liill 
 
 llnlr^! 
 
 Constance- Smith
 
 L I E) R_A R.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UN IVLRSITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS 
 
 823 
 Sm532.c
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cumbererofground01smit
 
 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND
 
 There are sojue whose destiny it is to finish nothing', 
 to leave the feast on the table, and all 
 the edges of life ragged."
 
 A CUMBERER OF 
 THE GROUND 
 
 BY 
 
 CONSTANCE SMITH 
 
 AUTHOR OF "the REPENTANCE OF PAUL WENTWORTH 
 "the riddle of LAWRENCE HAVILAND " ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. I 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET, LONDON, W.C. 
 1894
 
 MORRISON AND GIBE, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
 
 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I 
 
 PROLOGUE ..... 
 
 3 
 
 
 PART I 
 
 
 CHAP 
 
 
 
 I. 
 
 OVER HILL, OVER DALE . 
 
 33 
 
 II. 
 
 AT THE HAULMS .... 
 
 SI 
 
 III. 
 
 UP AND DOWN THE LADY'S WALK 
 
 73 
 
 IV. 
 
 AT THE RECTORY 
 
 96 
 
 V. 
 
 ACROSS THE TEACUPS 
 
 113 
 
 VI. 
 
 BY THE RIVER . . . 
 
 123 
 
 VII. 
 
 ON THE LAWN AND IN THE FIELDS 
 
 144 
 
 VIII. 
 
 OUTSIDE THE SCHOOLHOUSE 
 
 . i6i
 
 A PROLOGUE 
 
 Roses in the flush of youth. 
 
 And laurel for the perfect prime _ 
 
 But phick an ivy branch for me, 
 Grown old before my time."
 
 A PROLOGUE 
 
 *' Much ado there was, God wot — 
 He wold love, and she wold not." 
 
 " '^ I ^HAT fellow on the chestnut cob — over 
 1 there by the railings — is nodding to you, 
 Charlie." 
 
 "Which fellow? Where?" Mr. Charles Crosse 
 looked round him a trifle wildly, adjusting his 
 eyeglass. (He was painfully short-sighted, and 
 the crowd in the Row this fine June morning was 
 unusually thick.) " I really don't — oh yes, I see 
 — young Travers ! " Here the rider of the chest- 
 nut received an answering nod — civil, if not 
 cordial — in acknowledgment of his reported 
 salutation ; and, having received it, rode on. 
 
 Lord Osborne turned in his saddle and 
 honoured the vanishing figure with a pretty 
 long stare through his eyeglass, — he invariably 
 wore and used one, not, indeed, as an aid to 
 defective vision, but because he considered a 
 glass a tasteful adjunct to a gentleman's per- 
 sonal appearance, — remarking laconically, on 
 the completion of his survey, "Good-looking 
 chap, eh ? "
 
 4 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 " What ! Travers ? The man who nodded to 
 me just now ? H'm ! I hardly know. Swarthy 
 as a Spaniard — and rather reedy, don't you 
 think ? " responded Mr. Crosse, who boasted a 
 small yellow moustache and light blue eyes, 
 while his figure inclined to rotundity. 
 
 " Well, he might be a bit broader in the chest 
 with advantage, certainly. Probably he'll fill out, 
 though. He looks as if he had onlyjust donegrow- 
 ing. Who is he ? Where does he come from ? " 
 
 "Oh, he's nobody in particular. A parson's 
 son, I believe. Father has a living in Hillshire 
 or Loamshire, I really forget which. This youth 
 was for a few months in my brother's regiment, 
 the 50th Lancers. That's how I come to know 
 something of him." 
 
 " I shouldn't have taken him for a soldier." 
 
 " Well, he isn't one — now. His military career 
 was singularly brief He ran up debts at such 
 a rate that he had to resign his commission at 
 the end of two or three years. Of course, with 
 his private means, or want of them, it was utter 
 folly his attempting to live the life of any 
 cavalry regiment, much less of a regiment like 
 the 50th." 
 
 " What is he doing now ? " 
 
 " For the moment, nothing, I believe. But I 
 heard something the other day from Tom about 
 his being on the point of leaving England — for 
 one of the colonies, I presume — the usual refuge 
 of the destitute."
 
 A PROLOGUE 5 
 
 " Poor beggar ! " commented Lord Osborne 
 good-naturedly; "I'm sorry for him. Doesn't 
 strike one that he'd enjoy roughing it. Now 
 the man who was riding with him looks much 
 better fitted for that kind of existence. Do you 
 know who he is ? I've begun to see him about 
 lately." 
 
 " You'd be likely to. He came into a biggish 
 property somewhere in Yorkshire a little while 
 ago, and people are beginning to take him up. 
 His name's Lyon. I believe he's a good sort 
 of fellow in his way, but a trifle heavy. No 
 enterprise in him, I'm told ; doesn't know how 
 to spend his money now he's got it." 
 
 " Lyon ? Never heard of any Lyons in 
 Yorkshire," Lord Osborne remarked doubtfully. 
 
 " I daresay not. This man's inheritance 
 came to him from some very distant relatives 
 on the mother's side — I forget their name for 
 the moment. I hear Lyon himself was abjectly 
 poor to begin with. People tell a story of his 
 having gone out to Australia as a lad, a mere 
 penniless emigrant ; and certainly he was re- 
 called from Queensland to take up his estates. 
 He looks rather like that kind of thing, you 
 know." 
 
 " He does. In contrast to his young friend, 
 who looks eminently ?^//like that kind of thing," 
 Lord Osborne responded. " But the two are 
 pretty strongly contrasted altogether, I should 
 say. There's clearly stuff in the one which one
 
 6 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 would be a fool to dream of finding in the 
 other." 
 
 "You take a man's measure hastily," Crosse 
 observed, with a smile that faintly suggested a 
 sneer behind it. " Instantaneous photography 
 this, with a vengeance ! " 
 
 " Random sketching, rather, I'm afraid," 
 Osborne returned, with an embarrassed laugh. 
 Making no pretension to cleverness himself, he 
 was always easily embarrassed by Crosse, whose 
 pretensions on that point were lofty — and pretty 
 generally acknowledged sound. " Nevertheless, 
 do you know, I can't help putting faith in those 
 first hasty impressions. I've seen so much 
 reason to believe in them, at one time and 
 another." 
 
 Whether all Lord Osborne's impressions in 
 the present case were correct or no, he was 
 undoubtedly right in one of them ; the two 
 men he had been discussing — and who, all 
 unconscious of the discussion to which their 
 momentary appearance had given rise, were 
 now riding leisurely in the direction of Hyde 
 Park Corner — certainly presented the most 
 marked possible contrast to one another, as 
 far as their outward seeming was concerned. 
 Travers, the younger of the two by six or seven 
 years, was brilliantly — almost aggressively — 
 handsome. With his tall, slender figure (a 
 little over-slender, maybe, for its height, but 
 otherwise admirably proportioned), his finely-
 
 A PROLOGUE 7 
 
 modelled head well set on, his clear-cut features 
 and rich olive complexion (that complexion 
 which Lord Osborne's captious friend had 
 libellously dubbed swarthy), the young man 
 was a personage whom, even in the midst of 
 a crowd, it would have been impossible to 
 overlook. His good looks took the most care- 
 less eye by storm at once, asserting themselves 
 in what some people — Crosse to wit — felt to 
 be too startling, too knock-me-down a fashion. 
 Yet, as there was nothing singular in Mr. 
 Travers' appearance, so there was no hint of 
 insolence or swagger in his bearing ; and no 
 more of self-consciousness than seemed natural, 
 and even graceful, in a young fellow of five- 
 and-twenty, fairly well born and bred, and so 
 exceedingly pleasing to the view. Indeed, 
 goodly specimen of manhood though Travers 
 was, it is doubtful whether in the case of most 
 persons an idea of beauty would have been the 
 principal idea produced by a first sight of him ; 
 whether such new acquaintances would not 
 rather — and chiefly — have carried away an im- 
 pression of young vigour, of sanguine spirits, 
 of eagerness and freshness, almost boyish in 
 their rare and delightful intensity. This 
 charming suggestion of youthfulness, these 
 hints of exuberant vitality, made Travers, at 
 the age of five-and-twenty, seem considerably 
 younger than he was, even to the point of 
 causing Lord Osborne to set him down as a
 
 8 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 lad whose growing days were barely over. His 
 laugh was still the laugh of a schoolboy. He 
 was at his handsomest when he laughed, tossing 
 back the dark head that would have been 
 curly but for remorseless cropping, and show- 
 ing a gleam of white teeth under his heavy 
 dragoon's moustache (the only memorial left 
 him of his short military service), and the 
 lights and shadows chased each other across 
 his face as constantly and swiftly as one may 
 see them fly over the face of a seven-year-old 
 child. 
 
 His companion might have been chosen to 
 play the part of foil to this piece of glowing 
 youth. Mr. Lyon was really little more than 
 thirty ; but he looked as much older as Travers 
 looked younger than his actual age. He was, 
 indeed, a singularly ?/?^youthful-looking young 
 man ; there was already much of the heaviness, 
 the rigidity, the unresponsive calm one is apt 
 to associate with middle life about him. His 
 figure, while excellently built from an athletic 
 point of view, and giving an impression of 
 immense muscular strength, was too massive 
 for grace; and his unusually deep chest and 
 broad shoulders detracted from a height which 
 in a slighter man would have been accounted 
 stately, making it, in his case, scarcely even 
 satisfying to the eye. His face was massive 
 like his figure, square-browed and square-jawed, 
 with strongly-marked features emphasised by
 
 A PROLOGUE 9 
 
 scrupulously close shaving ; the lips somewhat 
 thin, with a faint tendency to curl in the upper 
 one (a tendency which must have been the 
 result of an indulged habit rather than of 
 natural formation, since it was an upper lip 
 having no pretensions to classical shortness) ; 
 the complexion olive, but ^ pale olive — a variety 
 of the hue possessing none of the dusky warmth 
 of Travers' skin. It was a face full of sense 
 and power, and therefore not wholly without 
 attractive qualities, but a plain face neverthe- 
 less, and one that might have been accounted 
 unpleasantly hard, but for the lucky circum- 
 stance that Mr. Lyon's maternal grandmother, 
 having been the happy possessor of the most 
 beautiful dark eyelashes in England (some 
 affirm in Europe), had had the kindness to 
 bequeath them, scarce shortened by the thou- 
 sandth part of an inch, to her grandson. Lying 
 on weather-beaten masculine cheeks, those long 
 curling lashes looked, indeed, almost ludicrously 
 out of place ; still, their good effect in softening 
 the general expression of a countenance other- 
 wise somewhat grim, was undeniable ; while in 
 the eyes of certain persons, interested in sound- 
 ing the depths of Mr. Lyon's character, they 
 possessed, besides, a distinct symbolic value. 
 One or two benevolent physiognomists, who 
 should have known better, had argued from 
 them to unknown soft spots in Lyon's dis- 
 position ; and women forgave him his most
 
 lo A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 cynical speeches when, as not infrequently- 
 happened, he chanced to deliver himself of 
 them with downcast eyes. He had a bad 
 habit of keeping his eyelids lowered when 
 talking ; not, certainly, with any view to the 
 advantageous display of his grandmother's 
 legacy, but simply, as it seemed, because more 
 often than not he felt no great interest in his 
 interlocutor. Neither, when he was not talking, 
 did his surroundings (whatever they might be) 
 appear to engage his attention much. His 
 ordinary air was that of a man half-preoccupied, 
 faintly bored, slightly but unmistakably tired — 
 an air that sat rather singularly on so young a 
 man, who appeared, moreover, to be in such 
 super-excellent physical condition. 
 
 Thus, he scarcely glanced once to right or 
 left of him as he rode by Travers' side through 
 the crowded park ; and suffered his companion, 
 a fluent and eager talker, to monopolise the 
 conversation entirely, barely encouraging him, 
 now and then, by a slight nod or murmured 
 monosyllable, to proceed in his verbal outpour- 
 ing. Perhaps he did not attend very closely to 
 the matter of this outpouring ; for it was with 
 a touch of compunction that, at Hyde Park 
 Corner, he responded to Travers' rather hesitat- 
 ing — "Good morning, then. Shall I see you 
 again before I sail, I wonder ? " — with an abrupt 
 but friendly — 
 
 " Oh, we haven't had half a chat as yet !
 
 A PROLOGUE II 
 
 Come on and lunch with me, if you've nothing 
 better to do." 
 
 " I've nothing at all to do — certainly nothing 
 better." 
 
 " All right, then. This way ; I've pitched my 
 tent in Half-Moon Street. Things alter quickly 
 in a new country like Queensland," continued 
 Mr. Lyon, as the two men turned their horses' 
 heads Piccadilly-wards. " Still, in a couple of 
 years the change can hardly be great ; and I 
 may be able to put you up to a thing or two. 
 Then there are some people in Brisbane I think 
 you'd find it useful to know ; I could give you 
 some letters to them." 
 
 " Thanks awfully. It's uncommonly good of 
 you to trouble yourself." 
 
 " No trouble at all, my dear fellow. I've 
 grown shamefully lazy of late, but I can still 
 rise to the stupendous exertion of scrawling 
 half a dozen lines on occasion." Lyon smiled 
 as he spoke, showing just such a set of teeth — 
 strong, square, and hardily white — as befitted a 
 man of his physique. 
 
 " I sha'n't have much to do with Brisbane, I'm 
 afraid," the younger man went on reflectively. 
 
 " And acquaintances several hundred miles 
 away seem scarcely worth having, eh ? But in 
 Queensland they don't think much of a few 
 hundred miles. And when once you've put 
 the breadth of the globe between yourself and 
 every friend you ever had, I can assure you
 
 12 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 you'll find the value of a mere acquaintance 
 rising enormously in your estimation ; even 
 though he should be a dull fellow living a week's 
 journey distant. You'd better take the letters." 
 
 " I will, thanks. I suppose the loneliness of 
 one's life out there is about the worst part of 
 the business ? " Travers added tentatively after 
 a moment ; tentatively and almost timidly. It 
 was easy to see that he felt himself bound to be 
 on his best behaviour with Lyon. The truth 
 was, he could never quite forget that he had 
 been Lyon's fag at Eton ; and, in addressing his 
 former master, fell every now and then into the 
 old mental attitude of the " lower boy " in the 
 august presence of a " fellow in the sixth." 
 "Did you find it — trying yourself?" 
 
 " Trying ? " repeated Lyon. " Well, since you 
 ask me, I should say it was about the nicest 
 slow torture invented of the devil for the benefit 
 of civilised man. As an incentive to speedy 
 going to the dogs, and staying there, I don't 
 know its equal. I speak from experience. I had 
 five years of the thing — in its undiluted form." 
 
 Lyon uttered these strong words in a perfectly 
 level, passionless tone. His voice, a deep and 
 fairly agreeable baritone, had one grave defect — 
 that of monotony. It knew no change of key, 
 and appeared incapable of anything like cadence. 
 If it had ever possessed any tendency to vary 
 under pressure of emotion, the tendency had 
 been carefully — and successfully — suppressed.
 
 A PROLOGUE 
 
 13 
 
 " No need to argue from my experience to 
 yours, though," he continued, in response to 
 Travers' muttered comment of " Cheerful look- 
 out for me ! " " The two cases are not on all- 
 fours. You go out under totally different 
 circumstances, with a fixed object in view, work 
 ready and waiting for you, and you don't start 
 alone." 
 
 "No, thank Heaven! My father himself" — 
 Travers spoke in a slightly injured tone, as of 
 a man conceiving himself to have a legitimate 
 grievance against his parent — " my father him- 
 self would hardly think it necessary to condemn 
 me to absolutely solitary banishment, I suppose. 
 That's rather too heavy a sentence, even for an 
 eminently disappointing son. Besides, there 
 could be but one result in such a case. One 
 would have to take to drinking in self-defence. 
 That's what most lonely exiles do, I fancy." 
 
 " A pretty large proportion of them." 
 
 " And you ? How did you " — 
 
 " Escape ? I'm sure I don't know. Not 
 through any heroic efforts at self-restraint 
 certainly, for I tried my best to console myself 
 in the usual way for a time. But somehow, the 
 prescription didn't work in my case. It wasn't 
 only that I had^ a headache the next morning ; 
 I couldn't even manage to enjoy myself over- 
 night. Perhaps I didn't take enough to begin 
 with. How many do you go out together ? " 
 
 " Three. Two besides myself"
 
 14 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 " All of you concerned in the making of the 
 Waiapu Railway ? " 
 
 " Yes. I go as surveyor ; a man called 
 Holcroft as engineer ; and the third fellow (his 
 name's Milman) as superintendent. It's to be 
 hoped he'll turn out decent Holcroft I know 
 already ; he's a very good sort." 
 
 " You ought to do, then." 
 
 "Oh, I daresay I shall do — well enough. I 
 suppose I ought to be thankful, as my father 
 says, that I learnt some surveying in the old 
 Woolwich days ; and overjoyed that this ' advan- 
 tageous opening in a young and rising colony ' 
 should have offered itself at this particular 
 juncture." Travers spoke with considerable 
 bitterness. 
 
 "I'm afraid you're not as grateful to Provi- 
 dence — or your good luck — as you ought to be." 
 
 " Perhaps not. Why on earth did my father 
 encourage me to go into the army, if he hadn't 
 means to keep me there? And, failing the 
 army, why must I be sentenced without alterna- 
 tive to ' the colonies ' ? (Delightful expression 
 that ! such a convenient cloak for the brutal 
 fact that you've sent your son across seas to 
 pickup his living as a day-labourer!) There 
 are other ways of earning one's bread." 
 
 "You've tried some of them, haven't you ? " 
 
 Travers turned sharply in his saddle, glancing 
 suspiciously at his companion. But there 
 lingered not the ghost of a smile on Lyon's lips.
 
 A PROLOGUE 15 
 
 He was looking straight between his horse's 
 ears, his face as grave as the tone in which he 
 had just put his question. 
 
 " Oh, you mean that unlucky three months 
 in my uncle's office ? " the younger man said 
 sulkily, after a moment. " He is the most 
 impossible old curmudgeon. No man who 
 respected himself could work under him." 
 
 " I daresay. As it happens, I hadn't heard 
 of your essay in that direction. No ; I was 
 thinking of the private secretaryship to Lord 
 Hatherop, and that foreign correspondence 
 work you undertook for Messrs. What's-their- 
 names, the publishers in Southampton Street." 
 
 " Who led one the life of a slave, and treated 
 one no better than a beggarly copying-clerk to 
 boot! No, that was out of the question — Lll 
 be hanged if any gentleman could have put up 
 with such an existence a twelvemonth ! " 
 
 "Well, in Queensland at least you'll have 
 independence, and fresh air. To say nothing 
 of very fair sport, when you've time for that 
 sort of thing." 
 
 " True. But one values sport less, when it 
 has to be purchased at the price of exile." 
 
 "You speak as a sentimental German speaketh, 
 my dear boy. Whence this sudden blazing up 
 of the patriotic flame ? " 
 
 " Well, a man may be allowed to feel some 
 regret on leaving his native country — for three 
 years at least," retorted the ex-lancer. " After
 
 i6 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 all's said, expatriation isn't a pleasant thing. 
 One leaves one's home and friends behind 
 one. 
 
 " With a view to doing better elsewhere. 
 Travers, you must drop the patriot. It isn't in 
 your line, believe me. You're far too modern 
 and cosmopolitan." 
 
 " Oh, it's all very well to make a joke of the 
 thing," returned the other, with a flash of boyish 
 indignation. " Possibly it may not have cost 
 you anything to banish yourself from England 
 for a term of years." (Lyon's bridle-hand 
 closed a little more sharply on the reins it held, 
 but he made no rejoinder.) '' It costs me — or 
 will cost me, in all probability — everything I 
 care for in the world." 
 
 There was absolute sincerity in the young 
 man's tone; evidently he spoke out of a full heart. 
 A faint shade of surprise crossed Lyon's features. 
 
 " I'm sorry I mistook you," he said, curtly 
 apologetic. " Of course, when a man has special 
 reasons for wishing to stay at home " — 
 
 " And I have them, if ever man had," Travers 
 interposed. " Do we stop here ? " seeing that 
 Lyon drew rein at a Gothic portico on the left 
 hand side of the street into which they had 
 turned a moment before. " I'll tell you all 
 about it presently — if you have time, and would 
 care to hear," he added • hurriedly, as he dis- 
 mounted, and the door was thrown open by 
 Lyon's servant.
 
 A PROLOGUE 17 
 
 "Of course I care," returned Lyon, dismount- 
 ing in his turn. "We'll talk the matter out 
 after luncheon, if you will. I've the whole after- 
 noon free. Turn to your right ; I'm on the 
 ground floor. I found stairs a nuisance, after 
 a long course of log-huts," he added in explana- 
 tion, as he followed his guest into the first of the 
 set of chambers. 
 
 Travers, not too deeply immersed in his own 
 affairs to take stock of his friend's quarters, was 
 conscious of a shock of disappointment as he 
 surveyed these apartments. He had looked for 
 something at once more imposing and more 
 luxurious ; above all, for something more clearly 
 stamped with the impress of the tenant's in- 
 dividuality. The rooms he saw were large, 
 lofty, suitably and sufficiently furnished ; they 
 contained everything necessary for comfort, 
 but they were perfectly commonplace rooms ; 
 nothing magnificent, nothing exquisite was to 
 be found in them, and they certainly conveyed 
 not a single hint of artistic feeling or independent 
 taste on the part of their owner and occupant. 
 
 In the luncheon served in Lyon's uninteresting 
 dining-room, Travers suffered a second dis- 
 appointment. Here, too, he found nothing 
 recherche. The meal was one calling for no 
 remark whatever ; and the same might be said 
 of the wine served with it. Travers, lighting 
 one of his friend's cigars when it was ended 
 (and remarking incidentally that the brand was
 
 i8 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 inferior to that he usually smoked himself), 
 came to the conclusion that old Lyon was not 
 getting very much out of his ten thousand a 
 year. 
 
 He pursued these reflections for a minute or 
 two in silence after the cigar was well alight, 
 and he had seated himself in a big arm-chair 
 near the open window to enjoy it. Lyon, with 
 an unfilled meerschaum in one hand, and a 
 tobacco-pouch in the other, leaned against the 
 window-shutter, and surveyed his companion 
 attentively through the wreaths of smoke that 
 curled about his handsome head. 
 
 "Well," he observed at length, abandoning 
 his contemplative attitude, and beginning to fill 
 the bowl of his pipe with great care and deliber- 
 ation, *'how about the story you were to tell 
 me — the true cause of your reluctance to go 
 over-seas ? " 
 
 Travers started slightly. He had been 
 engaged, when Lyon spoke, in a curious specula- 
 tion concerning that gentleman's disposal of his 
 annual income ; so the question took him by 
 surprise. " It's not much of a story," he said 
 apologetically, recovering himself. "Simply this 
 — that I've got a chance within my reach — the 
 best chance I shall ever have in life. And if I 
 go to Australia next week, I — I chuck it up for 
 good and all. Do you see ? " 
 
 " Not very clearly. What's the nature of the 
 chance ? "
 
 A PROLOGUE 19 
 
 " I daresay you'll call it unsubstantial. There's 
 a girl " — Travers stopped suddenly short. 
 
 " Oh ! " rejoined Lyon, somewhat drily. 
 " There's a girl, is there ? Well ? " 
 
 Travers' dark face flushed. " I don't under- 
 stand what you mean by taking that tone," he 
 remarked hotly. 
 
 " Well, you know," replied the other, without 
 looking up from his occupation, " there generally 
 is a girl, isn't there ? " 
 
 " Of course " — impatiently — "I know I've 
 been a fool in my time. But all those affairs 
 meant nothing. You never imagined they 
 meant anything, did you ? " 
 
 " No ; to be honest, I can't say I ever did. 
 History repeated itself so often in your case, 
 you see." 
 
 " Yes, yes ; I acknowledge all that ! But this 
 is a different matter. Those mock businesses 
 are over for ever with me ; I've lighted on the 
 real thing now, it seems. And a terrible thing 
 it is, when you do light upon it," Travers added 
 huskily. 
 
 This time, the meerschaum being now com- 
 pletely filled, Mr. Lyon did look up, and stared 
 straight at his young friend for the space of 
 thirty seconds or so. His direct gaze was 
 surprisingly keen and penetrating. I say sur- 
 prisingly so, because such a searching glance, 
 coming from under those heavy eyelids and 
 feminine eyelashes, had something of a startling
 
 20 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 and even disconcerting effect. But Lyon's eyes 
 played your reasonable expectations false in 
 every respect. Whereas, in accordance with all 
 the laws of probability, they should have been 
 black, dark brown, or sombre grey, their actual 
 colour was a brilliant deep blue, of that rare 
 shade which nearly approaches violet, and is 
 invariably found associated with singularly vivid 
 whites. At your first discovery of their quality, 
 you felt taken aback, for they upset all your 
 preconceived notions of the man to whom they 
 belonged. The tolerably symmetrical theory 
 of his character which you had hastily con- 
 structed at first sight of him, fell incontinently 
 to pieces as soon as he looked you full in the 
 face, leaving you in presence of a new and 
 puzzling element in his composition which you 
 found yourself helpless to name or classify. At 
 the same time, your probable sense of irritation 
 was not soothed by an irresistible conviction 
 that the eyes in question were coolly reading 
 in your ingenuous countenance all the most 
 cherished secrets of your soul. 
 
 The object of Lyon's scrutiny on the present 
 occasion did not, however, suffer this last in- 
 convenience — for the simple reason that he sat 
 looking out of the window, and hence remained 
 unconscious of his friend's observation. His 
 brief study completed, Lyon inquired — 
 
 " Has this been going on long? " 
 
 " A year or two. Don't ask me how it began ;
 
 A PROLOGUE 21 
 
 I don't know myself. I don't know how or 
 when, why or wherefore. There's no particular 
 reason for it, that any other man would see — 
 none that I can see myself, for the matter of 
 that." 
 
 " Is she — excuse me if I go too far, Travers ; 
 remember, you have encouraged me to ask 
 questions — is she a woman in your own rank of 
 life — one who would be welcomed by your 
 people?" 
 
 " Good heavens, yes ! My people would be 
 only too delighted. She is rather better born 
 than we are. She has a little money, too ; not 
 much, but still something." 
 
 "Young?" 
 
 "Twenty. She's not beautiful — nor accom- 
 plished. She has lived all her life in the country, 
 and knows nothing of the world." 
 
 "And you've made up your mind that you're 
 in love with her ? " 
 
 " Made up my mind ? Lyon, you'll bear me 
 witness I never affected the melodramatic style. 
 In sober, honest truth, I'd give my life for her 
 to-morrow, if that would do her any good. I 
 tell you, I worship her! What for. Heaven 
 knows ! — unless it's her goodness. She is 
 good." 
 
 "All girls are good — or supposed to be." 
 
 "This one has goodness enough to furnish 
 forth half a dozen ordinary girls. If ever there 
 was a woman capable of making a man go
 
 22 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 straight, — and keeping him straight, — -it's — it's 
 the girl I speak of." 
 
 " If ever ! " echoed Lyon. " Confiding traveller, 
 do you then still keep your belief in female 
 stars as the wayfarer's guides to straight paths ? 
 Because, as far as my limited experience goes, 
 their work is quite of another order ; consisting 
 chiefly in acting as pointers to quicksands." 
 
 "You're a cynic." 
 
 " No ; I'm simply six or seven years your 
 senior. But I've knocked about the world a 
 bit, as you know ; and all I've seen has led me 
 to the conclusion that you can't well have a less 
 trustworthy moral guide than a woman — any 
 kind of woman. A so-called 'good' woman 
 won't commit crimes ; it's not likely that she'll 
 run away from her husband, for instance. But 
 she'll make that man's life a burden to him ; 
 she'll deceive him every day and hour of his 
 life in a hundred petty matters ; she'll stultify 
 his ambitions, ride rough-shod over his tenderest 
 feelings — and never know a moment's remorse 
 for her deeds. As to trusting any member of 
 the sisterhood ! — Take my word for it, Travers, 
 women are without a sense of honour. Truth 
 is a virtue they can't understand. They look 
 upon regard for their word as a sort of scrupulous 
 weakness." Lyon broke off suddenly in his 
 tirade to take two or three protracted pulls at 
 his pipe. " Well, of course there's no use my 
 talking to you in this strain. It's simply so
 
 A PROLOGUE 23 
 
 much wasted breath. Your opinions are already 
 fixed " — 
 
 Travers interposed. " Even if your rule were 
 sound, and in accordance with facts, — which I 
 don't admit, mind, — you would have to grant 
 the existence of possible exceptions." 
 
 " Oh, of course ! And I am quite prepared to 
 grant also that the young lady we have been 
 glancing at belongs to the ranks of those excep- 
 tions. Well, since you are so firmly convinced 
 that she would act as a kind of moral walking- 
 stick to your weaker nature, I suppose you 
 intend taking steps to obtain her valuable 
 support ? " 
 
 Lyon's bantering tone had no unkindness in 
 it. 
 
 " I have tried already — that's the trouble. 
 Tried without success." 
 
 " What's the difficulty ? Means ? or want of 
 means? Prudent parents intervening?" 
 
 " No. She doesn't care for me." 
 
 "That is a difficulty." 
 
 "When I say 'doesn't care/" the rejected 
 suitor hastened to add, " I mean, enotigh. At 
 least, that's how she put it herself in — in " — 
 
 " In refusing you." Lyon completed the 
 sentence with unsparing brutality. Then he 
 fell into thought for a moment. " I think I see. 
 She is * not indifferent to you,' as they say — 
 or used to say — in novels. At the same time, 
 she doesn't like you well enough to marry
 
 24 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 you — at present It's something like that, 
 isn't it ? " 
 
 " You put the situation in a nutshell. What 
 do you think of it?" 
 
 " I think," replied Lyon, with deliberation — 
 "at least, I am strongly inclined to believe — 
 that she wants you to ask her again." 
 
 ''No, she doesn't. There isn't a grain of 
 coquetry in her." 
 
 " You know her best, no doubt." Had Lyon 
 been a Frenchman, he would have shrugged his 
 shoulders here. Being Anglo-Saxon, he denied 
 himself the gesture ; he merely looked it. 
 
 Travers was too excited to heed either his 
 friend's looks or his words. "Nevertheless, if 
 only I could stay in England, — stay near her, 
 and see her constantly," he resumed, leaving his 
 chair, and crossing the room to the mantelpiece, 
 where he suddenly faced round again, — " I believe 
 I could get her to care enough in the end. Now 
 you see why I don't hail the prospect of sailing 
 for Queensland next week." 
 
 Lyon nodded. 
 
 " Three years out there ! why, it simply cuts 
 every ground of chance from under my feet." 
 
 " Three years pass. You say she is very 
 young. When you come back " — 
 
 " To find her married, six months before, to 
 some beggarly parson in a neighbouring village," 
 Travers interrupted, with bitterness. " Don't try 
 to quiet me with soothing syrups of that kind,
 
 A PROLOGUE 25 
 
 Lyon — I can't swallow them. No, this is the 
 end, no doubt — the end ! " 
 
 Lyon did not attempt to controvert his friend's 
 gloomy prognostications. He thought it only 
 too likely that they would find fulfilment. 
 
 " The end of everything — for me," the young 
 man went on, with savage insistance. " She 
 might have made something of me, if she had 
 chosen. As she doesn't choose — Doubtless 
 I'm a bad lot — not worse than others, per- 
 haps " — 
 
 "Which is not saying much — seeing we're 
 most of us pretty bad lots, if you come to that," 
 the elder man put in quietly. 
 
 " But for her sake I believe I could have been 
 different. In that case, there would have been 
 something to work for — something to go on 
 living for. Now, what is there — I put it to you, 
 Lyon, frankly — zvJiat is there to make life worth 
 living for a poor wretch like me ? My career at 
 an end — hustled out of the country like a 
 criminal — left to choose between downright 
 beggary and keeping myself barely alive by a 
 drudgery I detest — truly, the prospect 's a lively 
 one ! " 
 
 '' It's not quite so black as you have just 
 painted it, at any rate. You're disappointed, 
 man, and out of sorts ; consequently, you view 
 things for the moment in an exaggerated light. 
 If your position were really so desperate as you 
 make it out, I take it you would hardly have
 
 26 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 had the effrontery to ask a young lady to share 
 it. Besides" — 
 
 Travers was not listening. He had been 
 pursuing a fresh train of thought while Lyon 
 spoke, and now cut his friend's scarcely-com- 
 menced sentence ruthlessly short. 
 
