God and the man

'Granddad, Granddad! look up!--it is Marjorie. Have you forgotten your niece, Marjorie Wells? And this is little Edgar, Marjorie's son! Speak to him, Edgar, speak to granddad. Alack, this is one of his dark days, and he knoweth no one.'

In the arm-chair of carven oak stained black as ebony by the smokes of many years, and placed in the great hall where the yule log is burning, the old man sits as he has sat every day since last winter; speechless, to all seeming sightless; faintly smiling and nodding from time to time when well shaken into consciousness by some kindly hand, and then relapsing into stupor. He is paralysed from the waist downwards. His deeply wrinkled face is ashen gray and perfectly bloodless, set in its frame of snow-white hair; hair that has once been curly and light, and still falls in thin white ringlets on the stooping shoulders; his hands are shrivelled to thinnest bone and parchment; his eyes, sunken deep beneath the brows, give forth little or no glimmer of the fire of life.

Ninety years old. The ruin, or wreck, of what has once been a gigantic man.

The frame is still gigantic, and shows the mighty mould in which the man was made; the great head, with its brood overhanging brows and square powerful jaw, is like the head of an aged lion of Africa, toothless and gray with time.

Kick the great log, and as the sparks fly up the chimney thick as bees from out a hive, his eyes open a little, and he seems faintly conscious of the flame. Flash the lamp into his sunken eyes, and as he mutters curiously to himself, and fumbles with thin hands upon his knees, a faint flash of consciousness comes from the smouldering brand of brain within.

He is not always so inert as now. This, as the grave matron who is bending over him says, is one of his dark days. Sometimes he will look around and talk feebly to his children's children, and seem to listen as some one reads out of the great family Bible which stands ever near his elbow; and the gray old face will smile gently, and the thin worn hand lie lightly as a leaf on some flaxen head. But to-night, though it is Christmas Eve, and all the kinsfolk of the house are gathered together, he knows no one, and sees and hears nothing. He breathes, and that is all.

All round the upland hall the snow is lying, but over it, since last night, have fallen, in black tree-like shadows, the trails of the thaw. The woods are bare. The great horse-chestnut on the hill-top has long since shed its sevenfold fans, intermingled with jagged brown buds bursting open to show the glossy nuts within. Bare even is the ash, which keeps a goodly portion of its leaves so long, and stands scarcely half stript, darkening in the chill autumnal wind. All the landscape round looks dark and ominous; the shadow of winter is seen visibly upon the shivering world.

'Put a drop to his lips--perhaps he'd know us then.'

The speaker, a tall, handsome widow of fifty, with grim, weather-beaten face, holds by the hand a dark-eyed boy of ten, swarthy as a quadroon. Friends and kinsmen of the family--of both sexes and all ages--gather round. It is a festival, and all are more or less gorgeously clad, bright-ribbon'd caps and gorgeous silk gowns being predominant among the women, and blue swallow-tail'd coats and knee-breeches among the men. Next to the centenarian, the chief centre of interest is the handsome widow and her little boy. She has been long absent from England, having married a West Indian planter, and long ago settled down in Barbadoes. A widow with one child, she has at last returned to the village where she was born, and though she has been some months at home, the novelty of her presence has by no means worn away.

'Put a drop to his lips,' she repeats, 'and speak up to grandfather.'

'Grandfather!' cries the boy, taking one of the cold bony hands.

No stir--no sign.

'It's no use, Marjorie,' observes the good matron with a dolorous shake of the head. 'When he goes like this, he is stone deaf and blind. Some of these days, doctor says, he'll never wake up at all, but go out like a spark, as quiet as you see him now.'

'And no wonder,' returns the widow. 'The Book says three score and ten, and he is over a score beyond.'

'Four score and ten, and seven weeks,' pipes a thin voice from the background. 'Ah, it be a powerful age.'

He who speaks is himself an old man, very thin and very feeble, with a senile smile and purblind eyes; yet, gazing upon the figure in the arm-chair, he assumes an appearance of ghastly youth, and feels quite fresh and boylike.

'Four score and ten, and seven weeks,' he repeats, 'and the master was a man growed before I was born. He puts me in mind of the great oak by Dingleby Waste, for it stood many a hundred year before it fell, and now, though it be fallen with its roots out o' the ground, its boughs do put out every summer a little patch of green, just to show there be a spark of life i' the old stump yet.'

The members of the family group gaze open-mouthed at the speaker, and then, with mouths still wider open, at the tenant of the arm-chair; one and all with a curious air of belonging to another and less mortal species, and having nothing in common with a thing so fallen and so perishable. And still the old man does not stir. Lying thus, he does indeed seem like some mighty tree of the forest, gnarled and weather-beaten and bare, uprooted and cast down, with scarcely a sign to show that it has once gloried in the splendour of innumerable leaves, and stood erect in its strength against the crimson shafts of sunset and of dawn.

All the long winter evening there has been mirth making around him. The hall is hung with holly, green leaf and red berry; and from the quaint old lamp that swings from the centre beam is pendent a bunch of whitest-berried mistletoe. Fiddles and flutes and pipes have been playing, and nimble feet have beaten merry time on the polished oaken floor. And throughout it all grandfather has kept his silent seat on the ingle, and hardly seemed to hear or see.

It is a grand old hall, fit to be a portion of some grand manorial abode; and such indeed it was once upon a time, before the old manor house fell into decay, and became the home of the Christiansons. Facing the great ingle is a large double entrance door, studded with great nails and brazen bars like a prison gate; and whenever this door--or rather one half of it--is swung open, you see the snow whirling outside, and can hear a roar like the far-off murmur of the sea. The hall is long and broad, and at one end there is a wide staircase of carven oak, leading to a gallery, which in turn communicates with the upper rooms of the house. In the gallery sit the musicians, led by the little old cripple, Myles Middlemass, the parish clerk. Great black beams, like polished ebony, support the ceiling. The fireplace is broad and high, with fixed oaken forms on either side, and projecting thence, two sphynx-like forms of well-burnished brass; while facing the fire and the great yule log, sits, in his arm-chair of polished oak, the old man, Christian Christianson, of the Fen.

The music begins anew, and the folk begin a country dance. Farm maidens and farm labourers lounge in from the kitchen, gathering like sheep at one end of the hall, close to the kitchen door. Then Farmer Thorpe, who is master of the house, which came to him with Mary Christianson, the old man's daughter, leads off the dance with Mistress Marjorie, his grim kinswoman from Barbadoes. The others follow, young and old, and the oldest as merrily as the youngest. Loud cries and laughter rise ringing to the rafters; there is struggling in corners, girlish laughter, patter of light and peal of heavy feet; and the louder the mirth sounds within, the louder roars the winter wind without. But old Christian sits moveless, with his blank eyes, half-closed, fixed on the fire. Like a fallen tree, did we say? Rather like some gray pillar of granite rising grimly out of the sea; with the innumerable laughter of ocean around it, and flight of white wings around it, and brightness above it; dead, dead to all the washing of the waves of life, and blind to all the shining of the sun.

As he sits there, some look at him in awe, and whisper to each other of his past, and shake the head ominously as they think of his strange adventures sailing up and down the world. For he has lived much of his life in foreign lands, a wanderer for many years without a place whereon to rest his feet; he has been a master mariner, and a trader, and an owner of sailing ships; and far away, long ago, he gathered wealth in some mysterious fashion, and brought it back with him to buy the ancestral acres that his father's father lost. A stormy life and a terrible, say the gossips; not without blood's sin and such crimes as, twice told, lift the hair and shake the soul; for if they speak sooth, he has sailed under the black flag on the Indian seas, and taken his share in the traffic of human life. Those who are oldest remember dimly the days of his passion and his pride--days when his hand was against every man, and when his very name was a synonym for hate and wrath. The women-folk speak, moreover, of his strength and beauty, when his white locks were golden as a lion's mane, and his gray eyes bright with the light of the Viking race from whom he drew his fiery blood.

While the mirth is loudest, pass out through the hall door into the night. The great door closes with a clang; the brightness fades into the murmuring darkness of the storm. Stand on the lonely upland, and see the white flakes driving tumultuously from the sea; far across the great marsh with Herndale Mere glistening in its centre like a great shield, and beyond the dark sandhills which stretch yonder like tossing billows for miles and miles beyond, the sea itself is tossing and gleaming, and crashing on the hard and ribbed sand of the lonely shore. The heavens are dark, and neither moon nor star is visible; but the air is full of a faint mysterious light--like moonshine, like starshine, like the light that is in the filmy falling flakes. In this faint phosphorescence the frozen mere flashes by fits and the distant sandhills loom dimly in the distance, and on every side gathers the whiteness of the fallen sheets of snow.

Behind the great farm, with its windows flashing out like bloodshot eyes, and its shadows coming or going on the crimson blinds, stretch the upland fields, deep in drift of mingled snow and sand; and inland, here and there, glance the lights from clustering homesteads and solitary farms. A lamp is burning in every home tonight, for all the folk are awake, and the coming of the Christ is close at hand.

A long lane, deep with many a waggon rut, and closed on either side by blackthorn hedges, leads from the upland, across fields and meadows, to the highway, only a mile along which is the village, and the quaint old village church. Listen closely, and the faint peal of bells comes to your ear in the very teeth of the wind!--and look, even as you listen, lights are creeping up the lane, and soon, shadows of human forms loom behind the lights, and you see the carol singers, with William Ostler from the Rose and Crown at their head, coming along, lanthorns in hand, to sing at the farm door.

William Ostler staggers as he comes, and tumbles sprawling into the snow; whereat there is loud laughter and scuffling of heavy hobnailed feet. Young men in heavy woollen coats, and girls in red cloaks with warm hoods, and little boys and girls following behind, come trooping along the lane. Now they meet the bitter blast upon the upland, and the lanthorns are blown out, but with the light from the farm windows to guide them, they come stamping along, and, facing the hall door, range themselves in a row. Then William with a tipsy hiccough, gives out the word, and the voices ring out loud and clear.

Scarcely has the carol begun, when all sounds cease within the farm; the dance has ceased, and all are standing still to listen. As the last note dies away, the door swings open, and Farmer Thorpe, with face like a ribstone pippin, and white hair blowing in the wind, stands on the threshold, with shining faces peeping out behind him in a blaze of rosy light.

'Come in, come in!' he cries, cheerily. 'Welcome all!'

Stamping the snow from their boots, shaking it from their garments, they troop in and gather together at the kitchen end of the hall, where warm spiced ale is poured for them, and chucks of home-made cake put into their chilly hands. Left outside in the dark, the village children pelt each other with snowballs, and run races in the snow, and shout shrilly in through the keyhole, and beat with tiny mittened hands on the mighty door.

It is close on midnight now. The carol-singers have gone their ways, to make their music elsewhere, and get good entertainment for their pains. The house is full of the pleasant smell of meat and drink.

But the great hall is empty; empty, that is to say, save for the old form sitting before the fire. There he crouches still, conscious of little save the pleasant warmth; breathing faintly, otherwise not stirring hand or limb.

The musicians, the labourers, the farm maidens, are busy feasting in the kitchen; whence comes, through the half-closed doors, the sound of load guffaws, of clattering dishes and jingling glasses, of busy, shuffling feet. There is plenty of rough fare, with libations of strong beer and cider and ginger-ale. In the low-roofed dining-room, which opens out up three oaken steps at the other end of the hall, the genteeler portion of the company sit round the supper board,--a snow-white cloth of linen, piled with roast and boiled meats, fat capons, knuckles of ham and veal, Christmas cakes and puddings, great rosy-cheeked apples, foaming jugs of ale, flasks of ruby-coloured rum, and black bottles of foreign vintage. Farmer Thorpe heads the table, in his swallow-tailed coat of bottle-green, his long buff waistcoat with snowy cambric at the breast and throat, his great silver chain with dangling charms and seals; and facing him, at the other end, is Mary his good dame, splendid in silk and flowered brocade, with a cap, to crown all, that is the envy and admiration of every matron in the happy group. On either side are ranged the guests in their degree,--Squire Orchardson of the Willows, a spare thin-visaged man in deep mourning; having the place of honour at the farmer's right hand, and pretty Mabel Orchardson, the squire's only daughter, blushing not far away, with young Harry Thorpe, a tall yeoman of twenty-one, to ply her with sweet things and sweeter looks, and to whisper tender nothings in her ear. The light of swinging lamps and country-made candies gleams all round upon happy faces, red and bright, with fine shadows behind of oaken furniture and wainscoted walls. The mirth is real, though solemn; for the wine has not yet had time to tell its tale. The old folks pledge each other in old-fashioned style; healths go round; pretty maidens sip out of the glasses of their cousins and lovers, while fond feet meet, and knees touch, under the table. There is a clatter of dishes and knives and forks, a murmur of voices, which only ceases at intervals, when the wind shakes the house and causes the roof and walls to quake again.

