A MOMENT OF MADNESS.

A MOMENT OF MADNESS,
AND OTHER STORIES.

BY
FLORENCE MARRYAT,
AUTHOR OF ‘PHYLLIDA,’ ‘FACING THE FOOTLIGHTS,’ ETC., ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON: F. V. WHITE & CO.,
31 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C.
1883.

[All Rights reserved.]

CHEAP EDITION OF
FLORENCE MARRYAT’S
POPULAR NOVELS.

Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.

At all Booksellers in Town and Country, and at all Railway Bookstalls.

MY SISTER THE ACTRESS. By Florence Marryat, Author of ‘A Broken Blossom,’ ‘Phyllida,’ ‘How They Loved Him,’ etc., etc.

PHYLLIDA. By Florence Marryat, Author of ‘My Sister the Actress,’ ‘A Broken Blossom,’ etc., etc., etc.

THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL. By Florence Marryat, Author of ‘Love’s Conflict,’ ‘Phyllida,’ ‘A Broken Blossom,’ etc., etc., etc.

A BROKEN BLOSSOM. By Florence Marryat, Author of ‘Phyllida,’ ‘Facing the Footlights,’ etc., etc.

F. V. White & Co., 31 Southampton Street, Strand.

COLSTON AND SON, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

CONTENTS.

SENT TO HIS DEATH
(Continued).

I had been dreaming of the ghost, and was conscious in a moment, and sitting up in bed. Whatever I had thought of Bessie’s tales before, I believed them now, for I could distinctly hear the low, gasping breath which follows an inordinate fit of sobbing, drawn apparently close to us.

‘What time is it?’ I exclaimed.

‘It is just three. I have been listening to it for some time, but did not like to rouse you till I was sure. Is the door locked?’

‘Yes; but I will unlock it at once,’ I said, springing out of bed.

‘No, no! pray do not,’ cried Bessie, clinging to me. ‘What are you doing? It might come into the room.’

‘My dear Bessie, if it is a ghost, no locks can keep it out; and if it is not a ghost, what harm can it do us by entering? Pray be reasonable. We shall never clear up this mystery if we are not a little brave!’

I shook her off, and approached the door, whilst she rushed back to her own bed.

I confess that as I turned the key in the lock I felt very nervous. Do what we will, it is hard to accustom ourselves to think lightly of communication with the dead; neither did I relish the idea of a trick being played us in that lonely house at dead of night. The light was burning brightly in my room, but as I threw the door open, the corridor seemed dark and empty. I stood upon the threshold and looked from right to left. What was that white, tall shadow in the doorway of the spare room?

I called out, ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ The answer I received was a quick sob and a rustle. Then I saw an indistinct figure move down the passage with a hurried step, and disappear somewhere at the further end.

Shall I confess that for all my boasted strength I had not the courage to follow it? It was one thing to have stood on the threshold of my lighted room and addressed the apparition, and another to venture out into the cold and darkness in pursuit of it. I retreated to Bessie’s bedroom instead.

‘I have seen it!’ I exclaimed. ‘I believe that you are right, Bessie, and for the first time in my life I have seen a ghost. I meant to have followed it; but I really felt I couldn’t. To-morrow night I may have more courage. But hark! what is that noise? Isn’t it baby crying?’

‘Never mind baby; Mrs Graham will attend to him,’ said Bessie. ‘Lock the door again, Dolly dear, do, and get into bed with me, or I sha’n’t sleep another wink to-night. I’m shaking from head to foot as it is.’

But the cries from baby’s room became more distinct; and my courage had returned to me.

‘Let me go and see what is the matter with little Dick first,’ I said, taking up the lighted candle.

Bessie yelled at being kept alone in the dark, but I could not have lain down again without ascertaining what ailed the little fellow; so, disregarding her remonstrances, I walked off to Mrs Graham’s room. Her door was unlocked, and I entered without knocking.

The child was still crying lustily; and what was my surprise to find his nurse, utterly regardless of the noise, sitting up in bed, with scared wide-open eyes, talking vehemently.

‘Go away!’ she was exclaiming in a loud voice; ‘Go away! and don’t come back again. You let the water in each time you open the door: I tell you we don’t want you! Go away, I say, and don’t come back again!’

She halted for a moment at this juncture, and I was about to waken her from what I perceived was a nightmare, when she suddenly clapped her hands before her eyes and screamed.

‘Ah, Heavens! a wave—a fearful wave that covers the deck—that covers everything. Where is he? Where is he gone to? I have sent him to his death! Edward! Edward! come back to me! I didn’t mean it—I didn’t mean it! Ah! Lord have pity on me.’

Her agitation was rising so rapidly, and the baby was crying so violently, that I thought it time to interfere.

‘Mrs Graham!’ I exclaimed, shaking her by the arm, ‘wake up. Don’t you hear the baby wants you?’

She turned her big eyes upon me in such a pitiful vacuous way. Then she recognised me, and looked frightened.

‘Have I been dreaming? Have I been saying anything? Oh! I am so sorry,’ she said apologetically, as she caught up the child and held it to her breast.

‘You have only been talking a little in your sleep,’ I replied soothingly; ‘don’t be alarmed; you said nothing out of the common way, and there is no one here but myself.’

She did not answer, but as she held the child I saw how her arms trembled.

‘Your agitation is the worst thing possible for the baby, you know; and you must try and calm yourself for his sake,’ I continued.

‘I should be so sorry to hurt him,’ she murmured; ‘and I will try and not dream again, if it is possible.’

‘Shall I fetch you anything?’

‘Oh no, madam, thank you. The best thing I can do is to go to sleep again. There is nothing for me but sleep—and prayer,’ she added in a whisper.

I felt deeply interested in this young woman. There was an air of patient mournfulness about her that betokened deep suffering; and as I returned to my room I resolved to do my best to be of use to her. She so completely occupied my thoughts, indeed, that I had forgotten all about the ghost, till Bessie asked me how I could possibly walk through the corridor with so composed a step.

‘My dear, I was thinking about baby and his nurse, and quite forgot to be frightened. Yes, they are all right now, and going to sleep again comfortably; and I think the ghost must have followed their example, for certainly there were no signs of its presence as I returned: so I think we had better try to make up for our broken rest by a few hours’ sleep.’

