"Yes, if he'd stayed he'd never have married Miss Bardon and had his name in all the papers."Margaret ceased to speak, and her tears dropped fast on the little innocent she was so anxiously watching; presently it gave a faint sigh, and the mother's agonizing shriek, told her husband that the breath was its last. Holgrave had beheld in silence the death-pang of his child; and now, when the cry of the mother announced that it had ceased to be, he turned from the bed and rushed to the door without uttering a word.
ONE:They did not murmur, for they had known no different life. They had never, like other girls, wandered with bevies of young people through the lanes at dusk, or felt in the twilight a man's hand grope for theirs. They had not had suitors to visit them on Sundays, to sit very stiff and straight in the parlour, and pass decorous remarks about the weather all the while their eyes were eating up a little figure from toe to hair.
TWO:The steward at length appeared, and descended the steps to classify the people for the intended homage, and to satisfy himself that none had disobeyed the summons."Who wur the fust?"
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ONE:A flaggon of ale soon followed Black Jack, in which he drank Calverley's health with the familiarity of an old acquaintance, though this was the first time he had interchanged courtesies with the steward, who returned the compliment coldly, though not in that repulsive tone which forbids further intimacy.As the baron had promised not to punish, Byles and his wife were dismissed unharmed; but from that hour forward, they were regarded by all as under ban, and therefore shunned as much as possible. We should premise, however, that before Byles was permitted to leave the hall, Stephen Holgrave was led in, that he might receive a public acquittal. When Holgrave entered, supported by one of the servitors, and, appearing unable to stand, was seated on a stool, Sir Robert Knowles, who had more than once taken a strong interest in him, started up, and was about to make some observation; but recollecting himself, he resumed his seat, and remained silent. De Boteler himself felt a glow of shame and a qualm of conscience, as he looked upon the white, swollen face, and bent and shrunken form of one who had, in the moment of peril, sprung, with the vigour and ferocity of the tiger, between him and death. Holgrave had not been informed why the agonizing punishment had been remitted, nor why he had been placed in a comfortable bed, and every attention paid him; and he only suspected that, perceiving severity could effect nothing, they were unwilling to lose their victim, and wished again to try the effect of a milder treatment. His suspicions seemed confirmed, when, upon an order from De Boteler, a page approached, and presented him with a cup of wine. Although, as we have said, suspecting the motive of so much indulgence, he drank the wine, and then, looking round the hall, wondered why there had been such a gathering of the vassals, and why their looks were bent upon him with such friendly interest, and why words of pity and triumph were murmured amongst them; then he wondered why Jack Straw was sitting in Calverley's place, and what fault John Byles and his wife had committed, that they stood there like criminals. These thoughts, however, had scarcely passed through his mind, when the baron addressed him in a gentle tone.
TWO:"How's the Lewin c?ase gitting on?" someone would ask at the Cocks, and Reuben would answer:
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ONE:The duskiness of the twilight hour was lightened by the broad beams of an autumn moon; and as the moonlight, streaming full upon the thatch, revealed distinctly the little cot that held his treasure, all the high thoughts of freedom and independence, all the wandering speculative dreamings that come and go in the heart of man, gave place, for a season, to one engrossing feeling. Margaret was not this evening, as she was wont to be, sitting outside the cottage door awaiting his approach. The door was partly openedhe enteredand beheld a man kneeling before her, and holding one of her hands within his own!"Poor babe! it was a sad night I laid ye there," said Holgrave, bending over the grave, and looking earnestly at the little corpse; and then kneeling down, he attempted to raise one of the hands, but it dropped crumbling from his touch.
TWO:"Oh, Ben, don't make me go."
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TWO:Tilly was not looking at all like Naomi to-night.
FORE:First came the band of musicians, mounted on gaily caparisoned horses, and clad in jacks of crimson-damasked satin, laced round with gold; the arms of the city richly emblazoned on the back and front, and the white velvet sleeves of their jerkins so closely laced and interlaced with gold, as almost to conceal the material on which it was wrought. Then two heralds in white-damasked velvet tabards, worked with gold in a variety of fanciful patterns, and with the city arms also emblazoned on the back. Then the sword-bearer of the chief magistrate, in a suit of polished scale armour, and on a steed accoutred in all the panoply of war. Then the Lord Mayor himself, in a flowing mantle of rich crimson velvet trimmed with ermine, and with a collar of fine gold adorned with gems, and mounted on a stately horse, whose velvet housing, fringed with gold, almost touched the ground. Two pages suitably attired walked on either side. Next appeared the two sheriffs in their scarlet mantles and gold chains. Then rode the four-and-twenty aldermen, two abreast, in loose gowns or robes of damasked-velvet or brocaded silk; and, finally, the members of the common-council closed the train."The fools! Wot do they think they're a-doing of? D?an't they know how to put out a fire?"