But all at once, above the crying of the wind and above all the noise of the feast, rises a sound so shrill and terrible that all mirth ceases, and the company listen in terror. It sounds like a human shriek, coming through the half-closed door that leads to the hall--a human shriek, or something superhuman, so strangely does it ring through the merry house. Hark, again! There can be no doubt now. It is the shriek of a man's voice, sharp, fierce, and terrible.

The more timid among the company--both men and women--keep their seats, shiver, and look at one another; the braver spirits, headed by Farmer Thorpe, push through the open door, and gather on the steps leading down into the hall.

In the middle of the hall stands, ghastly pale now, and terrified, the swarthy boy from Barbadoes, his hands clenched, his eyes staring, every fibre of him trembling with terror. Near to him is another boy, stronger and bigger, of coarser make and breed; young Walter Thorpe, the farmer's nephew, whose father lives down at the Warren. A little way off their little cousin, Mary Farringford, crouches dumb with terror, her large blue eyes dilated and misty with timid tears.

All the three children gaze one way--the dark boy fascinated, like a murderer caught in the act, with the murderous look of hate and venom found by fear upon his face and frozen there; young Walter a little frightened too, but preserving a certain loutish stolidity; little Mary quivering like a reed. All gaze towards the great fireplace, for there, still fixed in his chair, but with head erect, eyes dilating, and skinny finger pointing, sits the old man, awake at last indeed!

His mouth is still open, panting, and it is clear now that the shriek which startled the company came from his throat. His finger points to the dark boy, who recoils in dread; but his eyes are fixed, not on the boy's face, but on a glittering object which lies upon the floor, close to the boy's feet.

An open clasp-knife, with dagger-like blade and steel spring, the kind of knife that seamen use, too often, upon one another.

Farmer Thorpe steps into the hall, with the wondering company behind him.

'What is the matter?' he exclaims. 'Who was it that screamed out?'

Walter Thorpe, who has recovered his composure, shuffles his feet, grins stupidly, and jerks his thumb at the old man.

'Him!' he replies with characteristic indifference to grammar.

'And what--what's this?' cries the farmer, following the old man's eyes and looking at the knife. 'Eh, eh, whose knife is this?'

'His!' replies Walter again, nodding his head at the other boy.

'Edgar's!' exclaims the voice of the widow Marjorie Wells; and as she speaks she comes forward very pale, and touches her son with an angry hand. 'Edgar, what does it mean?'

He scowls, and makes no answer.

'Have you been quarrelling? she continues sternly. 'How dare you quarrel, you wicked boy?'

'He struck me,' pants Edgar, still with the murderous look in his face.

'No, I didn't,' cries Walter.

'Yes you did.'

'I didn't--leastways till you pushed me against little Mary and threw her down. Then when I slapt your face, you pulled out that knife, and tried to stick me like a pig!'

A murmur of horror runs through the company.

'You hear, madam?' says Farmer Thorpe, sharply. 'I think your boy's to blame, and if he was my son, I'd give him a sound thrashing. Fancy the young imp carrying a knife like that, and trying to use it too.'

'Edgar is passionate,' says the widow, haughtily; 'but I daresay he was provoked.'

'He said that I was black,' cries Edgar, looking up at his mother with his great eyes, 'and that when I was a man I ought to marry a black woman--and cousin Mary laughed--and so I pushed him; and when he struck me, I pulled out my knife, and I would have stabbed him, if grandfather had not screeched out.'

'Fine doings o' Christmastide,' exclaims Farmer Thorpe, shaking his head grimly; 'and look you now at father,' he continues, passing across to the old man, who still keeps the same position, with eyes staring and finger pointing. 'How goes it, father? Come, come, what ails you now?'

At the voice of his son, the old man drops his outstretched arm, and begins to mutter quietly to himself.

'Eh?' says Farmer Thorpe, putting down his ear to listen. 'Speak up, father.'

The words are faint and feeble exceedingly, but they are just intelligible:

'Take--away--the knife!'

At a signal from the farmer, one of the neighbours lifts the knife from the floor, touches the spring, closes it, and hands it over to the farmer, who forthwith consigns it to the lowest depths of his breeches' pocket. All the company look on, breathless, as if upon a Veritable miracle--the dead coming back to life.

There is a pause. Then again the feeble voice comes from the worn-out frame,

'My son John.'

'Here, father.'

'Call them!--call the children!'

For a moment the farmer is puzzled, but seeing the old man's eyes again wander towards young Edgar Wells, he begins to comprehend.

'Come here,' he says sharply; 'grandfather wants you.'

The boy at first shrinks back, then, with natural courage, forces a smile of bravado, and comes boldly forward. As he passes into the crimson firelight, the old man's eyes perceive him, and the wrinkled face lightens. But the next instant the feeble eyes look round disappointed.

'Both,' he murmurs--'both my children.'

Again the farmer is puzzled, but his good dame, with woman's wit, hits the mark at once.

'I think he wants our nephew Walter,' she says softly. 'Go to him, Walter.'

With a sheepish grin, Walter Thorpe steps forward, and so the two boys stand face-to-face close to the old man's knee. As his feeble gaze falls upon them, his lips tremble, and he gazes vacantly from one to the other from beneath his rheumy lids. Then suddenly reaching out one hand, he holds Walter by the jacket-sleeve, and with the other, which trembles like a leaf, tries to clutch at Edgar. But Edgar, startled by the sudden movement, has shrunk back afraid.

'What doth he mean?' whispers a neighbour.

'Now, God be praised!' says Dame Thorpe, 'I think he means the lads to make friends. See, Marjorie, how he feels out to touch your boy; and hark, what is he saying?'

They listen closely, and at last they catch the words:

'The children--put their hands into mine.'

At a look from the farmer, Walter puts his coarse brown hand between the old man's trembling fingers, which close over it and clutch it convulsively. But Edgar scowls and hangs aloof, till his mother comes forward and touches him.

'Put out your hand--at once!'

Thus urged, the boy partly stretches out his arm, when the widow takes his hand and places it, like the other's, between the old man's fingers. As the hands of the two boys touch in that sinewy cage, which now holds them firm as iron, their eyes meet with a momentary gleam of defiance, then fall.

'Hush!' murmurs Dame Thorpe, softly; and there is a long silence. The old man's lips move, but no sound comes from them. His eyes no longer seek the faces around him, but are half-closed, as if in prayer.

Presently there is a faint murmur. The farmer bends down his ear, and catches the words, murmured very feebly,...

'Love one another.'...

Deeper stillness follows, and a solemn awe fills the hearts of all the company. Presently the old man's hands relax, and with a quiet sigh, he leans back smiling in his chair. His dim eyes open and look round, his lips begin to move quietly again.

'When I was a boy...'

They catch no more, for the words die away, and he seems to fall into a doze, perhaps into a dream of the days that once have been. While he thus lies, and while the company return with spirits solemnised to table, let us stay by him in the lonely hall, and with eyes fixed upon the fire, recall the troubled memories of his life.

As far back as he could remember,--when, though his body was a useless log, and his eyes dim with dust of age, his memory was still green,--the Christiansons had hated the Orchardsons, and the Orchardsons had returned the hate with interest. The two families were heat and frost, fire and water, peace and war; their spirits could never cross each other without pain. Physically, even, they were as unlike as tall stalwart trees of the forest and creeping shrubs of the common: the male Christiansons, tall, stalwart yeomen of six foot upwards; the Orchardsons narrow-chested, stooping figures, below the middle height.

There was, moreover, this great difference between them: good luck was ever on the one side, while the other seldom throve. A shilling in the pocket of an Orchardson multiplied itself to a pound, and the pound to ten, and the ten to a hundred; while in the pockets of a Christianson, hundreds melted like withered leaves, like the cheating pieces given to foolish folk by the fairies. The Christiansons never could keep money; the Orchardsons never could let it go. For all this, and for a thousand other reasons, they hated each other the more.

It was such an old hate, such a settled feud, that no one quite knew when or how it began; indeed, there was a general disposition in the neighbourhood to trace it back to a mythical period, somewhat further back than the Conquest. But certain it was, that even in the times of the great Civil Wars, the two families were on different sides--cavalier Orchardsons hunted down by roundhead Christiansons, and being hunted down in turn when at last, with the Merry Monarch, came time and opportunity.

Mention a Christianson to an Orchardson, and the latter would look evil, shrug shoulders, and show a certain sort of easy hate tempered with proud contempt. Name an Orchardson to a Christianson, and it was a very different matter; the blood in his veins would turn to gall, his gorge would rise, and he would feel his strong frame convulsed with wrath, while his hands were clenched for a blow. The Orchardsons were more than shadows on the lives of the Christiansons; the very thought of them lay like lead upon the breast, choking the wholesome breath.

As years went on, and milder influences supervened, the fierceness of the vendetta between the two families died away, leaving only a great frosty chill, in which the families, without any active hostility, fell farther and farther asunder. The Orchardsons remained at the old manor-house, ever increasing their substance both in money and land. The Christiansons kept tight hold of their farms down towards Herndale Mere and the sea, but it was whispered in more than one wise quarter that they were deeply involved, and that when Robert Christianson, the reigning head of the house, went the way of all flesh, there would be revelations.

One evening, late in the autumn, as young Tom Rudyard, the doctor's assistant, sat quietly smoking a pipe in the bar parlour of the Rose and Crown, with pretty Nancy Parkinson by his side, and buxom Mrs. Parkinson looking on with a smile, he received an unexpected summons. A tall young lad of about fourteen, clad in a rough yeoman costume, and carrying a riding switch, came bolt into the room.

Tom started up guiltily, for he knew that to enter that bar-parlour was forbidden to Dr. Marshman's assistants (all of whom had in succession 'gone wrong' through a too great love of festivity), and then, recognising the new-comer, grinned, and gave a hoarse laugh. Standing thus erect, the young doctor showed a very long spare body and attenuated legs, clad in a costume rather too loud for that of a regular practitioner, and encroaching indeed on the privileged style of the jaunty veterinary surgeon.

'What, Master Christian, is it you?' cried Nancy, with a smile; then, seeing at once by the boy's pale face that something was wrong, she added, 'Is anything the matter?'

'Yes,' answered the lad with quivering lips. 'The doctor's wanted at once up to the farm. Father's taken bad.'

One cry of commiseration rose from the two women.

'What is it?' asked Tom, reaching up for his beaver hat, which hung on a hook behind the door. 'Not a fit, I hope? At his time of life--'

'Don't waste time talking,' said the boy, 'but come along. Mother sent for the old doctor, but he's out and away at Deepdale; so I came to look after you.'

Although he was only a boy, he spoke with a certain authority, and through his great height and powerful frame, looked almost a man; certainly a man in strength, though his form was as yet shapeless and awkward, and his hands and feet too large. That he was greatly troubled and alarmed was shown by his bloodless face and the pale, dry lips, which he moistened every moment with the tip of his tongue.

'It's a goodish stretch up to the farm,' said the young doctor, with a rueful glance at the cosy fire. 'I shall want a horse.'

'Take my mare,' returned the lad, 'she's standing at the door, and she'll carry you up at a gallop.'

'I dare say, and break my neck on the road. I don't know a yard of the way.'

'But the mare does; give her her head, and she'll go home straight as a shot.'