Bessie was quite ready to do so; but for my own part I lay awake until the loitering dawn broke through the shuttered windows.

Mr Maclean’s absence was really, I found, not to be prolonged beyond the two nights; so I could write Dick word to fetch me home on the following day; but I resolved, before I went, to have some sort of explanatory conversation with Mrs Graham, with respect to her dream of the night before. I told nothing of it to Bessie; for I felt she would spoil everything perhaps by her awkwardness in handling the subject, or wound the poor girl’s feelings by too abrupt a reference to her grief. But I watched Mrs Graham leave the house at about eleven o’clock to take her little charge out for his morning walk, and as soon as Bessie descended to the kitchen quarters to give her orders for the day, I put on my bonnet and shawl and ran after the nurse. There was a cold wind blowing from the north, and I knew I should find her in the sheltered shrubbery, where she had been told to take the child. It extended for some distance, and when I came up with her we were quite out of sight and hearing of the house.

‘A fine cold morning!’ I remarked, by way of a beginning.

‘Very cold, madam.’

‘With the wind in the north. A nasty day for the sea—I pity the ships in the channel.’

To this she made no response.

‘Have you ever been on the sea, Mrs Graham?’

‘Yes! once!’ with a shudder.

‘And did you like it?’

‘Like it? Oh! for God’s sake, madam, don’t speak of it, for I cannot bear the thought even.’

‘You were unfortunate, perhaps? You had experience of a storm? But the sea is not always rough, Mrs Graham.’

She was silent, and I looked in her face, and saw the tears streaming down it.

‘My dear girl,’ I said, placing my hand on her shoulder, ‘don’t think me unkind. I have guessed somewhat of your history, and I feel for you—oh, so deeply. Confide in me; my husband is a man of influence, and I may be of use to you. I see that you are superior to the position you hold, and I have conceived an interest in you. Don’t keep your sorrows locked in your own breast, or they will eat out your very heart and life.’

As I spoke she began to sob piteously.

‘You are not doing right by this poor little baby, nor his parents,’ I continued, ‘by brooding over a silent grief. You will injure his health, when perhaps if you will tell us all, we may be able to comfort you.’

‘No one can comfort me, madam! I am beyond all relief.’

‘No one dare say that in this world, which God rules according to His will. You cannot tell what solace He may hold in the future for you.’

‘I have no future,’ she said sadly. ‘If you think I am likely to injure this little one,’ pressing it tightly to her bosom, ‘I am very, very sorry; but to have something to love and care for, seemed to be the only thing to prevent my going mad.’

‘Mrs Graham, I don’t wish to be impertinently curious, but I want to hear your story. Won’t you tell it to me?’

‘If you do, you will hate me—as I hate myself.’

‘I hardly think that possible. Of what crime can you be guilty, to accuse yourself so bitterly.’

‘I am a murderess!’

She brought out the words so vehemently that I started. Was it possible she spoke the truth? And yet I had seen in our gaol, such young and superior-looking criminals, that I knew it might be possible. My thoughts flew at once to her child.

‘Was it the baby?’ I cried. ‘Oh! my poor child! what drove you to such an awful deed?’

‘Do you pity me still?’

‘I pity you with all my heart.’

‘Ah! madam; you are too good.’

She trembled so violently that I had taken the child from her arms, and as I stood there in the wintry path, she sank down upon her knees before me and kissed the border of my shawl, and hid her face in it and cried.

‘Mrs Graham, I cannot believe it!’

‘No! you need not believe it. In that sense I did not kill my child. God took it away from me in anger; but I sent its father, my dearly-loved husband, to his death.’

‘Sent him to his death!’

‘Ah, madam! have pity on me and listen. We had been married but six months, and we loved each other, ah! so dearly. He was a clerk in a city firm, and his employers sent him over to Ireland on business. We could not bear to part—we went together. In order to return to England we embarked in a small sailing vessel, and we had a fearful storm in crossing. The sea ran mountains high, and the women on board were assembled together in a deck cabin. The men to whom they belonged kept looking in every now and then to tell them how we were getting on, and every time the door of the cabin was opened, the sea rushed in and wetted them. They grew impatient, I the most of all; and when my dear husband, in his anxiety lest I should be frightened at our danger, put his head in for the third or fourth time I called out, saying, ‘Go away, Edward, and don’t come back again.’ And he went away, and he never did come back. Ah, Heaven! have mercy upon me!’

‘My poor girl! how did it happen?’

‘He was washed off the deck, madam, by a huge wave that nearly swamped the ship—so they told me afterwards. But I never saw him more! The glimpse I had of his bonnie face as it was thrust in at the half-opened door, beaming with love and anxiety, was the last glimpse I was ever to have in this world—and I sent him to his death. I said, ‘Go away, and don’t come back’—and he never came back!—he never came back!’

Her grief was so violent I almost thought she would have swooned at my feet. I tried to direct her thoughts in another direction.

‘Have you no friends to go to, Mrs Graham?’

‘None of my own, madam. I was a soldier’s orphan from the Home when Edward married me. And I could not go to his.’

‘How did you lose your baby?’

‘It died of my grief, I suppose; it only lived a few days. And then they advised me at the hospital to get a situation as wet nurse; and I thought the care of an infant might soothe me a little. But my sorrow is past cure.’

‘You have bad dreams at night, I fear.’

‘Oh! such awful dreams! He is always calling me—calling me to go to him, and I can find him nowhere; or else I am in the ship again, and see that which I never did see—the cruel wave that washed him from me!’

‘Do you feel strong enough to take the child again?’

She had risen by this time, and was, comparatively speaking, calm. She held out her arms mechanically. I put the baby in them, and then stooped and kissed her swollen eyes and burning forehead.

‘I will not discuss this subject with you further to-day,’ I said; ‘but you have found a friend. Go on with your walk, child, and may God comfort you. I am glad you have told me the story of your grief.’

I hurried back to Bessie, fearful lest she might come in search of me, and insist upon hearing the reason of Mrs Graham’s tears. There was no doubt of one thing—another nurse must be found as soon as possible for little Dick, and I must take on myself the responsibility of providing for his present one. But all that required my husband’s permission and advice, and I must wait till I had seen and confided in him.

