LOST SIR MASSINGBERD.

A Romance of Real Life.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

SAMPSON LOW, SON, AND MARSTON,

14, LUDGATE HILL.

1864.

CONTENTS.

[CHAPTER I.] OUT OF MIND, OUT OF SIGHT
[CHAPTER II.] HARLEY STREET
[CHAPTER III.] BEFORE THE BLOW
[CHAPTER IV.] LOST
[CHAPTER V.] THE STONE GARDEN
[CHAPTER VI.] THE SEARCH
[CHAPTER VII.] WHAT WAS IN THE COVERED CART
[CHAPTER VIII.] THE PROCESSION
[CHAPTER IX.] AMONG FRIENDS
[CHAPTER X.] A DETECTIVE OF HALF A CENTURY AGO
[CHAPTER XI.] THE BANK-NOTES
[CHAPTER XII.] A BENEVOLENT STRANGER
[CHAPTER XIII.] BETTER THAN A BLUNDERBUSS
[CHAPTER XIV.] THE FALSE SCENT
[CHAPTER XV.] "LET IT BE PETER'S GODCHILD"
[CHAPTER XVI.] TAKING THE SEALS OFF
[CHAPTER XVII.] THE FAIRY'S WAND
[CHAPTER XVIII.] FOUND
[CHAPTER XIX.] L'ENVOI

LOST SIR MASSINGBERD.

CHAPTER I.

OUT OF MIND, OUT OF SIGHT.

Notwithstanding the baronet's polite invitation, and although Mr. Long did not return, as expected, upon the ensuing morning, I felt no inclination to exchange my solitude for the society of Mr. Gilmore at bowls. I was, indeed, rather curious to see the bowling-green, which I had heard from my tutor was one of the very finest in England, fenced in by wondrous walls of yew; but, to arrive there, it was necessary to pass close to the Hall, and, consequently, to run great risk of meeting Sir Massingberd, my repugnance to whom had returned with tenfold strength since the preceding day. My reason, it is true, could suggest no possible harm from my having enclosed his letter to Marmaduke, but still an indefinable dread of what I had done oppressed me. I could not imagine in what manner I could have been outwitted; but a certain malignant exultation in Sir Massingberd's face when he was taking his leave, haunted my memory, and rendered hateful the idea of meeting it again. Moreover, the companionship of Gilmore, the butler, was not attractive. He bore a very bad character with the villagers, among whom he was said to emulate in a humble manner the vices of his lord and master; he had been his companion and confidential servant for a great number of years, and it was not to be wondered at, even supposing that he commenced that servitude as an honest man, that his principles should have been sapped by the communication.

Those who had known Richard Gilmore best and longest, however, averred that his nature had not been the least impaired by this companionship, inasmuch as it had been always as bad as bad could be. I never saw his pale secretive face, with the thin lips tightly closed, as if to prevent the escape of one truant word, without reflecting what a repository of dark and wicked deeds that keeper of Sir Massingberd's conscience needs must be. Such men usually hold such masters in their own hands; for they know too much about them, and it is that species of knowledge which, above all others, is power. But it was not so in this case; the antecedents of Gilmore's master were probably as evil as those of any person who has ever kept a valet, but there was this peculiarity about the baronet—that he cared little or nothing whether people knew them or not. When a thoroughly unprincipled man has arrived at the stage of being entirely indifferent to what his fellow-creatures think of him, he has touched his zenith; he is as much a hero to his valet-de-chambre as to anybody else. It was Gilmore's nature to be reticent; but, for all Sir Massingberd cared, he might have ascended the steps at the stone-cross at Crittenden upon market-day, and held forth upon the subject of his master's peccadillos. Sir Massingberd stood no more in fear of him than of any other man; otherwise, he would scarcely have used such frightful language to him as he did whenever the spirit-case had not been properly replenished, or he happened to mislay the key of his own cigar-chest. It was no delicate tending that the lord of Fairburn Hall required; no accurate arrangement of evening garments ere he returned from shooting; no slippers placed in front of the fire. As he was attired in the morning, so he remained throughout the day, and, if it were the poaching season, throughout the night also. He never was ill, and only very rarely was he so overcome with liquor as to require any assistance in retiring. The putting Sir Massingberd to bed must have been a bad quarter of an hour for Mr. Gilmore. I have mentioned that when I paid my only visit to the Hall, the front-door bell was answered by the butler with very commendable swiftness, under the impression that it was his master; and, indeed, it was rumoured that, on more than one occasion, the baronet had felled his faithful domestic like an ox, for dilatoriness. Wonder was sometimes expressed that Mr. Gilmore, who was supposed, as the phrase goes, to have feathered his nest very agreeably during his master's prosperous days, should cleave to him in his present poverty—the mere sentiment of attachment being deemed scarcely strong enough to retain his gratuitous services; but the reply commonly made to this was, I have no doubt, correct—namely, that, however matters might seem, Mr. Richard Gilmore, we might be well assured, knew his own business best, and on which side his bread was buttered.

Sagacious, however, as this gentleman doubtless was, I did not fancy him as a companion to play bowls with; and, instead of going in the direction of the bowling-green, I took my way to Fairburn Chase. I had not set foot within it for more than a year, and the season was much further advanced then when I had last been there. The stillness which pervaded it in summertime was now broken by the flutter of the falling leaf and the plash of the chestnuts on the moist and sodden ground; the autumn rains had long set in; there was that "drip, drip, drip" in the woods which so mournfully reminds us that the summer, with all its life and warmth, has passed away; and the dank earth was sighing from beneath its load of tangled leaves, which, "hanging so light and hanging so high," but lately danced in the sunny air. The presentiment of evil which overshadowed me was deepened by the melancholy of Nature. I moved slowly through the drippling fern towards the heronry; from the little island suddenly flew forth, not the stately birds who ordinarily reigned there, but a pair of ravens. I knew that such had taken up their residence in the old church tower, for I had seen them flying in and out of its narrow ivied window-slits; but their appearance in the present locality was most unexpected. I was far from being superstitious, but I would rather have seen any other birds just then. A few steps further brought me to that bend in the stream which had been such a favourite haunt of mine before I had dreamed there so unpleasantly. The lime-trees stood ragged and bare, and weeping silently, deprived of their summer bee-music; the sparkling sand, wherein I had seen the mysterious footprints, was dark and damp; a few steps further brought me to the stepping-stones, by which that unknown visitant must have crossed over, if she were indeed of mortal mould; the wood upon the other side was no longer impenetrable to sight; and through its skeleton arms I could see some building of considerable size at no great distance. I knew where such of the keepers and gardeners as lived upon the estate resided, and it puzzled me to imagine to what purpose this cottage was assigned.

While I hesitated as to whether I should cross the turbid and swollen current, whose waters almost entirely covered the stepping-stones, a laugh prolonged and shrill burst forth from the very direction in which I was looking. It was the same mocking cry, never to be forgotten, which I had heard at that very spot some fifteen months before. Anywhere else, I should have recognized it; but in that place it was impossible to doubt its identity. Knife-like, it clove the humid and unwilling air; and, before the sound had ceased, a short, sharp shriek succeeded it—the cry of a smitten human creature. In a moment I had crossed the stream, and was forcing my way through the wood. As I drew nearer, I perceived the edifice before me was of stone, and with a slated roof, instead of being built with clay, and thatched, as were the rest of Sir Massingberd's cottages. There was no attempt at ornamentation, but the place was unusually substantial for its size, the door being studded with nails, while the window upon either side of it was protected by iron bars.

I was just emerging from the fringe of the wood, when another sound smote on my ear, which caused me to pause at once, and remain where the trunk of an elm tree intervened between me and the cottage; it was merely the bark of a dog, but it checked my philanthropic enthusiasm upon the instant. There was no mistaking that wheezy note, telling of canine infirmity, and days prolonged far beyond the ordinary span of dogs. Besides there was but one dog permitted to be at large in Fairburn Chase. It was the execrable Grimjaw. I could see him from my place of concealment turning his almost sightless eyes in my direction as he sat at the cottage door. Immediately afterwards, it opened, and out came Richard Gilmore; he looked about him suspiciously, but having convinced himself that there was nobody in the neighbourhood, he administered a kick to Grimjaw's ribs, reproached him in strong language for having made a causeless disturbance, and turning the key, and pocketing it, walked away by a footpath that doubtless led, although by no means directly, to the Hall. He had a dog-whip in his hand when I first saw him, which I thought was an odd thing for a butler to carry, and he seemed to think so, too, for he put it in a side-pocket before he started, and buttoned it up. Grimjaw, gathering his stiffened limbs together, slowly followed him, not without turning his grey head ever and anon towards my covert, but without venturing again to express his suspicions. I waited until the charming pair were out of sight, ere I advanced to the cottage.

The door of course, was fast; so, approaching the right-hand window, I cautiously looked in through its iron bars; there was no casement whatever, therefore all the objects which the room contained were as clear to me as though I were in it. I beheld a sitting-room, the furniture of which was costly, and had been evidently intended for a much larger apartment, but which in variety was scanty enough. At a mahogany table, which retained little more of polish than if it had just been sawn from its trunk in Honduras, sat an ancient female, with her back towards me, supporting her chin on both hands; a cold chicken in a metal dish was before her, but neither a plate nor knife and fork; she was muttering something in a low tone to herself, which, if it was a grace, must have been a very long one. Her hair was scanty, and white as snow, but hung down almost to the ground; she was miserably thin; and her clothes, although they had once been of rich material, were ragged and old.

I had made no noise, as I thought, in my approach; and the day was so dull and dark that she could scarcely have perceived my presence by any shadow of my eavesdropping self; but no sooner had I set my eyes on her than she began to speak, without looking round, imagining, doubtless, that I was Gilmore. "So you are there again, peeping and prying, are you, wicked thief," cried she. "Don't you know that a real lady should take her meals in peace without being interrupted, especially after she has been beaten? Think of that, you cur. Why, where's your whip?" She uttered these last words with a yell of scorn; and turning suddenly, with one arm raised as if to ward a blow, she met my unexpected face, and I saw hers. So remarkable was her appearance, that although it was she, not I, who was taken by surprise, I think I was the more astounded of the two. Her countenance was that of an old woman, so wrinkled, or rather shrivelled up, that the furrows might have represented the passage of a century of time; yet the teeth were as white and regular as in a young beauty, and the black beaded eyes had a force and fire in them unquenched by age. In her thin puckered ears hung a pair of monstrous gilded ornaments, and round her skinny neck was a necklace such as a stage queen would wear; yet she had naked feet.

"Oh, it is you, is it?" observed she, with a grave distinctness, in strong contrast to her late excited and mocking tones. "If I had known that you were coming, young gentleman, I would have put on my bracelets. The family jewels are not all gone to the pawnbroker's, as is generally believed. Besides, you should never insult people because they are poor, or mad; one would not be either one or the other, you know, if one could help it."

"Heaven forbid, madam, that I should offer you any insult," said I, touched by the evident misfortune of this poor creature. "I merely ran hither because I heard the cry, as I thought, of some one in distress."

"Ah, that was the dog, sir," replied the old woman cheerfully; "the butler was correcting his dog, and it howled a little. Of course it could not have been me—certainly not; Sir Massingberd is so excessively anxious that I should have everything that is good for me; he said that with his own lips. And what a handsome mouth he has, except when he looks at you."

"Why at me?" cried I. "He has no cause to dislike me, has he!"

"No cause!" cried the old woman, coming closer to the bars, and lowering her voice to a confidential whisper. "Oh no—not if you were dead. I never wished you worse than myself; no, not when my poor baby died, and I could not weep. I feel that now; if I could only weep, as in the good old times with my husband! There was plenty of good weeping then—plenty."

"But why should you wish me dead, madam, who have never done you any harm?"

"No harm? What not to have taken the title from my boy? No harm, when but for you, he would have been the heir to house and land! Why, look you, if it had not been for something, I would have driven Gilmore's knife into you that day when you were sleeping under the limes. That was the very place where I used to meet my love—let me see, how many years ago?"

The eager eyes for one instant ceased to glitter; some fragment of a memory of the past claimed the restless brain; then once more she rambled on. "One, two, three, four—he never struck me more than four times; that's true, I swear."