Doctor Torn still looked doubtful.

'I shall want my instruments, may be.'

'Then do you ride on, while I go to the surgery, and bring them after you. I'll take the short cut across the marsh, and be there nigh as soon as you.'

Walking out to the front door of the inn, they saw the light from the porch flashing against a great wall of rainy blackness. It was a wild night of wind and rain. The sign was shrieking and tossing like a corpse in chains, and the air was full of a rushing hiss of water.

In front of the door, just discernible in the darkness, stood a dripping horse, or pony, held by a ragged stable boy.

'Lord, what a night!' cried the doctor, with a shiver, and an inward imprecation on the inconsiderate people who were taken ill in such weather.

'Quick! quick!' said young Master Christianson, impatiently. 'Mount the pony.'

'Is he quiet?'

'As a lamb--only mind to give him his head.'

Quiet as a lamb he indeed seemed, standing drawn together in the rain, perfectly still; but no sooner were the young doctor's long legs thrown over him, than he was off at a bound. The rider had only just time to clutch the bridle, and to utter a startled yell--then darkness swallowed him up.

Good Mistress Parkinson stood at the inn door, with her daughter at her side.

'Master Christianson,' she cried, as the lad moved away; adding as he turned his head, 'let me get you a drop of warm ale, or a posset. You be soaking through.'

The lad shook his head, and buttoning his coat tight round his throat, ran swiftly from the inn door, leaving the good women full of perplexity and simple pity. For Christian, though a wild and headstrong lad, or rather just because he was headstrong and wild, was a prime favourite in all that neighbourhood. 'The true Christianson breed,' all admitted, with wise shakes of the head and secret admiration--quarrelsome, irritable, fierce and fiery, yet withal forgiving and open-handed; proud, like his father and mother before him, of the old name and of the typical family strength; so strong and handsome, that young maids, much his elders, had already been known to cast tender looks at him; yet so simple and boy-like, that he preferred snaring a rabbit or setting a woodcock spring to the brightest pair of eyes in Christendom.

Swift as a deerhound, he ran up through the village, setting his right shoulder against the slanting rain, until he reached the old doctor's cottage, and knocked sharply at the little low door. An old woman opened, and with scarcely a word to her, he ran into the parlour, or 'surgery,' looking for the doctor's case of instruments, and for such simple remedies as might be needed. As he searched, he rapidly explained to the old dame, who knew him well, the state of affairs; and then, having secured what he wanted, and buttoned them tight under his coat, he ran out again into the rain.

Swiftly still he ran along the dark road, not losing breath, though it was rough and steep; presently, with one bound, he leapt a hedge and alighted in a field of rainy stubble. Though he seemed to be in pitch darkness, it was clear that he knew every inch of the way, as, crossing a field, he came out upon an open common or waste, covered with dark rainy pools. Across the common, and up a miry lane; then he saw flashing on a hillside before him the lights of a farm.

When he reached the farm door, he found it standing open, and Doctor Tom, splashed from top to toe, on the point of entering, while the little mare, which he had ridden in fear and desperation, was standing with head down, quiet as a lamb.

'How's father?' asked the lad in a whisper, as he followed the doctor into the hall.

A shock-headed farm-maiden answered something in a whisper, and Christian led the way upstairs. Passing up a broad oaken staircase, he reached an open corridor, out of which opened several doors; approaching one of which, he knocked softly.

The door was immediately opened by a young girl, about a year older than himself. She put her finger on her lips, as he was about to speak, and beckoned the doctor, who quietly approached.

In a large old-fashioned bedroom, with a polished floor of slippery black oak, and a low ceiling close to the black rafters of the roof, was a large wooden bedstead, on which lay the figure of a man, a great gaunt yeoman, with iron-grey hair and clean shaven face. Some of his clothes had been hastily thrown off, and by the bedside 'were his high riding boots; but he still wore his shirt and waistcoat, the former torn open to free the powerful workings of the throat. His eyes were closed, his face ghastly pale, his whole attitude that of exhaustion and semi-stupor, and his breathing was very heavy and hard.

By the bedside stood a tall, pale matron, some few years his senior, and close to her, on a chair, was an open Bible.

Doctor Tom came in on tiptoe, and standing by the bedside, sucked the knob of his stick, and gazed with rather vacant eyes at the man; then, reaching down his coarse red hand, felt the pulse, and found it very jerky and feeble.

'Brandy---have you given him brandy, mistress?' he asked, in a hoarse whisper.

The matron nodded her head.

'Well, give him some more, at once, please; 'tis the only thing to keep life in him. How did it begin? What doth he complain of most?'

In a low voice, the matron explained that her husband had been seized, while sitting at supper, with a violent pain in the region of the heart. He had come in very wet and weary from a long ride to the neighbouring market town, and he had been fasting all day. He had been a good deal troubled, too, she said, and that made him neglect his food. When he was first seized with pain, she thought he would die at once, but when he had drank some spirits boiling hot, he got a little relief. Presently another attack of pain came on, and then they got him to bed, and put warm bottles to his feet; since then he had been easier, and had seemed as if he were asleep.

As the two stood whispering together, the sick man suddenly opened his eyes.

'Who's that?' he said, feebly. 'Be it the doctor?'

'Yes,' said his wife, 'young Mr. Tom.'

'Tell him I don't want no doctor's stuff; I shall be all right i' the morning.'

'How's the pain, master?' asked the doctor.

'Middling--middling bad,' answered the patient; then with a groan he put his hand upon his chest. There be a weight here like a millstone, right down upon my heart.'

'Doth it pain you when you breathe, master?'

'Ay, surely! like a knife a-cutting me in twain. But I don't want no physic--no, no!'

He closed his eyes, moaning, and seemed to sink into a doze.

Doctor Tom led the matron aside.

'Your good man's powerful bad, mistress. He'll have to be bled straight away.'

'Is he in danger, think you?'

Maybe yes, maybe no. If the blood flows free, it may ease his heart a bit; his viscera be gorged with black blood, mistress, and his heart doth not get room to beat.'

So without more conversation or delay the young leech opened a vein in the farmer's arm. The dark blood came freely but feebly, and as it flowed, he really seemed to breathe with greater ease. When about an ounce of blood had been taken away, and the artery carefully bound up, he seemed to lie in comfortable sleep.

'He'll do now,' said Dr. Tom. 'We'll look round in the morning, and see how he thrives.'

The matron, who had exhibited rare nerve during the blood-letting, and had herself assisted without a word, now looked wildly up in the doctor's face.

'Will my man live?'

'Why not, mistress? See how easy he do breathe, now! Ay, he'll live, I hope, for many a long year!'

Down the great stairs slipped Doctor Tom, followed by young Christian. He was well satisfied with himself, and quite unaware that, in the true spirit of the science (or nescience) of those days, he had finished his man, and drawn from an exhausted arterial system its last chance of recovering its shattered strength.

'Will you ride back?' asked the boy.

On the back of that brimstone mare?--not I. I'd rather walk barefoot, young master. Good-night.'

The lad did not offer to escort him beyond the door; but leaving him to wander home as he might along the dark roads, returned to the room up-stairs, and rejoined his mother and sister.

That night none of the three retired to rest. The mother sat watching by the bedside, while the girl and lad sat upon the hearth, waiting and listening. Not a sound broke the silence but the monotonous breathing of the sick man, and a faint murmur from the lips of the mother, as, with horn-rimmed spectacles upon her nose, and the old Bible upon her knee, she read softly to herself.

The room was dimly illumined by the faint rays of a wood fire, and by the light of a small oil-lamp, which was fastened against the wall over the chimney-piece. Seen even thus, the boy and girl seemed made in very different moulds: he, strong, herculean, rough, with blue eyes, and curly flaxen hair; she, tall, thin, and delicate, with swarthy skin, dark eyes, and chestnut hair. The boy, in his build and complexion, resembled the figure on the bed. The girl resembled the wan woman who sat reading by the bedside.

Christian Christianson was scarce fourteen years old; his sister Kate was rather more than a year older. Their parents had married somewhat late in life, and the two children were the only living issue of the match.

Both in name and frame did the rough lad show his Scandinavian origin, his connection with those far-off ancestors of his who swept down from the north in the old times, harried the seas and the sea-coasts, and scattered their seed far and wide on those tracts of territory which pleased them best. Nothing foreign seemed to have entered the light current of his blood. While he lay there, rough and awkward as a lion's cub, he might have been taken for the heir of some old viking, bespattered from his cradle with the salt sea foam.

But young Christian was heir to little save the surname of his father and the monopoly of certain fruitless feuds. His father and his father's father had farmed the lands verging on the great sandhills, and within hearing of the sea; and it was to be supposed that he would farm them also, when his turn came. His father's father had died in debt, and his father had been more or less in debt when he was born, and the shadow of mysterious obligations had been over the house ever since he could remember. He had been brought up to no profession, and with no particular occupation; but by looking on and using his wits, as boys can, he had learned a little of farming, and the value of farm stock. His education had been rough-and-ready enough. While his sister could play a little on the harpsichord, and sew a fine sampler, besides being able to read and write fairly, he possessed no accomplishments, save, of course, those which he had acquired by sheer force of physical courage and perseverance. He could sit any horse barebacked, he knew every beast of the field and fowl of the air, he could wrestle and swim, and he was an excellent shot at birds on the wing--this last being a much rarer accomplishment in those days than we, with our modern notions, might imagine. But he had little or no taste for books, and beyond a good ear for a tune, and a good deep voice, which might have made him a fair singer, little capacity for any of the arts.

As he sat before the fire, his eyes were lifted ever and again to the pallid face of his mother, who read on monotonously to herself. Kate Christianson sat with her hands in her lap, gazing at the fire. So hour after hour passed, until it was past midnight; and then, all at once, the invalid's sleep began to grow disturbed. He tossed upon his pillow, and clutched the counterpane with his strong hand, muttering half-articulate sounds. Suddenly his wife started as if stung, for she heard the sound of a hated name.

'Five thousand five hundred pounds...five per cent. per annum...Richard Orchardson, his heirs and assigns...witness...' Here his words became inarticulate, until he added, gasping, his own name, 'Robert Christianson, of the Fen.'

Young Christian heard, and looked up with a strange darkness on his fair face.

'Mother,' he whispered, 'did you hear?'

'Hush!' cried the matron with uplifted finger; for her husband's eyes had opened again, fixing themselves strangely upon hers. They watched for a few moments, then, with a low cry, the man started up and tried to spring out of bed.

'Father! Father!' cried Mistress Christianson, rising and pushing him back. 'What ails you, father? Christian, come--help to hold him down.'

The lad sprang up, and putting his strong arms gently round his father, tried to soothe him; for it was clear that his wits were wandering.

'Who's that? My son Christian?'

'Yes, father.'

'Get me my hat and staff, lad. I be going out.'

'Not to-night, father.'

'Ay, to-night. Tell thy mother not to sit up, for I shall be late.'

'Speak to him, mother!'

'Father, don't you know me?' cried his wife.

'Ay, ay, dame, I know thee well enough, but I cannot stay talking. I be going out.'

'Where are you going?'

'Down to the Willows. I must see Dick Orchardson, and tell him my mind.'

The listeners looked at one another aghast. The very mention of the name of an Orchardson sounded strange on those lips, but to hear one of the hated brood named so glibly, as a being with whom it was possible under any circumstances to have human intercourse, was positively startling.

'God help him!' cried his wife with a cold shiver.

Exhausted by his efforts to rise, the farmer sank back upon his pillow. His breathing was now very difficult, and his face was convulsed as if with acute pain. They moistened his lips with brandy, and chafed his trembling hands.

'Father!' cried Christian, trembling; and Kate, standing close to him, echoed his tender cry.

The farmer opened his eyes again, and looked round.

'Who's there? Is that my boy Christian?'

'Yes, father.'

'Come closer, lad, and take my hand. Where's thy mother?'

'Here, father,' said Mistress Christianson. 'Oh, Christian, thy father's dying!'

'No, no, mother,' cried the boy.