 " I wouldn't even insist on a formal engage- 
 ment. Something to look forward to — some- 
 thing to live for — that's what I want. That's 
 what I must have, if I'm ever to be worth 
 anything from her point of view. She thinks 
 pure love of virtue should be incentive enough. 
 That's where we differ." 
 
 " Naturally." 
 
 " A man who's asked to sacrifice everything, 
 ought to have some sort of hope given him in 
 return. If she would give me any — the smallest 
 shred "— 
 
 " Have you tried putting things to her in that 
 way ? " 
 
 " No, I haven't. The truth is, her — her 
 attitude took me rather by surprise " — 
 
 Lyon turned aside, and made a feint of knock- 
 ing non-existent ashes out of his pipe. It was 
 almost impossible not to smile at the young 
 fellow's naive self-betrayal. 
 
 " Well " — he took up his parable again, turning 
 back as soon as he had succeeded in reducing 
 the corners of his mouth to something like order 
 — "why not try that plan now? Women — 
 especially very young women — like to be
 
 A PROLOGUE 27 
 
 approached humbly, you know. It flatters their 
 vanity to have a man metaphorically, if not 
 literally, on his knees before them — Well, 
 well, she may not be vain ; say she's tender- 
 hearted. No tender-hearted girl of twenty 
 would be likely to deny a man — for whom she 
 had some sort of liking already — mere per- 
 mission to hope that in the future she would 
 like him better still. And if that sort of thing 
 will content you " — 
 
 " Of course it won't content me. But it would 
 be better than nothing at all. It would save 
 me from going straight to the dogs at once. It 
 would be something to hold her by." This last 
 sentence Travers half muttered to himself. But 
 Lyon caught the murmur. 
 
 ''Will it?" was his mental aside in rejoinder. 
 "If the lady — grown weary of the idea, and 
 perhaps with a more promising suitor on the 
 spot — consents to be held by such a slender 
 chain as that, she must be a poor - spirited 
 damsel indeed. One consolation is, 'tis a 
 mere toss-up which of them snaps the chain 
 first." 
 
 " I've bored you long enough with my un- 
 interesting private affairs." Travers' voice put 
 an end to his friend's cynical reflections. 
 "Thanks for your patience in giving ear to 
 them. I must be off now — I've heaps of things 
 to do. Good-bye — if I don't see you again." 
 
 "But why should there be any 'if in the
 
 28 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 matter? I'm not leaving town at all this week. 
 And you?" 
 
 " Oh, I — I shall have to go down again into 
 the country almost immediately. To-night or 
 to-morrow, very likely." 
 
 " To see your people — and take leave, eh ? " 
 
 "Well — yes. They expect me, naturally." 
 
 " Most naturally. Go, and my blessing go 
 with you, dutiful son. I trust the performance 
 of your filial duties will bring a fitting reward." 
 
 "Meaning — ?" with an embarrassed laugh. 
 
 " That I wish you luck in all your under- 
 takings." 
 
 "Thanks," Travers returned briefly. Then, 
 half-way to the door — " Lyon, if — if anything 
 comes of this, I shall never forget — I don't 
 know how to put it " — 
 
 " Don't put it at all," Lyon interposed quickly. 
 " Did you send your horse home ? do you want 
 a hansom ? Better have one called. Wilson, a 
 hansom for Mr. Travers. Where shall I send 
 those letters, by the way ? To your club ? " 
 
 Travers safely off the premises — " What in 
 Heaven's name had I done," demanded Lyon of 
 himself, ruefully contemplating his right hand, 
 which his lately - vanished guest had nearly 
 wrung off in fervent acknowledgment at parting, 
 " that the poor fellow should feel impelled to 
 crush my unfortunate fingers to a jelly ? Given 
 him a piece of very doubtful advice indeed — 
 induced him to believe that, by dint of making
 
 A PROLOGUE 29 
 
 a greater fool of himself than he has done 
 already, he may yet persuade a flirtatious young 
 woman (clearly too prudent to engage herself 
 honestly to a pauper) to make him some kind 
 of shadowy promise she certainly won't keep. 
 Well, the innocent delusion that she is pledged 
 to him may keep him quiet for a few months — 
 till he has got over his soreness about leaving 
 the army, and begins to take some interest in 
 railway construction — by that time it will have 
 served its turn. It was all very boyish — that 
 talk about going to the devil if she wouldn't 
 have him. Impossible to deal with such a 
 juvenile being as if he were a grown man. 
 Before she is ready to throw him over, most 
 likely he will long have ceased to crave for her 
 — either in a moral walking-stick capacity, or 
 any other. Possibly he may not even leave the 
 throwing - over process entirely to her. His 
 affections are not of the constant kind, poor 
 boy ! — though he certainly seems harder hit 
 than usual this time." 
 
 Mr. Lyon turned to look for his pipe ; found 
 and relighted it ; then, subsiding_ into the big 
 arm-chair lately occupied by Travers, resumed 
 his somewhat disjointed consideration of the 
 case under review. 
 
 " Suppose Travers does take the initiative ? " 
 he reflected, leaning back comfortably with his 
 eyes half-closed. "Rather mortifying for the 
 unknown fair in that case. I'm afraid I hardly
 
 30 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 considered her dignity — or her interests — 
 sufficiently, in counselling Travers to this new 
 appeal. However " — easily — " I don't suppose 
 I need reproach myself very severely on that 
 score. Probably the maiden is quite capable of 
 taking care of herself"
 
 PART I 
 
 ' ' One choice 
 We have^ to live and do just deeds and die. 
 
 31
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 OVER HILL, OVER DALE 
 
 '• The whole earth 
 The beauty wore of promise ; that which sets 
 The budding rose above the rose full'blown. ' 
 
 A JUNE evening — such an evening as Keats 
 might have sung of delightedly ; sun- 
 warmed, zephyr-fanned, balmy and spicily sweet 
 with the scent of new-mown hay. Overhead, in 
 the country lanes, the trees were still dressed in 
 fresh green garments (for the budding-time had 
 been a late one, and the vivid colouring of 
 spring was not yet grown pale and languorous 
 in the heats and dust of summer) ; by the way- 
 sides, the hedges were prolix of bloom, showing, 
 almost unbroken for miles, one continuous 
 tangle of dog - roses, elder - flower, and wild 
 cherry-blossom. The very ditches were brilliant; 
 and the small brown-faced urchins who, evading 
 the stern prohibitory eye of the "collector," had 
 stolen on to the narrow platform of the bare 
 little station at Donnington to enjoy the ever- 
 3
 
 34 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 novel excitement of " seeing the train come in," 
 had their battered straw hats and chubby hands 
 full of freshly-gathered ragged-robin and wild 
 phlox. Anthony Lyon, stepping from one of 
 the short string of railway carriages which, four 
 times a day, travels soberly to and fro over the 
 single line of rail connecting the great junction 
 of Heydon and the small hill-village of Don- 
 nington, and finding his eyes and nostrils at 
 once assailed by agreeable rustic sights and 
 scents, congratulated himself warmly on the 
 prospect of a full idle fortnight, to be spent in 
 the heart of a district seemingly so pleasant. 
 
 In a moment or two he discovered that this 
 desirable neighbourhood — like most neighbour- 
 hoods in an imperfectly-constituted world — had 
 its disadvantages. It had, indeed, one disadvan- 
 tage going far to nullify all its charm : means of 
 locomotion from one part of it to the other were 
 not to be procured for love or money. Seeing 
 that Lyon's host had his dwelling-place fully 
 five or six miles from Donnington, this lack of 
 conveyances placed that newly-alighted traveller 
 in a decidedly awkward predicament. Not that 
 a walk of half a dozen miles had any terrors, in 
 itself, for the muscular ex-emigrant ; unencum- 
 bered, he would have tramped twice the distance 
 cheerfully. " But I can't carry all my personal 
 property on my back," he reflected, ruefully 
 considering his two portmanteaux, hat - box, 
 rod-case, and other impedimenta, which, piled
 
 OVER HILL, OVER DALE 35 
 
 into a formidable heap in the middle of the 
 platform, confronted him inexorably. 
 
 He took counsel with the stationmaster, who 
 had little solid comfort to offer him. Yes, 
 Heyford was quite five miles off; not a very 
 good road either — two bad hills. Any trap to be 
 hired on the way between this and that ? The 
 official thought not. One or two of the small 
 farmers about had traps ; but then they had no 
 licence to let them, and would be afraid to hire 
 them out, lest they should be pulled up by the 
 police. That some charitably- disposed indi- 
 vidual might be induced to stretch charity so 
 far as to lend a trap without payment, was 
 evidently a possibility too remote to be taken 
 into account. The gentry mostly sent their 
 carriages to meet their friends at the train, 
 the man in uniform wound up. Clearly he 
 thought Lyon was being cavalierly treated. 
 
 " Is it the Rectory you're for or Mr. 
 Creighton's ? " he inquired. 
 
 ''Mr. Creighton's." 
 
 " Strange he shouldn't have sent, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Very strange, since _things are as you say. 
 This seems a strange place altogether," muttered 
 Lyon, w^ho, in spite of the engaging fact that a 
 nightingale was just beginning to warble faintly 
 in the dark clump of copse at the end of the 
 stationmaster's garden, was on the verge of 
 losing his never very placid temper. " Heaven 
 knows what's to be done with all that luggage ! "
 
 36 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 He spoke in an aggrieved tone, as though the 
 luggage had belonged to somebody else. " But, 
 any way, it's clear I can't stay here all night. 
 I must get out of this somehow. How does one 
 go to Heyford ? " 
 
 " Well, through the village, first of all. Then 
 turn to your right, and down the hill. If you'll 
 step outside, I'll show you." The stationmaster 
 led the way through the empty booking-office 
 and out on to the sandy plateau at the edge of 
 which his station was built. " That's Heyford, 
 down yonder in the vale." he said, pointing a 
 tanned forefinger in the direction of the declining 
 sun. " See the church tower ? " 
 
 Lyon, shading his eyes with his hand, turned 
 them towards the spot indicated. But his gaze 
 missed the building which was its primary object, 
 and ranged onward to the horizon. 
 
 " What an outlook you've got up here ! " he 
 ejaculated admiringly. 
 
 "Yes, you can see a long way on a fine 
 evening like this one. I forget how many 
 miles exactly, but 'tis a smart few, I know." 
 
 " I should think it zvas a smart few," Lyon 
 responded. 
 
 He was standing, so he found, on the edge of 
 the Loamshire Downs. Below him, the great 
 cultivated plain lying between the university 
 city of Milford and the cathedral city of Oldbury 
 lay unfolded like a map, reaching on his right 
 and left to the very confines of the horizon,
 
 OVER HILL, OVER DALE 37 
 
 while immediately opposite him it was closely 
 bounded by the stony range of the Blithewold 
 Hills. It was a summer land of plenty he 
 looked down upon : a land of pastures dotted 
 over with thousands of sheep and cattle ; of 
 meadows rich either with mown grass, or clover 
 and sainfoin only waiting the scythe ; of cornfields 
 cheerful with green promise of later gold; of 
 frequent villages and homesteads innumerable. 
 The sight was so pleasant to the eye, as well as 
 to every natural, unspoilt human instinct, that 
 the spectator, in contemplating it, forgot for a 
 moment his personal preoccupation of a minute 
 earlier. The stationmaster's voice, with its 
 strong Loamshire accent, speedily recalled him, 
 however, to previous considerations. 
 
 " Made it out, sir ? " 
 
 " What, Heyford ? No — yes — ah ! I suppose 
 that's it, the square tower on the left ? " Lyon 
 measured the distance of that tower from the 
 spot where he stood, with a critical eye. " More 
 like seven miles off than five, I should say," he 
 remarked. 
 
 ''Well, they call it five, mostly," dubiously 
 returned the stationmaster, who was looking 
 down the road towards the village. " Why, I 
 believe " — with a sudden access of animation — 
 "yes, that's certainly Mr. Creighton's pony-cart 
 coming along! And Miss Temple in it, if I'm 
 not mistaken. They've sent to meet you after 
 all, sir, you see," turning to his companion. " I
 
 38 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 might have made sure they would, I suppose — 
 only Mr. Creighton is rather a curious gentleman 
 in some of his ways. Yes, it is Miss Temple 
 driving. And without a man, too." 
 
 Lyon had not time to inquire who Miss 
 Temple might be, before the light two-wheeled 
 vehicle she drove — in build a cross between a 
 gig and a dog-cart — actually dashed up to the 
 door of the booking-office and stopped there. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Lyon," cried the occupant of the 
 driving-seat, in a clear, girlish voice, " I am so 
 sorry ! It is Mr. Lyon, isn't it ? " interrupting 
 herself suddenly. 
 
 Lyon lifted his hat with an assenting smile. 
 
 "I thought it must be," responded Miss 
 Temple, preparing to dismount from her perch. 
 " Oh, thank you, Jakes ! " — to the stalwart black- 
 bearded porter, who came forward to the pony's 
 head with a quite unrustic show of alacrity. " I 
 am so sorry to have kept you waiting," she 
 resumed to Lyon, springing deftly to the ground 
 before he could advance to her assistance, and 
 knotting up the reins in swift dexterous fashion. 
 "I knew I was late, and I made Charlie fly 
 along the level. But I dared not urge him very 
 fast up Donnington Hill. You will see on the 
 way back that it's a hill which umst be taken 
 quietly." 
 
 " The stationmaster was just telling me there 
 were some formidable hills between this and 
 Heyford," returned Lyon. " I am sorry you
 
 OVER HILL, OVER DALE 39 
 
 should have hurried either yourself or your 
 animal on my account." 
 
 " Oh, we were bound to hurry ! " the girl 
 answered. (She was quite a girl ; certainly not 
 more than one or two-and-twenty.) " I was 
 afraid you would think my uncle had forgotten 
 all about your arrival — you know, I daresay, 
 that he has a very bad memory. As it happens, 
 he took it for granted that I had ordered the 
 cart to meet you — when he had never even so 
 much as told me he expected any one by this 
 train ! Consequently, of course, no orders were 
 given ; and Wilson, the man, went out hay- 
 making, and wasn't to be found anywhere, when 
 I discovered by the merest accident that he 
 ought to be on his road to Donnington. Is 
 your luggage here, Mr. Lyon ? We ought to be 
 making the best of our way home at once, else 
 we shall be late for dinner." 
 
 '* My luggage is on the platform," Lyon said. 
 " But there's quite a heap of it, I'm afraid ; far 
 too much for your pony to carry behind him. 
 Indeed, I couldn't think of troubling you to 
 transport all those things. If you'll let me take 
 my bag in the cart " — 
 
 " Oh, I daresay we can manage everything," 
 interposed Miss Temple cheerily. " The cart 
 lets down behind ; and Charlie is very strong. 
 I'll just go and look at it for a moment " — 
 
 She flitted into the station and out again in 
 the twinkling of an eye. For so tall a young
 
 40 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 woman — she was " more than common tall," her 
 head being very little below the level of Lyon's 
 own — Miss Temple was peculiarly brisk and 
 active in all her movements. 
 
 "It will all travel with us quite easily — with 
 just a little management," she pronounced con- 
 fidently on reappearing. " Now, Mr. Manns " — 
 to the stationmaster — " if you'll be kind enough 
 to hold Charlie for a moment, Jakes can fetch the 
 luggage out, and I'll show him how to stow it." 
 
 This young lady seemed eminently practical. 
 In a very few moments she had taught the 
 clumsy-handed porter how to dispose of all 
 Lyon's belongings in safety in the decidedly 
 limited space available for their reception, had 
 taken a friendly farewell of him and his superior 
 officer, and — with Lyon and his bag beside her — 
 was spinning briskly down the sharply-sloping 
 road on her return journey. 
 
 " This is the village of Donnington," she said, 
 with a little flourish of her whip, as the cart, 
 reaching the bottom of the slope, rounded a 
 corner, and turned into a steep * street,' lined on 
 either side with cottages — each standing in its 
 own little patch of garden, for the most part — 
 rising one above another up the sheer face of 
 the hill. " When we get up there,'' pointing to 
 the topmost roof, " you will have a better view 
 of the country than the one you were looking at 
 just now." 
 
 It did not take them long to get up to the
 
 OVER HILL, OVER DALE 41 
 
 point of vantage she indicated. The pony was 
 a gallant animal, and his young mistress handled 
 him firmly as well as kindly — not making 
 impossible demands upon his strength, but at 
 the same time exacting from him a full amount 
 of work. The hilltop attained, she drew rein 
 for a moment. 
 
 " Isn't it beautiful } How I wish I lived up 
 here ! " 
 
 She looked out over the wide rolling cham- 
 paign as she spoke ; and Lyon looked — for the 
 first time since their informal introduction with 
 anything like attention — at her. His scrutiny 
 was hardly rewarded ; for in appearance his 
 new acquaintance was nowise remarkable. Yet, 
 while devoid of all pretensions to real beauty, 
 Miss Temple, like so many other English girls 
 of her rank and age, was by no means dis- 
 agreeable to the eye ; she was fair and fresh- 
 complexioned, had a bright, honest smile, good 
 teeth, plenty of rather light brown hair with a 
 strong tendency to curl, and a set of features 
 that were prettyish, if quite unclassical. A 
 pair of clear, well-opened hazel eyes contrasted 
 effectively with the lighter colouring of her hair 
 and skin. As to her figure, it was impossible 
 to decide positively on its merits or demerits, 
 since she wore with her dark blue serge skirt 
 one of those very unbecoming upper garments 
 yclept blouses, garments which, by effectually 
 deadening and flattening every natural outline
 
 42 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 of the female form divine, have the undesirable 
 result of reducing the most graceful and the 
 most angular of women alike to a common level 
 of shapelessness. Taken altogether, Dorothy 
 Temple might be accounted a pleasant-looking 
 girl enough. But there was nothing striking 
 about her ; no special piquancy, no fascinating 
 peculiarity in form or feature, voice or expres- 
 sion, such as would be likely to stir the languid 
 interest of a man caring nothing, as a rule, for 
 mere ordinary specimens of girlhood. Mr. 
 Lyon's eyes returned quickly to their previous 
 study of the landscape at his feet. 
 
 " Yes, there's always something rather im- 
 pressive in a great sweep of open country like 
 this," he said, answering his companion's ex- 
 clamation. " And the air on these heights must 
 be very fine. Heyford, I see, lies quite in the 
 plain." 
 
 " Quite. We are in the valley of the Cray. 
 It's only the infant Cray with us, of course. 
 Still, we are very proud of it." 
 
 "Is it navigable at Heyford?" Visions — 
 highly attractive visions — of long boating expe- 
 ditions undertaken alone, or in company with a 
 book only, when the society of Mr. Creighton 
 and his amiable niece should begin to pall 
 unendurably, suggested themselves at once to 
 Lyon's imagination. 
 
 Miss Temple's reply put an end to these 
 radiant dreams.
 
 OVER HILL, OVER DALE 43 
 
 " Not really navigable. I get out in a punt 
 sometimes, but it's very slow work. I'm afraid 
 you'd consider it ' slow ' in the other sense, too," 
 she added, laughing. " One gets stuck in the 
 weeds so very often ! every ten or twelve yards, 
 on an average. Still, if you would like to try 
 some day " — 
 
 " Thank you," Lyon responded, without any 
 effusion. (" She has ideas of taking me out 
 herself, I fancy," was his mental reflection. 
 "Very kind oi her, I'm sure — still, one may 
 be permitted to hope she won't be too prodigal 
 of small attentions ; that sort of thing is so 
 fatiguing to the recipient. Rather a nuisance, 
 now I come to think of it, her being at Creigh- 
 ton's at all. A girl in the country never has 
 anything to do, and she will probably be en 
 evidence from morning till night about the 
 garden and on the stairs.") 
 
 Aloud he remarked — somewhat abruptly, 
 having arrived at his remark by the silent and 
 not too-civil process of thought above recorded — 
 
 " I wasn't aware — Mr. Creighton never told 
 me he had a niece living with him." 
 
 Miss Temple smiled, as she touched up 
 Charlie, who was by this time gingerly descend- 
 ing Donnington Hill, a declivity fully justifying, 
 by its abnormal steepness, her care for his lungs 
 in ascending it. 
 
 " I have lived at The Haulms for nearly five 
 years now — ever since I left school, in fact," she
 
 44 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 replied. " But I'm afraid my uncle hardly 
 thinks me of sufficient importance to talk about 
 me to his friends." She spoke with perfect 
 sweetness, and in a tone that was almost gay. 
 Yet Lyon fancied that he detected a note of 
 sadness in her voice. " He has a very poor 
 opinion of women altogether," she added lightly. 
 " I'm afraid he assigns us an extremely low 
 place in the scheme of creation." 
 
 Now, it is to be feared that Mr. Lyon's 
 opinion of the weaker sex in general w^as 
 scarcely more favourable than Mr. Creighton's. 
 Nevertheless, he was conscious of a sudden 
 inexplicable movement of dislike towards that 
 elderly misogynist, as he answered, rather 
 stiffly— 
 
 " I can hardly claim to be reckoned among 
 Mr. Creighton's friends. Our intimacy, such as 
 it is, grew out of a travelling acquaintanceship, 
 made a year or two ago in Germany. I was 
 surprised when his letter of invitation reached 
 me last week ; I fancied he had forgotten my 
 existence long ago." 
 
 " Oh, you mustn't suppose he forgets people 
 he likes ! " was the eager rejoinder. " And I 
 know he took a great fancy to you. It was 
 only the day and hour of your coming that 
 escaped his memory. Now that he has fairly 
 begun writing his big book, he often loses all 
 count of time. Even the dinner-hour passes 
 over him unnoticed ! "
 
 OVER HILL, OVER DALE 45 
 
 " That habit of his must be rather inconvenient 
 to you, as his housekeeper." 
 
 " But I'm not his housekeeper, unfortunately. 
 I wish I were ! I should feel myself of some use 
 to him, in that case. Unluckily, he won't be 
 persuaded that a girl can be of any use, under 
 any circumstances ! All the years that I've 
 been with him, he has never so much as allowed 
 me to do the flowers. I have to leave them to 
 Lewin, the parlour-maid, who arranges them as 
 she might watercresses for the market. I hope, 
 by the way, Uncle Mervyn has told her to get 
 your room ready, Mr. Lyon. One comfort is, 
 at least, she will be in the way when we get 
 there ; she won't have taken herself off for the 
 afternoon, like Wilson." 
 
 " I'm afraid Wilson's absence necessitated 
 your taking this long drive to fetch me." 
 
 " That was a treat to me, not a hardship in 
 any way, I assure you. I'm very fond of 
 driving. And, as a rule, I haven't much time 
 for it, except on Saturdays. The only difficulty 
 I had was with the buckles. I never knew till 
 to-day how many buckles there were in a set of 
 pony-harness ! " 
 
 " You don't mean to say you had to harness 
 the pony yourself ? Really" — 
 
 " It didn't matter in the least," she interrupted, 
 cutting short his polite regrets. " It was good 
 fun. And my efforts were successful, as you 
 see, which is satisfactory. I shall be proud for
 
 46 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 Wilson to see that harness. This is the last 
 hill," she added, changing the subject quickly, 
 and indicating with her whip the slope up 
 which — having safely descended " Donnington " 
 — the cart was now slowly climbing. " Once 
 down the other side, and we are in ' the Vale ' 
 proper." 
 
 " The Vale," viewed at close quarters, proved 
 to be quite as prosperous a country as it had 
 appeared when seen from a distance. The level 
 ground reached, Charlie trotted swiftly for five 
 or six miles between double lines of rich lush 
 meadows, in which bands of haymakers were 
 busy, or herds of handsome sleek shorthorn 
 cattle feeding, interspersed here and there with 
 a well-clothed field of corn-land. The scent of 
 the new-mown hay was everywhere. Even on 
 the waste grounds bordering the roadsides, the 
 grass lay in long, thick, fragrant swathes, drying 
 in the last fervent rays of the June sun, and 
 filling the evening air with pungent sweetness. 
 " It was the finest crop they had had in this 
 part of the country for ten years past," Miss 
 Temple informed her companion. He noticed 
 that she seemed well-informed in agricultural 
 matters, and appeared to take a considerable 
 interest in the operations of the hour. This he 
 gathered, not merely from her occasional remarks 
 to himself, but from the brief conversations she 
 held with one or two wayfaring farmers whom 
 they encountered on their road. Apparently
 
 OVER HILL, OVER DALE 47 
 
 she knew everybody in the district, for she 
 never passed man, woman, or child without a 
 word of greeting — and rarely without pulling 
 up for a moment's chat. 
 
 About two miles from Heyford, at the juncture 
 of a steep lane running down from a wild- 
 looking bit of common with the high road, she 
 was eagerly hailed by a group of small children, 
 with an older girl, evidently eager to put some 
 question, at their head. She stopped to listen 
 to them, rather to the annoyance of Lyon, who 
 was getting weary of such frequent halts, and 
 there ensued a dialogue of some length, having 
 for its main point the date of the commence- 
 ment of the summer holidays at the school 
 where the youthful persons assembled by the 
 roadside received their education. The young 
 lady who acted as spokeswoman — and who 
 betrayed a keen anxiety that this fixture should 
 coincide with the beginning of " pea-hacking," 
 an operation which she declared likely to be in 
 progress by the end of July — appeared, as far 
 as Lyon could make out her plea, to be 
 supplicating Miss Temple for a change of day, 
 which the latter showed distinct unwillingness 
 to grant. 
 
 " Well," she said at length, gathering up her 
 reins to move on, "you can tell your mother 
 I will see about it, Polly, and make inquiries. 
 If I find there's any reasonable prospect of the 
 farmers beginning as early as you say, of course
 
 48 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 I'll try to make some change. Otherwise, we 
 must keep to the old date. Unless you are 
 really wanted in the fields, there would be no 
 reason for changing — don't you see ? Good- 
 night, all of you." 
 
 "You seem to be autocratic in matters 
 parochial," observed Lyon, with an amused 
 smile, as Charlie clattered onwards. 
 
 "This wasn't exactly a — parochial matter," 
 returned Miss Temple, looking amused in her 
 turn. Indeed, the little smile on her fresh lips 
 was slightly enigmatic. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ; I gathered that the 
 appeal presented to you related to the school." 
 
 " Not to Heyford school." 
 
 " Indeed ? Well," said Lyon, a little nettled 
 by his companion's reticence, "your young 
 friend's Loamshire accent made her speech very 
 liable to false interpretation. I had hard work 
 to understand her at all." 
 
 "Poor Polly! I'm afraid I shall never — I'm 
 afraid all the schooling in the world will never 
 cure that accent of hers ! But it isn't a Loam- 
 shire accent, Mr. Lyon, excuse me. We crossed 
 the shire-ditch into Hillshire about ten minutes 
 ago. When you've been in this country a little 
 while, you'll discover a vast difference in the 
 way they talk north and south of the ditch." 
 
 "Are we in Hillshire now?" Lyon spoke 
 with unusual animation. '' I had no idea 
 Heyford was over the border. East Hillshire,
 
 OVER HILL, OVER DALE 49 
 
 isn't it ? Yes, of course. I used to hear a good 
 deal of this division of the county some years 
 ago, from a friend of mine, who once lived here. 
 He is in Australia now — went out there a couple 
 of years since. But I fancy his people still have 
 their abode somewhere in this neighbourhood. 
 I wonder if you know anything of them, by 
 chance ? " 
 
 " I don't know very many people," Miss 
 Temple admitted frankly. "My uncle does 
 not care much for society. Still, I may have 
 met your friend, or heard of him. What is his 
 name ? " 
 
 "Travers — Brian Travers. His father is a 
 parson, and I know has a living somewhere in 
 East Hillshire. You seem amused, Miss Temple. 
 Then you do know these good folk ? " 
 
 "Very well indeed." Miss Temple's frank 
 eyes were full of laughter. " Mr. Travers is 
 Rector of Heyford, and our next-door neighbour. 
 And Brian is my cousin — let me see, twice 
 removed, I think it is. I know his mother and 
 mine were something a little less than first 
 cousins." 
 
 " This waxes interesting. Rather curious, 
 too, isn't it, that I should ask you casually 
 about these people, as strangers you might just 
 possibly have met, and discover them to be 
 your relations ? " 
 
 " It's certainly fortunate you didn't accompany 
 your casual inquiries with any uncivil remarks." 
 4
 
 50 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 " No danger of that, in any case. I haven't 
 the pleasure of Mr. and Mrs. Travers' acquaint- 
 ance as yet ; and Brian, as I said, is a friend of 
 mine. I might almost call his brother Jem a 
 friend too, though I've seen very little of him 
 since I left Oxford. By the way, this should 
 surely be the long vacation. Is he at Heyford, 
 by any lucky chance ? " 
 
 " He is always at Heyford now. He lives 
 here." 
 
 '■''Jem ? " Lyon's voice for once lost its level 
 tone, and sounded a clear note of genuine 
 astonishment. 
 
 "Yes. He has been acting as his father's 
 curate for the last eighteen months." 
 
 " Really ? You must excuse my gaping 
 surprise. Miss Temple, but indeed my imagina- 
 tion refuses to picture old Jem a country curate. 
 Jem!''' repeated Lyon musingly. "Certainly 
 I shouldn't have thought him cut out for a 
 village life. Besides, I heard he had some im- 
 posingly magnificent appointment in Oxford." 
 
 "So he had. It was a splendid thing, from 
 the money point of view ; and the work suited 
 him exactly. But his father was getting old ; 
 and the parish needed a second clergyman, if 
 it was to be properly looked after ; so Jem 
 resigned his appointment, and came here," said 
 Miss Temple, in a quiet, matter-of-course tone. 
 " Look !" as the cart swung round a last corner ; 
 " that is the Rectory gate."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 AT THE HAULMS 
 
 " This man's metallic ; at a sudden bloia 
 His sold rings hard." 
 
 LYON caught sight of a wide-open gate- 
 way, the iron gates that should have closed 
 it flung fully back, and looking as though they 
 had not stirred for years on their rusty hinges ; 
 of a broad, sloping, mossy drive completely over- 
 shadowed by magnificent trees ; and of a group 
 of quaintly-fashioned red-brick chimneys mellow 
 with time. Heyford Rectory stood so literally 
 embowered among the beeches and chestnuts 
 blocking it in on every side from the gaze of 
 the curious, that only its chimney - tops and 
 loftiest gables were visible from the road. But 
 a little to the left, where the church of which 
 it was the humble neighbour loomed lofty 
 above the great yews and cypresses of a crowded 
 ancient churchyard (making the venerable trees 
 look mere stunted shrubs beside its walls), there 
 was no leafy screen to intercept the view of the 
 
 UNIVER^TY 9f 
 ILLINOIS ,LIBRARY
 
 52 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 passer-by. Not the lofty central tower alone, 
 but the crockets and gurgoyles of the chancel 
 roof, and the entire long line of the high and 
 narrow Norman nave, stood out sharply defined 
 against the brilliance of the western sky. 
 
 " You have a grand church here, it seems," 
 Lyon said, leaning back for a second look, as 
 the cart turned afresh to the right. 
 
 "And such an interesting one! There are 
 innumerable historical associations attaching to 
 it, dating from the Wars of the Roses (and even 
 earlier) downwards. Jem has its whole history 
 at his finger-ends, and loves to tell it," Miss 
 Temple rejoined. " No doubt he will tell it to 
 you at the earliest opportunity. Here we are 
 at The Haulms " — checking Charlie suddenly at 
 a gate some fifty yards from the Rectory 
 entrance, and on the same side of the road. 
 " Up yonder," pointing with her whip - hand, 
 " over that bridge, is the village." 
 
 "And under the bridge flow the beginnings 
 of the Cray, I suppose?" 
 
 " No, that bridge crosses the canal only. 
 The river flows lower down, at the bottom of 
 the garden, and on through the church meadow. 
 Perhaps I ought rather to say it meanders 
 along there ; its pace, at this part of its career, 
 is very sober indeed. Thanks, Mary ; much 
 obliged," as a decent - looking woman issued 
 from the gardener's cottage, which served as a 
 lodge, and proceeded to unlatch the gate.
 