Bessie, who had discovered that, notwithstanding my deplorable deficiency in the way of children, I could cut out their garments far better than she could do herself, had provided a delightful entertainment for me in the shape of half-a-dozen frocks to be made ready for the nurse’s hands, and the whole afternoon was spent in snipping and piecing and tacking together. But I didn’t grumble; my mind was too much occupied with poor Mrs Graham and her pathetic story. I thought of it so much that the temporary fear evoked by the apparition of the night before had totally evaporated. In the presence of a real, substantial human grief, we can hardly spare time for imaginary horrors.

As bed-time recurred, and Bessie and I locked ourselves into our stronghold, I refused the half of the bed she offered me, and preferred to retain my own. I even made up my mind, if possible, not to sleep, but to watch for the mysterious sounds, and be the first to investigate them. So I would not put out my candle, but lay in bed reading long after Bessie’s snores had announced her departure to the land of dreams.

I had come to the end of my book, my candle, and my patience, and was just about to give up the vigil as a failure, when I heard footsteps distinctly sounding along the corridor. I was out of bed in a moment, with my hand upon the lock of the door. I waited till the steps had passed my room, and then I turned the key and looked gently out. The same white figure I had seen the night before was standing a little beyond me, its course arrested, as it would appear, by the slight sound of unlocking the door.

‘Now or never,’ I thought to myself. ‘Dick always says I am the bravest woman he ever met, and I will try and prove him true. Why should I be afraid? Even if this is a spirit, God is over it and us, alike!’

So I stepped out into the passage, just as I should sit down to have a tooth drawn. The figure had recommenced walking, and was some paces farther from me. I followed it, saying softly, ‘What are you? Speak to me.’ But it did not turn, but went on, clasping its hands, and talking rapidly to itself.

A sudden thought flashed across my mind. In a moment I felt sure that I was right, and had solved the mystery of Poplar Farm. I placed myself full in the path of the apparition, and as the end of the corridor forced it to turn and retrace its steps, I met face to face my poor, pretty Mrs Graham, with the flaxen hair she usually kept concealed beneath her widow’s cap, streaming over her shoulders and giving her a most weird and unearthly appearance.

‘Edward! Edward!’ she was whispering in a feverish, uncertain manner, ‘where are you? It is so dark here and so cold. Put out your hand and lead me. I want to come to you, darling; I want to come to you.’

I stretched out my own hand and took hers. She clung to me joyfully.

‘Is it you?’ she exclaimed, in the undisturbed voice of a sleep-walker. ‘Have I found you again? Oh, Edward! I have been trying to find you for so long—so long, and I thought we were parted for ever.’

I drew her gently along to her own room and put her in her bed, whilst she continued to talk to me in the fond, low tones in which she thought she was addressing her dead husband.

Bessie slept through it all.

Of course I told her all about it next day, and equally, of course, she did not believe half what I said. She did not like the idea of parting with her cherished grievance in the shape of the ghost, nor having the trouble of changing her wet nurse. So I left her, as soon as ever Dick arrived, rather disgusted with the manner in which she had received my efforts for her good, but still determined to do what I could in the way of befriending Mrs Graham. As I told her the last thing, when I ran up to the nursery to say good-bye to little Dick, and received her grateful thanks in reply. ‘Only nothing,’ she said with a deep sigh, ‘could ever do her any good in this world again.’

‘But I’m determined to get her out of Poplar Farm,’ I said to Dick, as we drove homeward, after I had told him this long-winded story. ‘She’s killing the baby and herself too. She ought to have a much more cheerful home and active employment. Now, can’t you think of something for her to do about the gaol or the hospital, like a dear, darling old boy as you are?’

‘Well, I don’t quite see how you can take Mrs Maclean’s servant away from her against her will, Dolly. If Mrs Graham leaves, it will be a different thing; but as things are, I’m afraid you ought not to interfere.’

I called him a wretch; but I knew he was right for all that, and determined to take his advice and wait patiently to see how things turned out. And, as it happened, I had not long to wait, for a week afterwards I received this doleful epistle from Bessie:—

‘My dear Dolly,—I am perfectly miserable; nothing ever goes right with me. Tom threw Charlie out of the wheel-barrow yesterday, and cut his forehead right across. He will be scarred for life. And nurse has entirely spoiled those frocks you were so kind as to cut out for Lily and Bessie. She is so obstinate, she would have her own way, and the children positively cannot get into them. But the worst news of all is, that Mrs Graham is going to leave me, and I have had to wean baby, and put him on the bottle.’

‘Hurrah!’ I cried, ‘it’s all right. I shall get that poor child here after all, and be able to patch up her broken life. No, I sha’n’t, though,’ I continued, as I went on reading, and then, to my husband’s astonishment, I fell on his neck, and burst into tears. ‘Oh, Dick, Dick, Dick, I am so glad!’

‘Halloa! what’s up now?’ said that vulgar Dick, in his own way of expressing things.

‘My darling, she’s got him again.’

‘Who’s got which?’

‘Mrs Graham’s husband has returned. He wasn’t drowned, but let me finish the letter,’ and drying my eyes I went on—

‘Just imagine how awkward and unpleasant for me. The other evening there was an awful screaming in the kitchen, and when I went down, I found Mrs Graham fainted dead away in the arms of a man. I was very angry at first, naturally; but when she recovered I found it was her husband whom she thought was drowned at sea three months ago. It seems he was picked up insensible by some ship, and taken to Spain, where he had a fever, and was delirious, and all that sort of thing; and when he recovered, he worked his way home before the mast, and had only just found out where his wife lived. But I think it is excessively unreasonable of people to take situations, and say they’re widows, and then—’

‘Oh, don’t read any more of that rubbish, for heaven’s sake!’ said Dick, irreverently. ‘The long and the short of the matter is, that the girl’s got her man again.’

‘Oh! I am so thankful!’ I exclaimed, with the tears still in my eyes; I couldn’t help it, they would come. ‘Poor child! poor, desolate, heart-broken child! What a heaven earth must appear to her to-day. Dick, will you drive me over to the farm directly after breakfast? I want to see her and congratulate her.’

‘You seem to take a vast interest in this Mrs Graham, and her joys and sorrows,’ said Dick; ‘why is it, Dolly?’

