly to and fro as he 
 spoke, startling Madcap with the signs of 
 excitement that pointed surely to brain- 
 mischief ; but he caught the fear in her 
 eyes as it rose, and said : 
 
 ' I'm sane enough, child — but to wake 
 out of a sleep, a sleep of twelve years, to 
 find so much left undone that ought to have 
 been done ' 
 
 ' But have you not done much ?' she 
 said, her young voice unconsciously stern ; 
 ' have you not made your children happy, 
 and would she have wished more ?' 
 
 ' So I have made you happy. Madcap,' 
 he said, looking at her \ ' and whatever 
 sins may be on my shoulders, I can tell 
 her that when I see her. And now we'll 
 go to lunch, and then I have business 
 to do, though it's Sunday • and after, 
 we'll go for a walk instead of to church,
 
 264 EYRE 'S A CQ UITTAL. 
 
 and I'll tell you all your duties, as you 
 will be the young Squire while I'm 
 away.' 
 
 His eyes were brilliant, he was unlike his 
 usual self as he led her to the dining-room, 
 where the young men and lunch had long 
 awaited them. 
 
 * He is handsomer than Doune,' was 
 Gordon's thought, as the pair came in ; 
 and he understood better tliat infatuation of 
 Mrs. Eyre for her husband, which had 
 hitherto seemed to him a fable. 
 
 For he was so old, and she so young. 
 How could they have loved each other as 
 Gordon and the younger Madcap could 
 have loved, had she been willing ? 
 
 ' So I have kept you waiting,' said Mr. 
 Eyre, as he sat down at the head of the 
 table, with Madcap on his right ; ' and yet 
 I am hungry, too :' and he carved for them
 
 EYRE 'S A CQ UITTAL. 265 
 
 all with vigour, and even helped himself 
 with a liberal hand. 
 
 ' So you are going away to-morrow, 
 boys,' he said, presently. ' Well, I am 
 going too ; but farther than you.' 
 
 ' Where are you going, father ?' said 
 Doune, looking up astonished, while Gordon 
 was wondering what made Madcap so pale 
 and unlike herself. 
 
 ' I am going on business connected with 
 your mother, and perhaps I may travel 
 with you as far as town.' 
 
 ' And what will Madcap do all alone ?' 
 said Doune, with some dissatisfaction in his 
 voice. ' Couldn't you put off your travels, 
 sir, till I am at home again to take care of 
 my sister ?' 
 
 ' Not I,' said Mr. Eyre. ' I've put them 
 off these twelve years, and they'll wait no 
 longer. And the child will be happy
 
 266 EYRE 'S A CQ UITTAL. 
 
 enough.' He turned to look at her. ' She 
 shall be my Squire — a madcap Squire — 
 transact all my business, answer my let- 
 ters ' 
 
 ' Then you expect to be gone some time, 
 father ?' interrupted Doune. 
 
 ' Two months, perhaps — more or less,' 
 said Mr. Eyre. 
 
 ' Then I think, sir, with all respect to 
 you, that Madcap should have some one 
 with her during so long and perhaps un- 
 uncertain an absence as yours promises 
 to be.' 
 
 ' Oh ! there's Nan,' said Mr. Eyre care- 
 lessly ; ' the child couldn't have a better 
 sheep-dog, and I'll have no half-educated 
 women or people of that sort, to spoil her 
 mind and manners. And of course she'll 
 see no company — not even young Busby,' 
 he added, with rather a grim look at
 
 EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. 267 
 
 Gordon, and beneath which the young 
 fellow coloured. 
 
 ' So that's settled,' said Mr. Eyre ; ' but 
 you boys are drinking nothing' — and he 
 told the butler to bring up some rare old 
 Burgundy that they were fond of, and when 
 it came, he would have Madcap drink a 
 little of it too ; but by some mischance she 
 spilt the wine on its way to her lips, so 
 that the drops ran down over her white 
 gown like blood. 
 
 Mr. Eyre started violently as he saw the 
 trifling occurrence. In that very chair her 
 mother had sat, and he had given her a 
 glass of that very same old wine, and she 
 had spilled it on her white gown ; and after- 
 wards he had thought of it as an omen of 
 evil, though he had been in such high 
 spirits as to be ' fey' that night. 
 
 Was everything in league to remind him
 
 268 EYRE 'S A CQ UITTAL. 
 
 of her that day ? Why, the very dessert 
 was her favourite one, and there was even a 
 little dish of those sweetmeats with which 
 he used to stuff her pocket for the nursery, 
 and Gordon was sitting where Frank used 
 to sit, and curiously like him ; and the 
 very butler who Avas serving them was the 
 one who had waited on the elder Madcap, 
 and who, having left the Red Hall Avith 
 the other servants after his young mistress's 
 death, had been traced out by Mr. Eyre 
 on his return, and offered his old place. 
 
 He glanced round the room — all was just 
 as when she lived, save that the oak 
 furniture and wainscoting were a shade 
 blacker with age, the crimson of the 
 hangings a little faded ; and through the 
 open window he saw in the distance the little 
 village, that lay as though in the hollow of 
 the horseshoe formed bv the Lovel woods.
 
 E YRE 'S A CQ UITTAL. 269 
 
 It was a room that fairly represented the 
 rest of the house, one in which generations 
 of Eyres had lived and died, neither adding 
 to nor taking away much, restoring where 
 it was necessary, but as nearly as possible 
 replacing worn-out things with others of 
 the same pattern ; so that, mellowed by 
 age and kept bright by happy voices, it had 
 been to both Madcaps that hallowed and 
 beautiful thing, a ' home.' 
 
 Each loved life in the open air, and knew 
 ^N^ature's every mood by heart ; each was 
 simple in her tastes, caring nothing for 
 gauds or jewels, but bred to those natural 
 ones that strew the earth at our every step, 
 shining in new colours day by day, and for 
 ever and ever renewing themselves to us so 
 long as we have ej^es to see, and heart to 
 seek them. 
 
 'Why, this is a Quakers' meeting,' said
 
 270 E YRE 'S A CQ UITTAL. 
 
 Mr. Eyre, rousing himself as the butler 
 softly closed the door, shaking his grey 
 head at the signs of mischief he saw in his 
 master. 'Madcap, little maid, will you 
 have some sweets ?' and he half filled her 
 plate as he spoke. 
 
 But the sweets lay untouched ; and when 
 he looked at her, it was to find her 
 struggling desperately against tears, her 
 second foolish outburst that day. 
 
 ' Why, Madcap !' he said ; then, mth a 
 sudden revulsion of feeling, and all his old 
 tenderness for her, went to her side, and 
 put his arms round her. 
 
 ' Dad,' she said, her voice steady, though 
 tears rolled down her cheeks, ' Dad — don't 
 go away ; trouble will come of it, and Ave 
 are all so happy. Dontgo.^ 
 
 ' This hot day has upset you,' said Mr. 
 Eyre ; ' but you'll be better by-and-by,' lie
 
 EYRE 'S A CQ UITTAL. 271 
 
 added, as Gordoiij unable to endure the 
 sight of her tears, rose and went to the 
 window. ' Come, we'll fetch your hat and 
 go out; it will be cool enough now in the 
 shade ;' and he led her out of the room. 
 
 Neither of the young men spoke when 
 left alone. Gordon was feeling more than 
 ever that there was trouble in the air; and 
 yet, early that morning, he had been able 
 to see no cloud on the horizon save his 
 inevitable departure for two months on the 
 morrow. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD. 
 
 G., C. i: Co.
 
 ^9