 AT THE HAULMS 53 
 
 Unlike his clerical next-door neighbour, Mr. 
 Creighton was not apparently in the habit of 
 leaving his doors hospitably open to all comers. 
 He came briskly out to the porticoed entrance 
 of his house as his guest alighted at it: a man 
 whose age, between the limits of fifty-five and 
 seventy, it was difficult to guess precisely ; 
 remarkable for exceedingly broad, stooping 
 shoulders, but otherwise small and spare of 
 person, especially as regarded his nether limbs. 
 His face seemed to be formed on the same 
 principle as his body; that is to say, all its 
 power and vigour resided exclusively in the 
 forehead, which was quite peculiarly massive 
 and imposing, while the remaining features 
 were thin, pinched, and insignificant. This 
 singular insistance (so to speak) on the same 
 physical idea in face and figure — the one pre- 
 senting a kind of counterpart of the other — gave 
 a touch of oddity, almost of grotesqueness, to 
 his personality. The tendency to a top-heavy 
 formation appeared even in the man's eyes, 
 which, themselves unusually small, were over- 
 hung by immensely large and bushy eyebrows ; 
 and these, like his fairly thick hair and long 
 early Victorian whiskers, were white rather than 
 grey, so that he wore, at a slight distance, a 
 distinctly venerable appearance. But, close at 
 hand, you soon discovered the small eyes under 
 the bristling brows to be still extremely bright 
 and piercing ; while a mere moment's observa-
 
 54 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 tion would suffice to convince you that Mr. 
 Creighton's movements were not those of a 
 very old man. 
 
 " Glad to see you — very glad," he ejaculated 
 in a deep, rather harsh voice, shaking Lyon's 
 hand hastily. " Sorry there should have been 
 some mistake about sending to meet you — hope 
 you hadn't to wait long? No? That's all 
 right. Come in, come in." 
 
 "But Miss Temple?" Lyon made demur. 
 Some little effort of politeness in behalf of his 
 charioteer, left sitting, groomless, in the pony- 
 cart by herself, seemed to be absolutely de- 
 manded of him. " Your man, perhaps, may be 
 still out of the way. In which case" — 
 
 "Oh, he won't be long — it's close upon his 
 supper-time ! " interrupted Mr. Creighton, lead- 
 ing the way into the house. " My niece can 
 take care of the pony till he comes. You 
 had better drive round to the stables at once, 
 Dorothy, and wait for Wilson there," he com- 
 manded over his shoulder. Then, turning again 
 to Lyon, " That little brute kicks the gravel all 
 over the place if he is kept standing any time 
 in front of this door," he said in an explanatory 
 tone, with a significant glance at the smoothly- 
 rolled drive. 
 
 Lyon paused, his conscience only half-satisfied. 
 " Surely I might be of some assistance?" 
 
 " Oh no ! " ejaculated the niece, and " Oh 
 no ! " asseverated the uncle, in a breath. And
 
 AT THE HAULMS 55 
 
 Creighton added, almost irritably, "Dorothy 
 can manage perfectly well alone, I assure you. 
 Pray come in at once." 
 
 Lyon yielded without further ado, feeling he 
 had done enough for honour, and assailed, not 
 only by pleasing visions of approaching dinner, 
 but also by a keen anxiety to escape, as soon 
 as possible, out of the dusty clothes in which he 
 had been travelling all day, into fresher and 
 more comfortable habiliments. 
 
 Evidently the servants had been warned, 
 despite Miss Temple's doubts, of his approach, 
 for he found a tolerably spacious room set apart 
 for him, and everything needful for comfort laid 
 out therein ready to his hand. This prevention 
 of his wants came upon him as a kind of 
 surprise ; as, indeed, did the exquisite orderliness 
 which, like an atmosphere, seemed to pervade 
 the whole house. One or two remarks of Miss 
 Temple had rather led him to expect a happy- 
 go-lucky bachelor establishment, in which he 
 should have to struggle for the necessaries of 
 life ; where the supply of clean towels would 
 possibly be limited, and it might be needful to 
 go on exploring expeditions in search of your 
 boots. But the actual domestic economy of 
 The Haulms appeared to be conducted rather 
 on the severely correct lines approved of well- 
 to-do old maiden ladies. Lyon, as he tied his 
 cravat, felt inclined to compliment Mr. Creighton 
 on his choice of a housekeeper. No wonder he
 
 56 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 had declined to dispossess that lady (whoever 
 she might be), in favour of so very inexperienced 
 (and, presumably, inefficient) an aspirant to the 
 post as Miss Dorothy ! 
 
 The house whose internal arrangements struck 
 Lyon as so admirable, was not a large one ; as 
 he discovered when, his toilet completed, he 
 had leisure to descend and examine it cursorily. 
 In construction it was a compromise between 
 two styles. More pretentious than the ordinary 
 parsonage, less spacious than the ordinary 
 country house, it presented points in common 
 with both, its numerous gables and mullioned 
 windows giving it, without, the conventional 
 semi-ecclesiastical air considered proper to the 
 " modest mansion " of the modern " village 
 preacher " ; while, within doors, bigger and loftier 
 rooms than it is usually the lot of the country 
 clergyman to inhabit, a decidedly handsome 
 oak staircase (very massive as to balusters, very 
 wide and shallow as to steps), and a square, 
 oak-panelled hall, adorned with the customary 
 foxes' heads and sets of antlers, hinted rather at 
 worldly and sporting proclivities on the part of 
 the owner. Misleading hints, these last, as 
 Lyon happened to know. " I wonder how 
 much old Creighton gave for the collection ? " 
 he mused, thoughtfully contemplating the 
 trophies of the chase aforesaid, in the intervals 
 of listening, somewhat impatiently, for the 
 sound of descending feet upon the stairs. It
 
 AT THE HAULMS 57 
 
 was now fully five minutes past eight. At what 
 hour did these people intend to dine? 
 
 A quarter of an hour elapsed before Mr. 
 Creighton came bustling down. " I believe I'm 
 a little late — hope you're not tired of waiting ? 
 The cook is, I daresay ; I fear I'm rather fre- 
 quently in her black books. Well, we won't 
 keep her waiting any longer," touching a bell 
 as he spoke. " This way. All the sitting- 
 rooms in my house look out into the garden at 
 the back, a great advantage, to my thinking. 
 Secures one absolute quiet — in so far as such 
 a thing can be secured at all in this world — and 
 protects one from the curse of spying visitors 
 altogether. One can be 'not at home' here 
 whenever one pleases." 
 
 The dining-room, into which Mr. Creighton, 
 thus speaking, conducted his visitor, was a 
 pleasant room with a pleasant outlook. A 
 turfed terrace, broken here and there by brilliant 
 flower-beds, ran close under the large bay- 
 window occupying one entire end of it, and 
 below this stretched an expanse of well-kept 
 sloping lawn, bounded, at the bottom of the 
 slope, by an imposing line of witch - elms, 
 their dark array varied, here and there by 
 the presence of a great horse-chestnut shak- 
 ing its big light - green fans in the soft 
 evening light. Beyond the belt of trees, the 
 ground — clothed with a sort of thicket — ap- 
 peared to fall again more sharply than before,
 
 58 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 descending, doubtless, to the edge of the unseen 
 river. 
 
 Lyon cast a comprehensive, sweeping glance 
 out of window before obeying his host's signal 
 to seat himself. Then he took a place in 
 silence. Only, as he unfolded his table-napkin, 
 his eyes rested for a moment interrogatively on 
 the vacant chair opposite his own. 
 
 Mr. Creighton's observant, if diminutive orbs 
 noted the unspoken question. 
 
 " My niece has been detained, I suppose — she 
 will be down before long, I daresay. I will not 
 ask you to wait any longer for her." 
 
 Lyon, as in duty bound, protested his willing- 
 ness to do what was not asked of him. But 
 Creighton cut him short unceremoniously. 
 
 " Nonsense ! you must be famishing. Take 
 the cover off the soup-tureen, Lewin." 
 
 The poultry stage of dinner had been reached, 
 and the affairs of the nation pretty fully dis- 
 cussed (or rather descanted upon by Mr. 
 Creighton, Lyon contenting himself, for the 
 most part, with the listener's role), before Miss 
 Temple appeared, her flushed cheeks and im- 
 perfectly arranged hair giving unmistakable 
 evidence of the fact that her evening toilet had 
 been made in very hurried fashion. That the 
 lateness of her arrival on the scene was due to 
 the pressure of unfortunate circumstances, and 
 not to any carelessness, much less to deliberate 
 choice, on her own part, was sufficiently proved
 
 AT THE HAULMS 59 
 
 by the manner of her entry. This was nervous, 
 breathless, deprecating, and so manifestly the 
 result of determined effort, that Lyon felt certain 
 she had stood for at least a minute or two at the 
 closed dining-room door before summoning 
 courage to make it at all. 
 
 Guessing this much, he felt an impulse of pity 
 for her (recollections of his own shy boyhood 
 had kept him pitiful towards timid youth), and, 
 in a blundering, masculine fashion, attempted 
 to rush to her assistance. Frustrating her en- 
 deavour to slip into her place as nearly as 
 possible unobserved, he leaned across the table, 
 and, prompted by wholly excellent motives, 
 unwisely addressed her with — 
 
 " Your uncle, out of kindness to my supposed 
 starving condition, insisted on our sitting down 
 without you. Miss Temple. Though I assured 
 him I was capable of supporting the pangs of 
 hunger a few minutes longer " — 
 
 " Oh, I am glad you did not — I am glad 
 Uncle Mervyn didn't wait for me ! " Miss 
 Temple spoke fast and low, with her eyes on 
 the tablecloth. 
 
 " Dorothy knows I never wait for her," Mr. 
 Creighton put in drily. 
 
 Still Lyon blundered on. " I'm afraid you 
 were detained mounting guard over that pony. 
 It's too bad you should have had so much 
 trouble on my account " — 
 
 " On the contrary, it's well she should have
 
 6o A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 had an opportunity of making herself useful — 
 for once," said Creighton. 
 
 " Wilson came in very soon," Dorothy added 
 quickly, addressing Lyon, and trying her best 
 not to look annoyed. " It was really of no 
 consequence — my being detained — except that 
 it made me a little behindhand with my 
 dressing." 
 
 Here her eyes entreated so plainly, " Please 
 say nothing more about the matter, for pity's 
 sake ! " that Lyon was at last made aware of his 
 error. Discomfited, he applied himself afresh 
 to his dinner ; and his vis-a-vis found instant 
 refuge in hers — such as it was. (She took up 
 the meal only at the point where she found it, 
 letting slip the rest. When the parlour-maid 
 suggested soup in a benevolent undertone, she 
 received a hasty and nervous negative in reply.) 
 
 Mr. Creighton — having launched the two 
 remarks above recorded at his niece's head — 
 took no further heed of her presence. Still the 
 girl did not recover either her composure or her 
 spirits ; she remained unmistakably ill at ease. 
 Her uncle's proximity seemed to affect her like 
 an evil charm, withering her natural vivacity, and 
 shattering her natural fearlessness. When Lyon, 
 after a discreet interval, addressed her again on 
 some ordinary subject, she answered only by 
 flurried monosyllables. He could hardly believe 
 her to be one and the same with the frank, self- 
 possessed creature who had greeted him outside
 
 AT THE HAULMS 6i 
 
 the station, or the benevolent young despot who 
 knew how to refuse wayside petitions with such 
 lofty firmness. One thing, at least, was clear : 
 his good-natured efforts to include her in the 
 conversation going on between himself and his 
 host were quite misplaced ; she evidently pre- 
 ferred being ignored when Mr. Creighton was 
 by. Lyon ignored her, therefore, with an easy 
 conscience, for the remainder of dinner. 
 
 The silent figure at his board did not, appar- 
 ently, exercise any depressing effect whatever 
 on Mr. Creighton's spirits; he talked on with 
 growing fluency and animation. When the 
 dessert had been put on the table, he glided 
 easily from politics to letters ; and, in discussing 
 the books of the day, touched lightly on his own 
 achievements in the latter field. Lyon was, 
 fortunately, fairly well posted on the subject of 
 his host's writings (whether he had a very 
 extensive acquaintance with them at first hand 
 is perhaps matter of question, but at least he 
 knew a good deal adoi^t them), and was therefore 
 able to respond in such kind as satisfied the 
 author. Finally he made civil inquiry concern- 
 ing the work just now on the stocks, 
 
 Mr. Creighton snapped at the question like a 
 hungry dog at a bone. He was only too 
 delighted to explain the scope and purpose of 
 his new book. Certainly, his plans for it seemed 
 to be of the widest and most complicated de- 
 scription, involving nothing less, to begin with,
 
 62 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 than a general survey of human history from 
 the earhest to the latest times, as a kind of 
 preliminary introduction to the treatment of the 
 main theme — which he defined as " an attempt 
 to ascertain the laws by which environment, act- 
 ing as a formative influence on human character, 
 tends to produce different degrees of moral and 
 mental receptivity in different divisions of the 
 human race ; so that while one people displays 
 capabilities for civilisation that are practically 
 boundless, another is found to possess these 
 capabilities only to a very limited extent, while 
 a third shows utter impotence to attain to any 
 true civilisation at all." Lyon sat, figuratively 
 speaking, clutching his forehead. Yet Creighton's 
 statement was made in fairly simple language, 
 and, for all its baldness, could not be called 
 uninteresting ; Lyon noticed that Dorothy 
 Temple, on the other side of the table, was 
 drinking it in with all her ears. 
 
 "You have set yourself a large problem to 
 solve," he said, after hearing the philosopher to 
 the end of his thesis. " Have you fixed on a 
 title yet ? " 
 
 " No. Does one occur to you ? " 
 
 "Well, it struck me the book might not 
 unfitly be called * The Natural History of 
 Civilisation.' " 
 
 " Not a bad idea. In that case, what would 
 you say to this for a motto : ' Die Geschichte des 
 Menschen ist sein Charakter ' .? "
 
 AT THE HAULMS 63 
 
 " Striking enough ; but, surely, only summar- 
 ising half your conclusion ? Goethe, there, 
 seems to leave the doctrine of heredity quite 
 out of account." 
 
 " Only if his words are taken in their mere 
 surface meaning. Dive deeper into them, and 
 you have the whole truth. Depend upon it, 
 when Goethe spoke of " a man's history," he was 
 not thinking exclusively of the history that 
 began in the man's own cradle; he had too 
 much of the scientific spirit to fall into such 
 an unscientific error. By the way, if you 
 feel an interest in the heredity question, I 
 daresay you may like to look at a pamphlet of 
 's " (naming a distinguished German philo- 
 sophical writer of the day) " which he was good 
 enough to send me last week. I should be glad 
 to hear your opinion of it." 
 
 " It won't be worth hearing, I assure you. 
 My very scanty knowledge of the question has 
 been picked up from magazines in club reading- 
 rooms ; not a very scientific method of study ! " 
 
 " But you are convinced of the truth of our 
 doctrine ? " 
 
 " It would be too much to say that I feel any 
 conviction concerning it. I remember I thought 
 the doctrine a very comfortable one when I first 
 encountered it, and likely to be useful, from an 
 argumentative point of view, to the good people 
 who are so anxious to abolish capital punish- 
 ment, and reform desperate characters by
 
 64 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 sending them to live in country cottages rent 
 free." 
 
 " Don't you think — excuse me — that's a 
 somewhat shallow view to take of a well- 
 established scientific truth ? " 
 
 "Oh, if it is actually well established ! " inter- 
 jected Lyon in a semi-murmur. 
 
 "A well-established scientific truth, which 
 has already succeeded in dealing a deathblow 
 to legendary religion, which is fast revolution- 
 ising our canons of morality, and must before 
 long revolutionise our entire system of law and 
 government ? " 
 
 " All my views of the subject are necessarily 
 shallow, seeing I know next to nothing about 
 it," was Lyon's cool response. " By the way, 
 since such questions are interesting to you, it's 
 lucky you should have a near neighbour who 
 has gone in for them pretty deeply." 
 
 Mr. Creighton drew his bushy eyebrows 
 sharply together. 
 
 "A near neighbour? I don't follow you" — 
 
 "When I knew Jem Travers at Oxford, 
 heredity was his pet subject. He positively 
 revelled in little inquiries sketched on the lines 
 of your great one." 
 
 " You know Travers ? I wasn't aware of that," 
 Mr. Creighton interrupted. 
 
 " I used to know him rather well, at one 
 time. It's over ten years now since we met 
 last."
 
 AT THE HAULMS 65 
 
 " H'm ! You'll find him considerably changed, 
 then." 
 
 " He used to be an uncommonly brilliant 
 fellow." 
 
 " Used to be ! used to be ! He's nothing in 
 the world now, but a petticoated parson, whose 
 soul doesn't seem capable of rising above the 
 candlesticks and gewgaws with which he insists 
 on adorning his unlucky father's church." (Here 
 Lyon perceived Dorothy Temple start forward 
 in her seat, resolutely check herself, and lean 
 back again.) "Once James Travers had an 
 intellect, I grant you " — 
 
 "We used to think so at Oxford." 
 
 " And rightly, in those days. But his powers 
 are hopelessly gone now ; smothered to death, 
 long since, under feather-beds of credulity and 
 ceremonialism. He has put his mind into 
 petticoats as well as his body — until it's come 
 to this, that Ld as soon take a female devotes 
 opinion on any critical point likely to clash 
 with her preconceived convictions, as Master 
 Jim's. No, no ! he might have been very useful 
 to me once ; but he is worse than useless now. 
 The very sight of him is irritating to a sensible 
 man." 
 
 " I was surprised to hear of him established 
 here — in a country village." 
 
 " No wonder. At Oxford — those last four or 
 five years — he had the ball literally at his feet. 
 He might have done anything — anything ! He 
 5
 
 66 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 was fast becoming an intellectual power ; a few 
 years more, and he would have been a com- 
 manding influence with thousands of able minds. 
 It's true, even then the old musty prejudices 
 had too much weight with him. At no time 
 did he ever shake himself quite free of the con- 
 ventional shackles — his taking orders so early 
 in life was a great misfortune, a terrible hind- 
 rance to his after-action and development. But 
 the time of complete emancipation would have 
 come for him, no doubt, — as it has come to so 
 many others, orders or no orders, — had he 
 remained where he was, subject daily to a 
 hundred enlightening influences. Unluckily, 
 he chose to throw up his appointment and bury 
 himself down here, in order to provide a hand- 
 ful of labourers (who laugh at him to his face) 
 with services at unearthly hours (which they 
 very reasonably and sensibly decline to attend) 
 — and from that day his doom was sealed. He 
 has been retrograding steadily ever since. And 
 no wonder! What chance has a man's mind 
 to make intellectual progress, when the man 
 spends his mornings pattering prayers in an 
 empty church, and his afternoons gossiping 
 with village wives over the wash-tub ? " 
 
 " Certainly, it seems a curious step for a man 
 in his position to have taken deliberately," 
 Lyon said musingly. 
 
 " Not if he considered it his duty to take it, 
 surely ? " Dorothy Temple suddenly struck in.
 
 AT THE HAULMS 67 
 
 It was so long since she had spoken, that 
 Lyon was almost startled by the sound of her 
 voice. Before he could recover his surprise 
 sufficiently to reply to her challenging question, 
 Mr. Creighton resumed, ignoring his niece's 
 remark as completely as though it had never 
 been uttered. 
 
 "A perfectly inexplicable step. The most 
 deplorable part of the whole business (to me, 
 at least) is, that he seems to regret nothing of 
 what he has done. He has settled down calmly 
 into the life of petty things, of virtual useless- 
 ness, which he leads here, and seems to desire 
 nothing better." 
 
 Here Miss Temple pushed her chair back 
 suddenly from the table, and Lyon, rising to 
 open the door for her, lost a sentence or two 
 of her uncle's diatribe. When he returned to 
 his seat, it was to find Mr. Creighton — leaving 
 James Travers' personal misdemeanour for a 
 moment on one side — engaged in fulminating 
 an indictment against the entire family to which 
 he belonged. No wonder James had disap- 
 pointed his friends, and belied his early promise 
 — seeing the miserable stock he came of There 
 was Travers himself, a good sort of fellow, 
 indeed, but narrow in the extreme ; narrow 
 with the double narrowness of Toryism in 
 things secular, and Puritanism in things sacred ; 
 an old-fashioned Evangelical who had never 
 outgrown his early creed. Then the mother —
 
 68 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 a bundle of nerves and emotions, a creature 
 with no backbone and undetachable tentacles, 
 a sort of moral octopus in her combined weak- 
 ness and obstinacy : what was to be expected 
 in the son of such a pair? The inherited 
 tendency, in cases like these, was too strong to 
 be crushed out by any system of education ; the 
 inborn bias towards superstition was certain, 
 sooner or later, to reassert itself in some form 
 or other. James Travers was, in reality, his 
 own father over again, the only difference being, 
 that in the one case credulity showed itself in 
 readiness to give credit to revivalist miracles, 
 and in the other, to swallow sacerdotal legends 
 whole, without any admixture of salt. 
 
 Lyon remarked — chiefly by way of stemming 
 the tide of his host's indignant eloquence— that, 
 whatever hereditary lineaments might have 
 shown themselves in James Travers, there did 
 not, as yet, seem to be any striking recrud- 
 escence of the Puritan father in his brother Brian. 
 
 " No, he takes after the mother. Same 
 mixture of weakness and obstinacy, exactly. 
 Unstable as water ; and, at the same time, 
 perfectly intractable while he remains set on 
 any course. I have no patience with that 
 young fellow. Failure as he is, and always 
 will be, his self-confidence beats that of any 
 man I know." 
 
 " There's pluck in him as well as brag, though. 
 It takes a good deal of pluck to go on picking
 
 AT THE HAULMS 69 
 
 one's self up after repeated falls, and showing 
 an unabashed front to the bystanders." 
 
 "Brian Travers certainly has plenty of that 
 kind of pluck, if pluck it is to be called. I hope 
 he's not a particular friend of yours ? " 
 
 "We were never specially intimate. He's a 
 good many years my junior. But I own to a 
 very strong liking for poor Brian." 
 
 " A pleasant fellow, no doubt — very pleasant. 
 But sadly wanting in ballast ; and quite with- 
 out any ambitions worthy the name. A young 
 man without ambitions is always more or less 
 in dangerous case. No; the only member of 
 that family really worth anything is Isabel — 
 these boys' sister. A good deal might be made 
 out of Isabel Travers, by a man who had her 
 completely in hand. Unfortunately, she's head- 
 strong, and takes her own way far too much ; 
 besides, like all these girls who go in for 
 masculine studies, she's intoxicated with her 
 own achievements." 
 
 " A distinguished girl-graduate ? " 
 
 "Yes, she made herself remarkable at Girton, 
 or Somerville, or some place of that kind, I 
 believe. Very foolish of her father to let her 
 go to college at all ; she would have been much 
 better employed making herself useful at home. 
 I believe he did offer some kind of feeble op- 
 position ; but my lady was rebellious, and 
 carried the day. And now, instead of putting 
 the learning she has — very unnecessarily —
 
 70 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 acquired to some sound use (for instance, she 
 would have been very useful to me as proof- 
 reader and secretary — I could have given her 
 plenty to do all the year round) — instead of 
 this, what must she needs do but rush off to 
 London and plunge head-foremost into wild 
 schemes of social regeneration, so-called. One 
 knows what those schemes are at bottom ; mere 
 expedients for making the men and women 
 (more especially the women) who run them, 
 conspicuous in the eyes of the world." 
 
 " An unfortunate choice," said Lyon, struggling 
 with the corners of his mouth. 
 
 ''Very unfortunate. It will be the ruin of 
 the girl. All her parents' fault, though, in the 
 first instance, at least. She was made too much 
 of at home ; her vanity fed to repletion by 
 adulation of her pitiful little talents. Still, for 
 a woman, she is a capable creature. She might 
 have been of great assistance to me, in a certain 
 way." Mr. Creighton stifled a sigh. "Are you 
 certain you won't take any more claret ? Then 
 we'll go into the drawing-room." 
 
 The lamps in the drawing-room were already 
 lighted ; but the room itself was empty. It 
 was a large room, handsomely and heavily 
 furnished, and as precisely orderly as the rest 
 of the house. Not a chair was out of place, not 
 a book lay open, not a vestige of needlework 
 appeared on any of the tables. Lyon began to 
 find the unvarying primness of his surroundings
 
 AT THE HAULMS 71 
 
 somewhat oppressive. His eyes wandered 
 wistfully through the French windows, and 
 lingered on the twilit lawn. 
 
 Mr. Creighton interpreted his guest's half- 
 longing gaze aright. " I didn't ask you if you 
 cared to smoke? I don't smoke myself, and 
 I've no room in the house convenient for smok- 
 ing ; but if you feel inclined for a turn in the 
 garden " — 
 
 " Thanks, I'll have one cigar, if you'll allow 
 me." 
 
 " Then, if ^oic'W allow 7ne, I'll leave you to 
 enjoy it alone." (Mr. Creighton was evidently 
 not a punctilious host.) " I have a mass of 
 notes (which I was getting in order against 
 your coming) to finish looking over to-night. 
 To-morrow I shall ask you to run your eye 
 over them, if you will." 
 
 Lyon expressed becoming pleasure at the 
 prospect of being introduced to these interest- 
 ing MSS. 
 
 " They'll be particularly interesting to you, I 
 hope, seeing they deal with people and scenes 
 you must be thoroughly familiar with. I am 
 pausing just now in my general survey at 
 Australia and New Zealand, and should be 
 very glad of some information from you on one 
 or two points." 
 
 " I'm sure," Lyon said — he had already one 
 foot across the window-sill, and was busily 
 engaged in extracting his cigar-case from his
 
 72 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 pocket—" I'm sure, if I had any useful informa- 
 tion to impart about Australia or New Zealand, 
 it would be quite at your service. But, as it 
 happens, I'm really the last person in the world 
 to apply to. When I was out in Queensland, 
 I virtually lived with my eyes shut — to every- 
 thing, that is to say, except the cutting capa- 
 bilities of the strata through which I was trying 
 to force a permanent way for my railway 
 company." 
 
 " So ! " he said to himself a moment later, as — 
 having first dropped down the terrace-bank to 
 the lawn, and there set his cigar carefully alight 
 — he started on a stroll across the thick, smooth 
 turf; "behold the motive that prompted my 
 very unexpected invitation to The Haulms! 
 The right moment for picking the ex-emigrant's 
 brain had arrived. Shall I succumb gracefully ? 
 shall I be telegraphed for to-morrow? or shall 
 I remain on, and rebel, like Miss Isabel Travers 
 — for whom I feel, at this moment, profound 
 respect and unqualified admiration ? I rather 
 think — inspired by her excellent example — that 
 I will elect to stay and rebel. Decidedly — 
 unless I get too much bored in these rural 
 solitudes — that will be the most amusing course. 
 And retreat is always open to me, as a last 
 resource. Meanwhile, it would be a meritorious 
 deed to teach this old tyrant a lesson. His 
 behaviour to his niece, a most inoffensive girl, 
 as far as I can see, is really quite ruffianly."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 UP AND DOWN THE LADY'S WALK. 
 
 ''A mind consciously^ energetically moving with the larger march 
 of human destinies^ hut not the less full of conscience and 
 tender heart for the footsteps that tread near and need a 
 leaning-place . . . capable of the unapplatided heroism 
 which turns off the road of achievement at the call of the 
 nearer duty whose effect lies within the beatings of the 
 hearts that are close to us.'^ 
 
 THE grounds at The Haulms were not ex- 
 tensive. They consisted, Lyon speedily 
 discovered, simply of the sloping lawn (or rather 
 lawns, for there were two, one falling straight to 
 the river, the other, more rambling and irregular in 
 shape, lying at right angles to it), which he had 
 first seen from the dining-room window, and the 
 winding shrubbery walk below it, together with 
 a fairly spacious walled kitchen-garden running 
 parallel to the smaller lawn on the left. Be- 
 yond the farther wall of this garden, the gnarled 
 boughs of a group of ancient apple-trees pro- 
 claimed the beginnings of the Rectory orchard, 
 and the limits of Mr. Creighton's demesne. 
 
 73
 
 74 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 Leaving the exploration of the kitchen-garden 
 for a daylight hour, Lyon sauntered, cigar in 
 mouth, towards the river. The night (it must 
 now have been hard on ten o'clock) was delicious 
 to every sense : clear, calm, balmy, here and 
 there delicately fragrant with the scent of tea- 
 roses. A clear young moon was ascending out 
 of the east ; at the zenith the sky had taken on 
 a deep violet hue, and the stars showed them- 
 selves distinctly as points of white light on the 
 dusky background ; but in the western horizon 
 the last pale opal and aqua-marine tints of a 
 glorious sunset lingered yet. In a bit of larch 
 thicket hard by the moss-grown river-path a 
 nightingale was singing. Lyon felt that it would 
 probably take him a long time to finish his one 
 cigar. 
 
 Having taken a few steps along the path, and 
 reached a point where the brushwood grew less 
 closely, and he could get a view of the stream 
 below, he stopped for a minute or two. The 
 famous river was here to be seen in most modest 
 guise : as a mere narrow line of slow-moving 
 water, half-choked with reeds, rushes, and float- 
 ing weed. Certainly Miss Temple had in no 
 wise exaggerated the difficulties of attempting 
 to navigate such a stream. 
 
 As Lyon stood looking out over the flat ex- 
 panse of water-meadows forming the opposite 
 shore, — watching idly the countless thin threads 
 of silver mist rising from a hundred unseen pools
 
 UP AND DOWN THE LADY'S WALK 75 
 
 and spreading themselves over the dim face of 
 the land, — he became aware of a sudden crackling 
 of twigs and rustling of branches on the bank 
 just below him ; sounds quickly followed by the 
 equally sudden appearance of a white-robed 
 figure, which, springing up the slope, all but 
 precipitated itself against him. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mr. Lyon ! " exclaimed 
 Dorothy Temple, regaining her balance with 
 difficulty, for it was on the very edge of the 
 bank that she had recoiled, only just in time 
 to avoid ignominous collision with the massive 
 person of her uncle's guest. " You were so com- 
 pletely in the shadow that I didn't see you " — 
 
 " I think I ought to beg _;/^;/r pardon," returned 
 Lyon. " I'm afraid I startled you. Have you 
 been braving the waters in your famous punt ? " 
 
 The girl looked at him searchingly a moment 
 before replying. Good-humoured banter was 
 evidently no part of her daily experience; 
 under raillery she half-suspected some covert 
 unkindness. Reading none in Lyon's face, she 
 answered frankly — 
 
 " No ; I've only been sitting by the river for 
 half an hour. I often sit there after dinner." 
 
 "By yourself?" 
 
 " By myself, certainly. Surely you wouldn't 
 imagine my uncle likely to do anything so 
 frivolous?" 
 
 "Well — hardly. He has gone to work now, 
 I believe. At any rate, he is preparing work for
 
 76 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 to-morrow — devotion to labour, indeed, on such 
 a night ! That's the worst of authors ; their time 
 is so taken up in labouring for immortality that 
 they have next to no leisure to bestow on their 
 perishing fellow-creatures. I daresay Mr. Creigh- 
 ton doesn't give you much of his society at any 
 time?" 
 
 " No. But in any case, even if he were a less 
 busy man, I could hardly expect him to do that, 
 of course." 
 
 " Why ' of course ' ? " 
 
 " I am not a very fit companion for him, as 
 you may easily guess. I don't understand the 
 subjects that are his main interests in life ; I 
 never had any chance of studying them. You 
 have, no doubt " — 
 
 " Indeed I have not \ " interposed Lyon, with 
 fervent emphasis. "Whatever you do. Miss 
 Temple, for goodness' sake don't encourage your 
 uncle to think that I can be of any manner of 
 use to him in his inquiries ! If you should per- 
 ceive him inclined to cherish such a delusion, 
 try, I beg of you, to disabuse his mind of it. 
 Tell him I know no more of the scientific 
 doctrine of heredity than I do — say — of the 
 philosophy of the Rig Vedas ! " 
 
 Miss Temple laughed outright at this vehement 
 appeal — frankly, easily, with all her first cheer- 
 ful fearlessness of manner. Then Lyon laughed 
 also ; and matters were immediately replaced on 
 their former pleasant footing between the two.
 
 UP AND DOWN THE LADY'S WALK 77 
 
 " But, if you don't care for the doctrine of 
 heredity," Dorothy said, when she had had her 
 laugh out, " I'm afraid you will have a dull 
 time of it in Heyford ; for my uncle cares for 
 very little else ; and there is next to nothing to 
 do — this is a particularly quiet neighbourhood. 
 It's impossible you should find a visit here 
 amusing." 
 
