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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Child of the Glens, by Edward Newenham Hoare
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Child of the Glens
+       or, Elsie's Fortune
+
+Author: Edward Newenham Hoare
+
+Release Date: May 25, 2007 [EBook #21612]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHILD OF THE GLENS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: THE CLERGYMAN'S VISIT TO TOR BAY.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A CHILD OF THE GLENS;
+
+OR,
+
+Elsie's Fortunes.
+
+
+
+
+  PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE
+  COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION,
+  APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
+  CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
+
+
+
+
+LONDON:
+  SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
+  SOLD AT THE DEPOSITORIES:
+  77, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS;
+  4, ROYAL EXCHANGE; 48, PICCADILLY;
+  AND BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.
+
+NEW YORK: POTT, YOUNG & CO.
+
+1875
+
+
+
+
+Illustrations
+
+
+The clergyman's visit to Tor Bay . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
+
+A strange waif of the sea
+
+Jim building castles-in-the-air.
+
+
+
+
+A CHILD OF THE GLENS;
+
+or,
+
+Elsie's Fortunes.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Doubtless some of our readers are acquainted with the noble "coast
+road" that skirts round the north-eastern corner of Ireland, extending,
+it might almost be said, from Belfast to Londonderry.  The
+characteristic features of this noble esplanade (for such it is) are
+chiefly to be seen between the little town of Larne, where the railway
+ends, and Cushendall.  Throughout this drive of forty miles you are
+never out of sight or sound of the sea.  The almost level road is seen
+far ahead of the traveller, like a white boundary line between cliff
+and wave.  You wonder at first if the road was made merely to gladden
+the tourist, for it does not seem likely that there could be much
+traffic other than that of pleasure-seekers thus along the margin of
+the sea.  The configuration of this part of the County Antrim, however,
+explains the position of the road, and justifies the engineer who was
+so happily enabled to combine the utilitarian with the romantic.  A
+series of deep cut gorges, locally known as "The Glens," intersect the
+country, running at right angles to the coast-line and thus forming a
+succession of gigantic ridges, over which it would be impossible to
+drive a road.  For this reason it has been found necessary to wind
+round the mouths of these romantic valleys, which are guarded and shut
+off from each other by a number of formidable and noble headlands,
+foremost among which ranks the beautiful Garron Point.  Thus a
+succession of surprises await the tourist.  Having fairly made your way
+between the foot of the towering cliff and the inflowing tide, with no
+prospect in front but huge and grotesque-shaped rocks, which look bent
+on opposing all further advance, you suddenly find that you have
+doubled the point.  A blue bay opens before you, shut in at its farther
+side by the next promontory, at the base of which you can distinctly
+trace the white streak of dusty road, that sweeps round the bay in a
+graceful semicircle.  To your left--or while you are speaking, almost
+directly ahead--is the wide opening of one of the "Glens"--sweet,
+retired abodes of peace, sheltered and happy as they look out forever
+on the sea.  The barren and rocky highlands, terminated by the wild
+bluffs that so courageously plunge themselves into the waves, become
+gradually softened and verdure-clad as they slope downward, while the
+narrow valley itself is studded with trees and pretty homesteads.
+
+The people of "The Glens" are peculiar, primitive, and distinct.  In
+these shut-in retreats the ancient Irish and Roman Catholic element
+largely prevails.  When, in consequence of frequent rebellions, the
+original inhabitants were well-nigh exterminated, and their places
+taken by Scotch and English settlers, the natives found a refuge in the
+wilder and more remote parts of the country.  Thus, here and there in
+Ulster--generally known as "Protestant Ulster"--we come upon little
+nooks and nests where for two centuries the primitive Irish race has
+survived.  Naturally, living in the presence of their more pushing and
+prosperous Presbyterian neighbours, these last representatives of a
+conquered nationality are for the most part of a retiring and
+suspicious disposition.  In quiet country places there is seldom any
+manifestation of open hostility, and intermarriages and neighbourly
+feeling have done much to smooth away the edge of bitter memories, but
+at bottom there remains a radical difference of sentiment, as of creed,
+which constitutes an impassable, though for the most invisible, barrier.
+
+Michael McAravey was a good specimen of the old Ulster Roman Catholic.
+He was a tall, powerful man, of nearly seventy at the time when our
+story opens, while he did not look sixty.  His hair was long,
+iron-grey, and wiry, and it was only when uncovered that the high,
+bald, wrinkled forehead gave indication of his real age.  A rebel at
+heart, the son of a man who had been "out" in '98, Michael had gone
+through life with a feeling that every man's hand was against him.