"And what was the something that prevented you from killing me when I was asleep by the heron's island?" inquired I.

"What was it?" replied the old woman sadly. "Did you not cry, 'Mother, mother,' in your sleep, to make me think of my boy? I wept at that; just one tear. He might have been such another as yourself—with the same—Why, what's the matter with your forehead? What have you done with your horseshoe? Every Heath wears one of them; then why not you, young Marmaduke?"

"My name is not Heath," said I; "you are taking me for somebody else."

"Dear me—dear me, what a mistake! The fact is, that living in a house affects one's sight. Now, let me guess. If you are not Marmaduke Heath, you must be...—What a dark skin you have, and what kind eyes!" She looked suspiciously round the room, and laying her finger on her lip, observed beneath her breath: "You are not Stanley Carew, are you? They told me he was hung, but I know better than that. I have seen him since a hundred times. To be hung for nothing must be a terrible thing; but how much worse to be hung for love!"

"I am not Stanley Carew," said I; "I am Peter Meredith, who lives with Mr. Long at the Rectory."

"I never happen to have heard your name before, sir," replied the old woman, mincingly; "perhaps you have never heard mine. Permit me to introduce myself. Don't suppose that our people don't know good manners, I am Sinnamenta—Lady Heath."

"Madam," said I, deeply moved, "I apprehended as much. If I can do you any service, be sure that the will shall not be wanting. Pray, tell me what shall I do?"

"Well," returned the poor creature, quickly, "Marmaduke Heath should be killed at once, that is all important. We have been thinking of nothing else, my husband and I. But perhaps you have done it already." (How I shrank from that random shaft.) "If so, I have no further desire except to get out. If I could only be once more in the greenwood, my hair would reassume its natural colour. That is why Mr. Gilmore is so careful to keep me thus locked up. If my husband only saw me with my black hair again—it reached to the ground, sir—matters would be very different. I think I have already observed that it is not customary to watch a lady while she is partaking of refreshment."

With that, she once more seated herself at the table, with her back to me; and judging thereby that my presence was distasteful to her, and having no notion of how I could possibly give her any aid, I withdrew from the sad scene. I had not, however, gone many steps, when she called me back again through the iron bars.

"Mr. Meredith," said she, "you arrived somewhat unexpectedly. It is to that circumstance alone, I beg to repeat, that you must attribute the absence of bracelets. My very best regards to all your family. Sinnamenta, you know—Lady Heath."

CHAPTER II.

HARLEY STREET.

While I was thus passing my time at Fairburn, at work with my tutor, in rides rendered doubly lonesome by contrast with those made so enjoyable by the company of my friend, or in rambles about the solitary Chase, the course of true love was running more smoothly in Harley Street than it is fabled to do. During each of my visits there, I had perceived its silent increase even more clearly than those between whom it was growing up into the perfect flower, leaf by leaf, and bud by bud; they had tended it together—Marmaduke and Lucy—until it was well nigh in blossom, and yet they had not said to one another, and perhaps not even to themselves, "Why, this is surely Love." Mr. Gerard had watched it, not displeased, for he had found the young man all that my heart had foretold that he would; Mr. Clint had seen it, and won by the strong sense, as much as by the beauty of the gentle girl, forgot the revolutionary stock of which she came. This, thought he, is the wife for Marmaduke Heath; tender, but yet determined; dutiful, but indisposed to submit to unauthorized dictation; as fearless as kind. In her, once wedded to this young man, so morbid, so sensitive, so yielding, Sir Massingberd would find, if it should be necessary, not only a foe, resolute herself, but as firm as steel for him whom she had dowered with her love. What Marmaduke's nature wanted, hers would supply. The keen lawyer foresaw for that unhappy family, whose interests he and his had had in keeping so many scores of years, a future such as had never been promised before. It was an admission painful to me enough at that time, but which I could not conceal from myself, that the real obstacle which prevented the open recognition of attachment between these two young people was Marmaduke himself. No girl more modest or less forward than Lucy Gerard ever breathed, but I knew—ah, how well I knew!—that a word from him would have brought the love-light to her eyes, which now lay waiting but for it in the careful keeping of her maiden heart. But that word had not been spoken. Perfect love, Marmaduke did not yet feel, for he had not quite cast out fear. How can a man offer heart and hand to a woman whom he does not feel certain that he can protect? It is for this reason that marriage among slaves must for ever be a mockery. There was, of course, no danger to Lucy Gerard in her marrying with Marmaduke, although his uncle should storm "No" a thousand times; but the young man felt that he was unworthy of her, while he entertained any terror of him. It was wearing away; it was weakening day by day, through genial influences, and the absence of all things which reminded him of Fairburn and its master, but it was not dead yet. If by these words, I lead any of my readers to suppose that Marmaduke Heath had the least resemblance to that thing which is called a Coward, I have done my friend a grievous wrong. Let me do away with the possibility of this most mistaken notion, at once and for ever, by the recital of an event which, although it does not come within the scope of the present narrative, nearly concerns one of its most important characters.

After the peace in 1815, there were more officers—English and French—killed in single combat in Paris than in any one of the most bloody battles of the late war. This desire to exterminate individual Englishmen extended over the whole of France. A certain gentleman of my acquaintance, then a very young man, chanced to be passing through a town in Normandy, where an assemblage was collected outside the office of the mayor. This arose from the very uncommon circumstance that that functionary had been appealed to by a post-captain in the English navy to punish a bullying Frenchman, who had striven to fasten a quarrel upon him, although entirely unprovoked on his part. Now-a-days, the captain would have been held to have behaved rightly enough, perhaps, but in those fire-eating times an honest man's life was at the mercy of every worthless ruffian who chose to run an equal risk with him from powder and bullet. The decision, wonderful to relate, was given by the mayor against his compatriot, and the crowd were correspondingly enraged. My friend, whose nationality was apparent, was hustled and ill-treated, and one person, well-dressed, and evidently of good position, knocked his hat off, observing at the same time: "You will complain of me to the mayor for that."

"Certainly not," returned the young Englishman quietly, picking his hat up, all broken and muddy, from the trampled ground: "I shall treat you very differently."

"You will fight, will you? Come—I challenge you. Let us fight to-morrow morning," exclaimed the bully, who was, as it turned out, a notorious provincial duellist.

"Not to-morrow, but now," rejoined my friend; "I have no time to wait here, for I must be in Paris on Tuesday."

"Then it will be in Père la Chaise," responded the other brutally.

There was no difficulty in procuring seconds, which were even more plentiful in those parts than principals, and the whole party immediately left the town for a wood outside its suburbs. The choice of weapons of course lay with the Englishman.

"Which do you prefer," asked the Frenchman who acted as his friend upon the occasion—"the pistol or the sword?"

"I have never fired a pistol in my life," replied the Englishman, "nor handled a sword."

"Heavens!" cried his second, "what a barbarous education, what a stupendous ignorance! You are as good as dead, I fear. I know not which to recommend you. It is, however, at least sooner over with the pistol."

"The pistol be it then," said the Englishman coolly. "I elect that only one shall be loaded; and that we fire within four paces of one another. We shall then have an equal chance."

The duellist turned pale as the death that threatened him, but he did not venture to make any objection. It was manifest no other proposal would have been fair. The seconds went apart, and placed powder and ball in one weapon, powder only in the other. The combatants drew lots for choice. The Frenchman won. The pistols were lying on a log of wood; he advanced towards them, took one up in his hand, and retired with it, then once more came back, and exchanged it for the other. He fancied that the weapon was lighter than it should have been if it had a ball within it. My friend's second objected strongly to this course; he called it even unfair and shameful; he protested that the pistol taken first ought to be retained. But the young Englishman, who was leaning carelessly against a tree, exclaimed, "Let the gentleman have which he likes. Whether he is right or not will be decided in a few seconds." So the combatants were placed opposite to one another, and advanced to within four paces. They raised their weapons; the word was given to fire, and the Frenchman fell, pierced through the heart.

"His blood is upon his own head," exclaimed the other solemnly. "He was brave enough to have been a better man." Then perceiving that his help could be of no avail to his late antagonist, he lifted his battered hat to the Frenchman that remained alive, and returning to his carriage, immediately resumed his journey.

It is not possible, without putting some very strained and unusual meaning on the word, to call the hero of such an adventure a coward; yet the man who acted thus was Marmaduke Heath.

The above relation is but a clumsy method of proving him courageous, I am well aware; but I really know not otherwise how to make him appear so, slave, as it is seen he was, to terrors which must seem almost imaginary. It is said that no man, however fearless, quite gets over his awe of his schoolmaster. An exaggeration of this sentiment probably possessed this unfortunate young man; added to which was the fact that Sir Massingberd was his uncle, a family tie which was doubtless not without its influence, notwithstanding Marmaduke's evil opinion of his own race. I suspect, too, he entertained a morbid notion that his own life and that of his relative were somehow bound up together in one; and on the few occasions when I ever saw him moved to wrath, a similarity—mental as well as physical—between him and his uncle became apparent, which actually inspired him with a sort of awe and hatred of himself. A noble mind more injured and misshapen by ill-training it was impossible to imagine. For the last few months, however, as I have said, it had been growing aright, and gaining strength and vigour. No home—even Mr. Clint and my tutor felt that—could possibly be better adapted for him than his present one; the society of Mr. Gerard, a man independent almost to audacity, and despising the haughty and the strong with a supreme contempt, was the very tonic he needed. Rarely, however, was his uncle's name mentioned in his presence: at first, Mr. Gerard had purposely spoken of Sir Massingberd lightly and jestingly, but it was found that the subject had better be altogether avoided. It is ill to jest upon earthquakes with one who, having but just recovered from certain shocks of a volcanic nature, is not without apprehensions of more to come. This anticipation turned out to be but too well grounded. A day or two after my discovery of the baronet's poor gipsy-wife at Fairburn, whose existence was well known, I found, to both the rector and Mr. Clint, and of course to Marmaduke himself, the postman carried misfortune from me to Harley Street, although I was myself as unconscious of the fact as he. Marmaduke did not come in to luncheon from his study, as usual, and Mr. Gerard was sent with a gay message to him by Lucy, to bid him do so. He was not wanted, he was to be assured, upon his own account at all, but she was dying to hear news of Peter, whose handwriting she had perceived upon the letter that had been sent in to him that morning. Mr. Gerard found the poor lad with his eyes riveted upon an autograph that was not mine, and upon words that I would rather have cut off my hand than knowingly have sent him:

"Nephew Marmaduke,—I am told, whether falsely or not, it does not matter now, that you have not seen the letter which I previously sent to you. I think you can scarcely have done so, or you would not have dared to disobey my orders therein contained, but would have returned to Fairburn long ago. At all events, you will read this with your own eyes, and beware how you hesitate to comply with it. Return hither, sir, at once. It is idle to suppose that I wish you harm, as those you are with would fain persuade you; but it is far worse than idle to attempt to cross my will. Come back to Fairburn, and I will behave towards you as though you had not acted in your late undutiful manner. Delay to do so, and be sure that you will still have to return, but under very different circumstances. Marmaduke Heath, you should know me well by this time. When I say 'Come,' it is bad for the person to whom I speak to reply, 'I will not come.' I give you twenty-four hours to arrive here after the receipt of this letter; when these have elapsed without my seeing you, I shall consider your absence to be equivalent to a contumacious refusal. Then war will begin between us; and the strife will be unequal, Nephew Marmaduke; although you had fifty men at your back like lawyer Clint and this man Gerard, they could not keep you from my arm. It will reach you wheresoever you are, at the time you least suspect it, and from the quarter to which you have least looked. However well it may seem to be with you, it will not be well. When you think yourself safest, you will be most in danger. There is indeed but one place of safety for you: come you home.

"MASSINGBERD HEATH."

The wily baronet had fooled me, and doubtless, when I rose to light the taper, had substituted the above letter for that which he had persuaded me to enclose to his unhappy nephew.

CHAPTER III.

BEFORE THE BLOW.