 " Mere lack of amusement won't make me 
 pine. I'm not particularly given to gaiety at 
 any time, and just now I feel in the frame of 
 mind to enjoy lying on the grass all day, and 
 communing with Nature — chiefly with my eyes 
 shut. I'm a fearfully lazy mortal, and there's 
 this good point to set against many ill ones in a 
 lazy man : he is very little trouble to entertain." 
 
 Dorothy shook her head incredulously. 
 
 " I doubt your being quite so fond of an absol- 
 utely stirless existence as you'd have me think." 
 
 "Well, when I tire of dreams, I shall throw 
 myself on your charity. Will you undertake to 
 amuse me occasionally?" 
 
 " I have so little time," was the grave reply. 
 " You see, I am scarcely ever at home, except 
 in the evenings. But the cart and pony will be 
 at your service, I am sure. You could drive 
 yourself anywhere you pleased — if you care for 
 driving ? " 
 
 "Thanks." Lyon felt he had been quietly 
 put down. Had the girl taken offence at his 
 light tone? Certainly, there was no offence
 
 78 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 visible in her manner, which, for all its gravity, 
 remained perfectly sweet and serene. Never- 
 theless, clearly she had no intention of lending 
 him her companionship whenever he chose to 
 ask for it. 
 
 A momentary pause. Miss Temple, shiver- 
 ing slightly, drew the light fleecy shawl she 
 wore over her shoulders a little closer at the 
 throat. Her head was bare, and the thick fair 
 waves of her hair caught the growing moonlight 
 prettily. 
 
 "You seem cold," Lyon remarked. "Hadn't 
 we better be moving ? I have my doubts about 
 the sanitary virtues of that seat of yours — when 
 the mists are rising," he added, as she turned by 
 his side, and they strolled along the path together- 
 She did not make any immediate rejoinder. 
 But after a moment or two she exclaimed, with 
 apparent irrelevance — 
 
 " It isn't often that people do exactly what 
 one wants of them." 
 
 "Very rarely indeed." Lyon wondered to 
 what discourse this exclamation was serving as 
 introduction. 
 
 "And though I hadn't the slightest expecta- 
 tion of your coming out here this evening, I 
 was wishing just now with all my heart that 
 you would come." 
 
 Lyon's wonder became perplexity. He began 
 to think Miss Temple a decidedly curious girl. 
 Inwardly he breathed a hope that her unconven-
 
 UP AND DOWN THE LADY'S WALK 79 
 
 tionality might not assume any very seriously 
 embarrassing form. 
 
 " I wanted so much to get a chance of saying 
 a word to you in private," the girl went on — 
 " about my cousin. I am afraid Uncle Mervyn 
 may have prejudiced you against him. And, 
 indeed, he does not understand Jem in the very 
 least. He is the last person likely to judge him 
 correctly." 
 
 She paused — not in any apparent confusion, 
 but rather because her eagerness had made her 
 a little breathless. Lyon, who had till now 
 been holding his half-smoked cigar between his 
 fingers, flung it suddenly away into the bushes, 
 and called himself secretly by an opprobrious 
 name before he answered — 
 
 " Pray have no further misgivings on that 
 point. It is true I haven't seen Travers for a 
 good many years, but no one who knew him at 
 two-and-twenty would be easily brought to 
 believe that any lapse of time could have trans- 
 formed him into the man of Mr. Creighton's 
 sketch. It's easy to see that your uncle and 
 James Travers are too differently constituted to 
 be likely to understand one another's motives. 
 I've no doubt Mr. Creighton spoke in all sincerity 
 — he drew Travers exactly as he appears from 
 his own particular point of view. But one may 
 be allowed to question whether that point of 
 view is the right one from which to regard a 
 man like James."
 
 8o A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 "Will you come and see for yourself?" 
 Dorothy appealed. " It's not two minutes' walk 
 to the Rectory ; and we shall most likely find 
 him in the garden. Do come ! " as Lyon seemed 
 to hesitate. " He is so cut off from all his old 
 friends here. I know he will be delighted to 
 see you again." 
 
 Lyon yielded, but not without secret mis- 
 givings. " That Jem could lose his honesty of 
 purpose, or his mental energy either, seems very 
 unlikely," he reflected. "All the same, it's 
 scarcely probable we shall find ourselves still 
 in touch at this time of day. For it's clear that 
 he has quite abandoned his old Oxford positions ; 
 and, good Lord ! what have I in common with 
 a ritualistic parson ? " 
 
 The riverside path melted insensibly into a 
 winding walk of the Rectory garden, neither 
 gate nor boundary-mark of any kind interposing 
 itself where the one ended and the other began. 
 Dorothy led her companion through a corner of 
 plantation first, then over a lawn, more steeply 
 sloping and much less scrupulously kept than 
 the lawns at The Haulms, and so out on to the 
 mossy sweep of gravel in front of the parsonage. 
 Part of this, low-roofed and lancet-windowed, 
 was manifestly of very ancient date, and such 
 additions as had been made to it in more 
 modern times did little to disturb its general 
 air of hoary antiquity. Not only were the newer 
 parts of the house in perfect architectural
 
 UP AND DOWN THE LADY'S WALK 8i 
 
 harmony with the older portions, but both were 
 now so thickly covered with creepers that it was 
 difficult, even for a practised eye, to discover 
 where the old ended, and the new began. 
 Twenty yards distant from the entrance-porch 
 lay the churchyard, separated from the garden 
 merely by an open iron railing, so that, standing 
 on the threshold of the house door, the inmates 
 of the Rectory could look straight up a narrow 
 path between lines of venerable headstones to 
 the noble south doorway of the neighbouring 
 church, with the escutcheon of the house of 
 Lancaster still prominent in fair bold carving 
 above its lintel. 
 
 The Rectory shutters were all closed ; no sign 
 of life appeared about the place. 
 
 " Mrs. Travers is half an invalid, and shuts up 
 the house early," explained Dorothy Temple, 
 seeing Lyon glance at the darkened windows. 
 " And the Rector never goes out after nightfall. 
 I wonder we haven't met my cousin. Perhaps 
 he is in the Lady's Walk. We will go and see." 
 
 She led the way again across the lawn, down- 
 wards towards the river ; then, stopping short of 
 the path along the bank, branched off suddenly 
 to the left. A moment later Lyon found himself 
 in a straight, turf-covered walk, closely overhung 
 on the left hand with trees, but bordered on the 
 right by the remains of a fine old brick wall 
 which had clearly, at some time or other, formed 
 part of the ramparts of a feudal mansion. In one 
 6
 
 82 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 or two places the embrasures for bowmen, and 
 projections on which the culverins of ancient war- 
 fare were mounted in time of siege, remained in 
 perfect preservation, while in others their former 
 existence could be more or less distinctly traced. 
 From below, the river, whispering softly through 
 great clumps of reeds and bulrushes, sent up a 
 pleasant murmur. 
 
 " This is the Lady's Walk," said Dorothy. 
 
 "A ghostly lady, I presume?" 
 
 "Yes. It is a sad story, poor Lady Helen's. 
 Her husband killed her." Dorothy paused in 
 her walk, plucking a little nervously at the ivy 
 covering a projecting mass of brick close by her. 
 " It was during the Wars of the Roses. Her 
 brother, flying from the victorious party, came 
 to her for shelter ; and she hid him in the well 
 that is at the farther end of the walk, — there, 
 where you see the two cypresses, — without telling 
 her lord, who, being on the other side — the 
 victorious side — himself, might have refused to 
 harbour a fugitive. Somehow or other, a sus- 
 picion that some one was concealed in the well 
 got about, and reached Lady Helen's husband. 
 He watched, saw her pass to and fro at night 
 with food for the unknown man, heard her talk 
 with him ; and the second evening, as she was 
 stealing back to the castle, fell upon her and 
 killed her, without giving her time to explain 
 the truth. Now the legend goes, that she 
 wanders up and down this walk at night,
 
 UP ASlJ DOWN THE LADY'S WALK 83 
 
 searching for her husband, unable to rest till 
 she /las explained." 
 
 "Granting to disembodied spirits a pov.er 
 of wandering, and a capability of concerning 
 themselves with their past histories, that is just 
 the sort of thing a female ghost would be 
 likely to do, I daresay. A woman's impulse 
 would naturally be to come back and insist on 
 explanations." 
 
 "Or a man's either, I should think, in such a 
 case." 
 
 " I'm not so sure." 
 
 "Why? Are men so willing to be misjudged 
 then? — to die misjudged by the persons they 
 care for most in the world ? " 
 
 " No, I fancy not, in the majority of instances. 
 But I think our sex accepts the inevitable with 
 a better grace than yours, as a rule. And 
 personally, I've always fancied that death would 
 probably have a wonderfully cooling effect on 
 one's mind ; that one would probably wake up 
 on the other side (supposing there be another 
 very much in the mood in which one v/akes up 
 in the morning here after a good night's sleep 
 having gone to bed in a shocking bad temper ; 
 wondering, that is, how one could ever have 
 made such a fool of one's self about a pack of 
 trifles. But then " — with the slightest of smiles 
 — " I speak only for the coarsely-constituted 
 masculine nature. A woman would probably 
 feel differently."
 
 84 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 " I cannot imagine being content to be mis- 
 understood, certainly, living or dead." 
 
 " It's a thing one grows used to, I assure you. 
 After awhile — do you know ? — one ceases to set 
 any extraordinary store by the opinions of one's 
 fellow-creatures. It must be the delightful 
 diffidence of youth that makes young people 
 (so long as they remain young) so extremely 
 anxious to be thought well of by their neigh- 
 bours, I fancy ; for it's a craving which soon 
 wears off. As one learns to esteem one's own 
 judgment more lightly, one finds it quite easy 
 to disregard the judgment of other people. Of 
 course, I'm supposing that one is lucky enough 
 to have a pretty good conceit of one's self to 
 begin with. When all's said, self-satisfaction is 
 the only abiding source of solid comfort." 
 
 " Do you suppose any one is really and 
 thoroughly self-satisfied ? " questioned Dorothy 
 abruptly. Moving on again, without waiting for 
 an answer, she added, " Ah, here is Jem ! I 
 thought we should find him." 
 
 A short and rather thick-set black figure moved 
 out of the shade of the cypresses, and a cheery 
 voice called — 
 
 "Is that you, Dorothy?" 
 
 "Yes, Jem. I've brought an old friend of 
 yours to see you — Mr. Lyon." 
 
 "Lyon? Not AntJwny Lyon, surely? Why, 
 old fellow ! " — the dusky apparition was upon 
 the pair already, and seized Lyon's hand as
 
 UP AND DOWN THE LADY'S WALK 85 
 
 it spoke, — " where have you sprung from so 
 suddenly ? And what good fortune brings you 
 to Heyford?" 
 
 Lyon explained ; taking stock, meanwhile, 
 of his old friend and new acquaintance from 
 head to foot, an operation rendered easy by 
 the moonlight. Barring the precision of his 
 clerical costume, and the presence of the 
 significant little cross hanging at his watch- 
 chain, there was certainly nothing in the 
 appearance of the Reverend James Travers 
 to mark him out as the typical "ritualistic 
 parson" of Lyon's uneasy fancy. His air was 
 neither stern nor unctuous, and conveyed no 
 hint of lofty sacerdotal pretensions on his part, 
 no suggestion of saintliness flaunting itself 
 aggressively in the face of a wicked world. 
 His voice had a hearty, boyish ring; his 
 pleasant, open countenance bore no special 
 traces of asceticism, while his figure inclined 
 to decided squareness of outline. For the rest, 
 he had a fair complexion, light hair, with a 
 strong dash of red in it, eyelashes and eyebrows 
 strictly to match, and blue eyes in no way 
 remarkable for size or vividness of colouring. 
 His head was for the present in great measure 
 concealed by his soft felt hat, but the little that 
 could be seen of the brow and temples would 
 have led an observer to suspect that it contained 
 brains. The feature most noteworthy in his 
 face was doubtless the chin, square as Lyon's
 
 S6 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 own, and eloquent of strong will and unflinching 
 resolution. His mouth, on the other hand, 
 though too wide for beauty, with its regrettably 
 long upper lip, had a sensitive sweetness of 
 expression, curiously at variance with the un- 
 compromising firmness of that heavily-moulded 
 jaw. It did not require much power of divina- 
 tion to guess that a man possessing at once 
 such a mouth and such a chin must occasionally 
 have a hard time of it with his conscience. 
 
 Lyon, making his explanation, perceived 
 that Miss Temple had not erred in asserting 
 James Travers' certain delight at the sight 
 of himself, for James stood, meanwhile, openly 
 beaming upon his old friend, his whole coun- 
 tenance radiant with genuine satisfaction. 
 
 " This zs a rare piece of luck ! " he ejaculated, 
 when Lyon came to a stop. " You'll stay and 
 have a chat, won't you ? Mr. Creighton is gone 
 to his writing as usual, I suppose, Dorothy ? " 
 
 " Oh yes." 
 
 " I know nothing is ever allowed to interfere 
 with two four-hour periods of labour ; nine to 
 one in the morning, and nine to one at night. 
 You'll stay, then ? " to Lyon. 
 
 " And pray don't feel obliged to hurry back 
 at any particular hour," Dorothy put in. " I 
 will tell Lewin to leave the dining-room window 
 open for you. Good-night, if I don't see you 
 again. Good-night, Jem."| 
 
 She flitted briskly down the moonlit walk
 
 UP AND DOWN THE LADY'S WALK 87 
 
 into the shadow of the trees. Lyon glanced 
 after her for a moment. 
 
 " Your cousin is a young lady of prompt 
 action," he remarked. 
 
 "And quick instincts. She imagined, I've no 
 doubt, that she might be in the way, and spoil 
 our talk. Lyon, I warn you that I'm brimming 
 over with feminine curiosity. I shall ask you 
 questions. Don't answer them if you'd rather 
 not." 
 
 " My dear fellow, there's so little to tell one 
 way or another. I suspect you know already 
 all there is to know." 
 
 "Well, I have to congratulate you to begin 
 with, haven't I ? " 
 
 " To — Heaven forbid ! Oh, I perceive ! You 
 allnde to that lucky windfall in the shape of 
 Yorkshire mines ? Thanks, that is matter of 
 congratulation. I was pretty low in the world 
 when the wind shook that beneficent apple 
 down, as you are probably aware." 
 
 " I heard of your sudden dash to Queensland, 
 of course. That was not so long after" — Mr. 
 Travers checked himself rather suddenly. 
 
 "After I had to leave Oxford, you mean? 
 You needn't be afraid to mention that sore 
 subject now. I know I behaved like a fool 
 at the time ; I must have bored you and 
 Mallam — you recollect Charlie Mallam ? " — 
 ("Don't I?" with boyish emphasis from Travers) 
 — "bored you both to death with my tragic
 
 88 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 groanings under that first stroke of ill fortune. 
 But I've outgrown that misery, thank Heaven, 
 as I've outgrown others. It's astonishing, but 
 very comforting too, to find how utterly re- 
 conciled one gets to things as they are." 
 
 " You've turned philosopher, apparently," 
 observed the other, directing a searching look 
 that was half-incredulous, half-compassionate, 
 at Lyon's dark, impassive face. 
 
 Lyon did not see the look. His eyes were 
 fixed on the moonlit sward at his feet. 
 
 " Every man's bound to turn philosopher 
 when he finds himself gliding down the thirties. 
 More shame to him if he doesn't ! " 
 
 " Always supposing he can — that the root of 
 philosophy is in him, as old Creyke used to 
 say. You've not forgotten old Creyke? He's 
 at St. Boniface still ; same set of rooms behind 
 the gateway, into which the sun never looks. I 
 saw him when I went up to vote last week, and 
 Mallam too." 
 
 " How is Mallam prospering ? " 
 
 " First-rate. Tutor at the old place now, with 
 heaps of private pupils besides. By the way, 
 another old chum of yours has come back into 
 college lately." 
 
 Oxford news, Oxford reminiscences sufficed 
 to keep the conversation in full flow for the 
 best part of half an hour. It was rather a one- 
 sided conversation, certainly, Travers doing at 
 least two-thirds of the talking. Lyon, however,
 
 UP AND DOWN THE LADY'S WALK 89 
 
 seemed well pleased to play the listener's part. 
 His expression, as the two men paced up 
 and down the Lady's Walk together, became 
 quite animated. 
 
 " You haven't mentioned Cartwright," he 
 remarked, at the end of the aforesaid half-hour. 
 " I used to like that fellow, and he certainly 
 was very brilliant. He ought to be doing well." 
 
 "He is doing well — very well. Quite one 
 of the leading men among the younger sort. 
 They prophesy great things of him." 
 
 " Is he in Oxford still ? " 
 
 "Very much so, indeed. Why, didn't you 
 know he had stepped into my old berth ? " 
 
 " No, I hadn't heard. Well, if you must 
 needs vacate the place, I suppose it would have 
 been hard to find a better man to come after 
 you. To tell truth, though, Travers, I can't 
 think why on earth you gave Cartwright that 
 chance." 
 
 " My dear fellow, I had simply no choice in 
 the matter. My father was responsible for this 
 parish, and needed help here which only I 
 could give him. It was impossible for me to 
 stay on at Oxford." 
 
 " My dear Travers, — excuse me, — surely there 
 were other available parsons in this realm of 
 England two years ago? I haven't an ex- 
 tensive clerical acquaintance, but I believe I 
 could name half a dozen men quite fit to be 
 curate of Heyford. On the other hand, I don't
 
 90 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 know one (parson or layman) whom I should 
 have cared to nominate to your old post." 
 
 " My father's means wouldn't have borne the 
 strain of a curate's stipend," returned Travers 
 brusquely. " Of course, I daresay you'll think 
 that difficulty might have been met in a different 
 way. But you don't know my father. He is 
 not a man to whom any one, even his son, would 
 dare to offer pecuniary help. Besides, he saw 
 no need for a curate at that time. He sees 
 none now. In his view, the work here was, and 
 is, such as he can easily cope with single- 
 handed. Even my presence he merely tolerates 
 — as a kind of superfluity, a sort of unnecessary 
 spiritual extravagance." 
 
 " Well, I can't help thinking you have made 
 a mistake." 
 
 " I trust to God I haven't." (The words were 
 so gravely, albeit simply, spoken, that Lyon, 
 who was at the moment leaning over the para- 
 pet of the ancient wall, looking down into the 
 river below, turned involuntarily to glance at 
 the speaker.) " That's what I fear, sometimes, 
 I may have done. You see, unluckily, my 
 father's way of thinking is not altogether mine. 
 It doesn't seem fair to run counter to his ideas 
 in his own parish. I feel bound to work, as far 
 as is possible, on his lines. On the other hand, 
 there's the higher duty. And it's often difficult 
 to feel sure one isn't acting too much as a son, 
 and too little as a parson. The precise point at
 
 UP AND DOWN THE LADY'S WALK 91 
 
 which the question of expediency ends, and the 
 question of right and wrong begins, is hard to 
 determine," said Travers, with a nervous twist 
 of his sensitive mouth. 
 
 " These things are rather beyond me," Lyon 
 responded. " Only to the plain, non-religious 
 man it certainly seems that, given two religious 
 men who agree in essentials (as I presume you 
 and your father may be said to do), there ought 
 to be no great friction between them with regard 
 to things that are merely accidental." 
 
 "True, as far as it goes. But how decide 
 what constitutes an essential, and what an 
 accidental, in such matters ? " 
 
 " Oh, if you come to that, Travers, unless 
 you wish to squander the not inconsiderable 
 amount of brains nature endowed you with on 
 mere hair-splitting for the remainder of your 
 life, it strikes me you'd better go back to 
 Oxford — or up to London — by the first train 
 to-morrow morning. You haven't enough to do 
 in this idyllic village." 
 
 " I don't want for work, I assure you. There's 
 more to do in Heyford than you imagine, old 
 chap. And the air's not a bit more conducive 
 to moral uncertainty than the air of Oxford. 
 Long before I left St. Boniface, years before I 
 had any idea I should ever be wanted here, I 
 had my doubts as to whether I could honestly 
 go on holding that professorship. I had been 
 put into it as the nominee of the progressive
 
 92 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 party, you see ; the party to which we all 
 belonged in the old days. I gather that you 
 belong to it still ? " 
 
 " My dear fellow, I belong to no party what- 
 ever. To belong to a party, one must believe, 
 or, at the least, disbelieve something ; one must 
 have made up one's mind either for or against. 
 My mind isn't made up at all on any one point, 
 except it be the worthlessness of human nature 
 in general, and my own individual nature in par- 
 ticular; not much of a foundation to build upon." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," returned Travers 
 quickly, with another swift, sidelong glance. 
 " However, as I was saying, they certainly gave 
 me that post with the idea that I should make 
 it a vantage-ground from which to advocate a 
 certain definite set of //^definite opinions. When 
 my own views on certain subjects changed 
 utterly, it seemed scarcely fair to stay in office 
 and lecture the doctrines of my electors down. 
 Then, on the other hand, one felt bound to use 
 the opportunity. Well, Heyford's need of a 
 curate cut the knot of that Gordian difficulty," 
 he broke off, with a sudden return to brightness 
 of manner. "And as to going back — my dear 
 chap, they wouldn't have me at any price ! I'm 
 a sort of reactionary, you see ; a kind of traitor. 
 The Heyford villagers are a bit suspicious of 
 me, I believe, as a possible secret emissary of 
 the Papacy. But in Oxford I should have to 
 encounter much worse suspicions."
 
 UP AND DOWN THE LADY'S WALK 93 
 
 I think I should prefer the most distrustful 
 cold-shouldering in Oxford to the intellectual 
 stagnation of a country village," quoth Lyon, 
 heavily persistent. 
 
 " Oh, if a man stagnates anywhere, with a 
 tolerable collection of books on his walls, and 
 a post-bag twice a day, it must be the man's 
 own fault," retorted Travers cheerfully. 
 
 He accompanied his friend to the foot of the 
 neighbouring garden, descanting on the past 
 history of Heyford, and giving, incidentally, 
 a humorous account of the last visit paid to the 
 place by the local archaeological society. Brian 
 had made a sketch of the party of provincial 
 worthies ascending the church tower, which 
 Lyon must really see. 
 
 Here Lyon, suddenly awakened to a sense 
 of his omissions, inquired for the vivacious ex- 
 lancer. Travers reported his brother to be doing 
 very fairly well in Australia, sticking to work, 
 and keeping steady as Old Time ; apparently 
 engineering was the profession for him, after all. 
 At this point he had to suppress so unmistak- 
 able a yawn that Lyon, pulling up short in his 
 walk, insisted on saying good-night at once. 
 
 " Why, you're half asleep, man ! What have 
 you been about to-day ? Poring over the 
 Fathers in MS.?" 
 
 " Haven't so much as opened a book. It was 
 our Benefit Club fete-day, and I had to preach 
 to the members, and then preside at their annual
 
 94 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 feed, which lasted all the afternoon and a good 
 part of the evening as well. I suppose the 
 carving, with singing and bad tobacco ad lib. 
 afterwards, has made me a bit sleepy." 
 
 " A Benefit Club dinner ! What an ordeal ! " 
 Lyon murmured. 
 
 " Ordeal ? Not a bit of it ! I enjoyed it very 
 much ; they're awfully nice fellows, many of 
 them. Good-night, Lyon. I'll look you up to- 
 morrow as early as I can." 
 
 "And that's the end of the most brilliant 
 scholar in Oxford," mused Lyon, as he proceeded 
 on his upward way. " Truly, the man burdened 
 with a conscience has precious little chance of 
 getting on in this world. When will people 
 learn that there's nothing on earth worth worry- 
 ing one's self about, sufficiently to spoil one's 
 night's sleep ? " 
 
 He found the French window of the drawing- 
 room open, — Miss Temple had been faithful to 
 her promise, — and a light still burning in the 
 hall. Possessing himself of his candlestick, he 
 was marching upstairs with it, on his way to his 
 room, when, at a sudden turn of the staircase, 
 he came full upon Mr. Creighton's niece in the 
 act of descending, with the shawl she had worn 
 in the garden still wrapped about her shoulders. 
 
 " I — I thought you had come in before," she 
 said in some confusion. 
 
 " I apologise most humbly. I know I'm 
 outrageously late. But Travers and I got
 
 UP AND DOWN THE LADY'S WALK 95 
 
 talking Oxford ; and, you know — or, rather, 
 you don't know — what that means to old college 
 chums ! It seems, though, that you too keep 
 late hours. May I take that as a sign that you 
 are not extra early in the morning ? " 
 
 " / am rather early," returned the girl. " I 
 have to be. But my uncle does not breakfast 
 till nine ; you will not have to rise with the lark. 
 Good-night once more." 
 
 With a friendly nod, she skimmed past him 
 downstairs, disappearing into the dark, deserted 
 drawing-room. 
 
 Men are slow of intuition. It was not till 
 Lyon heard the cautious grinding of bolts below 
 (his room was over the drawing-room) that the 
 reason of Miss Temple's unexplained nocturnal 
 vigil occurred to him.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 AT THE RECTORY 
 '"'■ Les hommes ne sont jnstes qu'envers cetix qitils aiment." 
 
 LYON'S vague fear that he might possibly 
 see too much of his host's niece during his 
 sojourn at The Haulms did not seem at all likely 
 to be justified. Not only was Miss Temple absent 
 the following morning (as she had intimated 
 would be the case) from her uncle's breakfast- 
 table ; she did not even put in an appearance at 
 luncheon. Mr. Creighton made no apology for 
 her absence — did not, indeed, by word or sign, 
 let fall any hint that he recollected so much as 
 the fact of her existence ; and Lyon, as the day 
 wore on, found himself indulging more than 
 once in passing speculations as to her where- 
 abouts. Two or three times, during the long 
 hours of the morning, which he spent with Mr. 
 Creighton in his library, now languidly resisting, 
 now lazily yielding to, the process of determined 
 pumping to which that thoroughgoing disciple 
 of the doctrine of heredity persistently and un- 
 
 96
 
 AT THE RECTORY 97 
 
 blushingly subjected him, he glanced out of 
 the half-open window, expecting to see a tall 
 slim figure in dark skirt and light blouse pass 
 by, laden, perhaps, with a trowel and basket — 
 for, to his eye. Miss Temple had looked just the 
 sort of young woman likely to spend a good 
 deal of her time in gardening. No such figure, 
 however, appeared to divert the somewhat op- 
 pressive monotony of his tete-a-tete with his 
 philosophic entertainer ; and, if Miss Temple 
 accomplished any garden work at all that day, 
 her labours must have been performed in some 
 extremely out-of-the-way corner of her uncle's 
 modest property. Otherwise, her uncle's guest 
 could hardly have failed to light upon her as he 
 strolled about that very limited demesne in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 The day was brilliantly fine, and the heat of 
 the sun-charged atmosphere decidedly unfavour- 
 able to physical exertion. Lyon felt no inclina- 
 tion whatever to avail himself of the proffered 
 services of Mr. Creighton's horse or Miss 
 Dorothy's pony, and shrank with positive dis- 
 taste from the notion of extensive exploration 
 in the village. For some time, pleasantly 
 accompanied by a book and a pipe, he made 
 himself perfectly happy on the river-bank in 
 the shade of a huge thorn. When the company 
 aforesaid began to lose something of their ab- 
 sorbing charm, he sauntered over to the Rectory 
 in search of Travers.
 
 98 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 Half-way to his destination, he met the person 
 he was going to visit. Travers came hurrying 
 up, hot and apologetic. 
 
 " So sorry I haven't been able to look you up 
 earlier; haven't had a moment! In the early 
 morning, of course, there's church, and school, 
 and what-not. And ever since eleven o'clock 
 I've been engaged in trying to quell a parochial 
 disturbance — a mere tea-cup tempest; but it 
 bothers my father. Come up and be introduced 
 to him. Seeing you will divert his mind a bit 
 from old Crowther and his grievances, maybe." 
 
 " What does the grievance relate to ? Tithes 
 and offerings ? " inquired Lyon, as the two 
 men climbed the steep ascent of the Rectory 
 lawn. 
 
 " Wish it did ! Pecuniary grievances are at 
 least tangible things to deal with. No ; this is 
 a case of Protestant panic, whereof I can't at 
 present discover the originating cause. Unfor- 
 tunately, Crowther, who has constituted himself 
 spokesman in the matter, — he is our leading 
 farmer, and a thoroughly worthy old chap in 
 his way, — has been my father's churchwarden 
 for thirty years, and understands exactly how 
 to drive him to the verge of desperation. He 
 has nearly driven him over the verge this morn- 
 ing. And the absurd part of it all is, that, after 
 two mortal hours' talk, my father seems to be 
 still quite in the dark as to the exact head and 
 front of my present offending."
 
 AT THE RECTORY 99 
 
 "Possibly the excellent Mr. Crowther is a 
 little in the dark on that point himself." 
 
 " Possibly. However, he left word that he 
 would call again this afternoon; and then / 
 mean to tackle him, and get to the bottom of 
 the matter, once for all. Ah, here comes my 
 father ! " 
 
 If Mr. Travers' elder son had indeed inherited 
 (as Mr. Creighton so confidently asserted) his 
 father's mental idiosyncrasies, this similarity 
 of disposition was not heralded forth by any 
 physical resemblance between the two men. In 
 James Travers — short, plain-faced, irregular in 
 outline and undecided in colouring — it was im- 
 possible to trace even the faintest Hkeness to 
 the tall, distinguished-looking old man, dark- 
 eyed and snowy-haired, with features cast in 
 the purest aquiline mould, who wore his shabby 
 clerical coat with the grace of a fallen French 
 aristocrat, and stepped off the threadbare mat 
 at his parsonage door to greet his son's friend 
 with the courtly affability of a Spanish hidalgo. 
 On the other hand, it was easy to recognise 
 Brian's father in this stately old clergyman. 
 Upon the scapegrace younger son of the house 
 of Travers the mantle of his progenitor's good 
 looks had fallen in no scant measure ; and Lyon 
 found himself imagining Brian, some forty-five 
 years hence, presenting the very counterpart of 
 the figure in the Rectory doorway. 
 
 " I am glad to make your acquaintance, Mr.
 
 loo A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 Lyon. We have often heard your name from 
 James," the old man said, with dignified 
 cordiality. " Though I believe you have not 
 met for some time past ? " 
 
 Lyon explained that he had been in Australia 
 for the best part of the last ten years. 
 
 "Indeed? We have taken a special interest 
 in Australia and the Australians of late years," 
 Mr. Travers responded, with a smile. " My 
 younger son went out to Queensland the summer 
 before last. You know him also, I believe ? His 
 brother has told you, no doubt, that he seems 
 to be taking kindly to colonial life. — Where 
 are you going, James?" 
 
 Mr. Travers' tone, in putting this abrupt 
 question to his son, was marked by a sudden 
 and complete change of tone, a change so sudden 
 and so complete that Lyon could hardly fail to 
 be struck by it. From the extreme of suavity 
 the old man seemed to have passed in a 
 moment to the extreme of irritability. His 
 voice, till now so smoothly modulated, sounded 
 harsh and rasping ; his manner, losing for a 
 moment all its polished calm, betrayed keen 
 annoyance, smouldering suspicion, even a 
 suggestion of positive rooted antagonism. 
 
 " I see Crowther turning in at the farther gate," 
 returned his son promptly. " I intended to 
 intercept him and carry him off to the study, 
 before he could bear down upon you." 
 
 " Well, well," said Mr. Travers, still somewhat
 
 AT THE RECTORY loi 
 
 suspiciously, though with a note of relenting in 
 his voice, " it might not be amiss for you to do 
 so. I have no objection to your speaking to 
 him yourself, if you choose." (He uttered these 
 words with the air of a schoolmaster granting a 
 doubtful permission to a somewhat presuming 
 schoolboy.) " But be careful what you say to 
 him. It does not do to put these people's backs 
 up — especially when, as in the present case, the 
 right is unfortunately on their side. Perhaps, 
 on second thoughts, I had better be present 
 myself at the interview." 
 
 James Travers flushed to the roots of his 
 light hair. 
 
 '*■ As you please, sir, of course. I merely 
 fancied you would be glad to keep out of the 
 fray." 
 