+Sober, self-reliant, and hard-working, the man was grasping and hard as
+flint.  By tradition and instinct a bitter enemy to Protestantism, he
+was not on that account a friend of the priest, or a particularly
+faithful son of the Church.  He had his own "notions" about things, and
+though a professed "Catholic," his neighbours used to speculate whether
+age or sickness would ever have power to bend that proud spirit, and
+bring Michael to confession and a humble reception of the "last rites"
+of the Church.  Early in life McAravey had married a Presbyterian girl,
+and the almost inevitable estrangement that results from a "mixed
+marriage" had cast its shadow over the lives of the pair.  The Kanes
+had belonged to the small and rigid body of "Covenanters," and never a
+Sabbath from childhood till her marriage had 'Lisbeth failed to walk
+the four rough, up-hill, dreary miles that separated her father's home
+from the meeting-house that rose alone, and stern as the Covenant
+itself, on the bleak moorland above Glenariff.  But her last
+Sabbath-day's journey was taken the week before her wedding.  Michael
+had gloomily announced that no wife of his should be seen going to a
+"meeting-house," and though he never sought to bring her to mass
+(perhaps in part because it might have involved going himself), his
+resolution never varied.  Nor did his wife contend against it.  The
+habit once broken, she felt no inclination to undertake those long and
+wearisome journeys.  But a Covenanter she meant to live and die.
+Nothing would have tempted her into the Presbyterian chapel close by.
+And thus when there came two children to be baptized the difficulty as
+to religion was compromised, and a triumph allowed to neither side, by
+the babes being solemnly received into the compassionate and truly
+Catholic fold of what was then the Established Church.  That both these
+little ones had been taken away by death was a misfortune, and tended
+to harden even more the somewhat disagreeable and rigid lines that
+marked the individuality of both Mr. and Mrs. McAravey.
+
+Not that the home thus early laid desolate was altogether unblessed by
+young faces.  For many years the McAraveys had had charge of two little
+children, who called them father and mother.  But, as it was quite
+evident that no such relationship as this could exist, so it came to be
+generally understood that there was no tie of blood at all.  What
+connection there might be, or who the children were, was a mystery none
+had ever solved, nor was it likely that any inquiries--if such had ever
+been ventured upon--had met with much encouragement on the part of
+"auld Mike" or his equally taciturn wife.
+
+Though the Antrim glens had been the scene of such courtship as it is
+possible to conceive of between Michael McAravey and Elizabeth Kane,
+they had for many years ceased to be the place of their abode.
+Previous to the opening of our tale, McAravey had fallen into the
+tenant-right and goodwill of a farm held by an elder and unmarried
+brother, and hither he had accordingly moved with his wife, now past
+middle-age, and the two little ones that called her mother.  To find
+the spot where the McAraveys now lived--a spot yet more retired and
+more lovely than any in the glens properly so called--we must once more
+return to the great "coast road."  Having reached Cushendall, the
+scenery becomes more imposing, and the high background almost deserves
+the name of a mountain.  Here, at length, the rugged and towering
+coast-line successfully defies further violation of its lonely majesty.
+Accordingly the baffled road bends abruptly to the left, and turning
+its back upon the sea proceeds to climb the long, dreary slope of a
+flat-topped, uninteresting mountain, and then, having reached the
+highest point (which is scarcely to be discerned), descends, till once
+more the sea is come upon at the secluded little country town of
+Ballycastle.  The extreme northeast point of Ireland is thus cut off,
+and thus the ordinary tourist is cut off too, from one of Nature's most
+fairy-like retreats.  On looking back from Ballycastle you at once
+perceive the necessity for your bleak and tedious mountain drive.  The
+eye immediately catches and rests fascinated upon the gigantic and
+literally overhanging precipice of Fair Head, as it rears its peculiar
+and acute-angled summit against the sky.  One look, and you are
+convinced that no road could wind its way round the base of that
+frowning monster.  But let us strive to penetrate this cut-off region
+either on foot across the moors, or by the rough mountain road that
+suffices for the wants of the few and scattered residents.  Standing
+(sometimes not without difficulty) on the pitched-up edge of the mighty
+headland, and gazing on the remote sea beneath, you feel oppressed by
+the sense of Nature's vastness and your own insignificance.  Nor does
+the dreary extent of rock and pool-dotted moor that stretches inland to
+the very horizon afford any relief to such feelings.  So you turn away
+in search of rest and shelter.  Then but a comparatively few downward
+steps and you find that the tempestuous wind has ceased to wrangle with
+you; already you are beneath the shadow of the great rock.  Descending
+further, the bleak aspect of Nature is transformed.  The heather gives
+place to dwarf shrubs; the bare, weather-beaten rocks are clothed with
+blackberry bushes, or hidden amid luxurious bracken.  Dark hollies
+clinging to detached rocks present varied and life-like forms.  The air
+has suddenly become still.  The butterflies hover over the foxgloves.
+The wild strawberry is at your feet.  The sloeberries ripen around you.