'Tell Dick Orchardson--'

So far the farmer spoke, then paused again. Again that hated name.

There was a long pause. The farmer lay with eyes wide open, looking upward, and muttering to himself. They could make nothing now of his words, and a dreadful awe was upon them, for the shadow of the coming angel was already upon his face. Kate Christianson cast herself down by the bedside, hiding her face and sobbing wildly. The mother stood gaunt and pale, her dim eyes on the man who had been her loving companion so many long years. The lad, clutching his father's chilly hand, was trembling like a leaf.

So they waited, and it seemed, in that solemn moment, that the chamber grew dark. Oh that dreadful silence of the chamber of death! The poet speaks of 'darkness visible;' this is silence heard--a silence ominous and strange, in which the very beating of the heart is audible, and we feel the stirring motion of the unconscious life within.

They listened and waited on. At last a few faint words were audible.

'Down by the four-acre mere. Is that Dick Orchardson? Tell him...Get me a light, lad, I cannot see the letters, I cannot read...Ask thy mother, forgive, forgive...'

One last faint cry, and the voice was for ever still. Of what was a living face but a few minutes before, only a marble mask remained. All knelt and prayed, for the shadow which follows all men was in the room.

When Robert Christianson was dead and buried, there came at last the revelations that had long been predicted. First of all, it was discovered in a general way that he was far more heavily in debt than any one had guessed; that, indeed, his affairs were a ravelled skein which it would take all the ingenuity of the law or all its cruelty to disentangle. Then, when the various threads of obligation were separated from each other, and the widow and her children thought that the coast was clear, came a letter, like a thunderbolt, announcing that the freehold of the greater part of the farm lands was under a mortgage, that the interest was long in arrear, and that, to crown all, the holder of the fatal mortgage was their hereditary enemy, Richard Orchardson of the Willows.

At first it was too horrible for belief. The very thought was an outrage on the beloved dead. The widow sat with stern sceptical face, while the boy Christian was loud in his expression of indignation. But confirmation quickly came. It was made only too clear that the deceased farmer, in the extremity of his distress, had accepted assistance from the enemy of his father and his father's father, and had given as substantial security the mortgage upon the choicest of the farm lands.

Bitterer even than death itself came the humiliating discovery; bitterer, because for the moment it killed all reverence and respect for the poor dead, and showed him as a man yielding, forgetful, and barren of pride. Better to have starved, thought the widow, than have sought or taken succour from that quarter. Alas! she little knew how long and terrible had been the farmer's struggle before he did yield, how cruel the pang had been, and how the pain of the secret had preyed upon the poor man's heart, until it broke in shame.

When all was thought that could be thought, the mother and son spoke out by the fireside, while Kate looked sadly on.

''Twas a trap for thy poor father,' said the widow, 'be sure of that. Dick Orchardson set it many a long year, and at last thy father, poor man, was caught. Ah, if he had only come home to me and told me of his trouble! This comes of having secrets out-o'-doors.'

'What shall we do, mother?' asked Christian. 'Can we pay the money?'

'Nay, my boy.'

'And Lawyer Jeifries bath given notice that we must pay up or yield the land.'

'One or other, Christian.'

The lad clenched his hands and uttered a fierce cry.

'They shan't take the land away from thee, mother. Let them try it! I'll go down to the Willows, and make old Dick Orchardson own it was all a cheat, and if he denieth it--'

The boy paused, livid with hate and rage. As he did so, his sister Kate, who had been looking on in terror, interposed tearfully.

'Nay, who knows,' she said, 'but the squire is more kindly than folk say? Why did he lend our father the money, and help him out of his trouble, if he hated him so much?'

'Hear her, mother!' cried Christian, 'hear the foolish wench! And yet she hath heard the preacher say that figs grow not on thistles, and roses spring not from thorns. An Orchardson kindly! Mother, do you hear?

'Kate is a girl,' returned the widow, grimly, 'she cannot understand. It began long since.'

'What began, mother?' asked Kate.

'The trouble between our houses. If there had ne'er been any Orchardsons, we should be rich folk now. They robbed thy father's father, a hundred years ago.'

'But, mother--'

'Tis something in the blood,' cried the widow. 'A fox is a fox, and a kestrel a kestrel, and an Orchardson is an Orchardson, till the world doth end. The wicked breed! If God would blot it out.'

'Amen, mother,' cried Christian; and Kate, knowing their temper, did not dare to say another word.

So it remained in their minds as a settled thing that Robert Christianson had, by some kind of devilish malignity, been beguiled into taking help of the Orchardsons, whose sole desire had been to crush the hapless family, and perchance close the mortgage. They waited a little time in great dread and anger; but no more word came from the lawyers, and their whole lives were poisoned by the suspense.

That portion of the freehold embraced in the mortgage included the best and richest part of the farm lands, leaving untouched only some ninety acres and the old farm-house, which latter had fallen into great dilapidation, and stood, quite solitary, over against the sandhills, with its face from the sea, which formed a broad estuary two miles away. Inland before it stretched the farm fields, in a great hollow which had once been a fen, and still bore that name, but sloping gradually to rich pastures and clumps of cheerful wood. Over these pastures and woods peeped the village spire--the glistening of which, in all kinds of weather, was a cheerful and comfortable sight to the inmates of the farm.

The very solitude of the situation gave to the owners of the Fen Farm a feeling of possession and mastery. Standing at his own door, a Christianson was monarch of all he surveyed--of the broad and comparatively barren acres of the old fen; of the narrow osier-fringed stream which wound through these acres and then, curving suddenly, ran in among the sand-hills towards the sea; of the rich slopes beyond, where crops waved green and yellow, or frosty stubble glittered, through the various seasons of the year.

There was only the spire to remind him of the world of men beyond, of the red-tiled village hidden from his sight, and of the heaven above. Then the sandhills behind the house were his; and these, though comparatively worthless and only affording combes of arid pasture for cattle here and there, were large in extent, and grave lordly sense of territorial sway. And among the sandhills was the rabbit warren, let to a cousin of the family on profitable terms.

With the ancient freehold of the Fen Farm went, by right immemorial, the privilege of coursing and shooting. Every boy Christianson might run a hound or handle a gun on his own acres. Not only did rabbits swarm in the sandhills, but the sands were the resort, at certain seasons, of the hare, which would seek deserted rabbit-burrows and lie there till discovered perdu, and hunted out, by man or dog.

Small wonder, then, if the Christiansons loved the place, and clung to every inch of the soil. Even the house, though a rambling tenement and scarcely weatherproof, with cheerless rooms and rat-haunted wainscots, was very dear to them for the sake of the generations which had lived and died within. In summer time, with its red front covered with creepers and wild roses, its dove-cot on the red-tiled roof, and the white doves wheeling and settling in the sunlight, it looked quite pretty and bright. There was an ancient orchard, too, with broken-down walls, and trees so old and gnarled they yielded little fruit, and grass as thick and deep as the grass that grows on graves.

But if the cruel debt of the mortgage was not paid, what remained? Only the old house, and the sand pasturages, and the arid acres of the old fen; only, in other words, a barren stretch of soil, not to be farmed with profit by any but a man of means. The pasturages and combes of the upland slope, which ever filled the eye with a certain sense of prosperity--the woods where the nightingale sang in summer and the woodcock was flushed in the frost--the rich fields which grew the best grain--all these would surely go. It was an ugly thought. To stand at the farm door, and know that possession ceased at the stream, and that the cattle grazing on the slopes beyond belonged to another, would be almost too much to bear.

A few days after mother and son had discussed that cruel business of the mortgage, and come to the conclusion that devilry had been at work, young Christian was rambling among the sandhills with his greyhound Luke--an English dog, with a cross of the coarser Irish breed. Not far from the farm, he came upon the track of a hare, printed with filigree delicacy in the sand. The marks were confused and mingled, crossing and recrossing one another, for poor Puss had been obviously 'running races in the mirth' through the morning dew, but at last the lad hit upon the true trail. It led him a good mile between the sandhills. On the top of each sandhill or mound grew thick coarse cotton grass and grassy weeds, and whenever the track led thither he set the dog's nose to work. Presently, reaching the summit of one of the highest of these sandhills, he came in sight of the long flat stretch of black sand and mud fringed by the waters of the sea.

He stood for a time and gazed. The sea was quite calm, in the grey silver light of a still November day, with quiet clouds piled upon the horizon like a range of hills. A lobster-boat, with flapping brown sails, was crawling along by means of sweeps towards the distant fishing beds. On one spot of the sands, close to the sea, was a white swarm of gulls, sitting perfectly move-less, save when now and then a solitary bird would rise with sleepy waft of wing, fly a few yards, and settle again. All was very still, but from a sea-creek not far distant he could hear from time to time the cry of the curlew.

While he stood, he saw sailing towards him, slowly, methodically, hovering always at the same distance from the earth, a large raven, followed at a distance of about fifty yards by another bird, the female. They came slowly, for each in turn, hovering over each sandhill, on the grassy summit of which something edible might hide, searched the grass for prey. From time to time the foremost bird uttered a thoughtful croak or chuckle, which the hindmost bird echoed after an interval. Christian knew the two birds well. Once, indeed, he had shot at the male bird at very short range, eliciting no other result than a defiant croak and a few falling feathers. Since then he had let the birds alone. They too had a freehold of the place, and had used it for a hunting-ground years before he was born.

He watched the birds carelessly, till they passed in succession over his head, greeting him with a croak of sublime indifference, and then, poised slanted in the air, glided more rapidly away. Turning his eyes to the sea, he saw that the swarm of gulls had risen and were hovering in the air, their cries, made faint by distance, reaching him where he stood.

Riding along the sands, at a trot, was a horseman, whom, in the distance, he did not recognise.

Idle, and tired of hunting the hare, he sat down and watched the rider till he disappeared behind the sand-hills, and the flock of gulls settled again on the fringe of the sea. Then, after a little time, Christian rose and walked down the side of the sandhill. In the smooth hollows between the mounds, it was impossible to see or be seen for many yards away; and presently, as he turned round a sandy corner, he came full in view of a gentleman on horseback--doubtless the same he had seen approaching by the side of the sea.

A man of about forty years of age, dressed in velvet riding-coat, breeches, high boots, and low crowned beaver hat. He was portly, but somewhat unhealthy-looking, his skin being deeply marked with the small-pox, his eyes being somewhat shrunken and inflamed, and his hair and short-cropt whiskers of deep black.

He was not alone. By his side, upon a small Welsh pony, rode a boy of about twelve years of age, evidently his son, for he had his father's eyes and complexion without their disfigurements. At a first glance, he struck one as a disagreeable boy, with a supercilious expression, and a peculiar look of lying-in-wait. As he was riding, he did not exhibit his chief physical deformity. Though scarcely a cripple, he was lame. One limb had never grown rightly, and though he could walk tolerably and comfortably, he could do so with neither ease nor grace.

At sight of these two figures, Christian turned red as crimson, for he knew them well. The gentleman was his father's enemy, Squire Orchardson of the Willows; the boy was Richard Orchardson, the squire's only son.

To his surprise, the squire rode right up to him along the sands, and then drew rein.

'You are young Christianson of the Fen?' he asked in a sharp authoritative voice.

Christian stood scowling, but made no answer.

'Have you no tongue, sirrah? I was just coming to see your mother.'

Christian started as if stung, and went from red to pale. Meanwhile his greyhound, seized by a fit of excitement, began to bark furiously at the heels of the boy's pony, which pranced and plunged, causing its rider to utter a timid cry.

'Call up your dog!' cried the squire. 'See you not 'tis frightening my son's pony?'

Christian turned towards the dog and called it to him, with such a scowling sneer upon his face as was irritating beyond measure.

'Come, Luke,' he said, and turned away.

'Stay!' cried Mr. Orchardson, involuntarily raising his riding-whip. 'Is your mother at home, boy?'

No reply.

'A Christianson all over,' muttered the squire. 'A cub of the old breed. Come, Dick.'

So saying, he trotted off, with his son following; the latter, as he urged his pony away, greeting Christian with a mocking grimace. Christian clenched his fists, while, with a shrill contemptuous laugh, the boy disappeared.