‘Because I can sympathise with them so deeply. Because—because—oh, Dick, you know—because God has given me—you, and I am the very happiest woman in all the world.’

THE END.

LOST IN THE MARSHES.

On the east coast of the county of Norfolk, there lay a village which shall be distinguished by the name of Corston. It was bounded on the one side by the sea, on the other by the open country, and beside the two or three gentleman farmers whose possessions comprised all the agricultural land within a radius of five miles, it could boast of a church and resident parson—a coastguard with its attendant officer, and above all, close contiguity with Rooklands, the estate of the Earl of Worcester. And those who are acquainted with the moral and social aspect, as it existed forty or fifty years ago, of the more insignificant villages of Norfolk, will acknowledge that Corston was favoured above its fellows. The sea coast in its vicinity brought many a gay riding party over from Rooklands, either to enjoy the fresh breezes, or to bathe in the sparkling waves from some sequestered nook, whilst the congregation of the church was made up of drafts from some four or five outlying hamlets which had not the advantage of a place of worship of their own. Conceive then what a much larger audience the Corston parson could depend upon, when the women had a prospect of seeing the bonnets from ten miles round (to say nothing of a chance of the Rookland aristocrats taking it into their heads to drive out), in addition to listening to his somewhat uninteresting sermons. The coastguard, too, was a cause of constant excitement, on account of the Admiralty having been in the habit of bestowing the appointment on old, worn-out, half-pay lieutenants who chose to expire almost as soon as they obtained it, and really, notwithstanding the church and the parson and Rooklands, there was not much in Corston worth living for. But at the time this story opens, the charge of the coast had not long been put in the hands of (comparatively speaking) a young and hale man who bid fair to keep anybody else out of it for a long while to come. His office was no sinecure though, for, notwithstanding the difficulty of landing, the coast was a celebrated one for smugglers, and as soon as the dark months of winter set in there was no lack of work for the preventive officers. For the village of Corston did not, of itself, run down to the sea. Between it and the ocean there lay the salt marshes, a bleak, desolate tract of land, which no skill or perseverance could reclaim from apparent uselessness. Except to the samphire and cockle-gatherers, the salt marshes of Corston were an arid wilderness which could yield no fruit. Many a farmer had looked longingly across the wide waste which terminated only with the shingled beach, and wondered if it were possible to utilise it. But as it had been from the beginning, so it remained until that day; its stinted vegetation affording shelter for sea-fowl and smugglers’ booty only, and its brackish waters that flowed and ebbed with the tides, tainting the best springs on the level ground of Corston. It was the existence of these marshes that rendered the coastguard necessary to the village, which would otherwise have become a perfect nest of smugglers. As it was, notwithstanding all the vigilance of Mr John Burton and his men, many a keg of spirits and roll of tobacco were landed on the coast of Corston, and many a man in the place was marked by them as guilty, though never discovered. For they who had lived by the salt marshes all their lives were cunning as to their properties, and knew just where they might bury their illegal possessions with impunity when the tide was low, and find them safe when it had flowed and ebbed again. Everyone was not so fortunate. Lives had been lost in the marshes before now—ay, and of Corston men too, and several dark tales were told by the gossips of the village of the quagmires and quicksands that existed in various parts of them, which looked, although they never were, both firm and dry, but had the power to draw man and horse with the temerity to step upon them, into their unfathomable depths. But if the smugglers kept Mr Burton and his men fully occupied on the sea shore, the poachers did no less for Lord Worcester’s band of gamekeepers at Rooklands; and Farmer Murray, who had a drop of Scotch blood running in his veins, and was never so much alive as when his own interests were concerned, had only saved his game for the last three years by having been fortunate enough to take the biggest poacher in Corston, red-handed, and let him off on condition that he became his keeper and preserved his covers from future violence. ‘Set a thief to catch a thief’ is a time-honoured saying, and Farmer Murray found it answer. Isaac Barnes, the unscrupulous poacher, became a model gamekeeper, and the midnight rest of the inhabitants of Mavis Farm had never been disturbed by a stray shot since; though the eldest son, George Murray, had been heard to affirm that half the fun of his life was gone now that there was no chance of a tussle with the poachers. Such was the state of Corston some forty years ago. The villagers were rough, uneducated, and lawless, and the general condition of the residents, vapid and uninteresting enough to have provoked any amount of wickedness, if only for the sake of change or excitement.

It was the end of September, and the close of a glorious summer. The harvest had been abundant and the Norfolk soil, which knows so well how to yield her fruits in due season, was like an exhausted mother which had just been delivered of her abundance. The last sheaves of golden corn were standing in the fields ready to be carried to the threshing-barn, the trees in the orchards were weighed down with their wealth of pears and apples, and in every lane clusters of bare-headed children with their hands full of nuts and their faces stained with blackberry juice, proved how nature had showered her bounties on rich and poor alike. Lizzie Locke, who was making her way slowly in the direction of the village, with a huge basket on her arm, stopped more than once to wipe her hot face, and pull the sun bonnet she wore further over her eyes, although in another couple of days the October moon would have risen upon the land. She was a young girl of not more than eighteen or twenty years, and, as her dress denoted, bred from the labouring classes. Not pretty—unless soft brown hair, a fair skin and delicate features, can make a woman so—but much more refined in appearance than the generality of her kind. The hands that grasped the handle of her heavy basket had evidently never done much hard work, nor were her feet broadened or her back bent with early toiling in the turnip and the harvest fields. The reason of this was apparent as soon as she turned her eyes toward you. Quiet blue eyes shaded by long lashes, that seldom unveiled them—eyes that, under more fortuitous circumstances, might have flashed and sparkled with roguish mirth, but that seemed to bear now a settled melancholy in them, even when her mouth smiled: eyes, in fact, that had been blinded from their birth.

Poor Lizzie Locke! There was a true and great soul burning in her breast, but the windows were darkened and it had no power to look out upon the world. As she stood still for a few moments’ rest for the third or fourth time between the salt marshes and Corston, her quick ear caught the sound of approaching horses’ feet, and she drew on one side of the open road to let the rider pass. But instead of that, the animal was drawn up suddenly upon its haunches, and a pleasant young voice rang out in greeting to her.