+The sea before you might be the Mediterranean, so gently does it ripple
+up to the very edge of the hundred tiny plants that force their way
+amid the sand.  Great rock bastions shut you in on either side, and
+behind, the green slope you had descended rises upward till it meets
+the blue sky beyond.  You might be in the south of England rather than
+in the "black north" of Ireland; and you are struck with the probably
+accidental suggestiveness of the name--Tor Bay.  It was here that
+McAravey's lot was cast, and here that Elsie and Jim used in their
+leisure hours to gather the strawberries and stain themselves with
+sloes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Not that Elsie and Jim had many leisure hours.  Like all else in the
+little household, they had their work to do.  McAravey's "farm" was but
+a little patch of ten acres, part of it not even yet quite won back
+from rock and bracken.  On this he toiled as only a man can toil who
+works for himself, and is assured of his interest in the soil on which
+he drops his sweat.  That he had no grown-up son (as might have been)
+to aid his declining strength was a hidden sorrow to the old man.  He
+worked on, however, and bravely did his uncomplaining wife assist him.
+Neither of them had ever known an hour of either ill health or
+idleness, and they were guiltless of any conscious or intentional
+cruelty when they early and sternly disciplined their young charges to
+the same laborious life.  The duties of the children were manifold.
+Jim herded McAravey's two or three cows, or acted as scarecrow in the
+little patch of corn, each precious grain of which was grudged to the
+passing birds.  Elsie scoured the house, and carried out milk to one or
+two somewhat distant neighbours.  But the most arduous labour of the
+children was one that they shared together.  When the weather
+suited--after a stormy night, or when there was a spring tide--they
+would stand for hours on the beach, often wet to the waists, dragging
+the tempest-tossed sea-weed to the shore with large wooden rakes.  This
+occupation was not merely arduous but dangerous.  More than once had
+little Jim, who was of lighter build than the girl, been fairly dragged
+off his feet by the force of the receding wave, as it wrestled with him
+for the possession of the mass of floating weed which he had hooked in
+his rake.  The weed thus drawn to shore was subsequently sorted, the
+greater part being used for manure, while the rest was burned in one of
+those rough kilns that abound along the coast, and reduced to kelp,
+which is used in the manufacture of soap and glass, and from which
+iodine is extracted.  Thus, almost from infancy, the children had been
+inured to labour, and alas! for them the sunny hours of idle rambling
+amid the tangled foliage of the glen were few and far between.  Neither
+child had received any education.  The only school was nearly four
+miles off, up on the open moorland.  It was only in summer that the
+children could possibly attend, and even then their visits were
+infrequent and irregular.  On all religious subjects their young minds
+were dark as night.  Even a few days at school had taught them that
+such things as reading and writing existed, and Jim especially had
+developed in him vague ideas as to the power and wealth that might be
+obtained if once he could master these mysterious subjects.  But
+religion was only known to them as being provocative of party quarrels
+and domestic disagreements.  Harsh and brief as was the general style
+of intercourse between Mr. and Mrs. McAravey, there was no absolute
+anger or violence about it, except when allusion was made to the
+difference that through life had separated husband and wife.  Even then
+it seemed strange to the children that such fierce feelings and such
+ill words should be excited by a matter that had absolutely no
+influence on ordinary life, and which was never introduced but as a
+bone of contention.  Nor hitherto had the poor neglected ones any
+opportunity of learning the blessed truths of a Father's and a
+Saviour's love from any other quarter.  There was no place of worship
+in the glen.  The Presbyterian chapel was a mile away, and even there
+no Sunday-school was held.  As for the Church, into the fold of which
+the poor babes had been received, it was scarcely to be thought of,
+being fully four miles off, across a rough mountain district.  Here the
+Rev. Cooper Smith ministered to a congregation that fluctuated much,
+but was never very large.  The parish was enormous, and the
+Church-people dotted over it in a most unmanageable fashion.  Yet it
+was surprising what a considerable number of people were brought
+together on a fine Sunday morning in summer.  The clergyman, too,
+persevered in keeping together what was at least the nucleus of a
+Sunday-school, consisting of some twelve or fifteen children, whom he
+and the clerk taught in the church before service.  But from this means
+of grace Elsie and Jim were cut off by distance, even if, as was more
+than doubtful, their foster-parents would have allowed them to attend.
+In the glen that sloped down to Tor Bay, there were no Church-people,
+and but few children of any sort.  Thus spiritual darkness reigned
+supreme throughout this beautiful domain.  Twice during five years in a
+professional capacity (though several times on pic-nics) had the Rev.
+Cooper Smith made his way to Tor Bay.  The people had received him with
+a patronising kindness, that was peculiarly irritating to his sensitive
+and somewhat small nature.
+
+"Sit down, mon, and rest yeresel' a bit; ye must be tired," said
+McAravey, looking over his shoulder as he stalked out of the cottage.