As yet in ignorance of the mischief which I had unwittingly done to my dearest friend, I could not but wonder why I received no news from Harley Street. I had confessed to Mr. Long what Sir Massingberd had persuaded me to do, and although he had thought me wrong to have acted without consulting him in the matter, he anticipated no evil consequences. He rather sought to laugh me out of my own forebodings and presentiments. Still there was this somewhat suspicious corroboration of them, that the newborn courtesies of our formidable neighbour had suddenly ceased, as though the end for which they had been used was already attained. The baronet's manner towards us was as surly as ever, and even a trifle more so, as if to recompense himself for his previous constrained politeness. To myself, his manner was precisely that of a man who does not attempt to conceal his contempt for one whom he has duped. Since Marmaduke's departure, there had gone forth various decrees, injunctions, and what not, from the Court of Chancery, obtained doubtless through Mr. Clint, on behalf of the heir-presumptive, against certain practices of Sir Massingberd connected with the estate. Formerly he had done what he chose, not only with "his own," but with what was not his own in the eye of the law. But Marmaduke's reversionary rights were now strictly protected. Not a tree in the park could fell beneath the axe, but the noise thereof reached the Chancellor's ears, and brought down reproof, and even threats, upon the incensed baronet. His hesitation to institute proceedings for the recovery of his ward, had given confidence to his opponents; and Mr. Gerard was not one to suffer the least wrong to be committed with impunity; it was out of his pocket that the expenses came for the edicts necessary to enforce compliance, and I have heard him say that he never remembered to have spent any money with greater personal satisfaction.

This "thinning the timber" (as Sir Massingberd euphoniously termed cutting down the most ornamental trees, in his excusatory despatches), having been put a stop to, the squire took to selling the family plate. A quantity of ancient silver, with the astonished Griffins upon it, was transferred from the custody of Gilmore to that of certain transmuters of metal in town, and came back again to Fairburn Hall in the shape of gold pieces. But even the melting-pot was compelled to disclose its secrets; and the squire received such a severe reprimand upon the text of heirlooms, as made him writhe with passion, and which put an end to any friendly connection that might have before existed between himself and John, Lord Eldon, at once and for ever. I think it must have been immediately after the receipt of that very communication, that Sir Massingberd came over to the rectory upon the following errand. Mr. Long and myself were at our "Tacitus" in the study one evening, when the baronet was announced, and I rose to leave the room. "Stay where you are, young gentleman," said he roughly; "what I have to say will, it is like enough, soon be no secret to anybody. Mr. Long, I must tell you at once that money I must have. The way in which my property is meddled with by the lawyer in London, set on to do it by friends of yours, too, is beyond all bearing. I declare to you, that I—Sir Massingberd Heath, the nominal owner of twenty thousand acres, and of a rent-toll of half as many thousand pounds—have not five guineas in my pocket at this moment, nor do I know how to raise them. Now, am I a man, think you, to sit down with my hands before me, and submit to such a state of things as this?"

"Really, Sir Massingberd, I cannot say," returned my tutor; "I cannot see how I can help you in anyway."

"Yes, you can help me, sir. You have influence with those persons—curse them!—who have taken it in hand to do me these injuries, who have interfered between uncle and nephew, between guardian and ward. Now, I have made up my mind what I will do, and I am come here to let you know it. You pretend to entertain some regard towards your late pupil, Marmaduke."

"The regard is genuine, Sir Massingberd. I wish others entertained the like, who are more nearly connected with him than by the bond of pupil and tutor."

"Pray put me out of the question," returned the baronet coolly. "What I have to say concerns others, not myself. You like this lad, and wish him well; you hope for him an unclouded future; you trust that the character of the family will be redeemed in his virtuous hands, and that the remembrance of what it has been will not cleave to him, but will gradually die out."

"That is my earnest desire," replied Mr. Long, gravely.

"I am glad to hear it," continued the other; "and I suppose Mr. Clint cherishes some similar notion; and this man Gerard—this rebel, this hypocrite——"

"Sir Massingberd Heath," said I, interrupting him, "you have bidden me stay here; but I shall not remain to listen to slanders against Mr. Harvey Gerard; he is no hypocrite, but a very honest and kind-hearted man."

"He has hoodwinked this young wise-acre already, you see," pursued the baronet. "His object is evidently to secure the heir of Fairburn for his daughter; I have not the least doubt the jade is making play with the poor molly-coddle as fast as——"

Mr. Long and myself both rose before the speaker could finish the sentence. My tutor checked with his finger the wrathful words that were at my lips, and observed with energy: "Sir Massingberd, be silent! Under my roof, you shall not traduce that virtuous and excellent young girl."

I never saw Mr. Long so excited; I never admired him so much. The baronet paused, as though hesitating whether it was worth while to indulge himself in uttering insults; I am thankful to say he decided that it was not. It would have been pollution to Lucy Gerard's name to have heard it spoken by such lips.

"Well, well," returned he, "I have nothing to say against the young woman. It is probable, however, you will allow, that some attachment may arise between herself and my nephew. You grant that, do you? Ah, I thought so. In that case, Mr. Gerard would prefer the husband of his daughter to be free from all stain. Good! There are three persons then, at least, all interested in my nephew's good name. Now, listen: you know something, parson, of the mode of life pursued by the Heaths from generation to generation; you know something of the deeds that have been committed at Fairburn Hall. What is known, however, is honourable and harmless compared to what is not known; the vices which you have shuddered at are mere follies—the offspring of idleness and high spirits—compared to those of which you have yet to hear."

It is impossible to imagine a more repulsive spectacle than this man presented, exulting not only in his own wickedness, but in that of his forefathers. He took from his pocket a huge manuscript, and thus proceeded:—"The records of the House of Heath are red with blood, and black with crime. I hold them in my hand here, and they are very pretty reading. Now, look you, I will leave them here for your perusal, parson—they have at least this attraction about them, they are true—and when you have made yourself master of the contents, perhaps you can recommend to me a publisher."

"Is it possible," cried my tutor, "that you can do this dreadful wrong at once to ancestors and descendant? Have you no mercy even for kith and kin? Do you dare to defy God and Man alike?"

"I dare publish that pamphlet, unless I have money," quoth Sir Massingberd scornfully, "and that is the sole question with which we need now concern ourselves. A pretty welcome young Sir Marmaduke will meet with when he comes into the country among all who know his family history. As for me, my character is one which is not likely to suffer from any disclosure."

"Are all the murders done and attempted set down here, Sir Massingberd?" inquired my tutor, taking up the pamphlet "The catalogue of crime is truly frightful; but you do not seem to have brought the narrative down to the most recent dates."

"The most recent dates?" reiterated the baronet mechanically.

"Yes, sir," responded my tutor, "the history is evidently incomplete. If it should come out in its present form, it would need an appendix. I would scarcely recommend you to run the risk of another person publishing a continuation. You had better take it home, and reconsider the matter."

The baronet affected to receive this advice in earnest, and retired, foiled and furious.[1] He never more set foot in the Rectory, save twice; once when he called upon me, and persuaded me to forward that hateful letter to Marmaduke, and again upon the occasion I am about to describe. The errand he then came upon was of small consequence, but the circumstance I shall never forget. After-events have made it one of the most memorable in my life, for it was the last time, save one, that I ever beheld Massingberd Heath. Little did I think what a mystery was then impending—so frightful, so unexampled, that it now seems almost strange that it did not visibly overshadow that giant form, that ruthless face. If we could thus read the future of others, how fearful would be many a meeting which is now so conventional and commonplace! It is true that we should always part, both from friends and from enemies, in some sort as though we were parting with them for the last time; but how different a leave-taking would it be, if we were indeed assured that they and we would meet no more upon this side the grave! How I should have devoured that man with mine eyes, had I known that they would not again behold him—save one awful Once—before we should both stand together in the presence of God! What terrors, what anxieties, what enigmas were about to be brought to us and to others by the morrow's sun! Yet, at the time, with what little things we occupied ourselves! It was in the morning that Sir Massingberd paid his visit—a morning of early November, when the first sharp frost had just set in. He came about money matters, as usual. We were surprised to see him, because, as I have said, he had relapsed into his accustomed stern unsociable habits, and had seemed to have given up all attempts to gain any furtherance of his plans from Mr. Long. He had called he said, about a matter that affected the parson himself, or he would not have troubled him. Certain Methodists had offered him twenty pounds a year as the ground-rent of a chapel to be built upon the outskirts of the Park, and within view of the Rectory windows. For his part, he hated the Methodists; and had no sort of wish to offend Mr. Long by granting their prayer. Still, being grievously in want of money, he had come to say that if Mr. Clint could not be induced to give him some pecuniary help, the chapel must be built.

My tutor, who had a very orthodox abhorrence of all dissent, and especially when it threatened his own parish, was exceedingly disturbed by this intelligence.

"What!" cried he; "you preach to your nephew doctrines of Conservatism, Sir Massingberd, and yet are induced for a wretched bribe to let a nest of sectaries be built in the very avenue of your Park!"

"It is terrible indeed," quoth the baronet drily; "but they might set it up opposite my front door for an extra five-pound note. I announce their offer solely on your account. They call on me to-morrow for my final decision, and I cannot afford to say, 'No.' Now, you can do what you please with Mr. Clint, and may surely represent to him that this is a case where twenty pounds may be well expended. The matter will thus be staved off for a year at least; and next year, you know, I may be in better circumstances—or dead, which many persons would greatly prefer."

"Certainly," returned my tutor gravely, "I will do my best with Mr. Clint; but in the meantime, rather than let this chapel be built, I will advance the money you mention at my own risk. I happen to have a considerable sum in the house at present, which I intended to lodge with the bank at Crittenden to-morrow. So you shall have the notes at once."

"That is very fortunate," said the baronet, coolly; and Mr. Long counted them out into his hand—twenty flimsey, but not yet ragged, one-pound notes, for the imitation of the like of which half-a-dozen men were at that time often strung up in front of the Old Bailey together. From 82961 to 82980 the numbers ran, which—albeit I am no great hand at recollecting such things—I shall remember, from what followed, as long as I live. I can see the grim Squire now, as he rolls them tightly up, and places them in that huge, lapelled waistcoat-pocket; as he slaps it with his mighty hand, as though he would defy the world to take them from him, however unlawfully acquired; as he leaves the room with an insolent nod, and clangs across the iron road with his nailed shoes.

I watch him through the Rectory window, as, ere he puts the key in his garden-door, he casts a chance look-up at the sky. He looks to see what will happen on the morrow. Does he read nothing save Continuance of Fine and Frosty Weather? Nothing. All is blue and clear as steel; not a cloud to be seen the size of a man's hand from north to south, from east to west. There is no warning to be read in the cold and smiling heaven; no "Mene, mene," for this worse than Belshazzar on its broad cerulean wall!

[1] Years afterwards I became possessed of the pamphlet in question, which, having glanced at, I very carefully committed to the flames. I do not doubt, however, that Sir Massingberd would have carried his threat into execution, had not Mr. Long's menace shaken his purpose.

CHAPTER IV.

LOST.

The morning subsequent to Sir Massingberd's visit to the Rectory was bright, but intensely cold. I was very particular about my shaving in those days, and would not have dispensed with that manly exercise upon any account; but I remember that the frost made it a difficult process. In the course of the ceremony, Mrs. Myrtle, who was a very privileged person, knocked softly at my door. A visit from her at such a time was unusual, but not unprecedented. I said, "Pray, come in." My attire was tolerably complete, and perhaps I was not indisposed to let people know what tremendous difficulties were entailed upon a gentleman by the possession of an obstinate beard. I was not prepared for her closing the door behind her, sinking into the nearest chair, and fanning herself, as though it had been midsummer, with her outspread fingers. I looked at her with a face all soap-suds and astonishment.

"My dear Mrs. Myrtle, what is the matter?"

"Oh, don't ask me, Master Peter," cried she, although she had come for no other purpose than to be cross-questioned. "Oh, pray, don't, for it's more nor I can bear. Dearey me, if I ain't all of a twitter!"

"Nothing the matter with your master," said I, "surely? I saw him out of the window a little while ago on the lawn, talking to one of the under-keepers of the Hall."

"I dare say you did, sir," quoth Mrs. Myrtle, with one of those aggravated shudders which are generally produced by the anticipation of senna and salts. "No, master's all well, thank Heaven."