His blood boiling with rage, Christian stood for some minutes; then, remembering the squire's question, he began to hasten homeward. Was it possible that the squire meant to insult his mother by darkening her door during her affliction. If so, let him take care. He would at least warn his mother.

Excited beyond measure, he ran among the sandhills, till, emerging from them, he came in full view of the farm.

He was too late.

The squire and his son were sitting on horseback before the farm door; the squire was talking and gesticulating loudly, and on the threshold, as if pointing them from it, was Mistress Christianson, stern, and pale as death.

Christian strode up to the door and joined the group, just in time to hear the last few words of their conversation.

'I am sorry you are so bitter, dame,' the squire was saying; 'God knoweth, I have no wish to be hard upon you, and I will gladly grant you grace.'

'We want no grace from an Orchardson,' answered the dame; 'I pray you, sir, quit my door.'

'Yes, quit our door!' echoed Christian, coming up at this moment.

'Like cub, like vixen,' muttered the man to himself; then, turning to his son, who sat smiling upon his pony, he added, 'Come, Dick, we are not wanted here.'

The boy laughed, and said something in a whisper, which brought a dark smile to his father's cheek. At the whisper and the look, Christian felt sick with mingled hate and rage; and he made a movement with clenched hands as if to advance upon the pair, when his mother put her hand upon his arm to command him back.

So the two Orchardsons, father and son, rode slowly from the door, the boy pausing a moment at the gate to give a wicked laugh and sneer, before he cantered away by his father's side.

'Mother, what did they want?' asked Christian, trembling.

The dame did not reply; she was too busy with her own gloomy thoughts. Turning back into the house, and entering the dark wainscoted parlour, she took down the old Bible from its niche, put on her horn spectacles, and began to read, as was invariably her custom when her dark hour was upon her. Rocked upon the dreary billows of her favourite 'Psalms,' she felt with David the terror and the tumult of a wild unrest. In imagination, at least, her enemies were now scattered and smitten hip and thigh, and her soul went up in gloomy thankfulness to God.

Emerging from her trance of wrathful prayer, Mistress Christianson gradually led her children to understand the real facts of the interview between herself and Richard Orchardson. The hereditary enemy of her husband and her family had, it appeared, made overtures of a seemingly friendly nature, and had offered, if the dame wished it, to withdraw all pressure for the payment of the mortgage money. He had no wish, he said, to be too hard on a helpless woman, or to visit the husband's folly and improvidence on the head of his widow. At this first allusion to the dead, she had been unable to restrain her indignation, and in a few fierce words she had launched her life-long hate at her enemy's head, demanding that he should cease to darken her door.

'Why did he come to the house he hath made desolate?' she now cried angrily. 'To lay some other trap, sure, for the folk he hath destroyed. I knew when he rode up, with that fox-smile upon his face, and the boy grinning by his side, that he meant some hidden mischief; so that, when he spoke of kindness, my soul went sick.'

'And mine too,' said Christian, 'when I met them i' the sands.'

Days passed, and the Christiansons heard no more of the Orchardsons. They waited and waited, in hourly dread and expectation of the fatal missive which should announce to them that the mortgage would be closed, and the money due realised on the land. But the missive did not come; instead of it, there was an ominous silence. At last, however, some weeks after the interview at the farm-door, came another letter from Lawyer Jeffries, on behalf of Richard Orchardson, requesting in formal terms, but polite, the payment of the moneys due. To this the dame replied curtly, saying that payment was impossible, and that, to make an end, the mortgagee was at liberty to take what course he pleased. This brought over Lawyer Jeffries in person--a little, hard, dry, but good-natured man of business, who drove down in his gig from the neighbouring town, ten miles away.

He was closeted with the dame for hours, and Christian, listening at the door, could hear high words from his mother, and soft persuasive periods from the visitor. Lawyer Jeffries strongly advised a policy of conciliation. His client, he avowed, had no wish to press hard upon the widow, though she was entirely in his power, and he himself was sure that, if she only asked respectfully for time and consideration, both would be given. It was throwing words away, however. The good dame was obstinately resolved never to ask any favour from the man who, she devoutly believed, had planned her husband's ruin.

The little lawyer rode away in despair; but being, as we have said, a good-natured man, and kind-hearted withal, he carried to the squire such a message as seemed conciliatory enough, and Orchardson, who had just then no mind for harsh measures, instructed him to let the matter stand. So weeks passed away, and though the Christiansons were still in constant anticipation of a notice of ejectment from the rich Fen land; nothing more was said or done.

The doubtful peace thus attained between the two houses might have lasted long but for one of those events, trifling in themselves but often fatal in their issues, which so often complicate the relations of human beings.

One day in December, Christian took his gun, and, followed by his sister, strolled out over the Fen lands. Their larder was empty, and he was looking for a hare. Though it was winter, the weather was almost spring-like. The mist had lifted like a night-cap from the fens, and from the clear patches in the sky the sun sent down revivifying rays, as if to inspire new joy and bring fresh hope to the heart of every man, now Christmastide was nigh. It brought cheer at least to Young Christian Christianson, who, strolling along over the fen, with his gun flung across his shoulder, had probably never felt more magnanimous in his life.

The mingled feelings of stern pride and bitter hatred, which had been handed down to him as the woeful inheritance of his house, and had taken their place only too firmly in his heart, seemed to fade temporarily before the beneficent light of the sky. The words which his dying father had uttered came back to him, and resounded again and again in his ears like a wail of admonishment and pain. 'Forgive--forgive!--Yes, those had been the last words on the lips of the poor worn-out man, and no one had heard them but the family whose souls, warped with hatred, sick with pain, were only too ready to forget that dying prayer. Christian, at any rate, had not quite forgiven even his father; and as for the Orchardsons, he had met hate with hate, scorn with scorn; and while standing up, as he thought, in manly defence of his house, he had plunged into the blackest gloom of a mad inferno. But to-day, boy though he was, he asked himself why should these things be? why not bury the past, as generations of men are buried, and with the help of God look forward to bright and happy days to come?

Forgive? nay, he did not feel even yet he could forgive--that he possessed sufficient strength to reach forth his hand in friendship to human beings who had so often and so cruelly stung him and his. Forgiveness such as that would be unnatural, would demand superhuman strength and kindliness.

The utmost he could do was what he then resolved to do: bury the Orchardsons deep down amid the ruins of the sad and bitter past; and with all memory of their existence blotted from his soul, try to live a new life.

He paused, and turned to his sister Kate, who was walking quietly beside him.

'Kate,' he cried, 'think you, when our father lay a-dying, and said, "Forgive--forgive," he meant that devil's brood up at the Hall?'

'Nay, I know not,' answered Kate, timidly, for she feared the theme.

'I think rather he meant mother to forgive him for ever having taken aid from the enemies of our house. His conscience pricked him sore for that misdeed.'

'Poor father!'

'But he was to blame. Small wonder his conscience stung him.'

'Alas!'

'How now, Kate?'

'Perchance Squire Orchardson meant kindly--perchance he will be kindly still--nay, did he not say as much? It is mad to cross him; will you not forget old troubles, and give the Orchardsons your hand, and speak to mother, and then--and then--'

She paused trembling, for Christian's face was dark with passion.

Poor Kate was a gentle girl, with more of her father's softness than her mother's determination.

She was utterly incapable of feeling a life-long hatred for the Orchardsons, not perhaps because she was usually more tender-hearted than her brother, but because her memory was imperfect and her feelings evanescent. She would forget a benefit as easily as an injury, while her brother was capable of keenly remembering both. And he did remember them as he listened to his sister's words--he remembered also the feelings of gladness and hope which had filled his soul only a few minutes before. He remembered also his father's dying words, and he struggled to say, 'I will forgive,' but his lips would not utter the words.

'Kate,' he said, 'I can never forgive, but I'll try, if I can, to forget!'

'Nay, Christian, say not so,' pleaded Kate, quietly. 'What doth the Bible say?--why, that we should forgive our enemies, ay, seventy times seven?'

She paused, but her brother did not reply. His eyes were fixed with gloomy distrust upon an object close at hand. She turned, and beheld standing only a few paces off young Richard Orchardson of the Willows.

He had evidently heard every word of the conversation, for on his pale, pinched face there was a quiet sneer. If looks of bitterness and hatred could kill, young Christian had at that moment lain dead at his feet. Kate, seeing with terribly sinking heart the dangerous looks on the faces of the two lads, endeavoured to become peacemaker. She laid her trembling hand on her brother's arm.

'Come, Christian,' she said, eagerly, 'we'll get home.'

The youth, almost frightened at himself, was yielding to her influence, and would have walked silently away but young Orchardson stopped them.

'Give me that gun,' he said, 'or you shall answer for carrying it on my father's land!'

Christian flushed up angrily. A hot reply came to his lips, but with an effort he suppressed it.

'Nay, not so fast, young sir,' he said. 'The Fen Farm belongs to the Christiansons to-day, if it goeth to the Orchardsons to-morrow. 'Tis you that are a-trespassing, not I; I be on our own land!'

'You lie,' returned the other; 'the land is ours--my father paid for it to keep you folks from starving. 'Tis like a Christianson to hate the hand that fed him!'

Christian again controlled himself with a mighty effort.

'Nay, I'll not talk with thee,' he muttered. 'Come, Kate.'

But the boy interposed.

'You shall not go,' he cried. 'Give me that gun, or I will take it from you.'

Christian smiled grimly, amused to see the puny thing stand before him, pale and tremulous with passion, to hear him talk of using force to one who could have bent him like a reed at one touch of a strong hand.

Kate turned to young Richard with outstretched hands.

'Do not provoke my brother. He is strong, and you are so weak; I know he would not wish to hurt you, but you say such wicked things.'

'My father is too soft,' cried the boy with a sneer. 'Had I my will, I would rid the fields of such vermin.' Then he cried more angrily, 'Why did you set your cur at my pony's heels yesterday? It is a foul brute, and Aaron Hart saith it has been seen poaching on our land. Yes, had I my will. I would serve the master like his dog!'

Christian was silent; for at this moment his attention was drawn from the speaker by an incident more terrible to him than any that had yet happened in his life. The dog Luke, which had been gambolling freely all the morning about the Fen, now crawled slowly up to its master's feet. Every muscle in its poor body was contracted with intense pain, its eyes, wild and bloodshot, seemed to be starting from their sockets, its mouth was covered with foam, and with low piteous moans it tried to lick and touch its master.

With a sharp cry Christian fell on his knees beside the poor agonised creature, while Kate, trembling with fear, pity, and anguish, burst into passionate tears. The dog, after experiencing a minute or two of intense agony, seemed suddenly to become bereft of its senses, and with one or two wild cries, and a terrible gnashing of teeth, fell back upon the fen land, dead.

A minute later, when Christian raised his head, he looked straight into the cruel eyes of his enemy.

For the moment young Orchardson seemed frightened; his cheeks were ghastly pale, and he tried to turn away.

'Devil!' cried Christian, gripping him. 'You have poisoned my dog.'

''Tis false!' cried Richard, with a guilty shiver. 'I--I did not touch him.'

'There he lieth dead. To your knees--confess it--ere I strangle you!'

'Help!' shrieked the boy, writhing in the other's powerful grasp; and Kate, tempted beyond measure, cried 'Help!' too. Beside himself with rage, Christian swung the boy round and flung him from him with one wild push and blow. He staggered, screaming, and then fell prone upon the ground. There he lay as if senseless, while Christian, affrighted at his own violence, stood paralysed, gazing down upon him.

'Oh, you have killed him!' cried Kate, bending above him, and chafing his hand.

As she spoke the boy lifted his head, and showed his forehead bloody where it had struck upon a stone. With the blood trickling down his face, he staggered to his feet; then, seeing the blood on his hands, he began to cry piteously.

'Stop!' cried Christian, as he turned to go. 'Tell me you did not harm the poor hound, and I will ask your pardon.'

Young Orchardson made no reply, but, sobbing still, cast one look at the dead dog, and made a movement as if to spurn it with his foot; then, with a blood-stained face, rushed rapidly up the hill.