+
+"Don't you think you ought to send those children to school, Mrs.
+McAravey?" asked the clergyman, whose kind heart had been touched, on
+the occasion of a recent pic-nic, to see the half-drowned little ones
+toiling amid the heaps of wet and writhing sea-wrack.
+
+"Maybe ye 'd send yere carriage to fetch them up the brae!" remarked
+Mrs. McAravey, with a harsh, disagreeable laugh at her own pleasantry.
+
+"Well, it is rather far," replied Mr. Smith, somewhat apologetically;
+"but it grieves me to see them growing up in ignorance, and without any
+knowledge of the Saviour."
+
+"Thank ye, sir," cried Mrs. McAravey, satirically, "but I think ma mon
+and mysel' knows our duties, and can teach the wains, too, wi'out any
+parson comin' to help us.  A pretty thing to tell us we knows nothing
+o' the Saviour!  I can tell you, mon, I've walked more miles o' the
+Sawbath to my place o' worship than some folks as I know walks in a
+week."
+
+The clergyman, somewhat taken aback at this outbreak, felt a rising
+flush of anger, and could only reply--
+
+"I think, my good woman, you might remember whom you are speaking to,
+and might be civil to a stranger when he comes into your house."
+
+To judge by the response, the second part of this appeal was more
+effective than the first.  An appeal to authority or respect of persons
+is not usually successful in Ulster.
+
+"I knows rightly who I 'm speakin' to, and I don't see as it makes any
+differ; but I 'm sorry I spoke sharp, seein' ye come so far, only I
+can't thole to be towd I 'm na fit to train up a wain in the knowledge
+o' the Saviour."
+
+Expressing a hope that Elsie and Jim would come to school when weather
+and work permitted, and with a somewhat vague remark about "calling
+again," the Rev. Cooper Smith beat as graceful a retreat as was
+possible.
+
+His other calls that day were scarcely more satisfactory, for though he
+encountered no such actual rudeness, there was everywhere the same
+patronising familiarity.
+
+Andrew McAuley, the wealthiest farmer in the glen, invited him to have
+"a drop o' something," adding, by way of encouragement, "Ye needn't be
+afeerd--there's plenty iv it in the house."
+
+The only person who seemed to recognise his spiritual office was widow
+Spence, who, as the clergyman stood hesitating before leaving the
+cottage (he was debating whether he should offer the old woman a
+shilling), sympathetically remarked--
+
+"Maybe, then, ye 'd like to mak' a wee bit o' a prayer afore ye go
+back?"
+
+Unreasonably, perhaps, the rector felt rebuked and annoyed by this
+incident, and he walked home with a heavy heart.  What could be done
+for Tor Bay--so beautiful, yet so barbarous--so out of the way in every
+sense?  His personal efforts did not seem likely to be rewarded with
+success, even if he could keep--which he did not himself believe that
+he could--to the often-made resolution to be more frequent and regular
+in his visits across the hill.  He had been wounded in many points that
+day, yet he had not gone away without hearing one note of
+encouragement.  Many a day and many a night he saw, like Paul, the
+figure of one who said to him, "Come over . . . and help us."  Only the
+figure was that of a brown, blushing, merry-eyed girl of nine, who held
+by the hand a delicate-looking, white-haired, timid boy.  Again and
+again he fancied himself walking sadly and dreamily on the pure smooth
+sand of the beautiful secluded bay.  Again and again he was murmuring
+the lines--
+
+  "Every prospect pleases,
+  And only man is vile"--
+
+when he hears a voice, and turning, sees the half-amused, half-eager
+look of Elsie as she had said--
+
+"Please, Jim says he 'd like to go to school, minister; and I 'd like
+too, if it wasn't so far."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+The pleading voice was not in vain.  After much anxious consideration
+the Rev. Cooper Smith resolved to use his efforts to get the aid of a
+Scripture-reader for Tor Bay, and other outlying districts of his vast
+parish.  The munificence of an elderly lady enabled him to bring his
+arrangements to a successful issue more rapidly than he had hoped.  He
+was also fortunate in obtaining a fit and proper person for the post.
+Robert Hendrick was by birth and education an Ulster man; but having
+been for several years employed in the south-west, he had acquired
+something of that geniality, tact, and courtesy which is, perhaps,
+deficient in the hard Scotch character of the Northerns.  There was
+nothing of professional piety or of the professional reader about
+Hendrick.  A bright, active, smiling little man, he was soon a
+favourite in Tor Glen.  His visits were made twice a-week, and the
+inhabitants soon found him a useful and obliging friend.  He executed
+small commissions, carried letters from Ballycastle, and acted
+generally as a medium of communication with the outer world.  But while
+thus wisely winning his way by kindly offices, he was not unmindful of
+that other world which it was his duty to bring before the minds of the
+people of the secluded vale.  One evening of the week a homely service,
+half Bible-class, half prayer-meeting, was held, to which a
+considerable number of the Presbyterians, and even a few Roman
+Catholics, dropped in.  The other evening was devoted to teaching the
+few little ones who could be gathered together.  Elsie and Jim were
+among the earliest pupils; Jim was actuated by an almost morbid craving
+for knowledge, and for Elsie anything novel had sufficient attraction.