"No bad news from Harley Street?" exclaimed I, laying down my razor in a tremor. "I trust Miss...—I mean that Mr. Marmaduke is as he should be."

"For all that I know to the contrary, he is, sir," returned the housekeeper; "and likewise all friends" Mrs. Myrtle laid such an accent upon "friends" that my mind naturally rushed to the opposite.

"You don't mean to say," said I, "that anything has happened to Sir Massingberd?"

Mrs. Myrtle had no voice to speak, but she nodded a number of times in compensation.

"Is he DEAD?" asked I, very solemnly, for it was terrible to think of sudden death in connection with that abandoned man.

"Wus than dead, sir," returned the housekeeper; "many times wus than dead; Heaven forgive me for saying so. Sir Massingberd is LOST."

"Lost!" repeated I; "how? where?"

"There is only One knows that, Master Peter; but the Squire is not at the Hall, that's certain; he never returned there last night, after he had gone his rounds in the preserves. He spoke with Bradford and two more of the keepers, and bade them keep a good look-out as usual; but he did not come to the watchers in the Home Plantation. He never got so near the house as that; nobody saw him since midnight. Gilmore put out his cigars and spirits as usual for him in his room; but they are untouched. The front-door was not fastened on the inside; Sir Massingberd never came in."

Here I heard Mr. Long calling upon the stairs in a voice very different from his customary cheerful tones, for Mrs. Myrtle.

"Mercy me, I wonder whether there's anything new!" cried she, rising with great alacrity. "As soon as I knows it, you shall know it, Master Peter;" with which generous promise she hurried from the room.

After this intelligence, shaving became an impossibility, and I hurried down as soon as I could into the breakfast-room. My tutor was standing at the window very thoughtful, and though he greeted me with his usual hilarity, it struck me that it was a little forced.

"Why, you are early this morning, Peter; and how profusely you have illustrated yourself with cuts; it is sad to see one so young with such a shaky hand. One would think you were one of the five-bottle-men, like Sir—like Lord Stowell."

He had been about to say "Sir Massingberd," I knew, and would on ordinary occasions not have hesitated to do so.

"De perditis nil nisi bonum?" quoth I inquiringly.

"Oh, so you have heard of this nine hours' wonder, have you?" returned my tutor. "Because our neighbour has chosen to leave home for a little, on some private business best known to himself, everybody will have it that he is Lost."

"But it does seem very extraordinary too," said I, "does it not? He has never done so before, has he?"

"Not in all the years he has lived in Fairburn," returned my tutor musingly.

"And he made no preparations, I suppose, for departure, did he? Took no clothes with him?"

"Nothing, nothing," interrupted Mr. Long, pacing the room to and fro, with his hand to his forehead. "But he had money, you know; he was eager to get that money yesterday."

"Then he would probably have hired a vehicle," urged I; "Sir Massingberd is not the man to use his own legs, beyond the limit, that is, of his own lands. You have heard him say that he would never be seen on the road without four horses."

Mr. Long continued his walk without reply, but I thought I perceived that he was not unwilling to have the subject discussed. He seemed to be eager to take as light a view of the matter as possible, although like one who contends against his own more sombre convictions. I, on the contrary, had that leaning towards the gloomy and mysterious not uncommon with young persons, and both imagined the worst, and endeavoured to picture it.

"He went out after the poachers did he not?" said I.

"Yes, as usual," replied my tutor; "he has done it before, scores of times."

"The pitcher goes often to the well, but is broken at last," returned I. "I should not be surprised if the wretched man has been murdered by some of those against whom he waged such unceasing war."

"Then if so, he must have been shot, Peter," returned the rector hastily: "without firearms, it would have been hard to dispose of the gigantic baronet, armed as he doubtless was with his life-preserver. Now no gun has been heard to go off by any one, although it was thought that Sir Massingberd expected some raid to be made last night, by the gipsies or others; at all events, he seemed more alert than usual, Oliver tells me."

The gipsies! My heart sank within me, as I thought of Rachel Liversedge consumed with the wrongs of her "little sister;" and of the young man, relative of that unhappy Carew whose life had been sworn away through the Squire's machinations. I had seen nothing of them since my memorable interview, but it was like enough that the tribe were yet in the neighbourhood. True, they had waited so long for vengeance, that it was not probable they should have set about it at this time; but if Sir Massingberd had really come across them alone, while they were committing a depredation, violence might easily enough have ensued; and if violence, murder. I was very glad that Mrs. Myrtle came in at this juncture with the eggs and buttered toast, and concealed my embarrassment.

"No news, sir," said she lugubriously, as she placed the delicacies upon the table. "The last words were, 'Nothing has been heard of him.'" The housekeeper had established a system of communication by help of her kitchen-maid and the stable-lad at the Hall, whereby she received bulletins, every quarter of an hour or so, with respect to Sir Massingberd's mysterious disappearance.

"Well, no news is good news, you know," responded Mr. Long gaily. "We should always look upon the bright side of things, Mrs. Myrtle."

"Yes, sir; but when a thing ain't got a bright side," remarked the housekeeper, shaking her head. "Why, it's dreadful now he's Lost; and it would be dreadful even if, after all, he was al——"

"Hush, hush, Mrs. Myrtle; you don't know but you may be speaking of a poor soul that is gone to his account. Sir Massingberd is doubtless a bad man; but let us not call it dreadful if he should be permitted to return among us, and have some time yet, it may be, to repent in."

"Then you think he's dead and gone, do you, sir? Well, that's what I think, and that's what Patty thinks too, and she's a very reasonable girl. 'Them ravens,' says she to me, 'didn't come to that church-tower for nothing;' and though, of course, I told her to hold her tongue, and not talk folly like that, there was a good deal in what she said. Why, we have not had ravens here since Sir Wentworth came to his awful end in London; there was a mystery about that too, wasn't there, sir? Lawk-a-mercy! Mr. Meredith, you gave me quite a turn."

I had only said "Look there!" and pointed to the window, through which Gilmore and the head-keeper were seen approaching the Rectory, and engaged in close conversation.

"I'll go with Patty, and let them in," quoth Mrs. Myrtle, unconsciously betraying that she was unequal to opening the door alone, in such an emergency. It is probable that, when it was opened, the incomers and she had a great deal to talk about, for they were not ushered into the breakfast-room for many minutes, and after the very moderate meal which sufficed us both upon the occasion had long been finished. The butler and Oliver Bradford were by no means good friends, and it must have been something portentous indeed which brought them to the Rectory together. It was, in fact, their very rivalry which had produced the double visit. Each conceived himself to be the superior minister of the absent potentate, and called upon, by that position, to act in his master's behalf, and give notice to neighbouring powers, such as the parson, of the event that had paralyzed affairs at the Hall. It seemed only natural (as he himself subsequently expressed it) to Oliver Bradford, who had been servant, man and boy, to the Heath family for nearly sixty years, that he should be the spokesman on an occasion such as this, and sleeking his scanty white hairs over his forehead with the palm of his hand, and passing the back of it across his mouth, he commenced as follows:—

"Muster Long, I make bold to come over here, having been upon the property going on for three-score years and ten——"

"As out-door servant," interrupted Mr. Gilmore, severely; "but not as confidential in any way. Mr. Long, this old man here insisted upon accompanying me in the performance of my duty, and I have humoured him."

"You've what?" cried the ancient keeper; "you've humoured me, you oily knave, have you? No, no, you never did that to Oliver Bradford. It wasn't worth your while. I come here about my master's business as a matter of right. Are a few years of truckling, and helping the devil's hand, and feathering your own nest pretty comfortably, to be weighed against a lifetime of honest service? Let Mr. Long here decide."

"Look here, men," quoth my tutor, "it is no use quarrelling about precedence. You are both in the same service, and owe the same duty to your master. I know what has happened in a general way, and require no long story from either of you. But you have doubtless each of you some information concerning this matter peculiar to your own positions, and I will ask you to communicate it in time. Twelve hours have not elapsed since your master's disappearance, a very short time surely to set it down so decidedly to some fatal accident."

"He was as regular in his rounds as clockwork," interposed the old keeper, shaking his head; "he would never have left the Home Spinney unvisited last night, if life had been in him."

"And if he had meant to leave Fairburn of his own head," added the butler, "he would have come back for his brandy before he started; for all his hearty look, Sir Massingberd could not get on long without that; and he would not have taken Grimjaw out with him neither."

"Oh, the dog was with him, was it?" said my tutor, musing.

"It was not in the house, sir," replied Gilmore, "after Sir Massingberd had left. I went to make the fire in his sitting-room, and I noticed that the creature was neither on the hearthrug, nor under the sofa, as is usually the case. I don't know when I have known the dog go out with him o' nights before. When I went to open the front door as usual this morning, there was Grimjaw, nigh frozen to death."

"Your master had made no sort of preparation, so far as you know, for his own departure anywhere?"

"None whatever. I set out his cigars for him, and I noticed that he had only put two in his case, a sure sign that he meant to return soon. He had no greatcoat, although it was bitter cold."

"Was he armed in any way?"

"No, sir; that is to say, he had his life-preserver, of course, but no gun or pistol."

"Had he any sum of money, or valuables of any kind about him, Gilmore?"

"I don't think that is at all likely," replied the butler, grinning. "We haven't seen money at the Hall this many a day. As for valuables, Sir Massingberd had his big gold chain on, with a silver watch at the end of it, borrowed from me years ago, and my property."

It was remarkable how this ordinarily cautious and discreet person was changed in manner, as though he was well assured that he would never more have a master over him. Both Mr. Long and myself observed this.

"What time was your master usually accustomed to return home from his rounds in the preserves?"

"I did not sit up for him in general," returned Gilmore; "but when I have chanced to be awake, and to hear him come in, it was never later than three o'clock. His ordinary time was about half-past twelve, but it depended on what time he started. He left the Hall last night at about ten, and should, therefore, have returned a little after midnight. I never set eyes on him since nine o'clock, when he was in his own sitting-room reading."

"And when did you see him last, Bradford?"

"When did I see Sir Massingberd Heath?" replied the old keeper, who had been chafing with impatience through his rival's evidence—"well, I see'd him last nine hours ago, at nearly twelve o'clock at night. I was on watch in the Old Plantation, and he came upon me sudden, as usual, with his long quick stride."

"Was there anything at all irregular about his manner or appearance; anything in the least degree different from what you always saw upon these occasions?"

"Nothing, whatever, sir. Look you, I knew my master well," [He had already begun to talk of him in the past tense!] "I could tell at a glance when he was put out more than usual, or when he had anything out of ordinary in hand; he never swore, saving your reverence's presence, what you may call freely then. He might have knocked one down, likely enough, if you gave him the least cross, but he was not flush of his oaths. Now I never heard him in a better fettle in that respect than he was last night. He cussed the lad Jem Meyrick, who had come up to me away from Davit's Copse for a light to his pipe; and he cussed me too, for giving it him, up hill and down dale, and in particular he cussed Grimjaw for being so old and slow that he couldn't keep up with him. Sir Massingberd never waited for him, of course; but after he'd been with us a few minutes, the old dog came up puffin' and wheezin'; and when the Squire left us, it followed him as well as it could, but with the distance getting greater between them at every step. I watched them, for the moon made it almost as light as day, going straight for the Wolsey Oak, which was the direct way for the Home Spinney; and that was where Sir Massingberd meant to go last night, although he never got there, or leastways the watcher never saw him.

"Have you any reason to believe, keeper, that there were poachers in any part of the preserves last night?"

"No, sir," replied Oliver, positively. "On the contrary, I knows there wasn't, although Sir Massingberd was as suspicious of them as usual, or more so. Why, with Jack Larrup and Dick Swivel both in jail, and all the Larchers sent out of the parish, and Squat and Burchall at sea, where was they to come from?"

"Sir Massingberd must have had many enemies?" mused my tutor.

"Ay, indeed, sir," replied old Oliver, pursing his lips; "he held his own with the strong hand; so strong, however, as no man would contend against him. If Sir Massingberd has been killed, Mr Long, it was not in fair fight; he was too much feared for that."

"There has been a gang of gipsies about the place this long time, has there not?" quoth my tutor.