Kate, still sobbing, wrung her hands. 'We are undone, we are undone!' she moaned. 'What will Squire Orchardson say when he hears that you struck his son?,

But this time her brother did not heed her, or scarcely seemed to hear. No furious flame of anger now burnt in his heart, but on his face there was a fixed look of horrible pity and pain. In weary sorrow he raised his eyes to the still smiling sky.

'Forgive!' he murmured; 'nay, father, I can never forgive now. Since there is a God above us, why doth He let such things be?'

He raised the poor stiffening body of his dog, and carried it tenderly homewards in his arms, choking down his tears as he went.

As he passed the house door his mother came out to question him, and he told her what had passed. She went very pale, but said little; she did not even chide her son for his violence.

Christian laid the poor hound tenderly in the porch, and then all went into the house together.

An hour later, there came a great rapping at the door. Anticipating evil, they went and threw the door open, and there stood Squire Orchardson, mounted on his black horse, and shaking his heavy whip at them all. He was livid with passion, and the moment he saw Christian, shrieked aloud,

'Where is he that struck my boy? Where is the coward that smote a poor lame lad? Come out, you dog! come out! that I may punish you as you deserve!

Christian was about to leap out and face the speaker, when his mother, grim as death, ordered him to keep back. Accustomed to obey her, he paused.

'My son did not strike your son,' answered the dame coldly; 'he fell, and so was hurt.'

''Tis a lie!' cried the squire. 'He struck him' My boy never lies, and he hath told me all.'

'Your son is the liar, sir,' said Christian, 'if he saith I struck him. I gave him a push in anger, and he fell upon a stone. But he poisoned my dog!'

'And if he did, what is the life of your wretched cur to a scratch upon my son? Your dog poached upon our preserves, and had I seen it, I would have shot it with my own hand. My boy did well. Had he poisoned the whole of your wicked brood he would have done better still.'

'You are a brave man,' returned the widow, with a cold smile, 'to talk thus to a lonely woman. Had my man been living, he would have reckoned with the father as his son did reckon with the son.'

'Enough, woman!' cried the squire, madly. 'If there is law or justice in the land, you shall all moan for this. Beggars that you are! I will be even with you now. No more mercy--no, no! I'll grind you down to dust!'

'Begone, sir! you darken our door.'

And without another word, she closed the heavy door in his face. Listening within, they heard him muttering and cursing aloud, and striking on the door with his whip; then, with a loud threatening oath, he galloped away.

They had not to wait long for the issue of that sad dispute. The very next day came the legal intimation that the mortgage money was to be realised to the last penny, and that if they could not pay up both principal and interest, they must yield the well-loved land.

Thus the thunderbolt fell not quite unexpectedly, and they looked at one another with stupefied faces.

Kate was the first to speak, and her words were characteristic.

'Mother, mother! do not let us be undone. Let me go to Mr. Richard. Let me tell him that we beg his pardon, let me sue for pity. I know he will listen to me, if I plead humbly enough.'

'Silence!' cried Christian. 'How dare you think of it? Your father's blood flows between you and--'

He paused, for Kate was kneeling on the floor and sobbing, and the dame was standing over her like a ghost, pointing at her with a lean forefinger, and trembling as a leaf.

'Christian!' cried the girl. 'Speak for me Mother!'

Christian put his hand upon his mother's arm. For a moment the dame did not speak; her lips moved, but she was too troubled to find words. It was terrible to see her white stony face, with its wrathful eyes. At last she gasped, pointing to the great Bible which stood open upon the sideboard,

'Give me the Book!'

Christian placed it upon the table near her.

Stooping, she seized Kate's cold hand and placed it among the leaves. Poor Kate shivered and moaned, and tried to draw her hand away, as if she feared the touch might do her harm.

'Now, swear!' said the mother.

Kate only sobbed aloud.

'Swear on the Book, that you will never again willingly exchange words with any of that name or that blood; swear that in sickness and in health, as long as life lasts, you will never take the hand of an Orchardson or knowingly worship under the same roof with any of that blood or name; swear that your prayers shall rise nightly against them, wherever you may be.'

Kate seemed overcome with terror.

'I promise, mother--do not ask me to swear!'

'Swear on the Book!'

Thus urged, Kate Christianson took the oath.

The dame turned suddenly to her son.

'You shall swear too!' she said sharply.

The boy swore right eagerly. Then he stooped and caught his sister in his arms, just as she was swooning away.

So it came to pass, through the issue of ill-blood between mere children, and between men and women who were as children in their foolish passions, that the breach between the two houses widened into a gulf as deep as hell. On the one side of this gulf of hate and darkness, sat the Orchardsons, rich, prosperous, in the full sunshine of fat meadow and plenteous vineyard. On the other side crouched the Christiansons, a beggared family, bitter at heart, ever waiting for the evil hour which might bring vengeance. The mortgage was closed. The fat Fen lands passed into the hands of their hereditary foes; and all remaining to them now were the old house, fast falling into decay, and the barren hills and burrows of sea-lying sand.

Well, there are compensations even in the deepest shadows of trouble. It was something at least to have the old house, and not to be turned out by the bailiffs, like conies by the ferret, into the open cold; something more, to possess the ancestral sandhills, barren and desolate as they were. At a pinch, they could at least exist, though no human soul but themselves knew how sore at times the pinch became.

Fortunately, they had never been free livers, and even in their days of prosperity had known little but homely fare. With keen thrift, now, they contrived to preserve a decent appearance before the world.

Widow and daughter kept their needles busy, and their spinning-wheels as well; so that Christian, who had a rough boy's knack of destroying apparel, never went otherwise than neatly clad. And the boy, who was the idol of both, had his luxuries too. Many a time the two lonely women went without common necessaries themselves in order that the head and hope of the house might have gentlefolk's fare.

In this sad season of poverty and social disgrace, it is hard to say what would have become of young Christian Christianson if he had not relieved his angry moods by that free physical exercise of which he had ever been so fond. The women had their Bible, their constant means of communication with some strange far-off Divine sympathy; his, on the contrary, was not a religious nature, and in more respects than one he belied his name.

For weeks and months the shame and outrage of that cruel legal revenge dwelt within him, poisoning every thought and feeling, distorting every hope and dream. At first, but for the piteous pleading of his sister and the sad command of his mother, he would certainly have gone off and committed murder. For weeks afterwards he was in the mood, had either father or son crossed his path, to have shot him dead, or to have sprung upon him and tried to tear him limb from limb.

Fortunately, his mad rage was suffered to consume itself, and to die away, without receiving any fresh fuel from without.

So the boy went and came, somewhat more dark and sullen than before, but to all outward seeming, little changed.

Years passed on, and the bitterness of seeing others in possession of the ancestral land, which stretched rich and plenteous before the very door, had begun to wear away. Poverty was so familiar that it no longer seemed very unfriendly or quite unkind. The widow had accepted her cross patiently, and by dint of strict parsimony, had saved a trifle. At all events, affairs could grow no worse,--unless the very roof fell in upon their heads, a not altogether unlikely contingency, taking into consideration the state of the farm-repairs.

It is to be feared that, in one particular respect, Christian had suffered severely. His education had been unduly neglected. It is doubtful, however, if much more attention would have been given to his training, even had the family not fallen on evil days. In those times, many a wealthy farmer was too illiterate even to write his own name, and book-learning was generally regarded as so much vanity, not to be indulged in by sensible folk whose lives were occupied in tilling the land and accumulating gold.

What he lacked in knowledge, Christian Christianson gained in manly strength and beauty. At twenty years of age, he might have sat to a painter for a youthful Thor.

His short clustering ringlets, his firmly-chiselled face with its grave blue eyes and splendid chin, his strong yet shapely neck, his perfectly-moulded arms and limbs, were all in keeping. Though of great height, he had none of the unwieldiness of giants. His only defect was a peculiar stoop in the shoulders, a not unusual characteristic, I have noticed, of brooding and determined men.

For the rest, his disposition, it is to be feared, was sullen and stern. He had strong and stirring passions, as we have seen, but they had been subdued to a gloomy sense of wrong. Brave, honest, incapable of meanness or treachery, he yet conveyed in his manner a certain feeling of dangerous repression. His bitterness against the world had been fostered by constant loneliness; for the family had now few friends.

It was his twentieth birthday, and the day, a clear June day of unusual brightness, broke with warmth and splendour over the sandhills and the sea. He had risen early, and gone down to the sea for a swim. Emerging from the water, light and glistening as a naked god, and happy for the time in the glowing consciousness of life, he cast on his clothes, and turning inland, he threw himself on one of the hot sandhills, to bask in the sun.

All was perfectly still--the clear heaven, the calm throbbing ocean, the long flat sands still wet from the receding tide: not a sound broke the summer silence. All at once, however, the stillness was broken by the sound of a voice, singing.

So suddenly did it rise, and so near at hand, that he was quite startled. Half-rising he listened. Yes, there could be no doubt whatever; some one was singing close by.

A clear silvery voice, like that of a woman. Stranger still, the words seemed merry and foreign, belonging to some language he did not understand. It seemed like witchcraft, and Christian, who was not without his superstitions, felt a trembling thrill run through his frame. This lasted only for a minute; then, rising to his feet, he moved over the sandhills in the direction of the voice.

A few quick strides brought him within sight of the singer.

Down beneath him, in a green space between the sandhills, sprinkled with canna-grass and yellow flowers, a young girl was walking, singing clearly to herself as she moved and sang in the summer sunshine.

She was dressed in black, without one trace of any ornament. Even her bonnet was black, which she had taken off and was swinging by the strings. The contrast between her gloomy dress and her bright face set in golden hair was sufficiently startling; but equally as great was the contrast between that dress and the clear gay trill of her girlish voice.

Christian stood looking on in wonder. He was used to country maidens, but this apparition seemed something quite different. She wore dainty boots and gauntlet gloves, and her attire, though so sombre in colour, was of fine material and elegant in form.

As he gazed she ceased to sing, and stooping down gathered one or two of the yellow flowers; these she fastened to her bosom, and as she did so, gave a silvery laugh.

Christian was fascinated. He had never seen a human being so completely at ease with herself and with the world. In her complete contentedness with her own company and thoughts, she realised Wordsworth's lines:-

Solitude to her
Is sweet society, who fills the air
With gladness and involuntary song.

He looked on in wonder.

Presently the girl resumed her walk, and her voice rose again. This time the tune was even gayer, though the words were still foreign and strange. Then, finishing a verse, she laughed again, out of sheer delight of heart.

It seemed hardly fair and honest to play the spy in that fashion, without letting the young lady know that she was not unobserved; so Christian, though he felt bashful for the first time in his life, gave a cough to attract her attention.

She looked up at once, and, to his astonishment, smiled and beckoned.

Scarcely knowing what he did, he walked down towards her, and soon encountered the full fire of a pair of blue eyes, directed right into his own.

Then came a point-blank question.

'How long have you been listening, if you please?'

Christian stammered, blushed, and looked confused. Before he could find an answer, came another question.

'Do you belong to this place?'

'Yes,' he said.

'Then perhaps you can help me. I have lost my way.'

'Lost your way,' said the young man, looking puzzled. 'Why--'

He was about to ask the question which she at once, without hearing him, answered offhand.

'I was wandering along the sea-shore, and I turned off among the sandhills; and each is so like the other that I got lost among them.'

'You did not seem to mind.'

'Nay, but I was singing to keep my courage up. You heard me?'

'Yes.'

'Did you think I was singing a hymn?'

Christian stared, and involuntarily shook his head.

'Since it was in French, perchance you could not tell,' she added, smiling, seeing the shadow of a smile on Christian's face. 'Well, perchance it was not a hymn at all, but a chanson I learned over in France.'

There was something so frank and artless in the girl s manner, something so utterly different from the self-conscious timidity and blushing stupidity of country maidens, that Christian was perfectly bewildered. To be addressed so fearlessly and carelessly by a complete stranger was in itself a novelty. He felt for the time like an awkward lout, tackled for the first time by a fairy of the wood or sea.