+Mrs. McAravey, notwithstanding her self-righteous indignation when
+questioned by the clergyman, had in her heart a belief that religious
+instruction was the proper thing for children.  She remembered the
+stern discipline of her own early years--not, indeed, with any
+pleasure, but with a firm conviction that severe spiritual as well as
+physical labour was good for the young.  That "Auld Mike" permitted the
+children to attend the reader's class was a matter of surprise to many,
+and that Hendrick had been able to capture them added not a little to
+his reputation.  McAravey had, however, been pleased with the frank,
+obliging address of the reader; and perhaps, too, there was some softer
+feeling in his hard, silent nature than folks gave him credit for.
+Anyhow he made no opposition; and though he did not fail to notice
+their absence every Friday evening, he "asked no questions for
+conscience sake"--or rather he rested satisfied with the result of his
+first inquiry.
+
+"Where's the wains, 'Lisbeth, I wonder?"
+
+"How should I know?" was the somewhat Jesuitical reply.  "Maybe they
+'re gone to the town end; but they 'll be right enough, you may be
+sure."  And there the matter dropped for many a day.
+
+Meanwhile school-work went on.  The precocious Jim made amazing
+progress in reading and writing--arts from which Elsie's impatient
+nature revolted.  This distaste was, however, counterbalanced by the
+girl's quickness in other respects.  By dint of memory, and an
+excellent ear, she soon had at her finger ends whole passages of
+Scripture, together with a number of psalms and hymns, from one to the
+other of which she ran with a vivacity and heedlessness, that often
+pained her teacher.  She was soon the leader of the little choir, and
+could sing, with wonderful correctness, "Shall we gather at the river?"
+"I think when I read that sweet story of old, How when Jesus was here
+among men." "As pants the hart for cooling streams," &c.
+
+Robert Hendrick was deeply interested in his little pupils.  Jim seemed
+likely to grow up a pattern boy.  Punctual and diligent, with grave,
+attentive eyes and quiet demeanour, he could not but elicit the
+approval of his teacher.  Yet Hendrick could not conceal from himself
+that Elsie was his favourite--Elsie, so reckless and so irreverent, so
+headstrong, and at times even violent.  He used to tremble for the
+child's future, as, attracted by the sweet, true ring of her voice, he
+saw the eager, merry eyes wandering all round the room, while the lips
+were singing the most sacred words.  Those awful and profound truths,
+that were to him the only realities, and which animated his every
+effort, were apparently to this sweet young singer but as fairy tales,
+or even as mere empty words on which to build up the fabric of her
+song; and at times he even doubted whether it was right to lay bare the
+mysterious agonies of redeeming love to such a careless eye, and to
+familiarise such a child with scenes so awful, but which seemed to wake
+no note of love or reverence.  Yet Robert Hendrick loved and prayed for
+the child, content to work on for her, as for so many others in the
+glen, in simple faith and loving hope.
+
+With the approach of winter the Friday evening class had to be
+discontinued.  Most of the children lived at a considerable distance
+from the place of meeting; nor was a walk across the moors always
+feasible in rough weather.  Even for a time the Wednesday service had
+to be suspended; so that for a couple of months the glen relapsed into
+its former state of spiritual night.  Not altogether, however.  The
+good seed cast upon the waters had found a resting-place in several
+hearts; and the opening of spring, and with it the resumption of the
+Scripture-reader's visits, were eagerly looked forward to by many, both
+young and old.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+It was the end of March, when an event occurred which would have been a
+more than nine days' wonder even in a busier spot than Tor Bay.  The
+equinoctial gales had been protracted and severe.  For days the sea off
+Fair Head, and through the strait that separates the mainland from
+Rathlin Island, had run mountains high; and now, though the surface was
+smooth and glistening in the bright spring sun, the long, heavy swell,
+as it broke in thundering rollers on the shore, bore witness to the
+fierceness of the recent conflict.  The night had been wild and dark,
+but it was succeeded by one of those balmy days that are sent as
+harbingers of coming summer.  Elsie and Jim had been busy ever since
+the return of the tide, about noon, dragging to shore the masses of
+sea-wrack that the recent storms had loosened and sent adrift.
+
+The afternoon was now far advanced, and the children were growing weary
+of their work.  Several heaps of brown, wet, shining weed stood at
+intervals along the sands, as monuments of their zeal.  They began to
+look wistfully towards the hill for "father," who had promised to meet
+them at the conclusion of the day's work; but again and again they had
+looked in vain.  It was now growing almost dusk.  They had thought of
+desisting from their task, when a succession of gigantic rollers, like
+the fierce rear-guard of the great army that for so many hours had been
+broken to pieces on the sands, was seen approaching.