"There has, sir; but don't you think of gipsies and this here matter of Sir Massingberd as having anything to do with one another. They're feeble, feckless bodies at the best. They ain't even good poachers, although my master always bid us beware of them. They would no more have ventured to meddle with the squire, than a flock of linnets would attack a hawk, that's certain."

My tutor had been setting down on paper brief notes of his conversation with these two men; but he now put the writing away from him, and inquired what steps, in their judgment, ought to be taken in the matter, and when.

"You know your master better than I. If he chanced to come back this afternoon, or to-morrow, or next day, from any expedition he may have chosen to undertake, would he not be much annoyed at any hue and cry having been made after him?"

"That he just would," observed the keeper with emphasis.

"I would not have been the man to make the fuss," remarked the butler, sardonically, "for more money than he has paid me these ten years."

"In a word," observed my tutor, "you are both come here to shift the responsibility of a public search from your own shoulders to mine. Very good. I accept it. Let sufficient hands be procured at once, Bradford, to search the Chase and grounds, and drag the waters. And you, Gilmore, must accompany me, while I set seals on such rooms as may seem necessary up at the Hall."

The butler was for moving away on the instant with a "Very well, sir," but Mr. Long added, "Please to wait in Mrs. Myrtle's parlour for me. We must go together."

"I don't like the look of that man Gilmore at all, sir," observed I, when the two had left the room.

"No, nor I, Peter," returned my tutor, sententiously, as he set about collecting tapes and sealing-wax; "I am afraid he is a rogue in grain."

Now, that was not by any means, or rather was very far short of, what I meant to imply; what I had had almost upon my burning lips was, "Don't you think he has murdered Sir Massingberd?" But the moment had gone by for putting the question, even if Mr. Long had not begun to whistle—a sure sign with him that he did not wish to speak upon the matter any further, just at present.

CHAPTER V.

THE STONE GARDEN.

When Mr. Long took his departure with Gilmore, he did not ask me to accompany him, and assist in an undertaking which was likely to be somewhat laborious. Perhaps he wished if the baronet did chance to return in a fury, that he alone should bear the brunt of it. Perhaps he thought there might be things at the Hall I had better not see, or perhaps he wished to observe the butler's behaviour at leisure. I think, however, he could scarcely have expected me to stay at home with my books, while such doings as he had directed were on the point of taking place. Euripides was doubtless in his day a sensation dramatist, but the atrocities of Medea could not enchain me, with so much dreadful mystery afoot in my immediate neighbourhood. Her departure through the air in a chariot drawn by winged dragons, was indeed a striking circumstance; but how much more wonderful was the disappearance of Sir Massingberd, who had departed no man knew how!

The news had spread like wildfire through the village. Numbers of country folk were hanging about the great gates of the avenue, drinking in the impromptu information of the lodge-keeper; but they did not venture to enter upon the forbidden ground. The universal belief among them was, I found, that their puissant lord would soon reveal himself. Doubting Castle, it was true, was for the present without its master; but it was too much to expect that he would not return to it. The whole community resembled prisoners in that fortress, who, although temporarily relieved of the tyrant's presence, had little hope but that he was only gone forth upon a ramble, and would presently return with renewed zest for human flesh. The general consternation, however, was extreme, and such as would probably not have been excited by the sudden and unexplained removal of a far better man. The rumour had already got abroad that there was to be an immediate search in the park, and that Oliver Bradford had been empowered to select such persons as he thought fit to assist in the same. There were innumerable volunteers for this undertaking, principally on account of the excessive attraction of the work itself, which promised some ghastly revelation; and secondarily, for the mere sake of getting into Fairburn Chase at all—a demesne as totally unknown to the majority of those present as the Libyan Desert. The elders indeed remembered the time when a public footpath ran right through the Chase, "close by the Heronry, and away under the Wolsey Oak, and so through Davit's Copse, into the high road to Crittenden," said one, "whereby a mile and a half was wont to be saved." "Ay, or two mile," quoth another; "and Lawyer Moth always said as though the path was ours by right, until Sir Massingberd got his son made a king's clerk in London, which shut his mouth up and the path at the same time."

"Ay," said a third, mysteriously, "and it ain't too late to try the matter again, in case the property has got into other hands."

This remark brought back at once the immediate cause of their assembling together, and I began to be made the victim of cross-examination. To avoid being compelled to give my own opinion (which I had already begun to think a slander) upon the matter in hand, I took my leave as quietly as could be, and escaped, whither they dared not follow me, through the griffin-guarded gates. All within was, as usual, silent and deserted. A few leaves were still left to flutter down in eddies from the trees, or hop and rustle on the frosty ground, but their scarcity looked more mournful than utter bareness would have done. It was now the saddest time of all the year; the bleak east wind went wailing overhead; and underneath, the soil was black with frost. Instead of pursuing the avenue to the frontdoor of the Hall, where, as it seemed, I was not wanted, I took a foot-track to the left, which I knew led to that bowling-green whither I had been previously invited by Sir Massingberd, although I had not taken advantage of his rare courtesy. If he did now appear, no matter in what state of mental irritation, he could scarcely quarrel with me for doing the very thing he had asked me to do. Had I known, however, the character of the place in which I found myself, I should have reserved my visit for a less eerie and mysterious occasion.

The time of year, it is true, had no unfavourable influence upon the scene that presented itself, for all was clothed in garments of thickest green. Vast walls of yew shut in on every side a lawn of perfect smoothness; everything proclaimed itself to belong to that portion of the Hall property which was "kept up" by subsidy from without. The quaint oak-seats, though old, were in good repair; the yew hedges clipped to a marvel. Still nothing could exceed the sombre and funereal aspect of the spot. It seemed impossible that such a sober game as bowls could ever have been played there, or jest and laughter broken that awful stillness. The southern yew-screen was in a crescent form, at the ends of which were openings unseen from within the enclosed space. Passing through one of these, I came upon what was called the Stone Garden. It took its name from four stone terraces, from the highest of which I knew that there must be a very extensive view. This space was likewise covered with yew trees, clipped and cut in every conceivable form, after the vile taste of the seventeenth century. There was something weird in the aspect of those towering Kings and Queens—easily recognizable, however, for what they were intended—and of those maids of honour, with their gigantic ruffs and farthingales. One was almost tempted to imagine that they had been human once, and been turned into yew trees for their sins. The whole area was black with them; and a sense of positive oppression, notwithstanding the eager air which caught me sharply whenever I lost the shelter of one of these ungainly forms, led me on to the top terrace, where one could breathe freely, and have something else than yews to look upon.

Truly, from thence the scene was wide and fair. I stood at that extremity of the pleasure-grounds most remote from the Hall, and with my back to it. Before me lay a solitary tract of wooded park, thickly interspersed with planted knolls and coppices. Immediately beneath me was the thicket called the Home Spinney, the favourite haunt of hare and pheasant, and the spot in all the Chase most cherished by Sir Massingberd. He would have resented a burglary, I do believe, with less of fury than any trespass upon that sacred ground. Beyond the Spinney, and standing by itself, far removed from any other tree, was the famous Wolsey Oak. Why called so, I have not the least idea, for it had the reputation of being a vast deal older than the days of the famous Cardinal. Many a summer had it seen—

"When the monk was fat,
And issuing shorn and sleek,
Would twist his girdle tight, and pat
The girls upon the cheek;
Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's Pence,
And numbered bead and shrift,
Bluff Harry broke into the spence,
And turned the cowls adrift."

Yet still was it said to be as whole and sound as a bell. It was calculated to measure over fourteen yards in circumference, and that for many feet from its base; while its height, although it had lost some of its upper branches, still far exceeded that of any other of its compeers. Beyond this tree, but at another great interval, was the wood known as the Old Plantation, where Oliver Bradford had last seen his master alive. I was looking down, then, upon the very route which Sir Massingberd had been seen to commence, but which he had never ended. It was to the Home Spinney he had been apparently bound, when something—none knew what—had changed his purpose. He would probably have passed through it, and come up by that winding path yonder to the spot where I now stood; it was the nearest way home for him. Perhaps he had done so, although it was unlikely, since the watcher had not seen him. Perhaps those very yews behind me had concealed his murderers. Shut in by those unechoing walls of living green, no cry for aid would have been heard, even if Sir Massingberd had been the man to call for it; he would most certainly have never asked for mercy. But hark! what was that sound that froze the current of my blood, and set my heart beating and fluttering like the wings of a prisoned bird against its cage? Was it a strangled cry for "Help!" repeated once, twice, thrice, or was it the wintry wind clanging and grinding the naked branches of the Spinney? A voice had terrified me in Fairburn Chase once before, which had turned out to be no mere fancy; but there was this horror about the present sound, that I seemed to dimly recognize it. It was the voice of Sir Massingberd Heath, with an awful change in it, as if a powerful hand were tightening upon his throat. It seemed, as I have said, to come from the direction of the copse beneath, and yet I determined to descend into it, rather than thread again the mazes of those melancholy yews. The idea of my assistance being really required never entered into my thoughts; what I wanted was to escape from this solitude, peopled only with unearthly cries, and regain the companionship of my fellow-creatures. How I regretted having left the society of those honest folk outside the gates! To remain where I was, was impossible; I should have gone mad. Fortunately, the Spinney was well-nigh leafless, and a bright but wintry sun penetrated it completely. I fled over its withered and frosted leaves, looking neither to left nor right, till I leaped the deep ditch that formed its southern boundary, and found myself in the open; then I stopped indeed quite short, for, before me, not ten paces from the Spinney, from which he must have just emerged, lay the body of Grimjaw. It was still warm, but lifeless. There were no marks of violence about him; the struggle to extricate himself from the ditch, it is probable, had cost the wretched creature his little remaining vitality, weakened as he must have doubtless been by his previous night's lodging on the cold stone steps. But how had he come thither, who never moved anywhere out of doors, except with Sir Massingberd or Gilmore? and whither, led perhaps by some mysterious instinct, was he going when death had overtaken him—an easy task—and glazed that solitary eye, which had witnessed so much which was still a mystery to man?

Was it possible that he had perished in endeavouring to obey his master's cry for aid? that terrible "Help! help!" which rang in my ears a while ago, as I stood in the Stone Garden, and which rings, through half a century, in them now?

CHAPTER VI.

THE SEARCH.

Shrinking away from the body of the unhappy Grimjaw, and fleeing from the solitary spot in which it lay, I ran down towards the Heronry, where, in the distance, I could now perceive a number of persons assembled upon the lake-side. Below and above it, the stream flowed on as usual; but the larger area of water which contained the island, was frozen over with a thin coating of ice. This was being broken by men armed with long and heavy poles, after which the work of dragging the water was commenced. The scene was as desolate as the occupation was ghastly and depressing. Perched upon stony slabs of their now leafless home, the huge birds watched the proceedings with grave and serious air: at first, they imagined, I think, that the thing was done for their own behoof, and to the end that they might supply themselves with fish as usual; but the appearance of the grappling-irons disabused them of this idea. Now one, and now another, unable to restrain their curiosity, would rise slowly and warily into the air, and making a circuit over our heads, return to their old position to reflect, with head aside, upon what they had seen. The presence as spectators of these gigantic creatures, certainly increased the weird and awful character of the employment in which we were engaged, and struck quite a terror into the village folk, who were unaccustomed to see them in such close proximity. Still the work was not gone about by any means in reverent and solemn silence. If any man wishes his neighbours to speak their mind about him thoroughly and unreservedly, I should say, judging from what I heard on that occasion, Let him disappear, and be dragged for. It is not so certain he is dead, that any delicacy need be exercised in telling the severest truths about him; nor yet is there sufficient chance of his reappearance to make folks reticent through fear. Only when the drags halted a little, meeting with some hidden obstruction, all tongues were silent, and pale faces clustered about the toilers, expecting that the dreadful thing they sought was about to be brought to land.

"I thought we had him then," said one of the men, after an occasion of this sort; "but it was only a piece of stone."

"It might have been his heart, for all that," muttered another, cynically; and a murmur of "Ay, that's true," went round them all.

"Has anybody been about the Home Spinney this morning?" inquired I of Oliver Bradford, who had just given up his place at the ropes to a fresh man.