‘Why, Lizzie, is that you? What a careless girl you are—I might have ridden over you.’

‘Miss Rosa,’ exclaimed the blind girl, as she recognised the voice and smiled brightly in return.

‘Of course it’s Miss Rosa, and Polly is as fresh as a two-year-old this morning. She always is, when she gets upon the marshes. It’s lucky I pulled up in time.’

The new comer, a handsome girl of about the same age as Lizzie, was the only daughter of Farmer Murray, of Mavis Farm. Spoilt, as one girl amongst half-a-dozen boys is sure to be, it is not to be wondered at that Rosa Murray was impetuous, saucy, and self-willed. For, added to her being her father’s darling, and not knowing what it was to be denied anything in his power to give her, Miss Rosa was extremely pretty, with grey eyes and dark hair, and a complexion like a crimson rose. A rich brunette beauty that had gained for her the title of the Damask Rose of Corston, and of which no one was better aware than herself. Many a gentleman visitor at Rooklands had heard of the fame of the farmer’s pretty daughter, and ridden over to Corston on purpose to catch a glimpse of her, and it was beginning to be whispered about the village that no one in those parts would be considered good enough for a husband for Miss Rosa, and that Mr Murray was set upon her marrying a gentleman from London, any gentleman from ‘London’ being considered by the simple rustics to be unavoidably ‘the glass of fashion and the mould of form.’ Mr Murray was termed a ‘gentleman farmer’ in that part of the county, because he lived in a substantially-built and well-furnished house, and could afford to keep riding-horses in his stable and sit down to a dinner spread on a tablecloth every day. But, in reality, his father had commenced life as a ploughman in that very village of Corston, and it was only necessary to bring Farmer Murray into the presence of Lord Worcester and his fashionable friends to see how much of a ‘gentleman’ he was. He had made the great mistake, however, of sending his children to be educated at schools above their station in life, the consequence of which was that, whilst their tastes and proclivities remained plebeian as his own, they had acquired a self-sufficiency and idea of their merits that accorded ill with their surroundings and threatened to mar their future happiness. The Damask Rose of Corston was the worst example amongst them of the evil alluded to. She had unfortunately lost her mother many years before, so was almost completely her own mistress, and the admiration her beauty excited was fast turning her from a thoughtless flirt into a heartless coquette, the most odious character any woman can assume.

But with her own sex, and when it suited her, Rosa Murray could be agreeable and ingenuous enough, and there was nothing but cordiality in the tone in which she continued her conversation with Lizzie Locke.

‘What are you doing out here by yourself, child? You really ought not to go about alone. It can’t be safe.’

‘Oh, it’s safe enough, Miss Rosa. I’ve been used to find my way about ever since I could walk. I’ve just come up from the marshes, and I was going to take these cockles to Mavis Farm to see if the master would like them for his breakfast to-morrow.’

‘I daresay they will be very glad of them. George and Bob are awfully fond of cockles. What a lot you’ve gathered, Lizzie. How do you manage to find them, when you can’t see?’

‘I know all the likeliest places they stick to, Miss Rosa, as well as I do the chimney corner at home. The tide comes up and leaves them on the bits of rocks, and among the boulders, and some spots are regular beds of them. I’ve been at it half my life, you see, miss, and I just feel for them with my fingers and pick them off. I can tell a piece of samphire, too, by the sound it makes as I tread over it.’

‘It’s wonderful,’ said Rosa; ‘I have often been surprised to see you go about just as though you had the use of your eyes. It seems to make no difference to you.’

Poor Lizzie sighed.

‘Oh, miss! it makes a vast difference—such a difference as you could never understand. But I try to make the best of it, and not be more of a burden upon aunt and Larry than I need to be.’

‘I’m sure they don’t think you a burden,’ said the other girl, warmly. ‘But I wonder I didn’t meet you on the marshes just now. I’ve been galloping all over them.’

‘Not past Corston Point, I hope, miss,’ exclaimed Lizzie, hurriedly.

‘Yes, I have! Why not?’

‘Oh, don’t go there again, Miss Rosa. It isn’t safe, particularly on horseback. There’s no end of quagmires beyond the Point, and you can never tell when you’ll come on one and be swallowed up, horse and all.’

Rosa Murray laughed.

‘Why aren’t you swallowed up then, Lizzie?’

‘I know my way, miss, and I know the tread of it too. I can tell when the soil yields more than it should at low tide that I’m nearing a quicksand. When the Almighty takes away one sense He sharpens the others to make up for it. But the sands are full of danger; some of them are shifting too, and you can never tell if they’re firm to-day whether they won’t be loose to-morrow. Do take heed, Miss Rosa, and never you ride beyond Corston Point without one of the young gentlemen to take care of you.’

‘Well, I’ll remember your advice, Lizzie, for I don’t want to be swallowed up alive. Good-bye.’

She put her horse in motion and cantered on some little way in advance—then suddenly checked him again and turned back. All Rosa Murray’s actions, like her disposition, were quick and impulsive.

‘By the way, Lizzie, it’s our harvest-home supper to-night. You must be sure and make Larry bring you up to the big barn with him.’

The blind girl crimsoned with pleasure.

‘Oh, Miss Rosa! but what should I be doing at your supper? I can’t dance, you know. I shall only be in the way.’

‘Nonsense! You can hear the singing and the music; we have made papa get a couple of fiddlers over from Wells; and you can eat some supper. You will enjoy yourself, won’t you, Lizzie?’

‘Yes, miss, I think so—that is, if Larry and aunt are willing that I should go; but it’s very good of you to ask me.’

‘You must be sure and come. Tell Larry I insist upon it. We shall all be there, you know, and I shall look out for you, Lizzie, and if I don’t see you I shall send some one round to your cottage to fetch you.’

Lizzie Locke smiled and curtsied.

‘I’ll be sure and tell Larry of your goodness, miss’ she said, ‘and he’ll be able to thank you better than I can. Here comes a gentleman,’ she added, as she withdrew herself modestly from the side of the young lady’s horse.