+
+With a solemn reverberation the first giant toppled over, and swept a
+mass of mingled foam and sea-weed up the sands, far past where the wet
+and weary little toilers were standing.  Knee-deep in the rapidly
+returning body of water, they strove with their rakes to arrest some
+fragments of the whirling and tangled mass of weeds.  But the second
+giant was at hand.  Checked in its advance by the retreating fragments
+of its predecessors, the monster hesitated.  And then the two masses of
+water clashing together rose up in fierce embrace, while the foam and
+spray of their contention was blown by the keen east wind into the
+children's faces.  But the force of the tide was spent, and the second
+wave, though victorious in the wrestle, scarce survived the conflict,
+and did not even flow over the children's feet.  Elsie, therefore,
+sprang forward almost to the spot where the wave had broken, and
+brought down her rake into the midst of a huge and tangled mass.  The
+retiring wave struggled hard to retain its own, so that the child was
+fairly drawn out by its force.
+
+"Let go, let go!" cried Jim, as he caught the girl's dress to help her
+resistance; "the rake will float in again."
+
+But Elsie was fascinated.  She felt at once that the body she held was
+solid, though soft and yielding, and so she clung to the long
+rake-handle with all her might.  The conflict was over in a few
+moments.  The waters retired defeated, and left upon the sands a dark,
+limp, saturated body.
+
+"Come away, come away!" shrieked the boy, as Elsie was cautiously
+advancing towards the mysterious object.  The girl stood still, and
+hesitated a moment, while a vague dread crept over her.  What was it
+that lay there in the bleak, cold twilight, so still and shapeless, and
+yet with such an awful suggestion of life about it?  She was lost in
+bewilderment when the boy's voice recalled her--
+
+"Elsie, Elsie, mind the wave!"
+
+She had but a moment in which to spring back, as the third giant,
+towering above its predecessors, lifted the inert body on its crest,
+and flung it contemptuously high up upon the shore.  Then the waters
+swept back and left the two children shivering alone on the strand:
+behind them were the dull, dead heaps of sea-weed, and at their feet a
+black mass of clothing.  The children clung together in silent awe.
+Neither of them had ever seen a dead body.  Hitherto death had been an
+abstraction, but now they felt themselves face to face with the reality.
+
+[Illustration: A strange waif of the sea.]
+
+"Let's run and look for father," suggested Jim, in a frightened whisper.
+
+"We can't leave her alone, Jim," responded the girl, now pale and grave
+as she had never been before, and looking from the body to the line of
+foaming water but a few feet beyond; "the tide might turn and take her
+away again."
+
+"I wish it had not brought her!" gasped Jim, through his chattering
+teeth.
+
+"Hush," said Elsie; and then, after a pause, "if you go fetch some one,
+I'll stay here."
+
+"Aren't you afraid?  I am."
+
+"Go," said Elsie, "go quick; it's getting dark."
+
+Hesitatingly the boy left her, and walked almost backwards till he
+reached the top of the beach; then, with a short cry of fear, he turned
+his hack on the sea, and ran up the path towards his home.
+
+Elsie stood alone with the dead.  She looked on the heaps of sea-weeds,
+and then along the line of breakers, that seemed even now gathering
+strength for a return movement.  It was a trying ordeal for a child of
+ten, but the terrible novelty of the situation seemed to give her
+courage.  She advanced towards the body, which she now saw was that of
+a woman dressed in black.  She lay upon her back, the face only hidden
+by the tangled hair and sea-weed.  Elsie noticed as she gazed, for what
+seemed hours, on the still form, that there was a gold chain round the
+neck, and two rings on the finger of the hand that rested upon the
+beach.  As the gloom of the afternoon deepened, a sense of pity and
+yearning quite new to her, and which destroyed all fear, crept over the
+child.  An irresistible longing urged her to draw back the tangled hair
+from the face.  For a moment she turned away terrified, but then knelt
+down, and with trembling hands began to draw out the weeds, and to
+smooth back the heavy brown hair from the cold face.  She grew absorbed
+in her task, and almost fancied the worn, yet beautiful and gentle
+features looked pleased and grateful.  She even ventured to lift the
+heavy arm from the sand, but it fell back so stiffly that the child was
+terrified, and stood a little apart, wondering where the poor lady had
+come from.  She knew not how long she had waited, when she was aroused
+by the sound of a voice.  Looking up, she beheld Michael McAravey by
+her side.
+
+"Well, Elsie, lass, what's all this?  There 's that wee fool Jim crying
+himself into fits, and raving about dead bodies in the sea-weed.