"No, sir, nor last night either, as it turns out. It will be bad for somebody if Sir Massingberd does return, and finds out that the watcher who ought to have been there was wiled away elsewhere by what he thought was poachers holloing to one another—some owl's cry, as I should judge. And to-day, I doubt if a creature has been near the place, for none of my men seem to fancy going there alone."

"And who was the watcher there last night, Oliver?"

"Well, sir, we must not make mischief; he was a young chap new at the business, a sort of grand-nevvy of mine by the wife's side. He'll do better next time, will young Dick Westlock. He was over-eager, that's all. And when you hear a cry in these woods, unless you are thoroughly accustomed to them, it may lead you a pretty dance: it takes a practised ear to tell rightly where it comes from."

"You should know me better, Bradford," returned I, "than to suppose I would bring a lad to harm by mentioning such a matter; but I should like to ask him a question or two, if you will point him out."

"There he is then, sir," answered Oliver, pointing to a good-looking, honest lad enough, but one who perhaps would scarcely have been considered sufficiently old for so trustworthy a part as sentinel of the home preserves, had he not been grand-nephew to the head keeper.

"Why, Dick," said I, "your uncle telly me that you took an owl for a poacher last night, and followed his voice all over the Chase."

"It wasn't no owl," sir, quoth Dick, stoutly; "it were the voice of a man, whosoever it was."

"Don't thee be a fool," exclaimed his uncle, roughly. "I tell thee it was a bird, and called like this;" and the keeper gave a very excellent imitation of the cry of an owl.

This was not greatly unlike the sound which had so recently affrighted my own ears; but then owls rarely cry in the daytime.

"Dick," cried I, "never mind your uncle; listen to me. If you thought it was a human voice, what do you think it said?"

"Well, I can't rightly say as it said anything; it seemed to me to be a sort of wobbling in the throat; and I thought it might be a sound among some poaching fellars, made with a bird-call, or the like of that."

"Supposing it said any word at all, Dick, what word was it most like?"

Mr. Richard Westlock looked as nonplused and embarrassed as though I had propounded to him some extremely complicated riddle.

"Was it anything like 'Hel—p, hel—p?'" said I, imitating as well as I could those terrible tones.

"Bless my body," quoth Mr. Richard, slapping his legs with his hands, in admiration of my sagacity, "if them ain't the very words as it did say!"

"What think you of that, Oliver Bradford?" inquired I, gravely.

"As the bell tinks, so the fool thinks," responded the head keeper, sententiously. "If you had asked Dick whether the word wasn't 'Jerusalem,' he would have said, 'Ay, that was the very word.'"

"Still," urged I, "since there may be something more than fancy in the thing, and the voice, if it was one, could not have come from under water, let the Park woods be thoroughly searched at once. There are men enough outside the gates to do that, without suspending the work that is going on here, and why should we lose time?"

The head keeper sulkily muttered something about not wanting a caddel of people poking their noses into every part of Fairburn Chase; then with earnest distinctness, as though the thought had only just struck him, "Besides, Mr. Meredith, let me tell you that they may get to know more than is good for them."

At these words, I cast an involuntary glance at the plantation within a few hundred feet of us, in the recesses of which dwelt Sinnamenta, Lady Heath.

"You may know, sir," continued the keeper, translating my thought, "but everybody don't know, and it's much better that they shouldn't."

Certainly the objection was a grave one, and I was glad enough to perceive Mr. Long coming down from the Hall towards us, an authority by whom the question could be decided.

"You had better ask him yourself, Oliver," said I; for as my tutor had never spoken to me of the existence of the unfortunate maniac, I did not like to address him upon the subject. Bradford therefore went forward to meet him; and after they had had some talk together, Mr. Long beckoned me to him.

"I think with you, Peter," said he, "that in any case, we should lose no time in searching the Chase. If we do not discover what we seek, we can scarcely fail to find some trace of a struggle, if struggle there has been, between such a man as Sir Massingberd and whoever may have assailed him. If he has been murdered, it is, of course, just possible that the assassins threw the body into the water, although not here, since the ice would scarcely have formed over it like this; otherwise, they could not have removed it without leaving some visible trace. Do you, Bradford, and a couple of your own men, examine that plantation yonder thoroughly, so that it need not be searched again; and in the meantime I will go and fetch more help."

I have taken part in my time in many a "quest" for game, both large and little: I have sought on foot in the rook-crannies of the north for the hill-fox; I have penetrated the tangled jungles of Hindustan for tiger; I have stood alone, gun in hand, on the skirts of a tropical forest, not knowing what bird or beast the beaters within might chance at any moment to drive forth; but I have never experienced such excitement as that which I felt when, one of forty men, I walked from end to end of Fairburn Chase in search of its lost master.

In one long line, and at the distance of about twenty yards from one another, we plodded on slowly and steadily; and with eyes that left no bush unexamined. This work, which in summer would have been toil indeed, was rendered comparatively easy by the bareness of the season; the frost, too, made the swamps in the hollows safe to the tread, and the tangled underwood brittle before us. Many a sunken spot we found hidden in brake and brier, and scarcely known to the keepers themselves, such as might easily have held, and we could not but think how fitly, the Thing we feared to find, and sometimes, when one man called to his neighbours, the whole line would halt, and each could scarcely restrain himself from running in, and seeing with his own eyes what trace of the missing man it was which had provoked the exclamation. We began at the outskirts of the Park, and worked towards the Hall, so that the Home Spinney, which was the likeliest spot of all, since he had been last seen going in that direction, was reserved for the end. As the men approached it, the excitement increased; they almost ran over the large open space in which stood the Wolsey Oak, extending its gnarled and naked arms aloft, as if in horror; but when they searched the coppice itself, and found the body of Grimjaw, stiffened into stone since I last saw it, many of them were not so eager to push on. I had omitted to tell them of the wretched animal's death, and the effect of the sight upon them was really considerable.

That "the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense," is in nothing more true than in the emotion produced by the sufferings or decease of animals upon gentle folks and upon labouring persons. Greater familiarity with such spectacles, and perhaps, too, a larger experience of hardship and sorrow among his own fellow-creatures—which naturally tends to weaken his sense of pity for mere animals—prevents the peasant from being moved at all by some sights at which his superiors would be really shocked: a dead horse lying in the road is, to the stonebreaker, a dead horse, and nothing more; whereas, to him who goes by on wheels, unless he is a veterinary surgeon, the sight is positively distressing. I am sure that the spectacle of half a dozen ordinary dead dogs would not have affected Oliver Bradford, for instance, in the least, while if they had been "lurchers," and given to poaching practices, such a funereal scene would have afforded him unmixed satisfaction. But when he saw Grimjaw lying dead, and frozen, he shook his head very gravely, and bade us mark his words, "That that ere dog didn't die for nothing, but for a sign. That he would never have died, not he, if his master and constant companion had still had breath in him, and more than that, we should find, we might take his word for it, that that there body, and that of Sir Massingberd Heath, were not very far from one another."

There were murmurs of hushed and awe-struck adhesion to these remarks, but not a dissentient voice in all the company, and in a frame of mind which would now undoubtedly be called "sensational," and not in a broken line of march, as heretofore, but almost shoulder to shoulder, we entered the Home Spinney.

CHAPTER VII.

WHAT WAS IN THE COVERED CART.

If this true narrative of mine should chance to find its channel of publication in a hebdomadal periodical, and the end of the last chapter coincide with the end of the week, I am afraid I shall have unduly aroused the expectation of my readers, and kept them upon tenter-hooks during that period upon false pretences, or rather what may seem to be so. They will doubtless have promised themselves some ghastly spectacle (and I give them my honour that if they will only have patience they shall have it) to be presented in the very next page or two. It may disappoint them temporarily, to hear that though we searched the coppice, tree by tree, and left not one heap of leaves unstirred by our feet, that we found nothing, nothing. And yet I will venture to say, that if we had come upon that sight which all were so prepared for, the stiffened limbs of murdered Sir Massingberd, with his cruel face set for ever in death, and his hard eyes scowling up at the sky, it would scarcely have filled us with greater awe. It would have been a terrible sight, doubtless, but with every minute the terror would have faded, until at last it might have even melted into pity. He could at least have hurt no man more, being dead. But now that he was only Lost—still Lost—we looked at one another with dumb surprise, and over our own shoulders with misgivings. He was not above ground in all Fairburn Chase, that was certain; nor under water, for the dragging-parties had discovered no more than we. Any idea of suicide was quite out of the question; Sir Massingberd Heath was the last man to leave life before he was summoned, even if he really felt, as he averred, that there was no sort of risk in doing so. Wicked men have a tolerably high opinion of this world, notwithstanding their low views of the people that inhabit it; and the French philosopher who put an end to his not invaluable existence upon the ground that he had had enough of everything, was an exceptional case.

At the same time, the probabilities were immensely against the baronet's having voluntarily undertaken any expedition, considering the circumstances under which he must have set out—on foot, fatigued, and at so late an hour. If secrecy had been his object, it would have been far more easily secured by his departure at a less extraordinary time. In the meanwhile, day after day passed by without any tidings, and the mystery of his disappearance deepened and spread. Mr. Long was rather reserved upon the matter at first, professing to entertain little doubt that the wilful Squire would presently return, malicious and grim as ever; but as time went on, he began to grow uneasy, and seemed to find relief in conversing upon the subject, and suggesting more or less impossible contingencies.

"Do you remember, Peter," said he one morning at breakfast-time, "reading out to me, some months ago, an account of the murder of a certain lieutenant of the coast-guard by smugglers on the east coast; how he oppressed them and treated them with unnecessary cruelty for many, many months, until at last they took him away out of his bed by force, and carried him no man knew whither, and put him to death with tortures?"

"Yes," returned I, "perfectly well. They buried the poor wretch up to his neck in the sea-sand, and bowled stones at his head."

"Well, Peter, that frightful scene is constantly representing itself whenever I shut my eyes; only the head is that of Sir Massingberd. You cannot imagine how distressing it is to me now to go to bed, with the expectation of this re-enacting itself before I can get to sleep."

"Dear me, how dreadful!" returned I. "But does not the fact of your only recognizing the victim, convince you of the unreality of the thing? If you knew the faces of the smugglers, then indeed——"

"I do know them, Peter," interrupted my tutor gravely; "that is the worst of it; although it should, as you say, rather convince me of the imaginary character of the scene, since the actors in it have long been dead and gone, I believe. They are not smugglers, but gipsies. There is on Carew in particular, one unhappy man, into whose history I need not enter, but who once incurred the baronet's vengeance, and I am afraid it is but too likely perished in consequence. It is a sad story of deception on both sides; but it is certain that Sir Massingberd richly earned the hatred of the wandering people. I have no right, of course, to make any such charge, but Peter, I cannot help thinking that it is they who have made away with the Squire. I casually inquired in the village yesterday about the tribe that generally inhabit the fir-grove on the Crittenden Road, and it seems they left the place by night, on or about the very date of Sir Massingberd's disappearance."

My heart grew cold and heavy as a stone at these words, delivered though they were with vagueness, and without any threat of action to follow them, for the suspicion which my tutor now suggested had long ago taken firm root in my own mind. I would not, however, have given expression to it upon any account, and my present wish was to do away with this notion of the rector's as much as possible. I would not, perhaps, have assisted in the escape of the Cingari from punishment, if punishment they deserved, but neither would I have put out my hand to deliver them up. The law had taken its wicked will of them often enough already, and in connection with this very man.

"Those who know these people best," said I, "such as Bradford and the keepers, do not think it at all probable that they would have had the courage to face Sir Massingberd. Even if they possessed it, what could they have done but have slain him? and if slain, where have they put him to?"

"God alone knows," said my tutor solemnly; "but the man at the pike at Crittenden says, I believe, that they had a covered cart with them, which they have never been known to have before."