'Do you--live here? Nay, in the neighbourhood, I mean?'

'I am staying with my father, over in Brightlinghead.'

Brightlinghead was a small fishing village, situated some miles away, upon the sea-shore.

'And you?' she asked.

'I live at the Fen Farm, in yonder.'

'What is your name?'

'Christian Christianson.'

She looked at him from top to toe, with the frank yet modest look that was peculiar to her.

'You must be a good Christian, in sooth, if you are like your name.'

Christian coloured up, and said awkwardly, 'What is your father? Not of these parts?'

'Nay,' she replied, 'he is a stranger. He hath come down hither to preach God's Word.'

Christian wondered again; to his simple sense, there seemed something most inconsistent between gospel preaching and a vision so bright and sweet.

'Your father is a parson, then?'

The girl shook her head.

'Nay, he is not in holy orders, though he hath had a call. Since he heard good Mr. Wesley preach, the Spirit hath moved him to discourse for poor folks' conversion.'

Another change. She spoke now with a quite different intonation, recalling the prim phrases of the dissenting chapel. Her eyelids drooped demurely, and the edges of her pretty mouth were just turned down--like a roseleaf folding.

While speaking, they had moved on quietly towards an opening in the sandhills, and they were now within view of the open sea sands.

'I shall know my way now,' she said, quietly. 'Good day, friend.'

But Christian, with the fascination of her presence strong upon him, was not to be parted with so easily. He kept by her side saying:

'If you will suffer me, I can show you a short cut back to your village. 'Tis but going round yonder by the skirts of the water-meadow, instead of winding along the curves of the sea.'

'Point me the path, prithee, and I will take it.'

'Nay, I will go with you a piece of the way.'

The girl smiled, and looked at him again with her bright eyes.

'A good Christian, as I said! Come, then, good Christian!'

And she tript along with happy unconcern, he following.

As they went, he had a better opportunity of observing her, and the more he looked, the more his wonder grew. She could not have been more than seventeen or eighteen, and yet her manner had the perfect repose of a mature woman. Her complexion was very pale, yet clear, her eyes matchlessly bright, her eyebrows dark, yet her hair the lightest of gold. He noted, too, that she had tiny hands and feet. Her figure was slight yet very graceful, and she walked with a light elastic tread.

By this time she had put on her bent bonnet, a structure of the then fashionable coal-scuttle shape, yet wondrously becoming to a plump and pretty face.

Christian had seen few women save his own mother and sister, and such rustic beauties as he knew were of the red-cheeked, not to say red-elbowed, order. Of ladies proper he knew little or nothing. There was the vicar's wife, who might have once been comely, but was now sedately grim; and her daughters--young ladies with shrill voices and high waists. Lawyer Jeffries' daughter was a bold-looking, handsome girl, and so were many of the farmers' daughters round about. But the one invariable characteristic of all these persons, plain or fair, was that they had two distinct manners--the 'stand off' manner and the 'come on' manner-- whenever they were in company with a person of the other sex. In one word, they were either flirts or prudes; in either case ridiculously conscious of the sexual distinction.

Now, the curious charm about this pretty stranger was her complete unconsciousness of anything of the sort.

She spoke to Christian as frankly as one young man might talk to another, with perfect modesty, perfect unconsciousness, and perfect ease. She took him at once, as it were, into her confidence, as a human being, and yet, all the time, she preserved a certain pretty virginal dignity, which warned him that it would be a dangerous thing to encroach.

So he followed her as a dog might follow its mistress, happy, yet conscious of the command of a superior spirit.

They passed along the sea-shore, along the border of the water-meadow, and then, crossing a field, found themselves in a dusty country road deeply furrowed with old cart-ruts, yet thickly sprinkled with growing grass. The hedges were high, and the grass all under them was thickly sprinkled with speedwells and dog-violets. The thick hedge shut out the distant sea, and it seemed like walking in a wood.

Presently the maiden paused.

'You must not come any further--I am quite right now.'

''Tis but a short step further,' returned Christian, 'and I will not leave you yet. Perchance before I go,' he said, 'you will tell me your name.'

'Did I not tell you, friend? It is Priscilla.'

'Mistress Priscilla--'

'Priscilla Sefton, at your service,' she cried, smiling and dropping a little curtsey; 'and now, since you have proved yourself good Samaritan as well as good Christian, I prithee come no further.'

The young man tingled and blushed each time she played upon his name.

'I have naught to occupy me, and I am going your way,' he replied.

'Naught to occupy you?' she cried, with a smile. 'Know you not the rhyme, "Satan doth find some mischief still, for idle hands to do"? But there, since you are so willing, come along.'

So they went side by side. Presently they came to a little bridge, arched like a maiden's foot, spanning a bright brook, that went leaping down to the sea.

Priscilla paused, and leant over, looking at the sparkling water. Just below the bridge, it made a pool fringed deep with sedge and reeds, and in among the reeds white water-lilies were just unfolding, each with a pinch of gold in its heart, and on the banks hung wild rose-bushes, with pink flowers fluttering open to see their images in the water beneath. Just then, a bright little bird, in gorgeous summer clothing of red, blue, and gold, darted through the arch of the bridge, paused as if to alight on an outreaching twig of the rose-bushes, and then, seeing Priscilla, flew on rapidly with a sharp cry, keeping very close to the water, and following with rapid precision every winding of the brook.

'What a beautiful bird!' cried the girl. 'Do you know its name?'

''Tis a kingfisher.'

'And look--there is another!'

On a stone in the middle of the pool was a little bird with a snow-white breast, dip-dipping in rapid motion as it stood, with its head cocked on one side, and its sharp eye so intent on the water that it did not see the human forms above it.

As Priscilla spoke, it quietly slipt into the water and disappeared from sight.

'That is a water-ouzel,' exclaimed Christian.

The little bird re-emerged, stood on the stone again dip-dipping, and then, startled, flew off after the kingfisher, down the stream.

'How nice to be a country lad,' said Priscilla, 'and to know all the pretty birds and flowers. 'Tis almost my first visit to the green fields. I have lived all my life in smoky towns.'

'London born, perchance?' queried Christian.

'Yes; but since I was twelve years old, I have dwelt with my good Aunt Dorcas in Liège. It was pleasant there, but I love our England best.'

As they lingered there, leaning over the keystone of the little bridge, they formed a fine contrast; he, so mightily and grandly made, with his sunburnt cheeks and air of Arcadian simplicity; she, so delicate and fairy-like, in her tight-fitting dress of black, with her Little gloved hands and fairy feet. Down below them in the shadows the gnats swarmed, and the minnows sparkled, and the trout leapt; birds were singing on every side; in heaven, there was full sunshine; on earth, perfect fruition of the summer tide. Delicious was the birds' song, delicious the cool trickling sound of the running brook. Like a child delighted, Priscilla listened, and her pure face reflected the joy of all the happy things around her.

Young Christian looked and gladdened. He did not know it yet, for he was a boy, but the divine hour had come: the hour which does not come to all (for to some men capable of infinite affection it never comes at all), but which, when it does come, means transfiguration. This delicate being, bringing with her the perfume and the beauty of some unknown world, this dainty stranger, who talked with him already as frankly as if he were an old friend, held him spell-bound. Yet, strange to say, he was not tongue-tied; to his own astonishment, he found himself catching the contagion of her frankness, and talking with a freedom unusual to him.

'This is Thornley Beck,' he said; 'down yonder, a mile away, it runneth into the sea. I have seen the white trout trying to climb it in autumn floods, but they cannot pass the bridge, and there are no pools, so they cannot stay. Down close to the sands, there be silver mullet in hundreds, and the fishermen take them in the net.'

Christian spoke as a country lad, loving sport better than sentiment. To him the fishing possibilities of the beach were of infinitely more consequence than its natural beauties, for the artistic sense had never been born within him.

'Had I my will,' said Priscilla, thoughtfully, 'none should snare the pretty fish. 'Tis a sin to slay what the good God made.'

The lad stared, for such talk was to him incomprehensible.

'God made the fish for food,' he answered, 'and the beasts, and the birds of the air. Our Lord Himself did go a-fishing once.'

'Nay, 'twas a miracle,' answered the maiden, 'and these things are hard to understand. God meant it for a merry world, but our sin hath transformed it. Had you seen what I have seen, in the wicked city, you would be sad.'

'What have you seen?'

'Human folk dwelling in places dark and foul; men and women pining away for lack of the sweet air; little babes starving at the breast; and I have heard cursing and gnashing of teeth, such as the good pilgrim your namesake heard when he lay him down in a den.'

'What took you into such evil places?' asked Christian in surprise.

'I went with my father, to save souls.'

'How?'

'By reading to them out of the Blessed Book, and by telling them of Him that loved them and laid down His life for their sakes. I have stood by and sung sweet hymns to them, while they smiled and died.'

The lad's wonder deepened. The girl's words were so sad and terrible, and yet her face remained so bright and simple. Here and there in her intonation he seemed to catch the twang of the preacher, but the manner was so different, so calm and innocently assured.

A sudden question occurred to him, and he uttered it at once.

'You wear black,--you are in mourning perchance?'

She shook her head.

'My mother died long ago, when I was a babe; but my father doth not think light colours seemly, nor do any of our folk.'

'Your folk?'

'We are of good Master Wesley's flock, and he him self hath sent my father hither.'

Now Christian had heard of the great preacher, as of one malignant in all respects, disaffected to Church and State and King; and he had heard of his people, as of people to be avoided and distrusted by all good subjects. Nay, in his own district there were sprinkled a few infected individuals, who were at war with the parson and exiled from society in general. Notably, there was one Elijah Marvel, a shoemaker of grim and forbidding aspect, who would bandy words with the vicar himself, and had in consequence lost all custom, fallen on evil days, and alas! taken to strong ale--fortified by which, he became even more malignant than before. His mother, he knew, often spoke of Mr. Wesley with a certain respect, but she had never openly fallen away from the Church, and had sent her children to church and Sunday school, and had a stately welcome for the pastor of the parish whenever he paid her an official visit. Altogether, Christian shared to the full the popular prejudice against dissenters of all kinds; for be had not learned to think for himself on religious subjects, and took his religion as it came to him, with the other traditions of his race and blood.

Priscilla noticed his astonishment, and looked at him with grave thoughtfulness.

'You are not of my father's persuasion?'

'Nay,' cried Christian, quickly, 'I am for the King.'

Priscilla's face blossomed into an amused smile.

'And so are we all!'

'Nay, I thought--'

'Well, good Christian?'

'--That Master Wesley was a Pretender's man, and an enemy to all good subjects.'

'Master Wesley is for the Lord Jesus, the King of kings,' she replied simply, 'and I fear you have heard him belied like his Master before him. I would you could hear him preach: he is so terrible, yet he can be so gentle when he lists. His voice is as the sounding of trumpets, yet his smile is kindly as the sunshine upon the sea. Though he cometh to call sinners to repentance, he is sorest of all upon himself.'

So speaking, in her natural tones, as if she were uttering mere matter-of-fact, she walked on. The language of the conventicle had grown so familiar to her, that it came to her lips as naturally as girlish laughter. She seemed a strange contradiction; so bright and fearless, and yet so full of grave discourse; so sweet in her manner, yet in her matter so solemn and even sad; so pious-minded, yet so happy. Now, Christian knew, even in his little experience, that the Methodist people inclined more to the dark than to the sunny view of human affairs. Cobbler Marvel had once roundly rated the vicar himself for cooking hot dinners on the Sabbath, and for over-finery of personal attire. His talk was much of Armageddon, and of brimstone, and of the pit. Moreover, once or twice Christian had got a peep at certain forbidden gatherings in the open air, where common men gathered together and spake as the Spirit moved them; and he had thought their discourse the very reverse of cheerful, nay, gloomy and dull exceedingly. Such, in his simple eyes, were Methodists--fate-haunted and distracted men. Yet here was something so different, under the same name: a sunbeam of a maiden, happy in a sinful world. Her piety was like her black dress; it only showed her brightness to more advantage. He had read few books, but one of them was the 'Pilgrim's Progress;' and already he felt that Priscilla was like one of those shiningly-vestured beings, who talked to that other Christian and encouraged him upon his way.