+Blessed mother! so it is a dead body," he added, excitedly, as he
+caught sight of the object of Elsie's regard.  The old man was only
+unnerved for a moment; then turning his back to the sea and putting his
+hands to his mouth, he gave a loud "halloa," which echoed across the
+silent bay, but brought no other response.
+
+"Now, lass, look sharp and run up the brae, and call some of the men,
+or the tide will be in upon us.  And we 'll lose the wrack, too, for
+the matter of that.  Away you go in a moment," he added, sternly, as
+the child seemed reluctant to abandon what she held to be her peculiar
+charge.
+
+Elsie obeyed, and was fortunate enough, just as she was turning into
+the by-road that led to the shore, to run against George Hendrick.
+
+"What has scared you so, Elsie?" he said, kindly, as he stopped the
+headlong child; "are you in mischief, and running away from anybody?"
+
+"O Mr. Hendrick, we 've found a drowned lady on the shore, and I 'm
+running to tell the people; father's with her."
+
+"Where?" cried the reader, quickly.
+
+"In the sandy cove, where we get the sea-wrack."
+
+"Well, Elsie, you run on to McAuley's, and ask him to bring down some
+spirits in case she might be alive still; and lose no time--there's a
+good girl."
+
+So saying, Hendrick sprang over the low fence and hurried down the
+shore.  He soon saw through the dusk a tall figure bending over some
+object on the sand.  It rose as he approached, and he at once
+recognised McAravey.  The old man was singularly excited and
+flurried--far more so than when he had joined Elsie.
+
+"Thank God some one has come!" he cried; "and you 're the very man I 'd
+like to see."
+
+"Is she quite dead?" said Hendrick, kneeling beside the body.
+
+"Aye, dead enough and stiff," answered the old man; "but see, the tide
+is almost on us.  Let's fetch her up a bit.  I did not like to touch
+her till some one came."
+
+Between them they lifted the body into a place of safety, and then
+McAravey, whose agitation had not diminished, said, with affected
+indifference--
+
+"While we are waiting I 'll just drag up a wee lock of that weed; there
+is no use letting the tide fetch it away again."  So saying, he
+proceeded to lift in his arms the heaps that were nearest the sea, and
+to place them beyond the high-water line.
+
+Meanwhile Hendrick had been examining the features of the dead woman,
+and was startled to recognise one with whom he had conversed only the
+day before.  This was the only important point brought out at the
+inquest, which took place in a couple of days.  Hendrick deposed to
+having met a woman dressed like the deceased, as far as he could judge,
+walking on the cliffs past Fair Head.  She had asked him about a short
+cut to Tor Bay by a rocky path which led abruptly down to the shore,
+and which, she said, she half-remembered.  He had warned her that the
+way was a dangerous one, especially in bad weather.  She had laughed,
+and said she had once been down the Grey Man's Path, and had known the
+coast well in childhood.  She had not told him her business in Tor Bay,
+but had said they might, perhaps, meet there.  Had anything else
+passed?  Yes, he had given her a little tract, as she seemed anxious
+and troubled.  Anything else?  No, except that when parting she had
+asked him the correct time in order to set her watch.  Did Hendrick see
+the watch?  No, but he thought she wore a chain, and was certain she
+had spoken of setting her watch, which she said had gone down.  This
+matter excited some interest, because, though the tract given by
+Hendrick was found in the pocket of the dress, no watch or chain could
+be discovered.  Had the unfortunate woman been robbed, and then thrown
+into the sea?  Or had the watch and chain been stolen by Mike or the
+children, who first found the body?  Or might they not easily have been
+lost from the body that had been so long tossed by the waves?  Elsie's
+examination did not tend to clear her of suspicion.  Her answers to the
+preliminary questions as to "the nature of an oath" were somewhat
+flippant and unsatisfactory.  As to the chain, she first spoke
+positively of having seen it, then hesitatingly, ending by saying she
+was frightened and knew nothing about it.
+
+McAravey swore positively that he had seen no gold chain, and therefore
+had not taken one.  Though an ugly suspicion was thus created, no
+further steps could be taken, Hendrick declining to vouch for more than
+an "impression" that the deceased wore a chain.  Evidence of identity
+there was none.  The linen was marked "E. D," and the mourning ring,
+which guarded a plain gold one, had merely the words, "In memory, H.