I murmured something to the effect that the winter was coming on, and that it was likely enough that they should have procured for themselves some peripatetic shelter of that kind; but a nameless horror took hold upon me, in spite of myself, when Mr. Long rejoined, that he should think it his duty to have the gipsies followed, and a thorough examination of their effects to be made. I had not another word to say. I seemed already to see poor old Rachel Liversedge standing in the felon's dock, avowing and glorying in her guilt, and defiant of the sentence which would consign her and hers to the same fate that had overtaken, with no such justice, Stanley Carew. Any hope of escape for them, I knew, was out of the question. They had not the means for speedy travel, while, in those days of superstition and intolerance, the Cingari were an object of animadversion and alarm, whithersoever they moved. That very day—acting upon information received concerning their present whereabouts—Mr. Long set out on horseback, accompanied by the parish constable, and Came up with the party whom he sought upon a certain common within twenty miles of Fairburn. The tribe, of whom I had only seen three grown-up members, were tolerably numerous, and the constable evinced his fitness for being a peace-officer by counselling the rector to do nothing rash, at least until reinforcements should permit of his doing so with safety. The sight, however, of the covered cart, placed, as it seemed, jealously in the very centre of the encampment, was too much for Mr. Long, who, to do him justice, was as bold as a lion, except where conventional "position," as in the case of Sir Massingberd, made him indisposed for action. He turned his horse straight for the desired object, in spite of the threatening looks of several men, who were tinkering about an immense fire, and was only stopped by the youngest of them starting up, and laying his hand imperatively upon his bridle-rein.

"Have you a warrant, Mr. Long," inquired the gipsy sternly, "that you ride through our camp, when all the rest of the common is open to you, and wish to pry into that poor place yonder, which is all we have of house and home?"

The rector had no sort of right for what he did, and was therefore proportionally indignant.

"Unhand my bridle, sirrah!" cried he. "What is your name, who seem to know mine so well, and yet who knows me so little, that you can imagine I am here in any other cause than that of Right and Justice?"

"My name is Walter Carew," replied the gipsy, still retaining his hold.

"Then that is warrant sufficient for what I do," cried my tutor excitedly, and raising his riding-whip as he spoke.

The swarthy face of the gipsy gleamed with passion, and his unoccupied right hand sought his side, as if for a weapon. Mischief would undoubtedly have ensued, but that at that moment the curtains of the covered cart were parted by a skinny hand, and the voice of Rachel Liversedge was heard bidding the young man let the bridle go, and not spill parson's blood, which was as bad as wasting milk and water. Then she added, with mock courtesy: "Pray, come hither, Mr. Long; our doors are always open, and there can be no intrusion where there are only females and sickness."

"If that be all," returned my tutor in a softened tone, for though somewhat arbitrary, as it would now be thought, towards his inferiors, he was ever gentle to the sex; "if that indeed be all, I shall not inflict my presence upon you long."[1]

With those words, he threw himself from his horse, and climbed up into the cart; it was rather a roomy one, but all that was in it was clearly to be seen at the first glance. It was carpeted with rushes a foot thick, from which Rachel Liversedge was busily engaged in weaving chair-bottoms. Opposite to her sat another female, engaged with the same articles, but constructing out of them crowns and necklaces, which, though they did not very much resemble the ornaments for which they were intended, appeared to afford her exquisite satisfaction.

"Why don't you introduce me, Rachel?" exclaimed she testily, as Mr. Long looked in. "Don't you see the gentleman is bowing? Sinnamenta—Lady Heath." The secret of the gipsies' sudden removal, as well as of their use of the vehicle which had excited his suspicions, was at once apparent to the rector.

"Is she better, happier in your custody?" inquired my tutor, in a whisper, of the chair-maker. "God knows I would not disturb her, if she be."

"My little sister is not beaten now," observed Rachel bitterly; "although, of course, we have not those luxuries with which her husband has always surrounded her."

"Only four times, Sister Rachel!" observed the afflicted one, in a tone of remonstrance, "one, two, three, four," checking them off on her poor fingers, covered with worthless gewgaws. "I don't consider Gilmore's beatings anything, only Sir Massingberd's."

"May God's curse have found him!" exclaimed Rachel Liversedge fervently; "may He have avenged her wrongs upon him at last! Don't look at me, sir, as though I were a witch wishing a good man ill. I wish I were a witch. How he should pine, and rave, and writhe, and suffer ten thousand deaths in one!"

She spoke with such hate and fury, that Mr. Long involuntarily cast once more a suspicious glance around him, as though in reality she possessed the means of vengeance which she so ardently desired. "Did you expect to find him here?" continued she. "That was it, was it? I wish you had. I would that I had his fleshless bones to show you. It is not my fault that I have them not, be sure. If there were any manliness left among my people—but there is not; they are curs all—if any memory of the persecuted and the murdered had dwelt within them, as with me, let alone this work of his," she pointed to her unconscious sister, "for which, had he done nought else, I would have torn his heart out;—he would not have lived thus long by forty years. For aught we know, however, he lives yet; only hearing he was gone, we went and took my little sister from her wretchedness, and thus will keep her if you give us leave, you Christian gentlemen. Where he may be, we know not; we only hope that in some hateful spot—in hell, if such a place there be—he may be suffering unimagined pains."

The fervour and energy of her words, however reprehensible in a moral point of view, were such as left no doubt in the mind of Mr. Long that the gipsy woman spoke truth. Assuring her, therefore, that, so far as he was concerned, she should not be molested in the custody of her unfortunate sister, my tutor rode back to Fairburn, relieved from the dread burden of his late suspicion, but more at his wit's end for an elucidation of the disappearance of Sir Massingberd than ever. Right glad was I to hear that his errand among my dusky friends had been bootless; but by the next morning's post I had received bitter news from Harley Street. A copy of that menacing epistle which I had so unwittingly enclosed to Marmaduke from his uncle, reached me from Mr. Gerard. His words were kind, and intended to be comforting. He knew, of course, that I had been deceived; he well knew, and they all knew, he said, that my hand was the last to do Marmaduke hurt, to do aught but protect and uphold him. But I could see that some grievous harm had occurred, nevertheless, through me, as Sir Massingberd's catspaw. It was more apparent to me because there was not one accompanying word from my dear friend himself, whom I knew too well to imagine capable of blaming me. It was most apparent of all because of the postscript written in Lucy's own hand—so fair, so clear, so brave, so like her own sweet self, saying that I must not reproach myself because I had been overreached by a base man. "Marmaduke will write soon," she said; "he does not love you less because he is silent upon this matter, and must be kept so for a little while." He was ill, then, thanks to my dull wits; and out of pity she had written "Marmaduke." Ah me, would I not have been ill! Would I not have welcomed kinship with a score of wicked uncles for such pity! "He does not love you less because he is silent;" was that a quotation culled from her own heart's whisperings?

"A most unfortunate business," said Mr. Long reflectively, when he had possessed himself of this intelligence. "That letter of Sir Massingberd's will undo all the good of the last twelve months. With what a devilish ingenuity for torment has he framed every phrase. ''My arm will reach you wheresoever you are; at the time you least expect it, and from the quarter to which you have least looked. However Well it may seem to be with you, it will not be Well.' How thoroughly he knew his nephew! This will make Marmaduke Heath a wretched man for life."

"Not if Sir Massingberd be dead," said I, "and can be proved to be so."

"That is true," responded my tutor, drily; then added, without, I think, intending me to hear it, "But what will be worse than anything, is this doubt as to whether he be dead or not."

I felt convinced of this too, and bowed my head in sorrow and silence. There was a long pause. Then my tutor suddenly started up, and exclaimed, with animation, "Peter, will you go with me to London? I certainly shall be doing more good there, just now, than here; and I think that your presence will be welcome, nay, needful, in Harley Street."

"I shall be ready to start this very evening," returned I, thinking of the mail which passed at night.

"We will be off within an hour," replied my tutor; "I will order posters from the inn at once. Too much time has been lost already; we should have started when Sir Massingberd himself did."

"Do you think he is gone to town, then, with any evil purpose?" inquired I, aghast.

"If he has gone at all, it is certain it is for no good," rejoined the rector, gravely. "It is more than likely that this disappearance may be nothing but a ruse to throw us off our guard. The cat that despaired of attaining her end by other means, pretended to be dead."

[1] In those days, it was not thought incumbent upon ministers of the Gospel to look after gipsy-folk, whose souls, in case they had any, were not opined to be much worth saying.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PROCESSION.

At the time of which I write, a dweller in the midlands who wanted to go to town, did not drive down to the nearest railway station, to be transported from thence by the fiery dragon to his destination. Railways had been long heard of, and indeed there was one within twenty miles of Fairburn, which we should now call a tramway only, for engine it had none. Locomotives were the subject of debate in scientific circles, and of scorn among the rest of the community. A journey such as that my tutor and myself were about to undertake, is scarcely to be understood by readers of the present generation. Not only did it consume an amount of time which would now suffice for six times the distance, but it was surrounded by difficulties and dangers that have now no existence whatever—"extinct Satans," as a writer calls them, who is now scarcely held to be "modern," but who at that time had never written a line. The coach for which Mr. Long had thought it advisable not to wait, had met in its time with a thousand-and-one strange casualties, and the guard was a very Scheherazade at relating them. The "Highflyer" had come to dreadful grief in racing with an empty stomach, but many "outsides," against its rival, the "Rapid," which traversed a portion of the same road. It had often to open both its doors, to let the water through, in crossing Crittenden Ford, by neglect of which precaution upon one occasion, four "insides" had the misfortune to be suffocated. It had been dug out of snow-drifts a hundred times, and now and then it had not been dug out, and the passengers had been frost-bitten. In winter it was usual enough for them to spend a day or two perforce at some country inn, because the roads were "not open." The "Highflyer" had once been attacked by a tiger (out of a travelling caravan), which killed the off-leader; but this was an exceptional adventure. It was attacked by highwaymen at least once a year, but in this respect was considered rather a fortunate coach. Only a few weeks previously, there had been found by the reapers, in one of Farmer Arabel's wheat-fields, mail-bags with letters containing many thousand pounds in drafts and bills, which had been taken by gentlemen of the road from the custody of the guard of the "Highflyer" in the early summer. These persons had gone into the standing wheat to divide their booty, and left there what was to them unavailable property, or too difficult to negotiate.

In the two trips I had already taken to the metropolis, I had gone by this curious conveyance, of which all Fairburn had something to say; but I was now to journey even more gloriously still: so thoroughly had Mr. Long got to be convinced that some immediate danger was imminent to Marmaduke at the hands of his uncle, that he could not bear the least unnecessary delay in giving him warning. We posted with four horses, and generally at full gallop. I agree with the Great Lexicographer in thinking that sensation very pleasurable indeed. The express-train, it is true, goes five times as fast, but you do not feel that there is any credit due to the steam-horse for that; you take it as a matter of course, and would do so, no matter what exertions it should make for you, short of bursting. But when you heard the ring of the sixteen hoofs upon the iron road, and the sharp crack of the whips in the frosty air, or leaned out of the window for a moment; and beheld the good steeds smoking in your behalf, you said to yourself, or to your companion, if you had one: "This is wonderful fine travelling." Perhaps you contrasted such great speed with that attained by the Exeter flying-coaches in your ancestors' time, and smiled with contemptuous pity at their five miles an hour, stoppages excluded.

The trees and hedges flew by you then, and gave an idea of the velocity, such as the telegraph-posts, seen vanishing thin out of the window of a railway-carriage, fail to convey; while, when you stopped for new cattle, the hurry and bustle attendant on the order, "Horses on," helped to strengthen the belief in your own fast travelling. Still, after the first few hours, even the enjoyments of a post-chaise-and-four begin to pall; and long before we had approached our destination, I was cramped, and chilled, and tired enough. It was growing dark, too, so that there was little to be seen without, and we had passed those dangerous parts of the road where expectations of possible highwaymen had afforded me some excitement. I was dozing dreamily, unconscious that the light of London was flaring like a dusky dawn in front of us, and that we had even already entered its then limits upon the north-east, when I was roughly roused by the sudden stoppage of the carriage, accompanied by wild cries, and a glare of lurid flame. Mr. Long had put down the window, and was leaning out of it. There was a dense fog, and gas had not yet been established in that part of London; but a vast assemblage of people were streaming slowly past us, and many of them had torches in their hands. They took no notice of us whatever, but yelled and shouted, and every now and then cast glances behind them at some approaching spectacle, which seemed to be about to overtake us. Presently, we beheld this ourselves. First came a great number of constables, marching twenty abreast, and clearing all before them with large staves; then a body of the mounted patrol—a corps then but newly formed, and which, although now well-nigh extinct, was destined in its time to do good service; then more constables; then a vast quantity of horsemen, armed and unarmed, and lastly this:—Extended on an inclined platform, built to a considerable height upon an open cart, was the body of a dead man; it was attired in blue trousers, and with a white and blue striped waistcoat, but without a coat. On the left side of him was a huge mallet, and on the right a ripping chisel.