And now, leaving the brook behind them, they passed along the hot lane, and coming to the brow of a hill, saw again the sea glittering before them; and between them and the sea was the fishing-village of Brightlinghead, clustering with red-tiled houses, and brown sails, and drying nets upon the sea-beach.

Priscilla led the way, followed by her new acquaintance, and paused near a tiny cottage, with a narrow patch of front garden, upon the roadside. Inside the garden gate stood two men, seemingly in angry conversation.

One was a short, squat, bullet-headed man in black who wore a clerical hat and carried a cane, and who was obviously in holy orders. The other was a tall, thin man, with a countenance of ghastly pallor, and large blue eyes full of a somewhat wandering light. He did not seem more than fifty years of age, but his hair was as white as snow.

'Now mark me,' said the clergyman, shaking his cane, 'I will have no malignant and disaffected wanderers--whom no man knows, and have no authority from God or man--meddling with my people. 'Tis my care to look after the souls of this parish, and I want no meddlers. I warn you, therefore, to quit the place, or to let my people be.'

The person whom he addressed answered him, with a curious far-off look in his eyes,

'Nevertheless, I must do my Master's bidding.'

'At your peril! I have but to give the word, and they would duck you in the horsepond, or stone you from the town.'

'For what?' gently said the white-haired man. 'For telling simple folk the way to God's mercy? For warning them to save their souls alive, ere yet they fall to the place where the worm never dieth?'

The clergyman, a very hot-tempered little man, gave a grunt of complete disgust.

'I know the canting jargon, Master Methodist, but it won't do down here. My people have been taught that the best way to save their souls is to do as I bid them, to work hard for daily bread, not to meddle with themes they cannot understand, and to honour the King and the clergy. There, go to! You have come to the wrong place, that is all, and the sooner you depart as you came the better we shall all be pleased.'

With these words the indignant clergyman bustled through the garden gate, cast one sharp look at Priscilla, who was entering in, and walked rapidly away.

Approaching the white-haired man with an anxious look, the maiden touched him on the arm. Strange to say, he did not turn his eyes upon her, but still preserved in them the curious far-off look we have already described.

'Priscilla!'

'Yes, father, it is I. What hath been the matter?'

'The good pastor of the parish is angry that I have been preaching to his flock. I am grieved in sooth to have offended him, but I cannot serve two masters, and the good seed must be sown.'

'Verily, father; but come, some one wants to speak with you. To-day I have lost my way, and found a friend.'

So saying, she took the old man's hand and drew him towards the gate, where Christian still stood wondering. When they were quite close, she beckoned to him with a smile.

'Will you speak to my father?' she said. 'Father, this is a young man who showed me the way home. His name is Christian Christianson.'

'A good name, at all events,' said the man, with the glint of a smile upon his wan cheeks, 'and I trust a fitting one. Young man, you are very welcome.'

As he spoke he reached out a thin white hand, and Christian now perceived for the first time that he was blind--stricken by the species of disease of which Milton so pathetically yet patiently complained. The gutta serena, or 'thick drop serene,' had invaded both orbs, and left him in perpetual night.

Christian shrank back, but both father and daughter invited him to enter the cottage, and though bashfulness had now fallen upon him like an uncomfortable garment, curiosity made him assent. He followed the strange pair into a low-roofed parlour, with black rafters and whitewashed walls. The only furniture was a plain deal table and some chairs. The floor was of deal, with no carpet. All would have seemed squalid indeed, but upon the table there was a plate of water, with fresh-culled pansies from the garden, close to an open Bible, very stained and old.

The man sat down, and Priscilla motioned their guest to do likewise.

'Nay, I cannot linger,' he murmured, flushing; 'I will depart now, and--'

'Stay a short space,' said the blind man. 'Priscilla, get Mr. Christian some refreshment. Perchance, when he hath broken bread with us he will remain and offer up thanks with us to the Giver of all mercies.'

A sweet look from the maiden's eyes did more to persuade the lad to remain than any prospect of praise or thanksgiving. So he kept his seat, and tripping forth to the kitchen, she brought him plain brown bread and new milk, which he made pretence, for courtesy's sake, to taste.

Meantime, his eyes sought the face and figure of the blind man; and he was surprised to find in one so afflicted so complete a calm. Looking closer, he noticed that, though the man's dress was plain, it was of excellent material, that he wore wondrously fine linen, that his hands were white and delicate, and had never been used in any manual labour. This puzzled him more; for all the Wesleyans whom he had seen, or of whom he had heard, were common handicraftsmen or labourers in the fields. There was, moreover, in the man's manner a curious stateliness and grandeur. He spoke with an accent of extreme refinement, which even Christian, though country-born, could not fail to perceive.

As they sat, there was a tap at the door, and a grim-looking man, clad in fisherman's style, quietly slouched in. He was followed almost immediately by another younger man, then by an elderly woman leading a child, and lastly by a good-humoured-looking blacksmith, fresh from the forge, in his leather apron. Some of these people were evidently expected; for at the sound of their entrance the blind man rose to his feet and gave them welcome.

'Good even, master,' said the blacksmith, cheerily. 'I hear thou'st had a visit from t' parson. Well, never heed him, for he be an old wife.'

'What is your name, friend?' asked the blind man.

'Seth Smith, master,' was the reply.

'Have you come of your own will to join our circle in prayer?'

'Ay, if you please, and I will tell you why. Because parson he did dare me to come and pray wi' Wesleyans. "Mind thy own soul," said I, "and I'll mind mine," and off I came--for I'll pray in what company I please.'

'Be seated, friend,' said the blind man, quietly.

'And I'll tell thee more, master,' cried the smith, who was both garrulous and aggressive. 'They say thou'rt one o' the right sort--a rich man who has divided all his riches among poor folk. Now, t' parson he gives nought, but is a swaggerer in gentry's company, and cares only for 's tithes. So I be come to listen, and if I like thy ways I'll come again; and if I like not thy ways, I'll stay at home.'

This at least was frank, and the stout smith took his seat like a man who did not moan to be imposed upon, but was determined to criticise, boldly yet honestly, the proceedings which were to follow.

Christian rose to depart, but at an eager sign from Priscilla, he remained. Then he beheld, and indeed took a part in, the simple ceremonies of his new acquaintances.

The proceedings were opened with a short prayer by the blind man, whose face as he prayed shone with a soft beatified light. Then Priscilla, who was seated by his side, gave out the words of a simple hymn; and afterwards, in a clear beautiful voice, led the singing. How sweet yet solemn seemed the tones! Could this be the same voice that he had heard, but a little time before, trilling out the gay cadence of that incomprehensible French song? Yes, it was the same, but the effect was so different, so holy and so grave. He raised his eyes and peeped at her face. A deep shadow lay upon it, and though the eyes were still clear, they seemed full of the sadness of recent tears.

Then the blind man began a short discourse, taking for his text the terrible words, 'I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.' Commencing in a low and somewhat feeble voice, the blind man spoke of Christ's life on earth, its pains and tribulations, its temptations--which come likewise to every man; then of His terrible death, rendered necessary by the iniquities of the world He came to save. A deep awe fell upon those who listened; with dark imagination, the speaker reproduced for them the picture of that night of Calvary, which was only a colossal likeness, he said, of the crisis which must occur in miniature to every soul before it can be saved. Raising his voice, he passed on to speak of the ever-living God, to whom the keys of hell and of death belong. His hearers trembled, for it seemed as if the very spirit of earthquake shook beneath them. The countrywoman moaned and clutched her child; and on the smith's hard-hammered face the perspiration stood in great beads, while his breath came and went like the sound of the forge bellows.

Christian, not unmoved himself, looked again at Priscilla. She seemed listening, but none of the trouble seemed to touch her. To what can we compare her? To a sunbeam on a graveyard; to a white dove floating over stormy waters. Her eye was fixed on vacancy, and her face was quite bright. Perhaps, after all, her thoughts were far away.

Suddenly the smith gave a great groan and threw up his hands, crying, 'Lord, what a miserable sinner I be! Lord, Lord, have mercy upon me!' And the others fervently cried 'Amen!' At this moment Christian became conscious of an ugly face, surmounted with a head of shock hair, gazing in through the latticed window.

'Yaw! Methody! Methody!' shrieked a voice; and immediately came a loud howling and hooting from many voices around. But the blind man made no sign, and continued his discourse as if he heard nothing. Then some one outside mimicked the howling of a dog, and there was loud applause.

Ceasing solemnly, the blind man made a sign to Priscilla, and again she gave forth the words of a simple hymn, and herself led the singing as before. At the sound of the music, the noise without increased tenfold--howls and catcalls and savage laughter arose--and finally, a heavy stone, hurled by some cowardly hand, struck the window and broke several of the diamond-shaped panes.

Notwithstanding this interruption, no one stirred; it seemed as if all were prepared for such interference. Priscilla finished the hymn with perfect calm and gravity, and after another short prayer, the service concluded.

The smith strode over to the blind man, and reached out his hand.

'Give me thy hand, master! Thee hast made me see what a poor lost wretch I be! I like thee, and I'll come again; and if any man molests thee, I'll take thy part.'

Then he shook hands with Priscilla and patted her kindly on the head, for he had a daughter of his own, he said.

Christian followed suit, and said good-bye to father and daughter. The latter seemed almost to have forgotten his presence, for now the service was done, she was talking anxiously to her father; but she gave him her hand civilly, and he thrilled at the touch.

Passing out to the road, he found a gathering of some twelve or fifteen men and boys, blocking up the way, some scowling, some grinning. The smith went first, with little ceremony, and they cleared the way for him quickly enough; but at sight of Christian, they murmured loudly.

'Yaw! Methody!' cried the same voice he had heard before.

Christian smiled, rather amused than otherwise. This they took as a sign that they might encroach, and gathered round him; but a closer hook at his square jaw and powerful frame kept them from laying hands upon him.

He walked through them, and away from them. There was a wild yell, but he did not turn.

Suddenly a stone whizzed past his ear, and another fell at his feet. He turned quickly, and saw, in advance of the rest, the thrower--a great hulking fellow of four- or five-and-twenty, ostler at one of the inns.

Christian strode back, and before the other could stir they were face to face.

'Did you throw that stone?'

The fellow grinned savagely, and made no reply; but the others hooted.

'Answer me,' cried Christian, 'or I'll wring your ugly neck!'

'Best try!' snarled the other; then he uttered a terrified yell, for Christian had him by the throat. There was a quick struggle, a cry of voices, and in another minute the ostler lay like a log on the road, with bruised body and bleeding nose. Christian stood panting, and faced the shrieking group.

At this moment, the group parted, and there appeared the same clergyman whom Christian had seen before in conversation with the blind man.

'What's this? what's this? How dare you strike one of my people?'

'He stoned me first,' answered Christian, 'and he hath only got what he deserves.'

'Who are you, boy? What's your name?' demanded the clergyman, sharply.

'My name is Christian Christianson, and I dwell away yonder at the Fen Farm.'

'I have heard of you; and to no good, I promise you. Squire Orchardson of the Willows knoweth you and yours only too well.'

'As the thief knoweth those he hath robbed!' retorted Christian, turning fiercely on his heel.

As he did. so, he saw, standing at the cottage door, the figure of Priscilla Sefton. She was looking at him, with a face full of admiring sympathy and terror. He smiled and waved his hand to her; then he walked away along the road, with all his young spirit troubled, his body flushed with victory, and his heart trembling (though he scarcely knew it) with the new-born flame of love.

A few days after the first meeting of Christian Christianson and Priscilla Sefton, Cobbler Marvel stood leaning over his garden gate, and looking moodily at vacancy. His hymn-book was in his hand, his red cotton nightcap was on his head, and he was in his shirt-sleeves. Nevertheless, the church bells were ringing, and it was Sunday. Cobbler Marvel's only recognition of the day was significant, though peculiarly simple: he had washed his face.

He was