 " There need be no fray, as you call it, if you 
 are commonly judicious," retorted his father 
 oracularly. " Well, be it as you wish ; see 
 Crowther alone, by all means, if you prefer to do 
 so. IMr. Lyon," — this with an easy resumption 
 of his momentarily abandoned grand manner, 
 — " will you sit with me on the lawn for a few 
 minutes, until James is at liberty to return to us?" 
 
 Lyon sat down, wondering within himself 
 how much longer James Travers would continue 
 to hold the curacy of Heyford. "If the St. 
 Boniface Common Room could have witnessed 
 this little scene ! " he said to himself " ' Verily, 
 I think thou'rt fallen far,' my poor James."
 
 102 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 "My son," Mr. Travers pronounced with 
 dignity, " is very well-meaning, extremely well- 
 intentioned. But, like most young men, he is 
 highly injudicious. He never showed his want 
 of judgment more than in flinging up his Oxford 
 appointment, and planting himself at Heyford, 
 on the plea that the parish required more super- 
 vision, and more services, than I could give it. 
 A most mistaken notion, from my point of view. 
 I have never considered the multiplication of 
 services an aid to spiritual religion. James, 
 however, has become unhappily imbued with 
 the ideas of that pernicious school which sets 
 an exaggerated value on externals, and he thinks 
 otherwise. Consequently, he insisted on becom- 
 ing my curate, almost, I may say, against my 
 will. And what is the result ? My parishioners, 
 so far from welcoming his new-fangled cere- 
 monies, resent them." 
 
 Lyon, in some embarrassment at the turn 
 given by Mr. Travers to the conversation, 
 delivered himself of the highly original remark 
 that country folk were usually averse to change 
 of every kind. 
 
 " Yes ; stare super antiquas vias is their motto 
 in most things. And a right good motto too. 
 I wish James would consent to follow its teach- 
 ing! His doings are a constant source of strife 
 in this quiet place. This very morning, my 
 senior churchwarden — a most estimable man, 
 who has served his responsible office faithfully
 
 AT THE RECTORY 103 
 
 during the whole period of my incumbency of 
 thirty-two years — this worthy man comes to me 
 in great distress, because of some symbolic 
 words in an unknown tongue (he did not know 
 whether Latin or Greek words — he is naturally 
 not a scholar, good man ! ) which James has 
 introduced into the ornamentation of the church. 
 A very foolish prank on James's part — certain 
 to give rise to scandal, as he might easily have 
 known beforehand." 
 
 " What are the words in question ? " Lyon 
 asked languidly, not feeling much interest in the 
 matter, but obliged to feign a slight curiosity, 
 for politeness' sake. 
 
 '*I really cannot inform you. I had not 
 noticed them myself, until Crowther came to 
 lodge his complaint against them. Indeed, I 
 have not seen them now, for I have not been 
 able to go into the church since he left me, to 
 make examination. I suffer a good deal from 
 asthma, and the damp atmosphere of our 
 venerable church is trying to my weak chest — 
 especially on week-days, when the building is 
 empty. Ah ! my son is taking Crowther into 
 the church, I see ! " (Lyon, turning in his seat, 
 caught a glimpse of Farmer Crowther's burly 
 form disappearing under the archway of the 
 south porch, in the wake of James Travers' 
 diminutive black figure.) "Why does he do 
 that, I wonder? What good can he possibly 
 expect to effect by showing a man afresh the
 
 104 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 very object that has roused his dislike ? James 
 should have better sense. But all this unwisdom 
 springs from his fatal tendency to overestimate 
 the importance of mere ornament." 
 
 At the end of about ten minutes — a rather 
 trying ten minutes for Lyon — James Travers 
 reissued from the churchyard with Farmer 
 Crowther, and, having shaken hands warmly 
 with that sturdy Protestant (who tramped off 
 with an air of stolid satisfaction in the direction 
 of the village), came running across the grass 
 like a schoolboy, waving his clerical hat in 
 sign of victory. 
 
 "James," his father began, in a tone of the ut- 
 most severity, " what does this mean ? I trust " — 
 
 The whilom Professor fell into a fit of convul- 
 sive laughter. " My dear father, excuse me, — 
 don't think me absolutely crazy, Lyon, — but 
 really it's too good a joke altogether ! I've been 
 keeping a straight face before Crowther, for the 
 honour of my order, and now I must let myself 
 go, or perish." He threw back his uncovered 
 head, and laughed again, boyishly. 
 
 " Let us into the joke, when you can," Lyon 
 said. 
 
 Travers struggled for composure. " Oh, de- 
 licious ! The dear old man, pouncing upon a 
 pair of new altar candles with a word in an 
 unknown tongue stamped into the wax of each, 
 thought he had lighted on a popish symbol, of 
 course. And the word turned out to be ' Ozokerit,'
 
 AT THE RECTORY 105 
 
 the brand of Messrs. Field and Field." Travers 
 fell into fresh ecstasies of mirth. 
 
 But his father austerely refused to smile. " An 
 unfortunate blunder," he remarked. " It shows 
 how careful one is bound to be in these matters." 
 
 " The occurrence of such a blunder as this 
 could hardly be guarded against, by any amount 
 of care, I should fancy," Lyon observed drily. 
 " Errors of sheer ignorance are hard to foresee. 
 This would make a good story for Pttnch^ 
 Travers/' turning to the younger man. 
 
 " First-rate, if one only had Keene here to put 
 in the figures," responded James. " Typical 
 farmer and typical curate — Crowther and I 
 make fairly tidy models for those characters, 
 eh, Lyon? Well, I'm happy to say he has 
 departed content, his wrath thoroughly mollified." 
 
 "I hope you explained the matter to him 
 properly," Mr. Travers interrupted. " These 
 people do not understand levity in treating of 
 such things." 
 
 " I should never think of trying it on with 
 Crowther after that fashion, I assure you," James 
 replied. (Lyon saw Mr. Travers shudder at 
 the slang phrase.) " In his presence, I didn't 
 indulge in so much as the ghost of a smile; I 
 pointed out the mistake into which he had fallen 
 with the utmost gravity — I may say solemnity 
 — of countenance." 
 
 "You seem to be a primitive folk hereabouts," 
 Lyon remarked.
 
 io6 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 " We are — not a doubt of it. Has my cousin 
 Dorothy told you the story of the hedger who 
 objected to the keeping of Ascension Day ? No? 
 I thought she might have related it ; it's rather 
 a pet story of hers. Well, this good man was 
 dead against the multiplying of festivals — a new- 
 fangled custom, it appeared to him, of my 
 presumptuous making. ' Till you come into 
 Heyford,' he said to me, as a final clencher on 
 the subject, ' us had but three veasts a year : 
 Christmas, Easter, and ship-shearing. And 
 they be enough for I.' " 
 
 Once more Mr. Travers utterly declined his 
 son's invitation to him to make merry. " William 
 Hewer had, after all, some touch of right on his 
 side," he said coldly, getting up. " To persons 
 of simple faith, this insistance on a form.al 
 observance of times and seasons is often more 
 of a stumbling-block than anything else. Will 
 you come into the house, Mr. Lyon, and let 
 me present you to Mrs. Travers? she is, un- 
 fortunately, something of an invalid, and receives 
 few visitors. But any friend of my son Brian 
 will be welcome to her, I know." 
 
 And it was wholly as Brian's friend, ignoring 
 quite his older and closer connection with 
 Brian's brother, that Lyon found himself greeted 
 by the lady of the Rectory; a pretty, faded, 
 untidy-looking woman, lying on the sofa in a 
 room, pretty, faded, and untidy-looking as 
 herself For twenty minutes Mrs. Travers
 
 AT THE RECTORY 107 
 
 talked eagerly and incessantly of her younger 
 son, in whom, it was easy to see, her maternal 
 soul was completely bound up. When Lyon — 
 James being temporarily absent from the room 
 — made some passing reference to the elder, 
 the response he elicited was neither ready nor 
 cordial. Of James his mother spoke, when she 
 spoke at all, with indifference, almost with 
 impatience ; clearly his ideas and methods met 
 with no greater sympathy from her than they 
 received at his father's hands. Lyon perceived 
 that his old friend was, to both his parents, a 
 source of irritation rather than pride. He was 
 at once too simple and too transcendental, too 
 unworldly (after a very antique pattern) and 
 too unconventional (on the modern plan), to 
 present aught but the appearance of an incon- 
 sistent and annoying problem to their under- 
 standings, cramped by early training in the 
 straitest sect of the Philistines, if not of the 
 Pharisees. His nature did not fall within the 
 compass of any measuring-rod these two elderly 
 persons had ever learned to mete withal. Broad 
 and easy-going in his views and practices where, 
 according to the traditions of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Travers' youth, he should have been decorously 
 narrow and rigidly immovable ; sharply dogmatic 
 and obstinately unyielding when, from his 
 parents' point of view, a modest vagueness and 
 teachableness of spirit would have better become 
 him, he was doubtless a perpetual prickle in the
 
 io8 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 sides of a father and mother whose mental 
 range, originally limited, was every day growing 
 shorter by reason of the failing vision of age. 
 What wonder if he received, as Lyon suspected 
 he did receive, scant justice at their judgment- 
 bar ? 
 
 For Brian, on the other hand, the mother, at 
 least, had nothing but indulgence. It was plain 
 that she chose to regard his faults as the simple 
 outcome of his circumstances, that she excused 
 his worst failures as chiefly due to the unkind 
 action of an adverse fate. For his newly- 
 developed qualities of industry and perseverance 
 no praise seemed to her too great. 
 
 Mrs. Travers talked, and Lyon, after his wont, 
 proved a patient listener, by this means so far 
 winning his new acquaintance's heart that, when 
 he rose to go, she took a most gracious leave 
 of him, making him at the same time a pressing 
 general offer of the Rectory hospitality at all 
 times and seasons. 
 
 He thanked her, deciding, as he did so, that, 
 in Mr. Creighton's unflattering picture of the 
 Travers family, this figure at least had not been 
 out of drawing. Mrs. Travers' thin, tightly- 
 compressed lips, oddly at variance with the soft 
 delicacy of her other features ; the little spurts 
 of ill-concealed temper in speaking of her elder 
 son, which contrasted so strangely with her 
 flowing eulogy of his brother ; even the sudden 
 dictatorial enunciation, now and again, of an
 
 AT THE RECTORY 109 
 
 opinion (usually highly illogical) on some in- 
 different subject, breaking forth in the midst of 
 a stream of rambling and rather inconsequent 
 talk, — all these things accorded accurately with 
 the portrait of her as a woman weak and 
 obstinate at once, "a kind of human octopus," 
 limned by the unmerciful hand of her next-door 
 neighbour. Lyon's pity for James Travers 
 waxed strong. 
 
 However, James did not seem, at the moment, 
 at all inclined to pity himself Strolling back 
 to The Haulms with Lyon, he was in the 
 highest spirits, joking and laughing like a boy 
 of fifteen. Only once did his voice take a 
 melancholy tone, and that w^as when he 
 lamented the enforced loneliness and monotony 
 of his mother's life. An invalid, all her friends 
 living at a distance, she had to pass most of her 
 days in something like solitude. 
 
 Lyon suggested that Mrs. Travers must 
 find Miss Temple's near neighbourhood an 
 advantage. 
 
 James reddened slightly. "Well — at one 
 time," he said in evident embarrassment. Then, 
 pulling himself together — " Dorothy has always 
 been most kind and attentive to my mother ; 
 and at one time they used to see a great deal of 
 one another, I know. Latterly, there has been 
 some little — I won't call it coolness, exactly — but 
 some little uncomfortableness between them, 
 However, I quite hope and beheve the — the
 
 no A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 feeling will wear off ultimately. And my cousin 
 was not really to blame in the affair, as my 
 mother fancied — naturally enough, I admit. You 
 haven't seen much of Dorothy yet ? " 
 
 "Since last night, nothing whatever. Your 
 cousin appears to be a much-occupied young 
 lady — unless it is an uncommon love of solitude 
 that keeps her apart from her kind." 
 
 " Oh, Dorothy has no fancy for solitude ; she's 
 a socially-minded creature ! A visitor at the 
 Haulms must be quite a pleasurable excite- 
 ment for her, poor girl. Creighton is not a very 
 genial guardian, I'm afraid, and Dorothy does 
 so enjoy chattering when she can get any one 
 to chatter to." 
 
 " She doesn't seem inclined to exercise her 
 conversational powers on me, at any rate. I 
 hope I didn't show myself extra forbidding last 
 night." 
 
 " Well, at least you needn't take it so hastily 
 for granted that she is keeping out of your way 
 intentionally ! She's always off to her school 
 by eight in the morning, and doesn't get back 
 much before five, as a rule. I've started a small 
 school for an outlying hamlet of ours, more than 
 two miles off, on the Donnington road," 
 Travers added explanatorily, ''and Dorothy 
 acts as mistress." 
 
 " Rather stiff work for a girl of that age, eh ? " 
 
 "Just what hundreds of professional school- 
 mistresses, younger and weaker than Dorothy
 
 AT THE RECTORY iii 
 
 (who is as strong as a young lioness, by the 
 way), have to do year out, year in, for a living. 
 In stuffy town schools, too. No, I don't think 
 the work is too hard for her. And it gives her 
 an object in life, which, until recently, was a 
 thing she sadly needed. She felt the need 
 herself" 
 
 " Doubtless you've infected her with your own 
 notions in such matters. Now, to my mind, the 
 principal thing in life is to be without any 
 * object' It's the only prophylactic against 
 disappointment." 
 
 "And the condition in which one is most 
 certain to sink quickly and easily from the level 
 of a human being to that of a jellyfish." 
 
 "Ah, your jellyfish threat has no terrors for 
 me," Lyon smiled. " I only wish we could 
 approximate a little more closely than — even 
 under the most favourable circumstances — men 
 seem capable of doing, to the state of those 
 colder-blooded creatures. We humans are far 
 too much and too consciously alive nowadays. 
 With fewer red corpuscles in our veins, we 
 might worry through life with less of fret and 
 fever perhaps." 
 
 " One may buy quiet too dear," Travers said, 
 rather brusquely. "As a matter of fact, one 
 must buy it too dear. Absolute quiet means 
 absolute indifference, general insensibility, to 
 pleasure as well as to pain." 
 
 " Considering the proportions in which
 
 112 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 pleasure and pain are distributed in this best 
 of all possible worlds, I should say the balance 
 of advantage was on the side of the wholly- 
 insensible man." 
 
 " There I can't agree with you," returned the 
 other. " Besides, no man ever made himself 
 really insensible at all joints. There's always 
 a vulnerable joint somewhere in the harness. 
 Five o'clock ! " (as the church clock began to 
 chime the hour). " I must be off" He turned 
 back quickly, calling over his shoulder as he 
 went, " By the way, you'll find my cousin come 
 back from Owlswick by this time, I should 
 think. She always has tea in the drawing-room 
 at five, if you care for tea."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 ACROSS THE TEACUPS 
 
 "A very pitiftd lady, very young — 
 Exceeding rich in hitman sympathies.''^ 
 
 MR. LYON, on mature deliberation, de- 
 cided that, at the close of so hot an 
 afternoon, he did care for tea ; and took his way 
 to the drawing-room in order to obtain the desired 
 refreshment. Stepping through the open window, 
 he descried in the middle of that primly-ordered 
 apartment a small tea-table duly set out, and a 
 diminutive brass kettle hissing cheerfully on a 
 stand beside it ; while in an arm-chair close by, her 
 head thrown back, and showing almost golden in 
 its fairness against a dark blue velvet cushion, 
 half-sat, half-lay Dorothy Temple. He was 
 just opening his mouth to wish her an ironical 
 "good morning," when his eyes, travelling 
 upwards from the skirt of her lavender cambric 
 gown to her face, gave him warning to check 
 himself. The girl was sound asleep. 
 
 Overcome either by the heat or the labours 
 of the day, she appeared to be slumbering most
 
 114 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 luxuriously in the great chair, her hands folded 
 peacefully in her lap, while a pair of slender 
 feet, clad in extremely dusty shoes, displayed 
 themselves unabashed beyond the skirt of her 
 light dress. On the floor beside her — where she 
 had evidently tossed them down on entering — 
 lay a sunburnt straw hat, and a brown canvas 
 satchel full of school-books. 
 
 Lyon stood studying the quiet figure atten- 
 tively. Asleep, Dorothy looked younger than 
 in her waking hours — and also prettier. Her 
 placid face, with its closed eyelids and slightly 
 parted lips, wore a serene innocence of expres- 
 sion that was almost childlike, coupled with a 
 seriousness that was not without its pathetic 
 suggestions — at least, to Lyon. Why the sight 
 of a young woman, very naturally asleep after 
 a long walk on a hot summer afternoon, should 
 touch an emotional chord in him, — who was 
 certainly not given to sentiment, — he could 
 hardly explain to his own satisfaction. The 
 fact remained, however, that the chord zuas 
 touched for an instant — touched, as it might 
 have been (say) by the sudden recurrence to his 
 memory of a line from Tennyson, the hearing 
 of a yearning melodic phrase in the midst of a 
 symphonic storm, or an unexpected glimpse of 
 snow-mountains with the sunset glow upon 
 them. Unemotional as he was, these things 
 (even of late years) would occasionally stir in 
 him just such a wave, or rather ripple, of feeling
 
 ACROSS THE TEACUPS 115 
 
 as now ruffled the calm waters of his nature for 
 a moment. 
 
 His tread, Hke that of many massively-built 
 men, was quiet, if heavy, and his entry did not 
 rouse the sleeper in the big chair. Neither did 
 his scrutiny of her unconscious face appear to 
 disturb her slumbers in the least. He might 
 have continued his study until dinner-time, had 
 he cared to do so, but for the accident of the 
 kettle suddenly boiling over with much fuss and 
 ceremony. Before he could advance to the rescue, 
 Dorothy was awake and on her feet, exclaiming — 
 
 " How stupid of me to go to sleep, and forget ! 
 Clean water, mercifully," — hastily extinguishing 
 the spirit-lamp ; — " it can't have done the carpet 
 any great harm. Oh, Mr. Lyon, how do you 
 do? You must think me a shocking bad hostess 
 — I am so sorry ! Have you " — with a slight 
 accession of colour — " been here long ? " 
 
 " Barely two minutes, I assure you. I beg to 
 add that, during those two minutes, I was as 
 quiet as any mouse. / am not responsible for 
 waking you." 
 
 " I know ; it was the kettle. I am much 
 obliged to it." 
 
 " Really? You looked so extremely comfort- 
 able, it seemed a thousand pities you should be 
 disturbed." 
 
 " I should have been grateful to any one who 
 would have disturbed me sooner. There is 
 nothing I feel so ashamed of, as this absurd
 
 ii6 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 falling asleep in the daytime — I am not surprised 
 when my uncle is severe on the subject. Cream ? 
 and sugar?" 
 
 " Both, please. Do you do this often, then ? " 
 inquired Lyon, taking his cup. 
 
 " Falling asleep, you mean ? " colouring again. 
 "No, not very often. Only when it is extra 
 hot, as it has been to-day, and I get a little bit 
 fagged in consequence. The road to Owlswick 
 (where I go every day)," she added, " is quite un- 
 shaded ; and that makes it rather a tiring walk." 
 
 " Travers — your cousin — has been telling me 
 about this Owlswick undertaking of yours," 
 Lyon said, in a would-be non-committal tone, 
 through which, however, some undertone of 
 disapproval must have made itself audible, for 
 Dorothy retorted with a laugh — 
 
 " You speak of the * undertaking ' as if you 
 considered it rather reprehensible." 
 
 " It strikes me as formidable — for a young lady." 
 
 " Not if the young lady is as strong as I am." 
 
 "And, excuse me, something like a waste of 
 the young lady's powers besides." 
 
 " Aren't you a trifle hard upon me, Mr. Lyon ? 
 It mayn't be a very lofty occupation to teach a 
 score of village children to read and write and 
 say their catechism ; and it certainly isn't one 
 requiring much talent in the teacher— luckily 
 for me ! But I've always considered it a harm- 
 less employment — perhaps a useful one." 
 
 " My dear Miss Temple, I haven't a word to
 
 ACROSS THE TEACUPS 117 
 
 say against its usefulness. I only intended to 
 suggest that you might possibly be more 
 pleasantly — and profitably — employed, than in a 
 drudgery which any Board School pupil-teacher 
 would plod through with just as good results." 
 
 "And much better ones," Dorothy chimed in 
 readily. " Only, unfortunately at present we 
 can't afford to pay that Board School pupil- 
 teacher ! If we could, we certainly would, for, 
 of course, an untrained mistress like myself is a 
 great disadvantage to any school. I do my 
 best; but it's a very bad best. And then we 
 suffer financially, too, in consequence." 
 
 " Why, don't you get good Government 
 grants ? " rather sarcastically. 
 
 " How should we get any Government grants ? 
 I'm not certificated, you see," and there was a 
 merry twinkle in the clear hazel eyes. " Mr. 
 Lyon, your political education appears to have 
 been neglected — I really must lend you the 
 Education Act of '70 to read ! Another cup ? " 
 
 " Thanks ; I won't refuse so good an offer. 
 Well, you'll think me obstinate, I daresay ; 
 perhaps impertinent. But I must repeat that this 
 thing seems to me rather a reckless expenditure 
 of strength, physical and mental, on your part." 
 
 " Ah, that's because you don't know ! " 
 Dorothy rejoined, not very lucidly. '* There 
 are so few useful things that I am at all capable 
 of doing, unluckily. Just this one thing I can 
 do — and therefore I feel bound to do it."
 
 ii8 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 " You seem to have a sort of passion for being 
 useful." 
 
 " I don't care to feel myself a complete 
 cumberer of the earth. No one likes to do that." 
 
 " Pardon me, you are generalising at too 
 great a rate. Some people have no feeling at 
 all on the subject — it's a pure matter of tempera- 
 ment. Take me — I suppose I ought to blush to 
 say it — for an instance. The scriptural phrase 
 you made use of just now most aptly describes 
 me. And yet I'm afraid I don't repine at my 
 lot ; while, as to craving opportunities of useful- 
 ness" — He shook his head expressively. 
 
 Dorothy knit her smooth young brows in 
 silence for a moment or two before she an- 
 swered — 
 
 "You are differently situated. I suppose 
 your work is already cut out for you. A man 
 with a profession " — 
 
 "But I haven't any profession — now ! I'm a 
 mere holiday - maker. To contemplate the 
 doings of such people as yourself and Travers, 
 fills me with wonder and awe — and shame 
 besides. I feel as if, when dinner-time came, 
 I should hardly be within my right in present- 
 ing myself." 
 
 Dorothy smiled. " Even Jem takes a holiday 
 now and then — once a year or so." 
 
 " Does he ? I'm heartily glad to hear it. 
 But my holiday — do you understand ? — is 
 continuous. You perceive that I'm not lead-
 
 ACROSS THE TEACUPS 119 
 
 ing a very active or useful life down here ? 
 Very well. That's the sort of do-nothing exist- 
 ence I lead everywhere, from one year's end to 
 another, since I gave up work." 
 
 "Then you acknowledge that you did work 
 once ? " 
 
 " Certainly, I admit the soft impeachment. I 
 worked once — during some years I even worked 
 extremely hard — for the simple reason that I 
 had to. At that time, if I had stopped work- 
 ing, I must have starved. So I went on. 
 There's nothing like Hunger at a man's elbow 
 for keeping him going. But as soon as the 
 vulgar necessity for industry ceased to exist, I 
 gave up being industrious." 
 
 Dorothy's face wore a half- puzzled, half- 
 incredulous expression. 
 
 " Aren't you laying on the colour a little too 
 thickly, Mr. Lyon ? You must do something — 
 you can't live absolutely without occupation ! " 
 
 " No. Even of myself I wouldn't assert that 
 to be possible. Complete inertia is beyond even 
 me, so I still hunt a little, and shoot a little. 
 In the summer I generally attempt some mild 
 climbing, and in the winter I go occasionally 
 to the play. I dine out when people are good 
 enough to ask me. Also, in the course of the 
 year I manage to get through a fair number of 
 books and an outrageous number of pipes. 
 I'm afraid the sketch of my existence strikes 
 you as decidedly unimpressive."
 
 I20 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 " I fancy you must be caricaturing it." 
 
 " Not a whit, I assure you." Lyon shot a 
 quick, searching glance, that had an underlying 
 suspicion in it, at his companion (a glance 
 which perplexed and took her aback, though 
 she did not understand its meaning in the least), 
 then he set down his cup rather hastily, and got 
 up from his chair. '' Do you like this school-work 
 of yours?" he asked, returning abruptly to the 
 former topic of conversation. "Do you enjoy it?" 
 
 "No," she replied, with some reluctance, "it 
 would be too much to say that I enjoy it — now. 
 I did for a while, at first, when it was all new 
 and interesting ; and the children behaved like 
 a troop of little angels, and I quite believed I 
 was going to turn every one of them into a 
 prodigy of learning and goodness. But those 
 days soon came to an end. And then " — 
 
 " There came a reaction ? " 
 
 " Such a reaction that I believe I should have 
 thrown up the whole scheme in disgust, if it 
 hadn't been for Jem." 
 
 " He holds you to your bargain, then ? 
 Tyrant ! There are no tyrants like these 
 parsons. I suppose he put the idea into your 
 head, to begin with ? " 
 
 " No, the idea was my own. Of course, I 
 knew he was distressed that the Owlswick 
 children should have no school, but he never 
 suggested that / should try to teach them. 
 Indeed, I thought he would refuse me, when
 
 ACROSS THE TEACUPS 121 
 
 I offered — and he told me frankly that he was 
 doubtful whether I should do. Only, when once 
 I had begun, and, to a certain extent, succeeded, 
 he would not let me give the work up. It was 
 a very good thing he stood firm in the matter." 
 
 '' Else you would have yielded to temptation?" 
 
 " It's more than likely, I'm afraid. Jem says 
 it's my constitutional failing to rush into sacr — 
 into undertakings without properly counting the 
 cost, and then repent myself and want to back 
 out of them." 
 
 "Your failing is shared by the majority of 
 mankind — and womankind too, I fancy, IMiss 
 Temple. However, you seem to have conquered 
 it honourably in the present instance — a most 
 tr}''ing one, / should say. Those imps you 
 once fondly imagined budding cherubs must 
 make large calls upon your stock of patience. 
 Don't you find them difficult to manage?" 
 
 "Oh, at times they are simply maddening!" 
 the girl confessed frankly. "To-day, for in- 
 stance — how I should have liked to box their 
 ears all round, half a dozen times during the 
 afternoon ! and I really believe it would have 
 been good for them." 
 
 "And how about yourself? Miss Temple, in 
 the end you will find that I have right on my 
 side. When the fiendish gambols of the imps 
 have succeeded in utterly ruining — as ultimately 
 they infallibly will ruin — your naturally ex- 
 cellent temper."
 
 122 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 '^But my temper isn't naturally excellent, 1 
 am sorry to say. It's rather hot. No, I must 
 learn to keep it in better order, that's all. My 
 cousin Isabel Travers always declares it's an 
 admirable discipline to have your temper 
 thoroughly tried every day," said Dorothy, 
 laughing a little, "and I am trying to believe 
 her. I know she speaks from hard experience, 
 as one great in organising committees. From 
 what she tells me, school-children must be a 
 joke to committee - women as temper - tests. 
 I'm glad to think you will meet Isabel, Mr. 
 Lyon. She is coming down to the Rectory 
 from Saturday to Monday." 
 
 Lyon expressed becoming pleasure at this 
 intelligence. " Miss Travers is a very learned 
 lady, is she not ? " he asked politely. 
 
 *' She took a very good place in the classical 
 tripos. But she isn't merely learned ; she's very 
 clever in a practical way, besides. She does no 
 end of useful work in London — I really should 
 like you to know her very much." 
 
 " I believe you fancy she might convert me 
 from the error of my idle ways ! I fear I'm 
 past praying for there, Miss Temple ; indolence 
 has eaten too long into the marrow of my 
 bones. But I've no doubt" — with a somewhat 
 enigmatic smile — "that your cousin is a most 
 interesting and admirable person. I shall look 
 forward with pleasure to Saturday."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 BY THE RIVER 
 
 " A tale 
 Not nezu, nor joyful, but a common tale." 
 
 SATURDAY, however, did not after all bring 
 Miss Isabel Travers to Heyford. That 
 young lady, finding herself even more than ordin- 
 arily hampered by her business engagements (so 
 she wrote to her cousin), postponed her flying 
 visit for a week ; and, during ten days, nothing 
 whatever occurred to vary the uneventful course 
 of Lyon's life at The Haulms. A morning 
 spent in Mr. Creighton's library ; an afternoon 
 passed — in the congenial companionship of 
 book and pipe — under Mr. Creighton's trees ; 
 tea (followed perhaps by a stroll in the garden, 
 or along the river-bank) with Miss Dorothy ; 
 after dinner, a more extensive ramble, usually- 
 shared by James Travers : such was the mono- 
 tonous sum of his daily history. He did not 
 chafe against this monotony — found it, in fact 
 rather pleasant than otherwise. The weather 
 remained steadily fine ; his host's excellent 
 
 123
 
 124 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 library was his to ransack as he pleased ; while 
 frequent intercourse with Travers preserved him 
 from any danger of sinking into that condition 
 of intellectual stagnation which speedily con- 
 duces to boredom — in the case, that is to say, 
 of any man to whom mere animal comfort is 
 not the be-all and end-all of life. Then Mr. 
 Creighton's society, if not exactly delightful to 
 Lyon, was not disagreeable to him. He took 
 some idle pleasure in studying the cranks 
 and angles of his host's decidedly cranky and 
 angular individuality, and felt almost disposed 
 to deem the insight thereby afforded him into 
 an order of human nature of which he had, up 
 to this time, encountered few types, sufficient 
 payment for the trouble of answering an in- 
 numerable number of questions bearing on his 
 Australian experience. In this matter he had 
 fallen completely into Creighton's toils, and 
 suff"ered himself to be exploited, morning after 
 morning, with a secret grim amusement at his 
 own folly in submitting to the infliction. 
 
 Nor did he confine himself exclusively to 
 Creighton's character, as a subject of study, 
 during these ten days. In a fitful way, he took 
 observations on that of Creighton's niece ; with 
 the result, so far, that he was half-inclined to 
 believe he had lighted on that which, in his 
 estimation, might be ranked among the rarest 
 of rare phenomena ; a perfectly honest and 
 unaffected young woman, with no taint of
 
 BY THE RIVER 125 
 
 feminine insincerity corrupting the wholesome- 
 ness of her straightforward, unsophisticated 
 nature at any point. Only half-inclined, how- 
 ever. He still suspended judgment on Dorothy 
 Temple ; still thought it extremely likely that, 
 under sufficient provocation, she would betray 
 herself as being, at heart, no better than the rest 
 of the sisterhood, and watched, with something 
 like interest, for an occasion of such self-betrayal 
 to arise. But in the meantime he found himself 
 compelled in common fairness to give her—woman 
 though she were — the benefit of the doubt. 
 
 If Dorothy's idiosyncrasies interested Lyon 
 a little, those of her cousin James Travers in- 
 terested him much. This brilliant scholar and 
 man of letters subdued to a humble country 
 curate, this daring speculator of earlier days 
 become an obedient mouthpiece of the authority 
 of the Church, this ci-devant leader of men and 
 thought submitting himself patiently to the 
 petty tyrannies of a narrow-minded old man 
 incapable of understanding so much as the 
 alphabet of a nature immeasurably deeper and 
 loftier than his own, presented to Lyon a 
 problem over which he pondered constantly. 
 Every day added something to the difficulty of 
 arriving at any solution of the enigma, since 
 every day showed Travers in some novel and 
 — to Lyon — incomprehensible light. Once he 
 let drop a hint of his perplexities on the subject 
 of her cousin to Dorothy.
 
 126 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 She answered quickly, "There is nothing 
 particularly mysterious about Jem — that I can 
 see, Mr. Lyon." 
 
 " Perhaps you hold some clue to his motives, 
 that I haven't found as yet," Lyon remarked. 
 
 Dorothy let the remark pass. "The whole 
 explanation of Jem lies just in the one fact that — 
 unlike most people — he lives for another world." 
 
 " But I've met men before who did that, — or 
 professed to do it, — and in nearly every one of 
 those cases the transcendental ambition to live 
 above the earthly plane seemed to have killed 
 out all genuine human nature. The men in 
 question were not men at all, from my point of 
 view ; they were imitation artificial monks — 
 only they generally seemed to bar the ascetic 
 part of the business of monkery. It's not so 
 with Travers ; he's real and human enough." 
 