"Great Heaven! what is this?" inquired Mr. Long of one of the mounted constables.

"Oh, it's him, sir, sure enough; we've got him at last," returned the officer.

"Him? Who?" cried I, half stupefied with fatigue and horror. "Have they found Sir Massingberd?"

No, it was not Sir Massingberd. The face which was now being slowly carried past us was wicked and stern enough, but it was not his face. The skin was black, the eyes were projecting; it was plain that the poor wretch had been strangled. The excitement of those who caught sight of it was hideous to witness; they cursed and hissed in hate and fury, and battled to get near the cart, that they might spit upon the corpse which it contained. The force of the advancing crowd was so tremendous that we were compelled to move for some distance side by side with this appalling sight, and presently immediately behind it; there we seemed to fall in as a part of the procession, and were no doubt considered by the majority of persons to officially belong to it. We were borne southwards quite out of our proper direction, and were unable to prevent it, for it was as much as the postillions could do to sit their horses, and avoid being shouldered out of their saddles. Our progress was of course at a foot's-pace only, and twice the procession halted, once opposite a draper's, and once opposite a public-house, when the yells and hooting of the crowd were terrible to hear. Not only were these two houses closely shuttered up (as they well might be), but the shop-fronts everywhere were closed, and the windows and the tops of the houses crowded with spectators. By this time, we had got to know in what dreadful proceedings we were thus taking an involuntary part. The body in the cart was that of the murderer Williams, who had committed suicide two days before, to escape, it was thought, not so much the scaffold, as the execrations of his fellow-creatures. All London was filled with hate of him, as before his capture it had been filled with fear; and the government had caused this public exhibition of his corpse, to convince the minds of the public that the wholesale assassin was really no longer alive. The houses at which we had halted were those which had once been inhabited by his unhappy victims, the Marrs and the Williamsons. Subsequently, the corpse was conveyed to St. George's turn-pike, and there interred with a stake thrust through the middle of it; but before that frightful ceremony took place, the postillions had managed to extricate us, and we had driven westward to our destination. Still, I for my part had seen enough, and more than enough, to make that entry of ours into London a thing impossible to forget; and I think it rendered, by association, the mystery concerning which we had come up to Harley Street, more menacing and sombre than before.

CHAPTER IX.

AMONG FRIENDS.

We found Marmaduke Heath in a less morbid state of mind than we had expected. The die having been cast—the time given him by Sir Massingberd for his return and so-called reconciliation with that worthy having already elapsed without any action on the part of his uncle, the effect of that "Captain Swing"-like epistle was slowly wearing off. No one ever revived the matter in his presence, nor, as we have seen, was he permitted even to write upon the subject. Still, he knew that I had been lately communicated with concerning it—for at first the blow had fallen on its object with such force and fulness that those about him had really not liked to let me know the extent of the mischief I might have committed—and he imagined that I had now come up in mere friendly sorrow to cheer and comfort him. As he came out into the dark street on that December evening to give me loving welcome, fresh from that awful procession-scene, I positively looked with terror to left and right, lest some cloaked figure, whom yet we both should recognize, might reach forth an iron arm, and tear him away. It was I who was morbid and unstrung, and not my friend; he strove, I knew, to appear to the best advantage, in good humour and high spirits, in order that I might have less to reproach myself with.

"My dear old Peter" cried he, laughing, "how glad I am to see your honest face. Have you brought me any verbal message from my charming uncle, or are you only his deputy-postman? How is he—how is he?"

I could see, in spite of his light way, that he was curious to have this interrogation answered; but what was I to say? "I don't know whether he's well or ill," returned I, carelessly, as I stepped into the hall. "But how is Mr. Gerard and Miss——"

"Here is 'Miss,'" returned a sweet voice, blithe as a bird's; "she is excellently well, Peter, thank you. But what a white face you have got! If that is the gift of country air there is certainly no such cause for regretting our absence from the Dovecot, about which Marmaduke is always so solicitous."

"'Marmaduke' to his face, now!" thought I. I could not prevent my heart from sinking a little, in spite of the lifebuoy of friendship. But I answered gallantly, "There is no air that can wither your roses, Miss Lucy, for the summer is never over where you are."

"Bravo, Peter," quoth Mr. Gerard, set in the warm glow of the dining-room, which gleamed forth from the open door behind him. "If he is so complimentary in a thorough draught, what a mirror of courtesy will he be when he gets thawed! Come in, my dear Mr. Long; come in to the warm. No east wind ever brought people more good, than this which brings you two to us. Lucy...—Ah, that's right; she has gone to order the dinner to be rechaufféd. Now, do you travellers answer no man one word, but go make yourselves comfortable—you have your old rooms, of course—and then come down at once to food and fire. Marmaduke, my dear boy, you keep me company here, please; otherwise, you will delay Peter, with your gossip, I know."

That was a sentence with a purpose in it. If, as Mr. Gerard at once guessed, we had come up to town on business connected with Sir Massingberd, it might be advisable that I should not be interrogated by Marmaduke privately. For my part, I was greatly relieved by it, since I had no desire to be the person to communicate bad tidings—for such I knew he would consider them—to my friend a second time. My spirits had risen somewhat with the warmth of our reception; it is not a little to have honest friends, and welcome unmistakable in hand and voice and eye. There is many a man who goes smoothly through the world by help of these alone, and only at times sighs for the love that but one could have given him, and which has been bestowed by her elsewhere. When I got down into the dining-room, a minute or two before my tutor, I was received by quite a chorus of kind voices—a very tumult of hospitable greeting.

"Warm your toes, Peter—warm your toes; you shall have a glass of sherry worth drinking directly," cried Mr. Gerard, all in a breath.

"Yes, Peter, you and I will have a glass together," exclaimed Marmaduke, eagerly.

"Stop for 'the particular'—stop for the green seal: it will be here in a minute," entreated the host.

"No, no," returned Marmaduke; "I must drink his health at once. Cowslip wine, if I drank it with Peter, would be better to me than Johannisberg."

He had his hand upon her arm, as I entered the room; I was sure of that, although she had gently but swiftly withdrawn it from his touch, as the door opened. How happy she looked; how passing fair with that faint flush! How handsome and bright-faced was dear Marmaduke! How placidly content, like one who draws his happiness from that of others, was the countenance of Harvey Gerard! A picture of domestic pleasure and content indeed, and with three noble figures in it. It was impossible to doubt that two lovers stood before me, and a father who had found a prospective son-in-law, whom he could love as a son. This new relationship had been only established within a very few days, and upon that account, perhaps, it was the more patent. My mischance in the matter of Sir Massingberd's letter, had been the immediate cause of Marmaduke's declaration. She had compassionated him in his troubles, and he had told her in what alone his hope of comfort lay. He had not been sanguine of securing her—who could have been, with such a priceless prize in view?—for not only had he a diffidence in his own powers of pleasing, great and winning as they were, beyond those of any man I ever knew, but he feared to find an obstacle to his wishes in her father.

"Dear Mr. Gerard," he had said, with his usual frankness, "I have won your daughter's heart, and love her better than all the world. Still, it is you alone who have her hand to dispose of. She loves and respects you as never yet was father loved and respected, and this only makes her dearer to me. I feel as much bound in this matter by your decision—Oh, sir, God grant your heart may turn towards me—as she does herself. I dare not tell you what I think of you to your face. The very greatness of my respect for you makes me fear your rejection of me. I am, in one respect at least, a weak and morbid man, while your mind is vigorous and strong upon all points. You are in armour of proof from head to heel; whereas, there is a joint in my harness open to every blow. I am afraid, sir, that you despise me."

"I do not despise you, Marmaduke," Mr. Gerard had replied, in his kind grave voice.

"Ah, sir, I know what you would say," returned the young man with vehemence; "you pity me, and pity and contempt are twin-sisters. Besides, I am a Heath; you do not wish that blood of yours should mix with that of an evil and accursed race; and, moreover—though that, with a man like you, has, I know, but little weight—I may live and die a pauper."

"My dear Marmaduke," Mr. Gerard had answered, "I cannot conceal from you that there are grave objections to your marriage with my daughter, and more especially at present. We need not revert to the last matter you have spoken of, for wealth is not what I should seek for in my son-in-law; even if it were, your alliance would reasonably promise it, and might be sought by many on that account. As for your being a Heath, that you cannot help; and, with respect to 'blood,' there is more rubbish spoken upon that subject by otherwise sensible folk than upon all others put together. Bad example and evil training are sufficient to account for the bad courses of any family without impeaching their circulating fluids. If your uncle had not happened to be likewise your guardian, in you, my dear young friend, I frankly tell you, I should see no fault, or rather no misfortune; but, since he has unhappily had the opportunity of weakening and intimidating——"

"Sir, sir, pray spare me," broke in Marmaduke, passionately; "are you going to say that I am a coward?"

"Heaven forbid, my boy," replied Mr. Gerard, earnestly; "you are as brave as I am, I do not doubt. If I thought you to be what you suggest, I would not parley with you about my darling daughter for one moment. I would say 'No' at once. My Lucy wooed by a poltroon!—no, that is not possible. I do not say 'No' to you, Marmaduke."

"Oh, thank you, thank you, sir," exclaimed the young man, with emotion; then added solemnly, "and I thank God."

"What I do say, however," returned Mr. Gerard, "is 'Wait.' While your uncle lives, I cannot, under existing circumstances, permit you to be my Lucy's husband. At present, you are only boy and girl, and can well afford to be patient."

"And when we do marry," returned Marmaduke, gratefully, "you shall not lose your daughter, sir, but rather gain a son. My home, if I ever have one, shall be yours also. Pray, believe me when I say that you are my second father, for you have given me a new life."

It really seemed so to him who looked at the sparkling eyes and heightened colour of the speaker, and listened to his tones, so rich with hope and love.

"There is certainly no one so civil as a would-be son-in-law," replied Mr. Gerard, good-naturedly. "I wonder that old gentlemen in my position ever permit them to marry at all."

And thus it had been settled—as I saw that it had been—only a very little while before our arrival in Harley Street.

"And what brings you good people up to town?" asked Mr. Gerard gaily, "without sending a line in advance, which, even in mercy to the housekeeper, you would surely have done, had not the business been urgent? As to your travelling with four horses," added our host slily, "I know so well the pride and ostentation of the clergy that I am not the least astonished at your doing that, Mr. Rector."

"Truly, sir, now that I find all safe and well," replied my tutor, "I begin to think we might have travelled in a less magnificent way; but the fact is, that I felt foolishly apprehensive and curious to tell you our tidings. Sir Massingberd Heath has been Lost since Thursday fortnight, November sixteenth."

"Lost!" exclaimed Mr. Gerard, in amazement.

"Lost!" echoed Lucy, compassionately.

"Lost!" murmured Marmaduke, turning deadly pale. "That is terrible, indeed."

"Yes, poor wretched man," said Lucy, quickly; "terrible to think that some judgment may have overtaken him in the midst of his wickedness—unrepentant, revengeful, cruel."

"That is truly what should move us most, Miss Gerard," observed my tutor; "it is but too probable that he has been suddenly cut off, and that by violence." Then he narrated all that had happened at Fairburn since the night of Sir Massingberd's disappearance, uninterrupted save once, when Mr. Gerard left the room for a few minutes, and returned with another bottle of "the particular," which, it seemed, he would not even suffer the butler to handle. Marmaduke sat silent and awe-struck, drinking in every word, and now and then, when a sort of shudder passed over him, I saw a little hand creep forth and slide into his, when he would smile faintly, but not take his eyes off Mr. Long—no, not even to reply to hers.

"I think," added my tutor, when the narrative was quite concluded, "that under these circumstances I was justified in coming up to town, Mr. Gerard, since it is just possible that Sir Massingberd may, may——"