The gentleman, whom Lizzie Locke could have distinguished only as such from the different sound produced by his boots in walking, was Lord Worcester’s head gamekeeper, Frederick Darley. He was a young fellow to hold the responsible position he did, being only about thirty years of age, and he had not held it long; but he was the son of the gamekeeper on one of Lord Worcester’s estates in the south of England, and his lordship had brought him to Rooklands as soon as ever a vacancy occurred. He was a favourite with his master and his master’s guests, being a man of rather superior breeding and education, but on that very account he was much disliked by all the poor people around. Gamekeepers are not usually popular in a poaching district, but it was not Frederick Darley’s position alone that made him a subject for criticism. His crying sin, to use their own term, was that he ‘held his head too high.’ The velveteen coat he usually wore, with a rose in the button-hole, his curly black hair and waxed moustache, no less than the cigars he smoked and the air with which he affected the society of the gentry, showed the tenants of Rooklands that he considered himself vastly above themselves in position, and they hated him accordingly. The animus had spread to Corston, but Mr Darley was not well enough known there yet to have become a subject for general comment. Lizzie Locke had never even encountered him before.

He was walking from the village on the present occasion swinging a light cane in his hand, and as Rosa Murray looked up at the blind girl’s exclamation, she perceived him close to her horse’s head.

‘Good morning, Miss Murray,’ he said, lifting his hat.

‘Good morning,’ she replied, without mentioning any name, but Lizzie Locke could detect from the slight tremor in her voice that she was confused at the sudden encounter. ‘Were you going down to the beach?’

‘I was going nowhere but in search of you.’

‘Shall we walk towards home then?’ said Rosa, suiting the action to the word. She evidently did not wish the blind girl to be a party to their conversation. She called out ‘Good-bye, Lizzie,’ once more as she walked her horse away, but before she was out of hearing, the little cockle-gatherer could distinguish her say to the stranger in a fluttered voice,—

‘I am so glad you are coming over to our harvest-home to-night.’

‘One of the grand gentlemen over from Rooklands come to court Miss Rosa,’ she thought in the innocence of her heart, as she turned off the road to take a short cut across the country to Mavis Farm. Meanwhile the couple she alluded to were making their way slowly towards Corston; she, reining in her horse to the pace of a tortoise, whilst he walked by the side with his hand upon the crutch of her saddle.

‘Could you doubt for a moment whether I should come?’ said Frederick Darley in answer to Rosa’s question. ‘Wouldn’t I go twenty—fifty miles, for the pleasure of a dance with you?’

‘You’re such an awful flatterer,’ she replied, bridling under the compliment; ‘but don’t make too sure of a dance with me, for papa and my brothers will be there, and they are so horribly particular about me.’

‘And not particularly fond of me—I know it, Miss Murray—but I care nothing at all about it so long as—as—’

‘As what?’

‘As you are.’

‘Oh, Mr Darley! how can you talk such nonsense?’

‘It’s not nonsense! it’s sober sense—come, Rosa, tell me the truth. Are you playing with me, or not?’

‘What do you mean by “playing”?’

‘You know. Are you in earnest or in jest? In fact—do you love me better than you love your father and your brothers?’

‘Mr Darley! You know I do!’

‘Prove it then, by meeting me to-night.’

‘Meeting you? Are you not coming to the harvest-home?’

‘I may look in, but I shall not remain long; I shall only use it as an excuse to come over to Corston. Mr Murray is suspicious of me—I can see that—and your brothers dislike me. I don’t care to sit at the table of men who are not my friends, Rosa. But if you will take an opportunity to slip out of the barn and join me in the apple copse, I will wait there for you at ten o’clock.’

‘Oh! Frederick—if papa should catch me!’

‘I will take care of that! Only say you’ll come.’

‘I should like to come—it will be so lovely and romantic. Just like a scene in a novel. But I am afraid it is very wrong.’

‘What is there wrong in a moonlight stroll? “The summer nights were made for love,” Rosa, and we shall have a glorious moon by nine o’clock to-night. You won’t disappoint me, will you?’

‘No, indeed I won’t; but if anything should be discovered you will promise me—’

‘What? I will promise you anything in the world.’

‘Only that you will shield me from papa’s anger—that you will say it was all your fault. For papa is dreadful when he gets in a temper.’

‘If you should be discovered—which is not at all likely—I promise you that, rather than give you back into papa’s clutches, I will carry you straight off to Rooklands and marry you with a special licence. Will that satisfy you? Would you consent to be my wife, Rosa?’

‘Yes!’ she replied, and earnestly, for she had been captivated by the manner and appearance of Frederick Darley for some weeks past, and this was not the first meeting by many that they had held without the knowledge of her father.

‘That’s my own Damask Rose,’ he exclaimed triumphantly; ‘give me a kiss, dear, just one to seal the contract; there’s no one looking!’ He held up his face towards her as he spoke—his handsome insouciant face with its bright eyes and smile, and she stooped hers to meet it, and give the embrace he petitioned for.

But someone was looking. Almost as Rosa’s lips met Darley’s a frightened look came into her eyes, and she uttered a note of alarm.

‘What is it, darling?’

‘It’s my brother George! He’s coming this way. Oh! go, Mr Darley—pray go across the field and let me canter on to meet him.’ He would have stayed to remonstrate, but the girl pushed him from her, and thinking discretion the better part of valour, he jumped over a neighbouring stile and walked away in the direction she had indicated, whilst she, with a considerable degree of agitation, rode on to make what excuses she best could for the encounter to her brother. George Murray was sauntering along the hedge-row switching the leaves off the hazel bushes as he went, and apparently quite unsuspicious of anything being wrong. But the first question he addressed to his sister went straight to the point.

‘Who was that fellow that was talking to you just now, Rosa?’

She knew it would be of no use trying to deceive him, so she spoke the truth.

‘It was Mr Darley!’

‘What’s he doing over here?’

‘How should I know? You’d better ask him yourself! Am I accountable for Mr Darley’s actions?’

‘Don’t talk nonsense. You know what I mean perfectly well. Did he come over to Rooklands to see you?’

‘To see me—what will you get into your head next?’

‘Well, you seemed to be hitting it off pretty well together. What were you whispering to him about just now?’

‘I didn’t whisper to him.’

‘You did! I saw you stoop your head to his ear. Now look here, Rosa! Don’t you try any of your flirtation games on with Darley, or I’ll go straight to the governor and tell him.’

‘And what business is it of yours, pray?’