 " I think it's given to few people to be as abso- 
 lutely real as Jem," Dorothy responded thought- 
 fully. " I fancy even the best men can hardly 
 help posing a little at times — Jem wouldn't know 
 how to pose." She laughed softly at the idea. 
 
 " He must be a unique specimen of his kind, 
 then." 
 
 " He is ! " indignantly. 
 
 In his heart Lyon leaned to agreement with 
 this assertion. And he found Travers (as a 
 specimen, if not unique, at least of a singularly 
 uncommon kind) so well worthy his continued 
 investigation, that, when Mr. Creighton begged
 
 BY THE RIVER 127 
 
 him to lengthen the term of his visit (originally 
 fixed at a fortnight) by the addition of another 
 week, he permitted himself to be over-persuaded. 
 
 This promise to extend his stay was given by 
 him on the morning of the day fixed for Miss 
 Travers' deferred arrival at the Rectory. True, 
 on this occasion, to her engagement, the 
 renowned damsel did actually arrive at last, — 
 though not before she had twice telegraphed a 
 change of train, — and, after dinner, in the garden 
 of The Haulms, Lyon was presented to her in 
 all due form by her cousin. 
 
 The results of this introduction were not quite 
 satisfactory to Dorothy. It is true, Mr. Lyon 
 listened most politely and respectfully to the 
 fluent disquisitions on many subjects of the 
 gifted Isabel, — a small, eager, dark-skinned 
 creature, with restless eyes, and tiny brown 
 hands perpetually in motion as she talked ; but 
 Dorothy had her doubts, nevertheless, whether 
 he were taking her cousin seriously. She more 
 than suspected that, smirking under his decor- 
 ously-lowered eyelids, playing a game of fiendish 
 hide-and-seek behind his grave air of almost 
 exaggerated attention, there gambolled a mock- 
 ing spirit, to whom poor Isabel and her schemes 
 for the regeneration of society — her guilds and 
 libraries and halls of science, her women's 
 suffrage meetings and associations for the spread 
 of the higher education — were mere matter of 
 scoffing amusement.
 
 128 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 Her suspicions were well-founded. Miss 
 Travers, with her mixture of ignorance and 
 assurance, her real inexperience and her lofty- 
 assumption of a profound knowledge of the 
 world, did amuse Lyon immensely. So enter- 
 tained, indeed, w^as he by her talk, that for a 
 while he altogether forgot to be angry with the 
 strain of unreal sentiment that ran through it. 
 To his mind, there was something exquisitely 
 ludicrous in this girl of three-and-twenty, who 
 had passed, perhaps, some twelve months of her 
 life in London, setting to work in all gravity to 
 lay down the law on matters of city government 
 and morals, with all the authority that might 
 have befitted an acknowledged master of social 
 ethics, or an experienced metropolitan magis- 
 trate. 
 
 For quite an hour the cynical spirit in him 
 remained absolutely quiescent, tickled into 
 unwonted good-humour. Then — roused by one 
 or two unlucky gushes of manifestly false 
 sentiment on the fair Isabel's part — the daemon 
 began to bestir himself Moved by him, 
 Lyon deliberately provoked Miss Travers into 
 fresh absurdities ; and Dorothy, sitting by, per- 
 ceived what was afoot, and was deeply angered. 
 She was powerless, however, to interfere in the 
 matter, for, whenever she presumed to enter the 
 conversation, it was only to be quietly snubbed 
 out of it again by Isabel, who liked having the 
 field entirely to herself. Dorothy, therefore,
 
 BY THE RIVER 
 
 129 
 
 could only continue to look on and listen, in 
 rising indignation. 
 
 And now Lyon had the malicious satisfaction 
 of seeing Miss Travers recoil from an exempli- 
 fication of her own pet principles. She had 
 spoken great things, earlier in the evening, 
 concerning the dignity of labour, and of her 
 strenuous endeavours to impress upon the young 
 men to whom she lectured thrice a week, the 
 elevating truth that any and every kind of work 
 is ennobling, no matter where or by whom 
 performed — with other platform platitudes of 
 the same kind. It chanced that she saw fit, 
 later on, to discuss the feasibility (much under 
 discussion in the public prints just then) of 
 making a certain projected railway through a 
 certain district of Africa. The chief difficulty 
 in the way of this enterprise was supposed to 
 consist in the nature of the geological formations 
 through which the line would have to pass ; 
 certain engineers having asserted that one at 
 least of these was too hard for cutting. 
 
 Lyon met this assertion with a blunt negative. 
 He knew, he said, that the stone in question 
 could be cut. 
 
 Miss Travers inquired, " How ? " 
 
 " Because I've cut a good many cubic yards 
 of it myself, in my time. An up-country 
 section of a railway I once helped to make in 
 Queensland ran through a precisely similar 
 formation."
 
 I30 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 " You cut ? " Miss Travers echoed blankly. 
 " You don't mean with your own hands ? " 
 
 "With my own hands — aided by a pick — 
 certainly." 
 
 Lyon was enjoying himself immensely. 
 
 Miss Travers murmured something altogether 
 incoherent. Then — " Oh, I see ! " she exclaimed 
 in relieved accents ; " you were engineer of the 
 line, and you used to work with the men for 
 their encouragement" — She would perhaps 
 have added some word of commendation of his 
 conduct in so doing, had not he interrupted her 
 with — 
 
 " No, my inducement was a daily wage. I 
 wasn't engineer of the line at that time; I was 
 a simple navvy." 
 
 " Really ? How — how very interesting ! " 
 stammered the prophetess of the dignity of 
 labour, with a nervous laugh. 
 
 " I am glad it should appear so to you. 
 Personally, I must confess that I found stone- 
 cutting horribly ?/;nnteresting. However, it 
 doesn't do to be particular, when one is out of 
 work. I'm sure you'll agree with me there?" 
 Lyon said, with an appealing smile. 
 
 " Oh yes — certainly — entirely ! " Isabel made 
 haste to respond. Anxious to turn the conver- 
 sation into a fresh channel, she added, — she 
 flattered herself, with considerable adroitness, — 
 " That experience of yours — the having mixed 
 for a time with working men, and shared their
 
 BY THE RIVER 131 
 
 life at all points — must be very useful to you 
 now, in dealing with your people in the North." 
 " My — people ? " Lyon lifted his dark eye- 
 brows interrogatively. 
 
 " My brother told me you had mines in York- 
 shire," Miss Travers explained rather falteringly. 
 " I beg your pardon — I did not quite catch 
 your meaning for the moment. Yes, I have 
 some coal-pits in Yorkshire. They came into 
 my possession about three years ago. But I 
 must make a humiliating acknowledgment on the 
 subject of those pits. I've never yet seen them." 
 " But you have been down to the district ? 
 you know something of the people who work in 
 them, surely?" Isabel said. Dorothy leant 
 forward a little in her seat, her eyes seeking 
 Lyon's face anxiously. 
 
 " No — I blush to say. Shocking confession 
 — isn't it ? — for an employer of labour, in these 
 philanthropic days. However, I have an agent 
 who seems to be of the right sort. He certainly 
 looks after my interests admirably ; and I dare- 
 say looks after the pitmen's equally well." 
 
 Lyon glanced involuntarily under his eye- 
 lashes at Dorothy, a little curious, maybe, to see 
 how she took this last speech of his. She had 
 her lips set very hard one upon another, and he 
 fancied also that she looked paler than usual. 
 But she gave her feeling — whatever it might be 
 — no expression in words. 
 
 Miss Travers was not so reticent. Very fear-
 
 132 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 lessly she took Lyon to task for his manifest 
 dereliction of duty in failing to visit his property, 
 and ascertain the condition of the human 
 creatures who spent their lives in exhausting 
 labour under the earth, that he might be able to 
 dwell at his ease in upper air. And this time 
 she was perfectly sincere in her outspoken 
 indignation. The note of sincerity rang in every 
 word she uttered, as Lyon acknowledged to 
 himself, even while he laughingly parried her 
 attack in a fashion which, though she indubitably 
 had right on her side, speedily reduced her to a 
 condition of stammering discomfiture, and left 
 him, most unrighteously, master of the field. 
 
 Seeing the futility of her efforts to awaken 
 her new acquaintance from his state of moral 
 insensibility, and sorely wounded by the shafts 
 of his ridicule, she before long took occasion to 
 bid both her companions a somewhat sudden 
 good-night, and beat her retreat to the Rectory. 
 
 Her cousin gone, Dorothy too got up from her 
 garden chair, with the evident intention of retiring 
 within doors. To her surprise, Lyon intercepted 
 her movement in the direction of the house, with 
 a quickness foreign to his ordinary manner. 
 
 "Why should you go in yet? This is just 
 the best hour of the day," he said. 
 
 Dorothy murmured something touching the 
 lateness of the hour. 
 
 " Only ten minutes to nine as yet — honour 
 bright ! " He held out his watch as a guarantee
 
 BY THE RIVER 133 
 
 of good faith. " Don't you feel inclined for a 
 stroll by the river — before immuring yourself 
 for the night ? " 
 
 " Well — we might go just a little way, perhaps," 
 Dorothy responded, in a somewhat doubtful tone. 
 
 Taking her at her reluctant word, Lyon 
 struck at once into the riverside path, — turning 
 to the right, and thus setting his face away from 
 the Rectory, — and the girl obeyed his lead. 
 
 For two hundred yards or so, the path, thickly 
 shaded by trees, ran fairly straight ahead. Then 
 it crossed a narrow swing bridge to the other side 
 of the stream, and performed a more devious 
 course along the top of the opposite bank, where 
 a thickset coppice of thorns and alders divided 
 it from the expanse of great flat meadows 
 stretching westward to the downs. A rough 
 unmortared wall, low enough to serve as a seat, 
 formed the boundary between path and coppice. 
 
 " Suppose we sit down here for a few 
 minutes," Lyon suggested. 
 
 Dorothy assented ; but again somewhat un- 
 willingly. She was aware of feeling nervous 
 and self-conscious, a most unusual state of 
 things with her, save when in her uncle's for- 
 midable presence. Until to-night she had 
 always been quite at her ease in Lyon's society. 
 To-night she felt almost afraid of him. Some- 
 thing — she could hardly define what it was — 
 in his manner disturbed her vaguely. She had 
 a sense of actual physical oppression, such as
 
 134 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 is the result of an impending thunderstorm in 
 the air. 
 
 The two sat down, the full moon throwing a 
 long white track across the river at their feet, 
 and so complete a stillness wrapping them 
 round, that the feeble lap of the sluggish water 
 against the sedges just below sounded almost 
 loud in the midst of the brooding silence. 
 Once a dog barked at a farmhouse far up the 
 bank they had left ; his bark rang out on the 
 quiet air with a distinctness actually startling. 
 
 Dorothy let fall a remark or two on the 
 beauty and calmness of the evening, to which 
 her companion vouchsafed scarcely any re- 
 joinder. Presently, however, he said abruptly — 
 
 " I'm afraid I succeeded in thoroughly shock- 
 ing you just now. Come, tell me honestly — I 
 did shock you ? " 
 
 Dorothy, with those disconcerting eyes of 
 Lyon's fixed full upon her face, faltered and 
 looked down. " I — was sorry," she said, with 
 some hesitation, — " sorry " — 
 
 "That I should give myself away so com- 
 pletely before your cousin ? " Lyon helped her 
 out. "That was very kind of you, and I 
 guessed as much. Believe me, I am duly 
 grateful to you." Sarcasm seemed to be 
 momentarily contending for the mastery, in 
 Lyon's usually passionless voice, with a rare 
 note of emotion. " I fear," he continued, finding 
 that his companion remained silent, — " I very
 
 BY THE RIVER 135 
 
 much fear this isn't the first time, by any means, 
 that I have been unlucky enough to shock you." 
 
 Still Dorothy said nothing. 
 
 " Isn't it so ? " Lyon persisted. 
 
 " I — I believe — I think I would rather not 
 discuss the matter, Mr. Lyon." 
 
 " But I want to discuss it, particularly ! Don't 
 you think I have some little right to insist on 
 such a discussion, if I please, just for once? 
 You'll do me the justice to acknowledge that it is 
 not my habit to talk very much about myself." 
 
 " You never talk of yourself at all ! " Dorothy 
 interjected quickly. If the truth must be told, 
 she had more than once, during the past fort- 
 night, found herself wishing that Mr. Lyon would 
 be a little less reticent on this special subject. 
 
 Lyon inclined his head slightly. 
 
 " Thanks. That's satisfactory testimony. But 
 to-night, it so happens that I do want to talk 
 of myself — for the space of five minutes. No 
 more than that. I won't keep you lingering 
 long over such an uninteresting theme. The 
 truth is," he continued, in a slightly different 
 tone, speaking less deliberately than usual, and 
 kicking a small pebble that lay close to his foot 
 dexterously into the river, — " the truth is, that 
 though Miss Travers is welcome to hold what 
 opinion of me she pleases, I should be sorry 
 that you fancied me — well, something even 
 worse than the good-for-nothing I undoubtedly 
 am." (His eyes were cast down, as usual ; he
 
 136 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 did not see the sudden flush that leapt up the 
 cheeks of the girl beside him as he spoke.) " I 
 prefer, if possible, not to be classed, by you, 
 with the monsters in human shape among 
 whom your cousin, I know, is ready to class 
 me. Though you may hardly be able to grasp 
 the fact, I assure you, on my faith and honour, 
 (if you kindly give me credit for possessing 
 either), that there really are bigger villains in 
 the v/orld than — your humble servant." 
 
 He laughed a little as he ended, a singularly 
 unmirthful laugh. 
 
 •' Mr. Lyon ! I — I never thought " — 
 
 " I fancy I have divined your thoughts pretty 
 accurately, Miss Temple. I don't for a moment 
 wish to imply that they do me any wrong. Of 
 course, I know very well that my life's a con- 
 temptible one — not worth calling a life at all, 
 in fact. Unhappily, I'm not capable of making 
 it any less contemptible. To live — in the 
 proper sense of the word — one must do, and 
 one must feel. I can't do, to any effective 
 purpose, now ; it's too late to think of that. As 
 to feeling, I confess frankly that I fight shy of 
 it, as a burnt child who dreads the fire. Who 
 is it that says somewhere — * to have in general 
 but little feeling, is the only safeguard against 
 feeling too much on particular occasions,' — or 
 words to that effect? That's a maxim I can 
 heartily endorse. It is the only safeguard." 
 
 "And is it worth while, do you think, — for
 
 BY THE RIVER 137 
 
 the sake of going armed against one kind of 
 pain, — to — to turn one's self into something 
 not quite human, to petrify one's self, in fact ? " 
 Dorothy asked. 
 
 " There spoke Jem Travers' pupil ! " said 
 Lyon, with a smile. "Yes, I think it's worth 
 while — in certain cases. I don't say I would 
 recommend petrifaction to you — at present. But 
 take me : seeing all my ambitions had perforce 
 to die a violent death when I left Oxford, 
 twelve years ago, surely it's a good thing that 
 I should have ceased to regret their decease ? " 
 
 " Perhaps ; I don't know," Dorothy responded, 
 with a note of sadness in her fresh voice. 
 Possibly it was the hearing of this note that 
 drew Lyon on to add — 
 
 " I made outcry enough at the time, I assure 
 you. I wasn't ' petrified ' then " — with a second 
 unmirthful laugh. " And the blow fell very sud- 
 denly. We had always supposed ourselves rich 
 people, my mother and I. All at once we found 
 ourselves worse than poor — worse than poor." 
 He bore with painful emphasis upon the phrase. 
 
 Dorothy's fingers locked themselves tightly 
 together in her lap. She had heard the story 
 of the Lyon family disaster some days since 
 from James, — a disaster, according to her cousin, 
 due wholly to the wanton extravagance, if not 
 to the fraudulent dishonesty, of Lyon the elder, 
 who had put himself beyond the reach of inquiry 
 in the matter by dying opportunely immediately
 
 138 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 after its occurrence, — and her heart thrilled in 
 sympathy for her companion. All the stronger 
 was the compassionate throb, for her recognition 
 of the manly self-restraint that would have 
 made Lyon's utterance hieroglyphic to a less 
 well-instructed listener, the pride that forbade 
 him to let fall a word on his father's share in 
 effecting the ruin he hinted at. 
 
 " However, I should have recovered that ugly 
 knock in time, no doubt. At two-and-twenty 
 one is extraordinarily elastic, one gets over the 
 loss of a fortune with astonishing rapidity. 
 Even the loss of a career — because at that age 
 one so easily persuades one's self that one will 
 be able to carve out a new 'one in no time. 
 Yes, and even the worse loss of one's respect 
 for a number of people in whom one had had 
 an ingenuous youthful faith ! For I need hardly 
 say, our experience of the steadfastness of 
 friends in time of adversity didn't differ from 
 that of our neighbours ; the rats, according to 
 their nature, made haste to run from the falling 
 house. But to me, at the moment, their desertion 
 mattered little, so long as I could continue to 
 believe in my mother — and one other woman." 
 
 He paused there for an instant, taking off his 
 hat, and pushing back the heavy hair from his 
 forehead with his right hand. 
 
 "We had only been engaged a few weeks 
 when the crash came. As long as she stood 
 by me, nothing else seemed of supreme concern.
 
 BY THE RIVER 139 
 
 My one idea was to get work which would 
 enable us to marry soon. (Fortunately — as I 
 thought then — she herself was poor — had always 
 been poor ; I did not suppose she would shrink 
 from a life without luxuries.) With that idea 
 moving me, I decided to try my luck in 
 Australia. I could have got a small appoint- 
 ment at home that would have maintained me, 
 — and, personally speaking, I would have pre- 
 ferred living on a dry crust in England, to 
 feasting on the fat of the land at the Antipodes, 
 — but I wanted to do something more than 
 maintain myself. And there seemed a better 
 chance of making a decent income within a few 
 years' time in a new country than in the old 
 one. So I went to Queensland. For a time I 
 didn't get on there at all — nothing prospered 
 with me — I'm sure I hardly know why I am 
 boring you with this very commonplace story," 
 he broke off suddenly. 
 
 " I should like to hear the end of it — if you 
 care to tell me," Dorothy said, in a remarkably 
 subdued voice. 
 
 " I'm afraid the end is even more common- 
 place than the beginning, if possible ! It's a 
 story that's been told so many hundreds of 
 times before. Of course she got tired of wait- 
 ing — I might have known beforehand that she 
 would be sure to get tired. She hinted as 
 much — in a delicate, ladylike fashion (she had 
 a particularly refined way of expressing herself.
 
 140 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 and wrote charming letters, when she wrote at 
 all) — such a delicate fashion that I quite failed 
 to understand her drift. At last, finding, I 
 suppose, that my dulness was impenetrable to 
 hints, and finding also that things were looking 
 blacker and blacker as regarded my prospects, 
 — those were the navvy days of which I spoke 
 just now to your cousin, — she resorted to plain 
 words, and kindly but firmly insisted on reliev- 
 ing me from the fetters of a useless and hope- 
 less, etc., etc. She did not feel herself fitted to 
 encounter a life of hardship, she said, nor to 
 bear the strain and suspense of a prolonged 
 waiting upon Providence. I daresay she estim- 
 ated her powers very correctly. I need not tell 
 you the sequel — or, rather, the real explanation of 
 this sudden awakening to her own deficiencies." 
 
 Dorothy gazed at him, white and bewildered. 
 
 " Nevertheless, I don't understand," she half- 
 whispered. 
 
 "Really? Oh, there was tangible cause 
 enough ! Another man — with ten thousand a 
 year — no, fifteen, I believe, to do her justice. The 
 temptation was a great one, you'll acknowledge." 
 
 " It should have been no temptation at all." 
 Dorothy's cheeks glowed suddenly in the moon- 
 light. "Not if— if"— 
 
 " She had cared for me, you mean ? But how 
 could she be expected to care for a lover four 
 thousand miles off, getting his living ignomini- 
 ously with a pick, and presenting a revolting
 
 BY THE RIVER 141 
 
 image of fustian-clothed, clay-covered poverty 
 to her mind's eye, when she had a spick-and- 
 span admirer close at hand, "with five figures 
 to his annual income? Certainly / should not 
 expect it of her — or of any other young lady 
 similarly circumstanced — now. TJien^ I was 
 ten years younger." 
 
 '' She could never have been worth your — 
 any one's — caring about," said Dorothy hotly. 
 
 " I am quite of your opinion — at the present 
 time," Lyon returned, with great calm. " Unfor- 
 tunately, in those old days I thought differently, 
 having endowed her, in my foolish young ima- 
 gination, with qualities approaching the angelic. 
 So the discovery that she was — well, merely an 
 ordinary young woman of the nineteenth century, 
 came upon me as a considerable shock." 
 
 "I think — I am sure — that there are very, 
 very few women of this or any other century 
 who would have acted in such a fashion ! " cried 
 Dorothy, roused to indignant defence of her sex. 
 
 " I wish I could share your belief," said Lyon 
 politely. " To resume, as they say in novels : 
 soon after this naturally - to - be - expected 
 catastrophe, the tide of fortune turned a little 
 with me. It would hardly have seemed worth 
 while to take advantage of this tide-turning just 
 then, but for my mother's sake. But she was 
 living very poorly and hardly in England, and 
 if I didn't greatly care what became of myself 
 at that moment, I still felt anxious that she
 
 142 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 should have a decently comfortable home, if 
 possible — so I pulled myself together as best I 
 could. However, by the time the home was 
 ready for her, she didn't need it." 
 
 " She — died ? " Dorothy asked very softly. 
 
 " No. She married again. Married a rich 
 man, whom, in the old days, / should hardly 
 have accounted fit to wait upon her at table. 
 So the last of my old illusions (or delusions, 
 whichever you prefer to call them) went by the 
 board. And since then I — build no castles in 
 Spain, that's all. I've found them too ruinous 
 a speculation." 
 
 Dorothy was speechless, reproaching herself 
 vehemently in secret for certain past uncharit- 
 able judgments. 
 
 " To come to the moral of this tale : seeing 
 that I've been rather unfortunate in the speci- 
 mens of human nature it 's been my lot to study 
 at first hand, perhaps you'll not be so surprised 
 in future at my absence of enthusiasm for the 
 race in general? To love humankind — to be 
 very eager about its welfare — one ought to be 
 able to believe in it. I must confess that my own 
 faith in the deity of the Positivists is not profound." 
 
 " Mr. Lyon, you once told me that I gener- 
 alised at too great a rate. I feel inclined to 
 retort upon you. Surely you don't mean to 
 assert that you have no faith in anybody ? You 
 must know that there are some men and women 
 who are honest and true."
 
 BY THE RIVER 143 
 
 "As long as their circumstances permit the 
 exercise of such virtues — I quite believe it. In- 
 deed, I fancy every one prefers being 'honest 
 and true,' if the being so involves no serious 
 cost to themselves." 
 
 "And, in many cases, when it does involve 
 very serious cost " — emphatically. " Take such 
 a person as my cousin James, for instance." 
 
 " Oh, if you quote individual instances ! " 
 interposed Lyon. " Besides, in making sweep- 
 ing assertions of this kind, of course one is 
 always understood to exclude present company, 
 with its whole body of relations and friends. 
 In society, one only talks of humanity in the 
 abstract, naturally." 
 
 Dorothy got up from the wall, with a little 
 unconscious movement of displeasure. 
 
 " It is getting cold here," she said brusquely. 
 " We had better be moving homewards." 
 
 Lyon walked by her side in silence till they 
 reached the swing bridge. Then, as he held 
 out his hand for her guidance across the narrow 
 plank, he said abruptly — 
 
 " I wish I had not troubled you with my 
 foolish Httle tale. I have only succeeded in 
 making you angry." 
 
 " No," Dorothy interposed, almost under her 
 breath, "not angry — sorry. More sorry than I 
 I can well say." 
 
 And, lifting his eyes to look at her, he saw 
 that hers were full of tears.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 ON THE LAWN AND IN THE FIELDS 
 
 " Und sprich^ wo her ist Liebel 
 Sie kommt und sie ist da ! " 
 
 THAT evening talk by the riverside was not 
 without its consequences, although these 
 were hardly of the kind Dorothy might reasonably 
 have expected to ensue from it. Whether Lyon 
 resented her fashion of receiving his sudden and 
 unlooked - for confidence, or whether he was 
 simply annoyed with himself for having been 
 led, by some singular and scarcely explicable 
 impulse, into making such a confidence at all, 
 the girl found it impossible to decide ; but that, 
 for some reason or other, he regretted his action 
 in the matter was abundantly clear to her. That 
 hour in which, for a brief space, he had drawn 
 strangely near to her, so far from deepening the 
 semi-intimacy that had previously been growing 
 up almost imperceptibly between her and her 
 uncle's guest, seemed to have pushed them 
 suddenly apart. Conscious — so it would appear
 
 ON THE LAWN AND IN THE FIELDS 145 
 
 — that he had drawn for a moment too near ; 
 nearer than either his pride or his natural reserve 
 could endure to recollect, Lyon now, in a 
 revulsion of feeling, removed himself to a dis- 
 tance which neither kindness nor curiosity should 
 be able to bridge. He took up an attitude 
 absolutely unapproachable in its buckram stiff- 
 ness ; and, fearful of some unwelcome expression 
 of the sympathy he had himself done his best to 
 provoke, held his hapless confidante, figuratively 
 speaking, ever at arm's-length. The better to 
 check the rush of any possible wave of senti- 
 ment in his direction, he gave his cynical daemon 
 full rein ; took frequent occasion to stab Dorothy 
 deliberately in what he supposed likely to be 
 the tenderest places of her beliefs and aspirations; 
 turned her enthusiasms into polite ridicule; or 
 silently expressed a shrugging incredulity touch- 
 ing the idols he perceived her to worship most 
 devoutly. The girl came to fear him, in a few 
 days' time, almost as she feared her uncle 
 himself. Indeed, it is doubtful whether often- 
 times the mute curl of Lyon's lip — cruel, un- 
 spoken comment on some girlish expression of 
 delight or admiration — was not even more 
 painful to her than Creighton's harshly-snapped 
 phrase of contemptuous retort. 
 
 Withal, she could not bring herself to resent 
 Lyon's changed behaviour with all the spirit 
 which the circumstances seemed to require of 
 her. And for this reason, she could not dis-
 
 146 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 abuse her mind of the fear that there might — 
 indeed, that there surely must have been some 
 error on her own part, some want of kindliness 
 or sympathy, some rash and over-hot expression 
 of opinion on the facts of his story, to account 
 for this curious alteration in his demeanour. 
 Formerly, after a languid fashion, he had ap- 
 peared to feel a friendly interest in her, a good- 
 natured liking for her. Now she perceived, or 
 thought she perceived, that he regarded her 
 with actual dislike. Dorothy's simple mind 
 could not conceive of such a complete transfor- 
 mation of Mr. Lyon's sentiments taking place 
 wholly without cause. It was plain that she 
 had been unfortunate enough to offend him. 
 
 He took care — if this were the case — that she 
 should have no chance of setting herself right 
 in his estimation. For the most part he sedu- 
 lously avoided her society, and on the rare 
 occasions when he sought it (as would still 
 happen now and again), did so wnth a manifest 
 reluctance, an air of being compelled to the act 
 almost against his will, and altogether against 
 his better judgment, which the girl found 
 intolerably irritating. She, on her side, drew 
 back from him, as he from her ; and for several 
 days they saw but little of each other. 
 
 Lyon took refuge in the company of Travers, 
 and solaced his hurt pride (hurt, in his own 
 esteem, almost to death by w^hat he angrily 
 styled his inexplicable and contemptible self-
 
 ON THE LAWN AND IN THE FIELDS 147 
 
 exposure in a moment of sentimental weakness) 
 by plunging the stiletto of satire into the vitals 
 of Jem's most cherished ideals. Travers argued 
 with him, then laughed at him ; finally, suffered 
 him to rail unchecked. " One can't expect a man 
 with a smarting wound to be either calm or con- 
 siderate," he said to himself good-humouredly. 
 
 The metaphor started a whole train of new 
 ideas in his mind. Wounds, it is well known, 
 are commonly most irritable when on the point 
 of healing. Was Lyon's beginning to heal ? It 
 would be quite like Lyon to resent the process — 
 supposing him to be conscious that it was going 
 on — and try to arrest it. James had his thoughts 
 as to the nature of the curative unguent in this 
 case. But he wisely kept them to himself — till 
 a woman's quick suspicions, scenting danger, 
 forced him into reluctant confession. 
 
 It was his regular habit, every Wednesday, 
 to hold a kind of mission-service in one of the 
 cottages of Owlswick, the isolated hamlet in 
 which Dorothy taught her school. The Wed- 
 nesday following the Sunday of his sister's visit 
 chanced to be a cool and pleasant day, and Mrs. 
 Travers, tempted abroad by the beauty of the 
 afternoon, offered to drive him to his destination 
 in her pony-carriage. As a matter of conveni- 
 ence, he would have preferred walking, having 
 made up his mind previously to think out his 
 Sunday evening sermon by the way ; but he 
 was pleased and touched by the offer (few such
 
 148 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 offers from his mother faUing to his share), and 
 he accepted it. 
 
 The pony carriage left the Rectory about four 
 o'clock. Half-way to Owlswick, its occupants 
 descried two figures — the figures of a man in 
 straw hat and light-coloured tweeds, and a girl 
 in a blue cotton gown — coming towards them 
 along the level, lonely road. 
 
 " Dorothy," observed James, who was driving, 
 pointing forward with his whip, — the pair were 
 still nearly a quarter of a mile off, — " and Lyon 
 with her, I think. Yes, it is Lyon. I wish " — 
 he checked himself quickly. 
 
 But not quickly enough. Mrs. Travers caught 
 him up with startling briskness. 
 
 "James! You don't think there is anything 
 between that man and Dorothy?" 
 
 " No, mother — not as yet." 
 
 " But you hope there may be, will be ? You 
 said just now you wished " — Mrs. Travers' 
 pale cheeks were deeply flushed ; her indig- 
 nation seemed to choke her. 
 
 " To be honest, I should be very glad if Lyon 
 were to take a fancy to her — and she to him. 
 It might be the saving of him." 
 
 " And what of your brother ? His salvation 
 is of no account, it seems ! " 
 
 " Brian is out of the question, in any case. 
 You know that Dorothy has said, over and over 
 again, that she does not care for him, cannot 
 marry him."
 
 ON THE LAWN AND IN THE FIELDS 149 
 
 " I know that she has behaved very cruelly 
 and heartlessly to the poor boy " — 
 
 "No, mother — pardon me — there you are 
 unjust to Dorothy. It was not her fault that he 
 fell in love with her, and wouldn't take ' No ' for 
 an answer. She was perfectly plain with him 
 from the beginning. She has never hesitated or 
 wavered in her refusal." 
 
 " That is all you know about the matter ! 
 Brian could tell a different tale, I fancy. 
 Indeed " — with significant emphasis and a faint 
 touch of triumph — " I know he could. I know 
 more than you imagine. And now, if she is to 
 begin playing fast and loose in this fashion " — 
 
 *' Where there is no tie, there can be no 
 playing fast and loose with it," was James's 
 retort. And he might have retorted further, had 
 not the two persons under discussion been now 
 fairly within earshot. 
 
 He pulled up the pony, and halted awhile 
 talking to them — to the displeasure of Mrs. 
 Travers, who was in no mood for amicable 
 converse. James, however, scarcely observed his 
 mother's manifest ill-humour. He was both 
 surprised and rejoiced at Lyon's appearance as 
 Dorothy's escort, — for he had not failed to notice 
 the odd estrangement that seemed to have taken 
 place between the two, — and his speculations as 
 to the cause of this apparent renewal of friendly 
 intercourse occupied his attention entirely for 
 the moment.
 
 I50 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 Dorothy, on her part, was fairly bewildered by 
 the thing that had come about. When, her 
 children dismissed for the day, she had stepped 
 out of the schoolhouse porch at Owlswick, 
 satchel on arm, and discovered Lyon waiting 
 for her a few paces off, she had been scarcely 
 able to credit the evidence of her senses. As he 
 vouchsafed no explanation of the very unusual 
 step he had taken, but merely remarked that the 
 afternoon was pleasant for walking, she had no 
 choice but to swallow her amazement as best 
 she could. The state of perplexity into which 
 his appearance had thrown her was not lessened 
 by the utter absence from his talk, during their 
 walk to Heyford, of the cruel and gibing note 
 that had been so constantly present in it of late. 
 