FORE:"And this is all!you refuse explanation! you do not even deny the authorship! Are you not aware, that he who could obtain access to the chamber now must necessarily be considered the robber of the child?""That's a strange thing to see in a shepherd's hand."
FORE:That night was another Hell. Robert lay wakeful in a rigor of despair. It was all over now. The constable would be at Odiam the first thing next morning. Bardon was bound to remember that his pocket-book was in the coat he had lent Bessie. He might even think that Bessie had taken it! This fresh horror nearly sent Robert out of the window and over the fields to the Manor to confess his crime. But he was kept back by the glimmerings of hope which, like a summer lightning, played fitfully over his mental landscape. He dared not stake everything. Perhaps after all young Bardon could not remember where he had put the pocket-book; he must have forgotten where it was when he offered the coat to Bessie, and it was possible that he would not remember till the lovers had escapedafter which he might remember as much as he liked, for Robert never[Pg 161] thought for a moment that he could be traced once he had left Peasmarsh.
FORE:"How straight he stands!"
FORE:
FORE:The End
FORE:"Abbot Horton, you have had my answer," returned Skipwith, in a tone of perhaps still more vehemence than the abbot's.He had scarcely time to give a nod of recognition to several neighbours who stood near the entrance, when the steward approached, and, desiring him to walk further up the hall, placed him at the first step that elevated the upper end, thus cutting off every possibility of communicating with his neighbours. Holgrave felt any thing but composure in his present conspicuous situation: though strong in the rectitude of his conscience, yet he felt apprehensions and misgivings; and the strange silence that was observed respecting the intended charge alarmed him the more. As the hall was always open on such occasions, he speedily saw a crowd of vassals pouring insome anxious to know the event, either through a feeling of friendship or hatred, and others merely from curiosity. The eyes of each man as he entered, fell, as if instinctively, upon the yeoman; and he could perceive, as they formed into groups, that he was the subject of their conversation. Presently his mother, supported by an old friend named Hartwell, entered, and he thought she regarded him with an earnest and sorrowful look. But his attention was immediately diverted;the upper door opened, and De Boteler and the baroness, with Sir Robert and Lady Knowles, entered the hall.
TWO:She could not tell him. If he did not understand how every note from Harry's violin would jab and tear the tortured memories she was trying to put to sleepif he did not understand that of himself, she would never be able to explain it to him.They scarcely spoke, and the night spread round them its web of pondering silence. Aldebaran guttered above Kent, and the blurred patch of the Pleiades hung over the curded fogs that hid the Rother. There was no wind, but every now and then the grass rippled and the leaves fluttered, while a low hissing sound went through the trees. Sometimes from the distance came the shouts of some revellers still at large, echoing weirdly over the moon-steeped fields, and divinely purged by space and night.
TWO:Naomi followed him out of the little crowd which had grouped round Harry, and they wandered into the Panorama tent to see the show. After having sat for half an hour on a crowded bench, in an atmosphere thick with foul tobacco and the smell of clothes long stored awaywatching "The Coronation of Queen Victoria" and "Scenery on the West Coast of Scotland" rumble slowly past with many creaksthey moved on to the sparring booth, where Buck Washington, now a little knotted and disabled by a bout of rheumatism, arranged scraps between the ploughboys of the neighbouring farms.
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TWO:"That's no consarn of mine?un't you s?aved anything?"Salvation! Salvation full and free!"
TWO:But her mind was too dim even for regrets. Instead, she seemed to see herself dancing with Reuben at Boarzell Fair, when the dusk had been full of strange whirling lights, whispers, and kisses.
In the spring of '99 old Jury died over at Cheat Land. His wife had died a year or two earlierReuben had meant to go over and see Alice, but the untimely calving of a new Alderney had put the idea entirely out of his head. On this occasion, however, he attended the funeral, with the other farmers of the district, and at[Pg 408] the churchyard gate had a few words with Alice before she went home.It was odd that his parents did not care. Now he came to think of it, they did not seem to care about anything very much, except Harry. It never struck him to think it was odd that he should care when they did not."You'll git used to her, lad.""Yesbut she wur a well-born lady wud a fortun. D'you think I'd have let myself love her if she'd bin poor and a cowman's daughter? Not me, young feller!"
TWO:But her mind was too dim even for regrets. Instead, she seemed to see herself dancing with Reuben at Boarzell Fair, when the dusk had been full of strange whirling lights, whispers, and kisses.