‘It would be the business of every one of us. You don’t suppose we’re going to let you marry a gamekeeper, do you?’

‘Really, George, you’re too absurd. Cannot a girl stop to speak to a man in the road without being accused of wanting to marry him? You will say I want to marry every clodhopper I may dance with at the harvest-home to-night next.’

‘That is a very different thing. The ploughboys are altogether beneath you, but this Darley is a kind of half-and-half fellow that might presume to imagine himself good enough to be a match for you.’

‘Half-and-half indeed!’ exclaimed Rosa, nettled at the reflection on her lover; ‘and pray, what are we when all’s said and done? Mr Darley’s connections are as good as our own, and better, any day.’

‘Halloa! what are you making a row about? I’ll tell you what, Rosa. It strikes me very forcibly you want to “carry on” with Lord Worcester’s keeper, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself for thinking of it. You—who have been educated and brought up in every respect like a lady—to condescend to flirt with an upstart like that, a mere servant! Why, he’s no better than Isaac Barnes, or old Whisker, or any of the rest of them, only he’s prig enough to oil his hair, and wear a button-hole, in order to catch the eye of such silly noodles like yourself.’

‘You’ve no right to speak to me in this way, George. You know nothing at all about the matter.’

‘I know that I found Darley and you in the lane with your heads very close together, and that directly he caught sight of me he made off. That doesn’t look as if his intentions were honourable, does it? Now, look you here, Rosa. Is he coming to the barn to-night?’

‘I believe so!’

‘And who asked him?’

‘I don’t know,’ she replied, evasively; ‘papa, perhaps—or very likely Mr Darley thought he required no invitation to join a ploughman’s dance and supper.’

‘Well, you’re not to dance with him if he does come.’

‘I don’t know what right you have to forbid it.’

‘None at all! but if you won’t give me the promise I shall go straight to the governor, and let him know what I saw to-day. He’s seen something of it himself, I can tell you, and he told me to put you on your guard, so you can take your choice of having his anger or not.’

This statement was not altogether true, for if Farmer Murray had heard anything of his daughter’s flirtation with the handsome gamekeeper, it had been only what his sons had suggested to him, and he did not believe their reports. But the boys, George and Robert, now young men of three or four-and-twenty, had had more than one consultation together on the subject, and quite made up their minds that their sister must not be allowed to marry Frederick Darley. For they were quite alive to the advantages that a good connection for her might afford to themselves, and wanted to see her raise the family instead of lowering it.

Rosa, however, believed her brother’s word. Dread of her father’s anger actuated in a great measure this belief, and she began to fear lest all communication between Darley and herself might be broken off if she did not give the required promise. And the very existence of the fear opened her eyes to the truth, that her lover was become a necessary part of life’s enjoyment to her. So, like a true woman and a hunted hare, she temporised and ‘doubled.’

‘Does papa really think I am too intimate with Mr Darley, George?’ she inquired, trembling.

‘Of course he does, like all the rest of us.’

‘But it’s a mistake. I don’t care a pin about him.’

‘Then it will be no privation for you to give up dancing with him to-night.’

‘I never intended to dance with him.’

‘Honour bright, Rosa?’

‘Well, I can’t say more than I have. However, you will see. I shall not dance with him. If he asks me, I shall say I am engaged to you.’

‘You can say what you like, so long as you snub the brute. I wonder at his impudence coming up to our “Home” at all. But these snobs are never wanting in “cheek.” However, if Bob and I don’t give him a pretty broad hint to-night that his room is preferable to his company, I’m a duffer! Are you going in, Rosa?’

For the young people had continued to walk towards their own home, and had now arrived at the farm gates.

‘Yes. I’ve been in the saddle since ten o’clock this morning, and have had enough of it.’

‘Let me take Polly round to the stables before the governor sees the state you’ve brought her home in, then,’ said George, as his sister dismounted and threw him the reins. He could be good-natured enough when he had his own way, and he thought he had got it now with Rosa. But she went up to her chamber bent but on one idea—how best to let Mr Darley know of what had passed between her brother and herself, that he might not be surprised at the caution of her behaviour when they met in the big barn.

Meanwhile Lizzie Locke having left her basket of cockles at Mavis Farm, had reached her cottage home. Her thoughts had been very pleasant as she journeyed there and pondered on the coming pleasure of the evening. It was not often the poor child took any part in the few enjoyments to be met in Corston. People were apt to leave her out of their invitations, thinking that as she was blind she could not possibly derive any amusement from hearing, and she was of too shrinking and modest a nature to obtrude herself where she was not specially required. She had never been to one of the harvest-home suppers given by Farmer Murray (in whose employ her cousin Laurence worked), though she had heard much of their delights. But now that Miss Rosa had particularly desired her to come, she thought Larry would be pleased to take her. And she had a print dress nice and clean for the occasion, and her aunt would plait her hair neatly for her, and she should hear the sound of Larry’s voice as he talked to his companions, and of his feet whilst he was dancing, and, perhaps, after supper one of his famous old English songs—songs which they had heard so seldom of late, and the music of which her aunt and she had missed so much.

It was past twelve o’clock as she entered the cottage, but she was so full of her grand news that she scarcely remembered that she must have kept both her relations waiting for their dinner of bacon and beans.

‘Why, Lizzie, my girl, where on earth have you been to?’ exclaimed her aunt, Mrs Barnes, as she appeared on the threshold. Mrs Barnes’ late husband had been brother to the very Isaac Barnes, once poacher, now gamekeeper on Farmer Murray’s estate, and there were scandal-mongers in Corston ill-natured enough to assert that the taint was in the blood, and that young Laurence Barnes was very much inclined to go the same way as his uncle had done before him. But at present he was a helper in the stables of Mavis Farm.

‘I’ve been along the marshes,’ said Lizzie, ‘gathering cockles, and they gave me sixpence for them up at the farm; and oh, aunt! I met Miss Rosa on my way back, and she says Larry must take me up to the big barn this evening to their harvest-home supper.’

Laurence Barnes was seated at his mother’s table already occupied in the discussion of a huge lump of bread and bacon, but as the name of his master’s daughter left Lizzie’s lips it would have been very evident to any one on the look-out for it that he started and seemed uneasy.