 If this fresh change bewildered, it also de- 
 lighted the girl. She so hated to be on bad 
 terms with any person who had once been kind 
 to her! This much she acknowledged to 
 herself, even while endeavouring to dissemble — 
 as out of sheer self-respect she felt bound to 
 dissemble — all the relief she really felt. Since 
 Mr. Lyon could bring himself to overlook her 
 unknown offence so soon and so easily, it stood 
 to reason that it could never have been a very 
 serious one ; and in this case she felt herself to 
 have been unfairly treated by him in the past. 
 Her sense of having suffered wrong at his hands 
 made her less talkative than usual, less readily 
 responsive ; throughout the walk her manner
 
 ON THE LAWN AND IN THE FIELDS 151 
 
 remained a little cold, a little proud. Neverthe- 
 less, under assumed coldness and genuine pride, 
 Lyon failed not to discern hidden satisfaction. 
 
 And now it was his turn to discover that — in 
 a different quarter — he too had given unwitting 
 offence. Mrs. Travers, hitherto always unvary- 
 ingly suave and gracious in her bearing towards 
 him, gave him to understand with sufficient 
 plainness that he had forfeited her favour. Her 
 greetings became icy, her few reluctant words 
 (for she only spoke to him when she could not 
 decently avoid doing so) stiff and formal in the 
 extreme. Lyon, quite unconscious of having 
 given the poor lady any pretext for looking 
 blackly upon him, was at first merely amused 
 by this sudden assumption of frigid loftiness on 
 her part. After a while, however, he became 
 aware of a similar change in the demeanour of 
 the old Rector himself, and grew puzzled. It 
 was in vain that he considered the puzzle ; no 
 explanation thereof that was even plausible 
 presented itself. 
 
 The mystery was cleared up at last, in a 
 fashion that left him in no further doubt con- 
 cerning the true origin and meaning of this 
 seemingly causeless unfriendliness. 
 
 Sauntering over to the Rectory late one 
 afternoon in search of the son of the house, he 
 came suddenly upon Mrs. Travers, seated in her 
 invalid chair, in a shady corner of the lawn. 
 Beside her stood Dorothy Temple, drawn up to
 
 152 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 her full height, her eyes and cheeks unusually 
 brilliant, while her mouth wore an expression 
 oddly compounded of annoyance and deter- 
 mination. 
 
 " You cannot deny it ! " Mrs. Travers was 
 exclaiming in querulous tones. "There is his 
 letter — the letter I received from him only last 
 Monday — to prove what I say." 
 
 " I don't deny it." Miss Temple spoke with 
 a heightened colour, but she had her voice well 
 under control. " All I say is, that he had no 
 right to tell you — no right whatever. Merely 
 by telling you he has produced a false 
 impression." 
 
 " Here is Mr. Lyon ! " Mrs. Travers interposed 
 hastily, catching sight of the approaching visitor. 
 Poor Lyon came forward, doing his best to look 
 quite unconscious of having intruded on a serious 
 difference of opinion between the two ladies. 
 
 He announced his errand. Mrs. Travers said 
 that James would appear in a few minutes, and 
 in a manner slightly more cordial than usual 
 invited him to sit down. He sat down, feeling 
 thoroughly uncomfortable. Dorothy, who, if 
 her looks did not belie her, was equally ill at 
 ease, soon took occasion to slip away, leaving 
 him alone with Mrs. Travers. 
 
 That lady talked civilly for a few minutes of 
 indifferent matters ; then, after a moment's lapse 
 into thoughtfur silence, said, looking suddenly 
 up into her visitor's face —
 
 ON THE LAWN AND IN THE FIELDS 153 
 
 " I wonder, Mr. Lyon, whether I might 
 venture to make a confidence to you — and an 
 appeal as well ? " 
 
 " To me, Mrs. Travers ? " 
 
 " Yes. You are my son Brian's friend, are you 
 not ? Really and truly his friend ? " 
 
 " I've a great liking for Brian, as he knows. 
 If I can be of any use to him, pray command me." 
 
 "You could be of the greatest, the most 
 priceless use — if you would. My young cousin, 
 who has just left us, has, I know, an immense 
 respect for your opinion." Mrs. Travers paused. 
 
 " You must allow me to question that," Lyon 
 filled up the pause, with a slight incredulous 
 smile. Inwardly he asked himself what on 
 earth the woman could be driving at. 
 
 " Oh, I assure you ! You see, if you'll excuse 
 my saying so, you are the first clever, cultivated 
 man of the world she has ever had to do with." 
 Lyon's upper lip curled afresh. " Naturally, 
 she esteems your judgment — of men and things 
 both — very highly. Now, if you would use your 
 influence with her " — 
 
 " I am not aware of possessing any influence 
 with Miss Temple," Lyon interposed, stiffening 
 suddenly to a cast-iron demeanour. 
 
 " Brian's friend must have some influence 
 with her, I feel sure," responded the maternal 
 serpent. "If you would but use it, Mr. Lyon, 
 in his behalf! You know, of course, that he is 
 devoted to her ? "
 
 154 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 " No, I did not know. Brian has been 
 devoted to so many charming young ladies in 
 his time," said " Brian's friend," with somewhat 
 brutal frankness. 
 
 " He was always susceptible, poor boy ! " with 
 an indulgent smile and sigh. "But this is 
 different. Here it is question of a real, lasting 
 attachment, I firmly believe. I did not wish 
 to believe this at first, I will own. Dorothy is 
 a good girl, but she is ordinary — decidedly 
 ordinary ; both Mr. Travers and I felt that our 
 boy might have looked higher for a wife. Now, 
 however, that he seems to have made his choice 
 irrevocably, now that they are virtually engaged, 
 it's my earnest hope and prayer that nothing 
 may occur to prevent the marriage. If any- 
 thing did, Brian would be driven to despair. 
 And then in many ways it is suitable enough : 
 a really excellent girl, in his own position in 
 life, with a little money of her own too. Oh, I 
 should be broken-hearted if Dorothy were to 
 show any sign of wishing to change her mind 
 noiv ! " 
 
 Lyon's dark face remained impenetrable as a 
 mask to the keen eyes watching it. " I should 
 imagine you might make your mind easy on 
 that score, Mrs. Travers. Miss Temple does 
 not appear to be a changeable person. Brian 
 is to be congratulated on his good luck," he 
 added, after a scarcely perceptible pause. 
 
 " Only he is so far away ! And— and I have
 
 ON THE LAWN AND IN THE FIELDS 155 
 
 always feared Dorothy was a little inclined to 
 rate his devotion too cheaply, to take it rather 
 as a matter of course than a gift to be thankful 
 for. The very fact of their being cousins, who 
 have known each other intimately from child- 
 hood, takes away from the romance of the affair, 
 no doubt, in her girl's eyes. A girl's ideas of 
 romance are so limited and conventional ! 
 Otherwise, there is far more of real romance in 
 the story of a love like my boy's, than in half 
 the stories one reads in novels. Don't you 
 agree with me, Mr. Lyon ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid I am not a good judge on points 
 of romance." 
 
 " At least, you will not refuse me your 
 assistance ?" 
 
 " To speak frankly, Mrs. Travers, I hardly 
 see where my assistance should come in. 
 Remember, I have known Miss Temple barely 
 three weeks as yet. If you recollect this, you 
 must, I think, recognise the impossibility of 
 my setting to work to instruct her in her duties 
 towards your son. To attempt anything of the 
 kind would be an intolerable impertinence on 
 my part. More especially as Miss Temple has 
 never but once — that I can recall — mentioned 
 Brian's name in my hearing, and never even 
 once hinted at the existence of the engagement 
 you speak of. The matter is much too delicate 
 for my interference — or that of any outsider. 
 Ah!" in accents of unmistakable relief; "here
 
 156 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 comes Jem ! " Lyon added to himself, as he 
 rose from his chair, "And in good time he 
 comes. I should certainly have flung manners 
 to the winds in another minute or two." 
 
 " Ready for a ramble, Lyon ? " 
 
 Travers' voice rang out cheerily as he crossed 
 the lawn. 
 
 The alacrity of the " Quite ready, old fellow ! " 
 that answered his inquiry, surprised him. 
 Lyon's fashion of assenting to the propositions 
 made to him was not often so prompt or so 
 eager. 
 
 Nevertheless, poor Travers' tetc-a-tete stroll 
 with his friend, did not, despite this promising 
 beginning, prove a very lively one. Once clear 
 of the Rectory gates, Lyon fell into a fit of 
 abstraction. Either he was bored by his 
 companion's choice of subjects of conversation, 
 or his mind was distracted by some private care, 
 for during the first half-hour he scarcely opened 
 his lips except in monosyllables, and Travers' 
 most extravagant nonsense (Travers could be 
 very extravagantly nonsensical at times, when 
 in a whimsical vein) barely provoked him to a 
 mechanical smile. 
 
 The truth is, he was busy cudgelling his brain 
 for an accurate remembrance of his last con- 
 versation with Brian Travers — that conversation 
 held two years ago, just before the young man 
 sailed for Queensland. Brian had come to his 
 rooms, he recollected, and there talked wildly
 
 ON THE LAWN AND IN THE FIELDS 157 
 
 of his absorbing passion for some steely-hearted 
 divinity whose relenting — if only she could be 
 brought to relent — would surely be his salvation 
 in this world and the next. Now it appeared 
 that Miss Temple was the divinity in question — 
 no longer steely-hearted, however, if the mother's 
 assertions were to be depended upon. Why 
 any " if" in the matter ? Probably Mrs. Travers 
 had spoken no more than the truth. Unless 
 Dorothy were really engaged to Brian, Brian's 
 mother would hardly have gone the length of 
 giving another man such clear and unmistakable 
 hints to keep his hands off her son's property. 
 Poor woman ! her proceedings were not in very 
 good form, perhaps ; but she doubtless meant 
 well. Lyon's keen enjoyment of the humour 
 of the situation had not suffered him to give her 
 the veiled assurance which would have set her 
 mind completely at rest on the subject of his 
 half-suspected rivalry with Brian — so he told 
 himself Otherwise, he would certainly have done 
 so, since it was a pity she should continue to 
 suffer from a perfectly groundless anxiety. 
 
 "Travers," he said suddenly, interrupting a 
 disquisition of his companion (on the iniquity 
 of diverting trust-funds from their original uses), 
 which was just approaching an effective perora- 
 tion, with no ceremony at all, " is it true that 
 your brother is engaged to be married to Miss 
 Temple?" 
 
 Travers, considerably surprised alike by the
 
 158 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 matter and the manner of the question put to 
 him, turned and stared for a moment at his 
 questioner, who was leaning on the top of a 
 five-barred gate, his arms planted on the upper- 
 most rail, and his stick dangling negligently 
 between his half-open fingers. But his inquiring 
 gaze told him nothing. Lyon was looking 
 straight across the flat meadow in front of him 
 with his usual impassive [and slightly fatigued 
 air. James pulled himself together to reply. 
 
 " Dorothy engaged to Brian ? How did you 
 hear? Were you told there was any such 
 engagement ? " 
 
 " The idea would hardly have occurred to me 
 of itself, my good fellow. Nor, if it had, should 
 I have been likely to ask you point-blank 
 questions on the basis of a mere idea. I may 
 possibly have misunderstood Mrs. Travers, but 
 she certainly gave me to understand that the 
 matter was one which might be spoken of." 
 
 " My poor mother ! In this case, the wish is 
 father to the thought with her. She has never 
 quite forgiven Dorothy for refusing to marry 
 Brian." 
 
 " Then — they are not engaged ? " 
 
 "Certainly not. Decidedly, you must have 
 misunderstood my mother very seriously, if you 
 understood her to say that there was any ques- 
 tion of engagement between them." (Lyon 
 here made some rather impolite reflections on 
 female incapacity for speaking the truth, which
 
 ON THE LAWN AND IN THE FIELDS 159 
 
 the circumstances, unfortunately, obliged him to 
 leave unspoken.) " Of course," the unconscious 
 Travers continued, "we were all aware of the 
 boy's wishes in the matter, some years since. 
 But there never was any hope for him in that 
 quarter. And I know (from himself) that when 
 he made a last effort — just before leaving 
 England — he was refused definitely and finally. 
 No, there is nothing whatever between them. 
 Just as well, perhaps. She might be the wife 
 for him, that's possible. But I'm by no means 
 sure that he would ever be the husband for her." 
 
 Lyon re-entered his room at The Haulms, 
 an hour later, in a frame of mind quite incom- 
 prehensible to himself. To begin with, all his 
 sensations, physical and mental, were those of a 
 man who has lately experienced a severe shock ; 
 yet nothing had occurred during the afternoon 
 which could legitimately have had such an 
 effect upon him. Secondly, he was conscious 
 of an inexplicable feeling of relief — a feeling 
 which had surged up in him suddenly at Travers's 
 stout assertion that there was "nothing what- 
 ever between " his brother and his cousin, and 
 taken form in the instinctive silent exclamation, 
 " Thank God ! " Why should he, of all men, 
 thank God that Dorothy Temple was not going 
 to marry Brian Travers ? What possible business, 
 concern, or interest could it be of his, whom she 
 married, now or at any future time ? 
 
 "At this rate, Mrs. Travers might almost
 
 i6o A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND' 
 
 appear justified in her anxiety," he said angrily 
 to himself, as he set about the business of 
 dressing for dinner. " Folly ! Absurdity ! A 
 mere girl — whom I had never seen three weeks 
 ago, and whom, after Monday, I shall in all 
 probability never see again — who is nothing, 
 and less than nothing to me " — 
 
 There he suddenly caught sight of his own 
 face in the glass, and half started, struck by its 
 curious pallor. A man who, for long years past, 
 had made it his rule to be, as far as poor human 
 nature would permit him, absolutely honest 
 with himself, he could not go on lying to him- 
 self now. He gave a sort of groan commingled 
 of incredulity, indignation, and profound self- 
 disgust. "No, no!" he ejaculated half-articu- 
 lately in his impatience. 
 
 But when a still small voice in his breast 
 retorted upon him with a merciless "Yes," he 
 did not venture to contradict it in his turn.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 OUTSIDE THE SCHOOLHOUSE 
 
 **Z« violences qi^on se fait pour s'empec her cC aimer soul souvent 
 plus cruelles que les rigueurs de ce quon aiine." 
 
 LET no one suppose, however, that because 
 Anthony Lyon felt and acknowledged a 
 hit, he had therefore any intention of throwing 
 down his arms and yielding the field peaceably 
 to the foe against whose attacks he had so long 
 believed himself entirely proof. So far from 
 allowing what he contemptuously styled his 
 ridiculous infatuation to take its course, he re- 
 belled furiously against it. He told himself 
 that, let the effort cost him what it might (and 
 he did not pretend, even to himself, that it 
 would be likely to cost him nothing), he would 
 put a speedy end to his folly. 
 
 An impulse of self-defence moved him to 
 deal thus summarily in the matter. When he 
 told Dorothy Temple that he dreaded anything 
 like strong feeling, " as a burnt child dreads the 
 fire," he had described his own state of mind with
 
 i62 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 perfect truth and accuracy. One such scorching 
 experience as he was not hkely ever to forget 
 had followed on his early yielding to sentiment ; 
 he had no desire to repeat, in mature manhood, 
 the painful history of his youth. By dint of ruth- 
 less self-repression, he had brought a nature 
 originally hotter and less easily governed than 
 most men's to a condition of chilly quiescence ; 
 but he knew very well that the capacity for 
 passion was only scotched in him, not killed. 
 Once let him lift the heel of his will from the 
 serpent's head, once permit the venomous thing 
 to rear its snaky crest on high — and there would 
 be all the old hideous battle to fight over again, 
 every one of the old stinging miseries to endure 
 afresh. For it was characteristic of Lyon's 
 mental attitude towards the whole question of 
 love between man and woman that he never for 
 a moment pictured this new-born passion of his 
 becoming to him, under any circumstances, a 
 source of joy or a means of healing. He saw 
 in it merely the ominous beginning of a new 
 tale of doubt, disillusionment, humiliation ; above 
 all, of suffering. And he had suffered quite 
 enough already ; he was determined not to 
 suffer, after that particular fashion, again, if he 
 could possibly help it. 
 
 It should not be difficult, he thought, for a 
 man gifted with an ordinary amount of common 
 sense to get the mastery of a mere groundless 
 fancy. From a logical point of view, he would
 
 OUTSIDE THE SCHOOLHOUSE 163 
 
 not — should the fancy prove too strong for him 
 — have an excuse to offer for himself. The girl 
 was not beautiful, scarcely even passably pretty. 
 (Beside the heroine of his youth's love-story, she 
 would have looked a farthing candle competing 
 with the sun.) Her lack of striking external 
 charms was not atoned for by any exceptional 
 mental gifts ; impossible, by the extremest 
 stretch of courtesy, to call her either clever or 
 accomplished, brilliantly witty or remarkably 
 wise. She was, no doubt, a sensible girl, and a 
 good girl. But sensible girls are as plentiful 
 as blackberries, and — according to the general 
 verdict — good ones also ; so that these qualities 
 of sense and (supposed) goodness in no way 
 distinguished this particular girl from a whole 
 crowd of her sisters whom Lyon had met and 
 known, more or less intimately, at one time 
 or another, without finding his dearly-bought 
 indifference to the sex in any way disturbed. 
 No ; so far, Mrs. Travers was right. In the 
 generally accepted sense of the term, Dorothy 
 was " decidedly ordinary." 
 
 And yet — he had fallen in love with her. 
 There was no blinking or disguising that unwel- 
 come, uncomfortable fact. He might summon 
 all the strength of his will to combat it, shed 
 forth all the vials of his ridicule on so prepos- 
 terous an idea ; it refused obstinately to be 
 either strangled or mocked out of existence. 
 Already Dorothy's power over him was greater
 
 i64 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 than he could bear to acknowledge. A man 
 singularly indifferent to the esteem of his fellows, 
 — careless of the opinion of men, contemptuous 
 of the opinion of women, — he had felt himself 
 wince and smart once and again, under the 
 sentence of unspoken condemnation written in 
 Dorothy's eyes. He had even fallen so low as 
 to offer a craven Apologia pro vita sua to this 
 untaught, inexperienced country girl — fool that 
 he was ! Well, not all fool, mayhap. His self- 
 abasement had not gone altogether unrewarded. 
 He remembered her wet eyes, the look that she 
 had turned upon him, the broken phrases that 
 fell from her lips at the crossing of the bridge ; 
 and the remembrance of these things was sweet 
 to him — sweet as the first ray of warmth striking 
 through the cold atmosphere of utter loneliness 
 within which, for the last dozen years of his life, 
 he had resolutely shut himself up. 
 
 Of one thing he felt convinced — Illogical, 
 irrational, as was the whole affair, its very 
 illogicality and irrationality, as well as his 
 knowledge of himself, assured him that, were 
 he to permit himself to love this " ordinary " 
 girl, he would love her, not wisely, not prudently, 
 not with the temperate warmth of an affection 
 given on any reasonable ground, but passion- 
 ately, absorbingly, to his own certain torture 
 and probable undoing. Therefore, he very 
 wisely resolved to deny himself the permission 
 in question.
 
 OUTSIDE THE SCHOOLHOUSE 165 
 
 Fortunately, as he was glad to remember, his 
 visit to Heyford was drawing fast to a close. 
 He was no coward, but he perceived clearly 
 that it would naturally be an immense advantage 
 to him, in his task of conquering the weakness 
 he despised, to fight out the battle elsewhere 
 than in Dorothy's actual presence. 
 
 Acting on this view, he managed to see very 
 little of her during the day following on his 
 unpleasant discovery. As this day happened 
 to be Sunday, some ingenuity on his part was 
 needed to avoid a tHe-a-tete ; and it was forth- 
 coming. Church services and Sunday schools 
 aided him to attain his end during the earlier 
 hours of the day, and a long evening walk 
 with Travers, followed by a talk (at the Rectory) 
 which lasted till past midnight, not only filled 
 up the remainder, but at the same time averted 
 the danger of a farewell. Before Lyon returned 
 to The Haulms, Dorothy had of course gone to 
 her room ; he reckoned that she would have 
 started for Owlswick a full hour before he came 
 down the following morning. Thus any leave- 
 taking was rendered impossible, in a perfectly 
 easy and natural manner. 
 
 Whether the fashion in which he had arranged 
 matters would be agreeable to Dorothy as well 
 as to himself, Lyon did not stop to inquire. 
 He was fighting for his life ; it simply never 
 occurred to him that the blows he dealt in self- 
 defence might have painful consequences for her.
 
 1 66 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 Monday morning arrived. He went down to 
 the breakfast-room at nine o'clock with an un- 
 reasonable semi-expectation, in which hope and 
 dread played about equal parts, that he should, 
 on this particular morning, find her there, and 
 that thus the good-bye he had striven to avoid 
 would yet be thrust upon him — or granted to 
 him. His groundless prevision turned out to 
 be a false one. Dorothy, as on all previous 
 mornings, was absent, and Mr. Creighton, accord- 
 ing to his custom, made no reference to her. 
 
 Then Lyon's conscience smote him — or else 
 the fierce yearning of a desire that spoke louder 
 than the voice of prudence, and struggled pain- 
 fully in the grip of resolution, got the upper 
 hand for a moment, and he began to cast about 
 for some means of repairing his last night's lack 
 of courtesy. Throughout his stay of three weeks 
 at The Haulms, Dorothy had borne herself 
 kindly and friendlily towards him ; it were worse 
 than boorish — absolutely brutal — on his part to 
 go away, making no acknowledgment of her 
 kindness and friendliness, treating her, after her 
 uncle's manner, as a thing of no account, un- 
 worthy even the common politeness of a common 
 leavetaking. Should he write a note before he 
 went — a few lines of apology and regret ? Or, 
 better still, supposing he took occasion, on his 
 way to the station ? — Owlswick, he knew, was 
 little more than half a mile off the Donnin^ton 
 road, and the morning was cool and overcast,
 
 OUTSIDE THE SCHOOLHOUSE 167 
 
 pleasant for walking. He surprised his host by 
 observing suddenly that he should be ready to 
 start at half-past ten. 
 
 " You needn't go quite so early as that," 
 Creighton answered. " The pony does the 
 distance easily in three-quarters of an hour." 
 
 " I thought of walking — part of the way, 
 at least." 
 
 " That makes a difference. You'll probably 
 be caught in the rain before you get to Don- 
 nington, if you walk, though ; we shall pretty 
 certainly have a downpour by eleven. But 
 perhaps you don't mind wet." 
 
 " No, I am happily impervious to weather." 
 
 " All right, then ; half-past ten be it," said 
 Creighton, getting up with some alacrity to ring 
 the bell. He had quite done with Lyon now, 
 and was perfectly willing that the young man 
 should take his departure. Lyon recognised 
 this, and knew that he need not stand in fear 
 of further invitations to The Haulms in time 
 to come. 
 
 Mr. Creighton's predictions with regard to the 
 weather were fully verified. When, at the 
 bottom of the steep lane leading up to Owlswick 
 Green, — a triangular scrap of rough wild common 
 forming the head of an equally wild valley, — 
 Lyon leaped down from the pony-cart, and, 
 requesting Wilson to drive on with his luggage 
 to Donnington station, announced his intention 
 of doing the rest of the way on foot, the thick
 
 i68 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 soft mist that had shrouded the countryside 
 since early morning was already turning into 
 fine penetrating rain. By the time he reached 
 the tiny porch of the schoolhouse — a diminutive 
 square brick building standing solitary in the 
 middle of the scrap of common aforesaid, some 
 hundreds of yards distant from the little group 
 of ancient tumbledown cottages which were 
 clustered together on its outer edge — his hat 
 and travelling-coat were getting tolerably wet. 
 
 He entered the porch — hung on either side 
 with rows of shabby caps and hats, a worn little 
 cloak or two among them — and stood an instant, 
 listening to the hum within. A reading-lesson 
 was proceeding; evidently an elementary one, 
 for the words that some dozen small hoarse 
 voices uttered together in a monotonous drone 
 were exclusively monosyllabic. Now and then 
 he caught the sound of Dorothy's clear voice, 
 checking and correcting. It annoyed him to 
 find that this occasional note set his heart 
 beating disagreeably fast; he determined to 
 listen no longer. With a final admonition to 
 himself to be on his good behaviour, he raised 
 his stick and rapped softly at the door. 
 
 " Please, teacher, there's some one outside," he 
 heard a shrill voice pipe immediately. 
 
 " Very well, Mary Ann ; go and see who it is. 
 Quietly, now. Children, not so much fidgeting, 
 please." Dorothy spoke patiently, but to Lyon's 
 ear it sounded as if she were putting strong
 
 OUTSIDE THE SCHOOLHOUSE 169 
 
 constraint upon herself. " Sit straight, the first 
 class — and go on with your writing. Mr. Lyon ! 
 You!'' 
 
 She was standing very near the door that 
 Mary Ann, a fuzzy-haired, be-pinafored monitor 
 of twelve, had just opened with an air of great 
 importance ; and the unexpected apparition in 
 the doorway caused her to start visibly. 
 
 " I myself," returned Lyon, not altogether 
 displeased at his reception. " May I come in ? " 
 
 " No, I — I think you had better not. I will 
 come out and speak to you, in one moment." 
 She turned hastily to the group of "infants" 
 who stood round a chalk circle drawn on the 
 floor, primer in hand, gazing open-mouthed at 
 the stranger. 
 
 " Close your books. Sit. And be quite 
 quiet till I come back." 
 
 She stepped out into the porch, closing the 
 door softly behind her. 
 
 " Is anything the matter ? " she asked rather 
 breathlessly. " Any one ill ? My uncle ? " 
 
 " Your uncle is perfectly well, and so is 
 every one in Heyford, as far as I know," Lyon 
 returned, almost testily. He felt curiously 
 annoyed at her failure to divine his errand. " I 
 merely called to bid you good-bye. Perhaps," 
 with rising displeasure, " you had forgotten I 
 was to go away this morning ? " 
 
 *' Oh no ! I had not forgotten." 
 
 To his ear, she spoke coldly, with an indiffer-
 
 I70 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 ence that was scarcely even civil. His mortifi- 
 cation got the better, for the moment, both of 
 his prudence and his manners. 
 
 *' It would have been natural enough if you 
 had forgotten, since it cannot possibly be of the 
 slightest moment t6 you whether I go or stay." 
 
 The cut told ; she winced under it visibly. 
 Her colour rose ; her lip trembled slightly. 
 " Why do you say that, Mr. Lyon ? On the 
 contrary, I am truly sorry you are going. You 
 have been very kind to me ; and, as you know, 
 I have not many friends." 
 
 A minute earlier, he had been remarking, 
 with a savage kind of satisfaction, that she did 
 not look in the least pretty that morning. Her 
 eyes were heavy ; her cheeks colourless ; the 
 bright freshness of air that made ordinarily 
 her chief attraction had wholly disappeared ; 
 her dark tweed dress (donned, no doubt, in de- 
 ference to the badness of the weather) and the 
 spotted calico bib-apron worn over it were both 
 eminently unbecoming to her. This lack of 
 charm in her appearance might have been a 
 positive safeguard to Lyon — had been such, for 
 a brief moment or two ; now, by his ill-con- 
 sidered burst of temper, he had deprived himself 
 of it. For his taunt, striking home, not only 
 stirred her pulses, but transformed her face ; 
 and, through the halo of the emotion which his 
 own sharp words had created, he saw it as he 
 had never seen it before, beautiful.
 
 OUTSIDE THE SCHOOLHOUSE 171 
 
 The first effect of this vision was to make him 
 feel considerably ashamed of himself. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he murmured. " I 
 believe I was abominably rude — I don't know if 
 it's any excuse to say that I am in a frightful 
 temper this morning ! Possibly because I am 
 going away — I hate travelling. However, you 
 forgive me ? You won't bear malice ? " 
 
 " Certainly not. There isn't much for me to 
 forgive," Dorothy answered quickly. "And, 
 if there had been, I could still make allowance 
 for you — you know I have what Irishmen call 
 ' a touch of the temper' myself! " 
 
 She paused there, perhaps expecting him to 
 take his leave and go. But he seemed nowise 
 inclined towards any such decided movement. 
 Instead of saying anything, he stepped outside 
 the little porch, and looked about him irre- 
 solutely, with an air of considering the weather. 
 
 " I'm afraid you are going to have a thoroughly 
 miserable day for your journey," Dorothy ob- 
 served, coming to the edge of the step on which 
 she had been standing, and peering out ruefull}' 
 into the mist and rain. "Fortunately, the 
 journey itself isn't very long. That is — You 
 are going back to London, I suppose ? " 
 
 " London's my first stage. But in all prob- 
 ability I sha'n't stop there — for more than an 
 hour or two. If I find the letters I expect to 
 find at my rooms, I shall most likely " — raising 
 his eyes suddenly to his companion's as she
 
 172 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 stood above him on the edge of the steps, " go 
 down to Yorkshire by the afternoon express." 
 
 Dorothy's face hghted up afresh — this time 
 with a wholly different (because wholly pleasur- 
 able) emotion. 
 
 *' Not to— Creyke ? To see "— 
 
 ** That princely property of mine ? Even so. 
 You see, I am not after all so utterly impervious 
 to reproof, rebuke, exhortation, when skilfully 
 administered. You — and Miss Travers — have 
 together succeeded in awaking me to a sen.se 
 of my criminal apathy as a landlord ; at least, 
 you have made me curious to see for myself 
 what pit-life is like. I — What were you going 
 to say ? " 
 
 " Nothing of any consequence. Only — don't 
 be angry with me ! — that I am very glad." 
 
 " Why on earth should I be angry with you 
 for feeling glad ? I'm delighted to hear that 
 any doings of mine meet with your approbation. 
 You haven't had much reason, so far, to approve 
 of them, or of me — that I freely admit." 
 
 A sound of scuffling feet, with which mingled 
 Mary Ann's shrill voice of rebuke, followed by 
 an outburst of childish sobbing, cut short Lyon's 
 half-uttered sentence, and made the young 
 teacher start nervously to the door. Opening 
 it, she discovered the " infants," no longer seated 
 demurely on their bench, but huddled together 
 in a disconsolate group round one of the most 
 diminutive of their number, who was sobbing
 
 OUTSIDE THE SCHOOLHOUSE 173 
 
 bitterly in a corner, while the juvenile monitor 
 with the towzled locks brandished a slate 
 threateningly over their youthful heads. 
 
 "You must excuse me a moment," she said 
 hurriedly to Lyon, as she disappeared. 
 
 It seemed a long moment to him before she 
 came out again, looking flushed and wearing a 
 little unconscious frown of distress on her smooth 
 forehead. Neither was the length of her absence 
 wholly in his impatient fancy : she had really 
 been several minutes gone. Her reproof, indeed, 
 took but little time to administer ; a sentence or 
 two of grave displeasure, and she had done. 
 But the crying child had refused for a long time 
 to be comforted. 
 
 Lyon's sentiments towards that child were by 
 no means of a kindly nature. 
 
 And, now that she had returned, it was clearly 
 not to stay. Closing the door behind her with 
 one hand, she held out the other to her visitor, 
 saying hurriedly — 
 
 " I must go back to them at once. You see how 
 it is. I ought not really to be here at all " — 
 
 "You are a painfully conscientious school- 
 mistress." 
 
 She made a somewhat unsuccessful attempt 
 to smile. " No ; if I had been truly conscientious, 
 I should have refused to leave the schoolroom 
 for so much as a single minute ! " 
 
 "Seeing I had come up here specially to see 
 you — to bid you good-bye " —
 
 174 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 "That was very kind of you," interrupting 
 him hurriedly. "Very kind indeed. I never 
 dreamt of your coming, this place is so far out 
 of your way. And then the rain! you will get 
 so wet. Where is the cart ? " 
 
 "The cart has gone on to the station with 
 my impedimenta. And you needn't trouble 
 yourself about the rain ; that won't hurt me. 
 Well, since you are clearly so anxious to get rid 
 of me, and return to your cherubs, I will say 
 good-bye." 
 
 He took her offered hand and held it a 
 moment, — lightly, not bestowing on it any 
 fervent pressure, — thus detaining her, whether 
 she would or no, while he added, with a coolness 
 which almost surprised himself, " I wonder 
 whether we shall ever meet again ? " 
 
 Her breathing quickened visibly as she 
 answered hesitatingly, " Perhaps — perhaps you 
 may — may be induced to pay my uncle another 
 visit, some time or other." 
 
 " He will not ask me to pay him any more 
 visits, I fear. I have (excuse my frank speak- 
 ing) — I have served his turn ; and there's an 
 end of me, as far as he is concerned — I pass out 
 of his horizon for ever. No, it doesn't seem 
 probable that Hey ford will see me again. So 
 this is a final good-bye, I'm afraid — unless' you 
 come, by and by, to London, and we encounter 
 one another there by some happy accident. To 
 be sure, London is a big place ; it's always a
 
 OUTSIDE THE SCHOOLHOUSE 175 
 
 chance whether one runs up against the people 
 one knows or not." 
 
 " I don't think I am ever likely to go to 
 London," said Dorothy quietly. All colour and 
 animation had faded once more from her face ; 
 and, with these, the transient beauty of a few 
 minutes earlier. But Lyon took no note of this 
 new change. Roused to fresh anger by the 
 calmness with which she spoke, he dropped 
 her hand without looking at her, saying 
 briefly — 
 
 " Then, good-bye. Miss Temple." 
 
 " Good-bye, Mr. Lyon." 
 
 He lingered no longer after that, but tramped 
 away over the rough turf at a vigorous pace, 
 holding himself even more upright and squaring 
 his shoulders even more resolutely than usual. 
 So fast and carelessly did he walk, indeed, that 
 he presently caught his foot in a great tussock 
 of coarse grass, and came very near ignomini- 
 ously measuring his length on the wet hillside. 
 Recovering from this little mishap, which had 
 brought him to a momentary standstill, he 
 turned and looked half-involuntarily behind him 
 —to find, to his extreme surprise, that Dorothy 
 had not yet returned to the society of her chil- 
 dren. Through the veil of rolling mist and soft 
 driving rain which now intervened between him 
 and the schoolhouse, he could distinctly discern 
 her slender, darkly-clad figure, leaning against 
 the entrance of the little porch. She was gazing
 
 176 A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND 
 
 down the valley, watching him (as he could not 
 but think) on his departing way. 
 
 Something vaguely wistful in her attitude, in 
 the poise of her half-bent head, in the fixity of 
 her steady, following look, struck home, through 
 the joints of that defensive armour of cowardly 
 prudence and cynical distrust which he had so 
 carefully buckled on an hour before, straight to 
 the core of the man's heart. For a moment he 
 forgot alike his dearly-bought experience in the 
 past, his almost panic dread of fresh suffering in 
 the future. Moved by a compelling instinct, a 
 passionate impulse stronger than memory, more 
 vehement than fear, he turned to retrace his 
 steps. 
 
 A sudden gust of light wind moving across 
 the valley, blew fresh wreaths of fog, fresh sheets 
 of rain, between him and the schoolhouse, 
 obscuring wholly the slim young figure lingering 
 in front of it. When, stumbling through them, 
 he reached the porch, the figure was no longer 
 there : Dorothy had re-entered her schoolroom, 
 and shut to the door. 
 
 END OF VOL. I 
 
 MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH
 
 A LIST OF NEW BOOKS 
 
 AND ANNOUNCEMENTS OF 
 
 METHUEN AND COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS : LONDON 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET 
 
 W.C. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FORTHCOMING BOOKS, . . 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 POETRY, 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 GENERAL LITERATURE, 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 THEOLOGY, 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 LEADERS OF RELIGION, 
 
 
 
 14 
 
 WORKS BY S. BARING GOULD, , 
 
 
 
 14 
 
 FICTION, .... 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 NOVEL SERIES, .... 
 
 
 
 19 
 
 BOOKS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS, . 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 THE PEACOCK LIBRARY, 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION SERIES, 
 
 
 
 23 
 
 SOCIAL QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY, 
 
 
 
 23 
 
 COMMERaAL SERIES, . . 
 
 
 
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 APRIL 1894
 
 April 1894. 
 
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 Also a small edition, of 15 copies only, on Japanese paper. Demy 
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 Mr. Gale's rural poems have made him widely popular, and this volume of spirited 
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 Earliest Times to the Hyksos. By W. M. Flinders Petrie, 
 Professor of Egyptology at University College. Fully Illustrated. 
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 V. The Roman Rule. 
 
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 6 Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
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 Messrs. Methuen's List 7 
 
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 8 Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
 Poetry 
 
 Rudyard Kipling. BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS; And 
 
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 Messrs. Methuen's List 9 
 
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 A2
 
 10 Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
 water-colour portrait by himself, and also 13 sketches, never before published, by 
 
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 Messrs. Methuen's List ii 
 
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 12 Messrs. Methuen*s List 
 
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 Theolo! 
 
 Driver. SERMONS ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH 
 
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 Messrs. Methuen's List 13 
 
 Prior. CAMBRIDGE SERMONS. Edited by C. H. Prior, 
 M. A., Fellow and Tutor of Pembroke College. Crown %vo. 6j. 
 A volume of sermons preached before the University of Cambridge by various 
 
 preachers, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop Westcott. 
 ' A representative collection. Bishop Westcott's is a noble sermon.' — Guardian. 
 'Full of thoughtfulness and dignity.' — Rtcord. 
 
 Bume. PARSON AND PEASANT: Chapters of their 
 Natural History. By J. B. Burne, M.A. Cr. %vo. 5^. 
 ' " Parson and Peasant " is a book not only to be interested in, but to learn something 
 from — a book which may prove a help to many a clergyman, and broaden the 
 hearts and ripen the charity of laymen.' — Derby Mercury, 
 
 Cunningham. THE PATH TOWARDS KNOWLEDGE: 
 
 Essays on Questions of the Day. By W. Cunningham, D.D., 
 Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Professor of Economics at 
 King's College, London. Crown 8vo. ^s. 6d. 
 Essays on Marriage and Population, Socialism, Money, Education, Positivism, etc. 
 
 James. CURIOSITIES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY PRIOR 
 TO THE REFORMATION. By Croake James, Author of 
 ' Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.' Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. 
 'This volume contains a great deal of quaint and curious matter, affording some 
 "particulars of the interesting persons, episodes, and events from the Christian's 
 point of view during the first fourteen centuries." Wherever we dip into his pages 
 we find something worth dipping into.'— /okn Bull. 
 
 Lock. THE LIFE OF JOHN KEBLE. By Walter Lock, 
 M.A. With Portrait from a painting by George Richmond, R.A. 
 Crown Svo. Buckram 5J. Sixth Edition. 
 ' A fine portrait of one of the most saintly characters of our age, and a valuable con- 
 tribution to the history of that Oxford Movement.' — Times. 
 
 Kaufmann. CHARLES KINGSLEY. By M. Kaufmann, 
 M.A. Crown Zvo. Buckram, ^s. 
 A biography of Kingsley, especially dealing with his achievements in social reform. 
 'The author has certainly gone about his work with conscientiousness and industry.'— 
 Sheffield Daily Telegraph. 
 
 Oliphant. THOMAS CHALMERS : A Biography. By Mrs. 
 Oliphant. With Portrait. Crown Svo. Buckram, 5^. 
 ' A well-executed biography, worthy of its author and of the remarkable man who is 
 its subject. Mrs. Oliphant relates lucidly and dramatically the important part 
 which Chalmers played in the memorable secession.' — Times.
 
 14 Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
 Leaders of Religion 
 
 Edited by H. C. BEECHING, M.A. With Portrait^ crown Svo. is. 6d. 
 
 A series of short biographies of the most prominent leaders . ^ 
 
 of religious life and thought. /^ | Aa 
 
 The following are ready— ^j 
 
 CARDINAL NEWMAN. By R. H. Hutton. 
 
 ' Few who read this book will fail to be struck by the wonderful insight it displays 
 into the nature of the Cardinal's genius and the spirit of his life.'— Wilfrid 
 Ward, in the Tadlet. 
 
 ' Full of knowledge, excellent in method, and intelligent in criticism. We regard it 
 as wholly admirable.' — Academy. 
 
 JOHN WESLEY. By J. H. Overton, M.A. 
 
 ' It is well done : the story is clearly told, proportion is duly observed, and there Is 
 no lack either of discrimination or oi sym-gzxhy. '—3Ianchester Guardian. 
 
 BISHOP WILBERFORCE. By G. W. Daniel, M.A. 
 CHARLES SIMEON. By H. C. G. Moule, M.A. 
 CARDINAL MANNING. By A. W. Hutton, M.A. 
 Other volumes will be announced in due course. 
 
 WORKS BY S. BARING GOULD. 
 
 OLD COUNTRY LIFE. With Sixty-seven Illustrations by 
 W. Parkinson, F. D. Bedford, and F. Masey. Lar^e Crown 
 Svo, cloth super extra, top edge gilt, \os. 6d. Fourth and Cheaper 
 Edition. 6j. 
 • ' Old Country Life," as healthy wholesome reading, full of breezy life and move- 
 ment, full of quaint stories vigorously told, will not be excelled by any book to be 
 published throughout the year. Sound, hearty, and English to the core. '—Jri7r/<f. 
 
 HISTORIC ODDITIES AND STRANGE EVENTS. Third 
 Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 ' A collection of exciting and entertaining chapters. The whole volume is delightful 
 reading. '— Times. 
 
 FREAKS OF FANATICISM. Third Edition. Crown Svo. 6j. 
 
 ' Mr. Baring Gould has a keen eye for colour and effect, and the subjects he has 
 chosen give ample scope to his descriptive and analytic faculties. A perfectly 
 fascinating \io<^' —Scottish Leader.
 
 Messrs. Methuen's List 15 
 
 SONGS OF THE WEST : Traditional Ballads and Songs of 
 the West of England, with their Traditional Melodies. Collected 
 by S. Baring Gould, M.A., and H. Fleetwood Sheppard, 
 M.A. Arranged for Voice and Piano. In 4 Parts (containing 25 
 Songs each), Parts /,, //., ///., 3^. each. Part /K, 5^. In me 
 Vol., roan, i^s. 
 'A rich and varied collection of humour, pathos, grace, and poetic fancy.' — Saturday 
 Review. 
 
 YORKSHIRE ODDITIES AND STRANGE EVENTS. 
 
 Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 STRANGE SURVIVALS AND SUPERSTITIONS. V^ith 
 Illustrations. By S. Baring Gould. CrozvnSvo. Second Edition. 
 6s. 
 
 A book on such subjects as Foundations, Gables, Holes, Gallows, Raising the Hat, Old 
 Ballads, etc. etc. It traces in a most interesting manner their origin and history. 
 
 ' We have read Mr. Baring Gould's book from beginning to end. It is full of quaint 
 and various information, and there is not a dull page in it. ' — Notes and Queries. 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS: The 
 
 Emperors of the Julian and Claudian Lines. With numerous Illus- 
 trations from Busts, Gems, Cameo?, etc. By S. Baring Gould, 
 Author of ' Mehalah,' etc. Second Edition. 2 vols. Royal %vo. 30J. 
 • A most splendid and fascinating book on a subject of undying interest. The great 
 feature of the book is the use the author has made of the existing portraits of the 
 Caesars, and the admirable critical subtlety he has exhibited in dealing vi'ith this 
 line of research. It is brilliantly wTitten, and the illustrations are supplied on a 
 scale of profuse magnificence. ' — Daily Chronicle. 
 ' The volumes will in no sense disappoint the general reader. Indeed, in their way, 
 there is nothing in any sense so good in English. . . . Mr. Baring Gould has 
 presented his narrative in such a way as not to make one dull page.' — Atheneeum. 
 
 MR. BARING GOULD'S NOVELS. 
 
 •To say that a book is by the author of " Mehalah " is to imply that it contains a 
 story cast on strong lines, containing dramatic possibilities, vivid and sympathetic 
 descriptions of Nature, and a wealth of ingenious imagery.' — S/eaker. 
 
 ' That whatever Mr. Baring Gould writes is well worth reading, is a conclusion that 
 may be very generally accepted. His views of life are fresh and vigorous, his 
 language pointed and characteristic, the incidents of which he makes use are 
 striking and original, his characters are life-like, and though somewhat excep- 
 tional people, are drawn and coloured with artistic force. Add to this that his 
 descriptions of scenes and scenery are painted with the loving eyes and skilled 
 hands of a master of his art, that he is always fresh and never dull, and under 
 such conditions it is no wonder that readers have gained confidence both in his 
 power of amusing and satisfying them, and that year by year his popularity 
 widens.'— C*«r/ Circular.
 
 i6 Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
 IN THE ROAR OF THE SEA : A Tale of the Cornish Coast. 
 
 New Edition, 6j. 
 
 MRS. CURGENVEN OF CURGENVEN. Third Edition, 6s, 
 
 A powerful and characteristic story of Devon life. The 'Graphic' speaks of it as a 
 novel of vigorous humour and sustained power ; the 'Sussex Daily News' says 
 that tlu swing of the narrative is splendid ; and the ' Speaker ' mentions its 
 bright imaginative power, 
 
 CHEAP JACK ZITA. By S. Baring Gould. Crown Zvo. 6j. 
 
 A Romance of the Ely Fen District in 1815. 
 
 'A powerful drama of human passion.' — Westminster Gazette. 
 
 'A story worthy the z.\i.\\iox.'— National Observer. 
 
 ARM I NELL : A Social Romance. New Edition. Crown Zvo. 
 IS. 6d, 
 
 URITH: A Story of Dartmoor. Third Edition, CrownZvo, 3s.6d. 
 
 ' The author is at his best.' — Times. 
 
 * He has nearly reached the high water-mark of " Mehalah." '—National Observer. 
 
 MARGERY OF QUETHER, and other Stories. Crown Bvo. 
 Ss. 6d. 
 
 JACQUETTA, and other Stories. Crown Svo. 3^. 6d. 
 
 Fiction 
 
 SIX SHILLING NOVELS 
 
 Corelli. BARABBAS : A DREAM OF THE WORLD'S 
 TRAGEDY. By Marie Corelli, Author of 'A Romance of Two 
 Worlds,' * Vendetta,' etc. Eighth Edition Crown ^vo, 65. 
 Miss Corelli's new romance has been received with much disapprobation by the 
 secular papers, and with warm welcome by the religious papers. By the former 
 she has been accused of blasphemy and bad taste ; * a gory nightmare' ; ' a hideous 
 travesty'; ' grotesque vulgarisation ' ; * unworthy of criticism ' ; ' vulgar redun- 
 dancy'; 'sickening details'— these are some of the secular flowers of speech. 
 On the other hand, the 'Guardian' praises 'the dignity of its conceptions, the 
 reserve round the Central Figure, the fine imagery of the scene and circumstance, 
 so much that is elevating and devout ' ; the ' Illustrated Church News ' styles the 
 book ' reverent and artistic, broad based on the rock of our common nature, and 
 appealing to what is best in it ' ; the ' Christian World ' says it is written ' by one 
 who has more than conventional reverence, who has tried to tell the story that it 
 may be read again with open and attentive eyes ' ; the ' Church of England 
 Pulpit' welcomes 'a book which teems with faith without any appearance of 
 irreverence.'
 
 Messrs. Methuen's List 17 
 
 Benson. DODO : A DETAIL OF THE DAY. By E. F. 
 Benson. Crown Svo. Thirteenth Edition. 6j. 
 A story of society by a new writer, full of interest and power, which has attracted 
 by its brilliance universal attention. The best critics were cordial in their 
 praise. The ' Guardian ' spoke of ' Dodo ' as unusually clever and interesting \ 
 the ' Spectator ' called it a delightfully witty sketch of society \ the ' Speaker ' 
 said the dialogue was a perpetual feast of epigram and paradox \ the 
 'Athenaeum' spoke of the author as a writer of quite exceptional ability; 
 the ' Academy ' praised his amazing cleverness ; the ' World ' said the book was 
 brilliantly written ; and half-a-dozen papers declared there was not a dull page 
 in the book 
 
 Norris. HIS GRACE. By W. E. Norris, Author 0^ 
 * Mademoiselle de Mersac' Third Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 An edition in one volume of a novel which in its two volume form quickly ran through 
 two editions. 
 
 'The characters are delineated by the author with his characteristic skill and 
 vivacity, and the story is told with that ease of manners and Thackerayean in- 
 sight which give strength of flavour to Mr. Norris's novels No one can depict 
 the Englishwoman of the better classes with more subtlety.' — Glasgow Herald. 
 
 ' Mr. Norris has drawn a reallj' fine character in the Duke of Hurstbourne, at once 
 unconventional and very true to the conventionalities of life, weak and strong in 
 a breath, capable of inane follies and heroic decisions, yet not so definitely por- 
 trayed as to relieve a reader of the necessity of study on his own behalf.'— 
 Athemtum, 
 
 Parker. MRS. FALCHION. By Gilbert Parker, Author of 
 ' Pierre and His People.' New Edition in one volume, ds. 
 Mr. Parker's second book has received a warm welcome. The ' Athenaeum ' called 
 it a splendid study of cliaracter ; the ' Pall Mall Gazette ' spoke of the writing as 
 hut little behind anything that has been done by any writer of our time; the 
 ' St. James' ' called it a very striking and admirable novel \ and the 'West- 
 minster Gazette ' applied to it the epithet oi distinguished. 
 
 Parker. PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. By Gilbert 
 Parker. Crow/i Svo. Buckram. 6s. 
 ' Stories happily conceived and finely executed. There is strength and genius in Mr. 
 Parker's itylc.'— Daily Telegraph. 
 
 Anthony Hope. A CHANGE OF AIR: A Novel. By 
 Anthony Hope, Author of * Mr. Witt's Widow,' etc. i vol. 
 Crown Svo. 6s. 
 A bright story by Mr. Hope, who has, the Athenceum says, 'a decided outlook and 
 
 individuality of his own.' 
 'A graceful, vivacious comedy, true to human nature. The characters are traced 
 with a masterly hand.'— Ttw^x.
 
 1 8 Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
 Pryce. TIME AND THE WOMAN. By Richard Pryce, 
 Author of * Miss Maxwell's Affections,' 'The Quiet Mrs. Fleming,' 
 etc. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 ' Mr. Pryce's work recalls the style of Octave Feuillet, by its clearness, conciseness, 
 its literary reserve.' — Athenaum. 
 
 Gray. ELBA. A Novel. By E. M 'Queen Gray. CrownZvo. 6j. 
 
 ' A charming novel. The characters are not only powerful sketches, but minutely 
 and carefully finished portraits.' — Guardian. 
 
 Marriott Watson. DIOGENES OF LONDON and other 
 Sketches. By H. B. Marriott Watson, Author of * The Web 
 of the Spider.' CrownZvo. Buckram, 6j. 
 
 ' By all those who delight in the uses of words, who rate the exercise of prose above 
 the exercise of verse, who rejoice in all proofs of its delicacy and its strength, who 
 believe that English prose is chief among the moulds of thought, by these 
 Mr. Marriott Watson's bcok will be •wt^o.Qxa.t.^.'— National Observer. 
 
 Gilchrist. THE STONE DRAGON. By Murray Gilchrist 
 
 Crown Svo. Buckram, 6s, 
 A volume of stories of power so weird and original as to ensure them a ready welcome. 
 ' The author's faults are atoned for by certain positive and admirable merits. The 
 
 romances have not their counterpart in modern literature, and to read them is a 
 
 unique experience.' — National Observer. 
 
 THREE-AND-SIXPENNY NOVELS 
 
 Norris. A DEPLORABLE AFFAIR. By W. E. NORRIS, 
 
 Author of * His Grace. ' Crown Svo. ^s. 6d. 
 
 'What with its interesting story, its graceful manner, and its perpetual good 
 humour, the book is as enjoyable as any that has come from its author's pen.'— 
 Scotsman. 
 
 Pearce. JACO TRELOAR. By J. H. Pearce, Author of 
 'Esther Pentreath.' New Edition. Crown Svo. is.6d. 
 
 A tragic story of Cornish life by a writer of remarkable power, whose first novel has 
 
 been highly praised by Mr. Gladstone. 
 The 'Spectator' speaks of Mr. Pearce as a writer of exceptional power', the 'Daily 
 
 Telegraph ' calls it pmuer/ul and picturesque \ the ' Birmingham Post ' asserts 
 
 that it is a nmjel of high quality.
 
 Messrs. Methuen's List 19 
 
 Esm^ Stuart. A WOMAN OF FORTY. By Esme Stuart, 
 Author of 'Muriel's Marriage,' 'Virginie's Husband,' etc. New 
 Edition. Crcnvn Svo. 3^. 6d. 
 'The story is well written, and some of the scenes show great dramatic power.' — 
 Daily Chronicle. 
 
 Fenn. THE STAR GAZERS. By G. Manville Fenn, 
 Author of * Eli's Children,' etc. New Edition. Cr. %vo. ^s. 6d. 
 'A stirring romance.' — Western Morning News. 
 
 'Told with all the dramatic power for which Mr. Fenn is conspicuous.'— ^ra^^r^ 
 Observer. 
 
 Dickinson. A VICAR'S WIFE. By Evelyn Dickinson. 
 
 Crown Svo. 3J. 6d. 
 
 Prowse. THE POISON OF ASPS. By R. Orton Prowse. 
 Crown Svo. ^s. 6d. 
 
 Lynn Linton. THE TRUE HISTORY OF JOSHUA DAVID- 
 SON, Christian and Communist. By E. Lynn Linton. Eleventh 
 Edition. Post Svo. is. 
 
 3/6 
 
 Methuen's Novel Series 
 
 A series of copyright Novels, by well-known Authors, 
 bound in red buckram, at the price of three shillings and 
 sixpence. The first volumes are : — 
 
 1. JACQUETTA. By S. Baring Gould, Author of ' Mehalah, 
 
 etc. 
 
 2. ARMINELL : A Social Romance. By S. Baring Gould 
 
 Author of ' jNIehalah,' etc. 
 
 3. MARGERY OF QUETHER. By S. Baring Gould. 
 
 4. URITH. By S. Baring Gould. 
 
 5. DERRICK VAUGHAN, NOVELIST. With Portrait of 
 
 Author. By Edna Lyall, Author of ' Donovan,' etc. 
 
 6. JACK'S FATHER. By VV. E. NoRRis. 
 
 Other Volumes will be announced in due course.
 
 20 Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
 HALF-CROWN NOVELS 
 
 A Series of Novels by popular Authors, tastefully 
 bound in cloth. 
 
 2/6 
 
 I THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. By F. Mabel Robinson. 
 
 2. DISENCHANTMENT. By F. Mabel Robinson. 
 
 3. MR. BUTLER'S WARD. By F. Mabel Robinson. 
 
 4. HOVENDEN, V.C. By F. Mabel Robinson. 
 
 5. ELI'S CHILDREN. By G. Manville Fenn. 
 
 6. A DOUBLE KNOT. By G. Manville Fenn. 
 
 7. DISARMED. By M. Betham Edwards. 
 
 8. A LOST ILLUSION. By Leslie Keith. 
 
 9. A MARRIAGE AT SEA. By W. Clark Russell. 
 
 10. IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. By the Author of ' Indian 
 
 Idylls.' 
 
 11. MY STEWARDSHIP. By E. M'Queen Gray. 
 
 12. A REVEREND GENTLEMAN. By J. M. Cobban. 
 
 13. THE STORY OF CHRIS. By Rowland Grey. 
 
 Other volumes will be announced in due course. 
 
 Books for Boys and Girls 
 
 Baring Gould. THE ICELANDER'S SWORD. By S. 
 Baring Gould, Author of 'Mehalah,' etc. With Twenty-nine 
 Illustrations by J. Moyr Smith. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 A stirring story of Iceland, written for boys by the author of ' In the Roar of the Sea. 
 
 CutheU. TWO LITTLE CHILDREN AND CHING. By 
 
 Edith E. Cuthell. Profusely Illustrated. Crown 8vo. Cloth, 
 gilt edges. 6s. 
 Another story, with a dog hero, by the author of the very popular ' Only a Guard- 
 Room Dog.' 
 
 Blake. TODDLEBEN'S HERO. By M. M. Blake, Author of 
 ' The Siege of Norwich Castle.' With 36 Illustrations. Crown 
 Svo. 5J. 
 A story of military life for children.
 
 Messrs. Methuen's List 21 
 
 CuthelL ONLY A GUARD-ROOM DOG. By Mrs. Cuthell. 
 With 16 Illustrations by W. Parkinson. Square Crown %vo. 6j-. 
 
 ' This is a charming story. Tangle was but a little mongrel Skye terrier, but he had a 
 big heart in his little body, and played a hero's part more than once. The book 
 can be warmly recommended.' — Standard. 
 
 CoUingwood. THE DOCTOR OF THE JULIET. By Harry 
 
 CoLLiXGWOOD, Author of 'The Pirate Island,' etc. Illustrated by 
 Gordon Browne. Crowti %vo. 6j. 
 
 ' "The Doctor of the Juliet," well illustrated by Gordon Browne, is one of Harry 
 
 CoUingwood 's best efforts.' — Morning Post. 
 
 Clark Russell. MASTER ROCKAFELLAR'S VOYAGE. By 
 W. Clark Russell, Author of * The Wreck of the Grosvenor,' etc. 
 Illustrated by Gordon Browne. Crown Hvo. 2^- 6^* 
 
 'Mr. Clark Russell's story of "Master Rockafellar's Voyage "will be among the 
 favourites of the Christmas books. There is a rattle and " go" all through it, and 
 its illustrations are charming in themselves, and very much above the average in 
 the way in which they are produced." — Guardian. 
 
 Manville Fenn. SYD B ELTON : Or, The Boy who would not 
 go to Sea. By G. Manville Fenn, Author of * In the King's 
 Name,' etc Illustrated by Gordon Browne. Crown Hvo. p.6d. 
 
 Who among the young story-reading public will not rejoice at the sight of the old 
 combination, so often proved admirable— a story by Manville Fenn, illustrated 
 by Gordon Browne? The story, too, is one of the good old sort, full of life and 
 vigour, breeziness and {un.'— Journal of Education. 
 
 The Peacock Library 
 
 A Series of Books for Girls by well-known Authors, / • 
 
 handsomely botmd in blue and silver, and well illustrated. J^ I f) 
 Crown Svo. w/ / 
 
 1. A PINCH OF EXPERIENCE. By L. B. Walford. 
 
 2. THE RED GRANGE. By Mrs. MoLESWORTH. 
 
 3. THE SECRET OF MADAME DE MONLUC. By the 
 
 Author of * Mdle Mori.' 
 
 4. DUMPS. By Mrs. Parr, Author of Adam and Eve.' 
 
 5. OUT OF THE FASHION. By L. T. Meade. 
 
 6. A GIRL OF THE PEOPLE. By L. T. Meade. 
 
 7. HEPSY GIPSY. By L. T. Meade. 
 
 8. THE HONOURABLE MISS. By L. T. Meade. 
 
 9. MY LAND OF BEULAH. By Mrs. Leith Adams.
 
 22 Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
 University Extension Series 
 
 A series of books on historical, literary, and scientific subjects, suitable 
 for extension students and home reading circles. Each volume is com- 
 plete in itself, and the subjects are treated by competent writers in a 
 broad and philosophic spirit. 
 
 Edited by J. E. SYMES, M.A., 
 
 Principal of University College, Nottingham. 
 
 Crown 8vo. Price {with some exceptions) 2s. 6d. 
 
 The following volumes are ready : — 
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By H. DE 
 B. GiBBiNS, M.A., late Scholar of Wadham College, Oxon., Cobden 
 Prizeman. Third Edition. With Maps and Plans. 3^. 
 
 'A compact and clear story of our industrial development. A study of this concise 
 but luminous book cannot fail to give the reader a clear insight into the principal 
 phenomena of our industrial history. The editor and publishers are to be congrat- 
 ulated on this first volume of their venture, and we shall look with expectant 
 interest for the succeeding volumes of the series.' — University Extension Journal. 
 
 A HISTORY OF ENGLISH POLITICAL ECONOMY. By 
 
 L. L. Price, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College, Oxon. 
 
 PROBLEMS OF POVERTY : An Inquiry into the Industrial 
 Conditions of the Poor. By J. A. Hobson, M.A. 
 
 VICTORIAN POETS. By A. Sharp. 
 
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. By J. E. Symes, M.A. 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY. By F. S. Granger, M.A., Lecturer in Philo- 
 sophy at University College, Nottingham. 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF PLANT LIFE: Lower Forms. By 
 G. Massee, Kew Gardens. With Illustrations. 
 
 AIR AND WATER. Professor V. B. Lewes, M.A. Illustrated. 
 
 THE CHEMISTRY OF LIFE AND HEALTH. By C. W. 
 
 KiMMiNS, M.A. Camb. Illustrated. 
 
 THE MECHANICS OF DAILY LIFE. By V. P. Sells, M.A- 
 
 Illustrated.
 
 Messrs. Methuen's List 23 
 
 ENGLISH SOCIAL REFORMERS. H. de B. Gibbins, M.A. 
 
 ENGLISH TRADE AND FINANCE IN THE SEVEN- 
 TEENTH CENTURY. By W. A. S. Hewins, B.A. 
 
 THE CHEMISTRY OF FIRE. The Elementary Principles of 
 Chemistry. By M. M. Pattison MuiR, M.A. Illustrated. 
 An exposition of the Elementary Principles of Chemistry. 
 
 A TEXT-BOOK OF AGRICULTURAL BOTANY. By M. C. 
 Potter, M.A., F.L.S. Illustrated. 3;. 6d. 
 
 THE VAULT OF HEAVEN. A Popular Introduction to 
 Astronomy. By R. A. Gregory. With numerous Illustrations. 
 Crown Zvo. 
 
 METEOROLOGY. The Elements of Weather and Climate. 
 By H. N. Dickson, F.R.S.E., F.R. Met. Soc. Illustrated. 
 
 A MANUAL OF ELECTRICAL SCIENCE. By GEORGE 
 J. BURCH, M.A. With numerous Illustrations, y. 
 
 Social Questions of To-day 
 
 2/6 
 
 Edited by H. de B. GIBBINS, M.A. 
 Crown 8vo. 2s. td. 
 
 A series of volumes upon those topics of social, economic, 
 and industrial interest that are at the present moment fore- 
 most in the public mind. Each volume of the series is written by an 
 author who is an acknowledged authority upon the subject with which 
 he deals. 
 
 Tht following Volumes of the Series are ready :— 
 
 TRADE UNIONISM— NEW AND OLD. By G. HowELL, 
 M.P., Author of * The Conflicts of Capital and Labour.* Second 
 Edition. 
 
 THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT TO-DAY. By G. J. 
 HOLYOAKE, Author of • The History of Co-operation.'
 
 24 Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
 MUTUAL THRIFT. By Rev. J. Frome Wilkinson, M.A., 
 
 Author of ' The Friendly Society Movement.' 
 
 PROBLEMS OF POVERTY : An Inquiry into the Industrial 
 Conditions of the Poor. By J. A. HOBSON, M.A. 
 
 THE COMMERCE OF NATIONS. By C. F. Bastable, 
 M.A., Professor of Economics at Trinity College, Dublin. 
 
 THE ALIEN INVASION. By W. H. Wilkins, B.A., Secretary 
 to the Society for Preventing the Immigration of Destitute Aliens. 
 
 THE RURAL EXODUS. By P. Anderson Graham. 
 
 LAND NATIONALIZATION. By Harold Cox, B.A. 
 
 A SHORTER WORKING DAY. By H. de B. Gibbins 
 and R. A. Hadfield, of the Hecla Works, Sheffield. 
 
 BACK TO THE LAND : An Inquiry into the Cure for Rural 
 Depopulation. By H. E. MoORE. 
 
 Methuen's Commercial Series 
 
 BRITISH COMMERCE AND COLONIES FROM ELIZA- 
 BETH TO VICTORIA. By H. de B. Gibbins, M.A., Author 
 of 'The Industrial History of England,' etc., etc. 2s. 
 
 A MANUAL OF FRENCH COMMERCIAL CORRES- 
 PONDENCE. By S. E. Bally, Modern Language Master at 
 the Manchester Grammar School. 2s. 
 
 COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY, with special reference to Trade 
 Routes, New Markets, and Manufacturing Districts. By L. D. 
 Lyde, M.A., of The Academy, Glasgow. 2s. 
 
 COMMERCIAL EXAMINATION PAPERS. By H. de B. 
 Gibbins, M.A. is. 6d. 
 
 THE ECONOMICS OF COMMERCE. By H. DE B. Gibbins, 
 M.A. IS. 6d. 
 
 Edinburgh : T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
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