‘And what will you be doing at a dance and a supper, my poor girl?’ said her aunt, but not unkindly. ‘Come, Lizzie, sit down and take your dinner; that’s of much more account to you than a harvest merry-making.’

‘Not till Larry has promised to take me up with him this evening,’ replied the girl gaily, and without the least fear of a rebuff. ‘You’ll do it, Larry, won’t you? for Miss Rosa said they’d all be there, and if she didn’t see me she’d send round to the cottage after me. She said, “Tell Larry I insist upon it; she did, indeed!”’

‘Well, then, I’m not going up myself, and so you can’t go,’ he answered roughly.

‘Not going yourself!’

The exclamation left the lips of both women at once. They could not understand it, and it equally surprised them. Larry—the best singer and dancer for twenty miles round, to refuse to go up to his master’s harvest-home! Why, what would the supper and the dance be without him? At least, so thought Mrs Barnes and Lizzie.

‘Aren’t you well, Larry?’ demanded the blind girl, timidly.

‘I’m well enough; but I don’t choose to go. I don’t care for such rubbish. Let ’em bide! They’ll do well enough without us.’

Lizzie dropt into her seat in silence, and began in a mechanical way to eat her dinner. She was terribly disappointed, but she did not dream of disputing her cousin’s decision. He was master in that house; and she would not have cared to go to the barn without Larry. Half the pleasure would be gone with his absence. He did not seem to see that.

‘Mother can take you up, Liz, if she has a mind to,’ he said, presently.

‘I take her along of me!’ cried Mrs Barnes, ‘when I haven’t so much as a clean kerchief to pin across my shoulders. You’re daft, Larry. I haven’t been to such a thing as a dance since I laid your father in the churchyard, and if our Liz can’t go without me she must stop at home.’

‘I don’t want to go, indeed I don’t, not without Larry,’ replied the blind girl, earnestly.

‘And what more did Miss Rosa say to you?’ demanded her aunt, inquisitively.

‘We talked about the sands, aunt. She’d been galloping all over them this morning, and I told her how dangerous they were beyond Corston Point, and we was getting on so nice together, when some one came and interrupted us.’

‘Some one! Who’s some one?’ said Laurence Barnes, quickly.

‘I can’t tell you; I never met him before.’

‘’Twas a man, then?’

‘Oh yes! ’twas a man—a gentleman! I knew that, because there were no nails in his boots, and he didn’t give at the knees as he walked.’

‘What more?’ demanded Larry, with lowered brows.

‘Miss Rosa knew him well, because they never named each other, but only wished “good morning.” She said, “What are you doing here?” and he said, “Looking after you.” He carried a rose in his hand or his coat, I think, for I smelt it, and a cane, too, for it struck the saddle flap.’

‘Well, that’s enough,’ interrupted Laurence, fiercely.

‘I thought you wanted to hear all about it, Larry?’

‘Is there any more to tell, then?’

‘Only that as they walked away together, Miss Rosa said she was so glad he was coming up to the harvest-home to-night.’

‘So he’s a-going, the cur!’ muttered the young man between his teeth. ‘I know him, with his cane, and his swagger, and his stinking roses; and I’ll be even with him yet, or my name’s not Larry Barnes.’

It was evident that Mr Frederick Darley was no greater favourite in the cottage than the farm.

‘Whoever are you talking of?’ said Larry’s mother. ‘Do you know the gentleman Lizzie met with Miss Rosa?’

‘Gentleman! He’s no gentleman. He’s nothing but a common gamekeeper, same as uncle. But don’t let us talk of him any more. It takes the flavour of the bacon clean out of my mouth.’

The rest of the simple meal was performed in silence, and then Mrs Barnes gathered up the crockery and carried it into an outer room to wash.

Larry and Lizzie were left alone. The girl seemed to understand that in some mysterious way she had offended her cousin, and wished to restore peace between them, so she crept up to where he was smoking his midday pipe on the old settle by the fire, and laid her head gently against his knees. They had been brought up from babes together, and were used to observe such innocent little familiarities towards each other.

‘Never mind about the outing, Larry. I’m not a bit disappointed, and I’m sorry I said anything about it.’

‘That’s not true, Liz. You are disappointed, and it’s my doing; but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t feel somehow as if I had the heart to go. But I’ve changed my mind since dinner, and we’ll go up to the harvest-home together, my girl. Will that content you?’

‘Oh, Larry! you are good!’ she said, raising herself, her cheeks crimsoned with renewed expectation; ‘but I’d rather stop at home a thousand times over than you should put yourself out of the way for me.’

A sudden thought seemed to strike the young man as he looked at Lizzie’s fair, sightless face. He had lived with her so long, in a sisterly way, that it had never struck him to regard her in any other light. But something in the inflection of her voice as she addressed him, made him wonder if he were capable of making her happier than she had ever been yet. He cherished no other hopes capable of realisation. What if he could make his own troubles lighter by lightening those of poor Liz? Something of this sort, but in much rougher clothing, passed through his half-tutored mind. As it grasped the idea he turned hurriedly towards the girl kneeling at his knee.

‘Do you really care about me, lass?’ he said. ‘Do you care if I’m vexed or not? Whether I come in or go out? If I like my dinner or I don’t like it? Does all this nonsense worry you? Answer me, for I want to know.’

‘Oh! Larry, what do you mean? Of course I care. I can’t do much for you—more’s the pity—without my poor eyes, but I can think of you and love you, Larry, and surely you know that I do both.’

‘But would you like to love me more, Liz?’

‘How could I love you more?’

‘Would you like to have the right to care for me—the right to creep after me in your quiet way wherever I might happen to go—the right to walk alongside of me, with your hand in mine, up to the harvesting home to-night; eh, Liz?’

The girl half understood her cousin’s meaning, but she was too modest not to fear she might be mistaken. Larry could never wish to take her, blind and helpless, for his wife.

‘Larry, speak to me more plainly; I don’t catch your meaning quite.’

‘Will you marry me then, Liz, and live along of mother and me to the end of your life?’

‘Marry you!—Be your wife!—Me! Oh, Larry, you can’t mean it! never.’

‘I do mean it,’ replied her cousin with an oath; ‘and I’ll take you as soon as ever you’ll take me if you will but say the word.’

‘But I am blind, Larry.’