+D., 186--."  The only further evidence was that of a public car-driver
+between Cushendall and Ballycastle, who deposed to having had a
+passenger who corresponded to the description of the dead woman.  She
+had no luggage, and walked away when the car stopped.  A woman was also
+found who had given deceased a night's lodging.  She said she had
+seemed excited and somewhat flighty--was restless at night, and started
+off early, having paid a shilling for her lodging and breakfast.  This
+last witness added to the confusion by saying she saw no chain, and did
+not believe her lodger had a watch, since she had several times asked
+her the hour, and had annoyed her into saying she ought to have a watch
+of her own.  This witness's "impression" was that deceased had replied,
+"I wish I had, and I wouldn't trouble you."  This was absolutely all
+that could be ascertained.  And accordingly the dead woman was buried
+by the Rev. Cooper Smith, in Rossleigh graveyard, which she had told
+Hendrick she had known well in her childhood.  All the neighbourhood
+flocked to the funeral, and even Michael McAravey was for the first
+time in his life seen inside the doors of a Protestant church.  The old
+man seemed much cut up, probably owing to the doubts cast on his
+honesty.  So sad was the fate of the unknown wanderer, and so great the
+interest excited, that it was determined to record the mysterious event
+in a simple headstone, erected by subscription.  To the surprise of
+everybody, McAravey, who had never been known to trouble himself about
+any one else's affairs, or to give away a shilling, took the matter up
+warmly, and himself subscribed fifteen shillings, which he paid in
+three instalments.  The stone was erected, bearing this inscription:--
+
+"In Memory"
+
+OF MRS. E. D. (NAME UNKNOWN),
+
+FOUND DROWNED NEAR TOR POINT
+
+_On the 13th of March, 186--_.
+
+This Stone is Erected by Subscription.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+The events narrated in the last chapter were not without lasting
+effects on most of the persons immediately concerned in them.  Michael
+McAravey was an altered man.  His proud reserve seemed changing into
+petulant self-vindication.  He began to look fully his age, and, like
+many other men of so-called iron constitution, when his strength began
+to give way it collapsed at once.  He also conceived a violent
+antipathy to George Hendrick.  The children were forbidden to attend
+the class, which had now been resumed; and although they came twice
+surreptitiously, Mr. Hendrick was no sooner aware of this than he felt
+obliged to tell them that their first duty was obedience to their
+guardians.  It was a hard parting both for teacher and pupils.  It cost
+George Hendrick no slight effort to dismiss his two favourite scholars,
+nor could he at once see his duty plain in the matter.  As for the
+children they were broken-hearted and rebellious; but the quiet,
+sympathetic tenderness of their friend at length reconciled them to
+their lot.  Except on this point, McAravey was far more considerate
+with the children than formerly.  He was now a good deal in the house,
+having become very asthmatic, and often shielded Elsie and Jim from
+Mrs. McAravey's harsh tongue.
+
+The effect of what they had gone through was no less evident in the
+children, though they were very differently affected.  Jim never
+recovered the panic of that March day.  Nothing could induce him to go
+near the shore alone, and the very sight of the sea excited the lad.
+It was otherwise with Elsie.  That solitary interview with the dead had
+sobered her.  The dead woman's face was seldom absent from her
+thoughts.  Elsie had grown to love it, and to regard it as something
+mysterious and superhuman.  She had never before seen so refined and
+beautiful a countenance; and there was something in the rigid aspect of
+death that quieted and awed, while it did not the least terrify the
+child.  As the months went by, and the actual event began to fade in
+the distance, the pale sweet face, with the dripping brown hair drawn
+back from it, became more and more of an ideal for veneration and love.
+Thus, while Jim could never be induced to pass near the sandy cove
+alone, Elsie ceased to have any special association with the actual
+scene of the occurrence.  But in her moments of passion or heedlessness
+she ever saw before her the dead face--kind, but so calm and firm, that
+it repressed in an instant her most impetuous outbursts.
+
+As the autumn drew on it became evident that Michael McAravey was
+dying.  That he knew it himself was gathered from the fact that more
+than once, during the summer, he had walked over to Ballycastle to
+attend Mass.  There seemed a weight on the old man's mind, which he was
+unable or unwilling to shake off.  'Lisbeth, who for years had suffered
+severely from "rheumatics," and who had made up her mind that she was
+to die before the "old man," was but an indifferent nurse.  Elsie,
+however, more than took her place.  Michael had become much attached to
+the child, and as he daily grew weaker he came to look to her for
+everything.
+
+"Ye 'r a brave wee lass, Elsie," he used to say, "and I doubt I 've not
+been over kind to ye, but I can't do without ye now."
+
+One gloomy September afternoon, when the blustering winds were again
+celebrating the return of the equinox, Michael, who had been sleeping
+heavily all day, suddenly started up and astonished his wife by an
+eager request that she would send at once for George Hendrick and
+Father Donnelly.
+
+"I doubt you 're raving, Mike, to send for such a pair.  What do you
+want with either, not to say both?  Nice company they 'd be for each
+other."
+
+"I tell you I'm dying, and I must see them both," cried her husband,
+rising, gaunt and excited, in the bed.  "I say, Elsie," he continued,
+"this is Wednesday; run down and see can you find Mr. Hendrick anywhere
+about."
+
+Elsie departed at once, while 'Lisbeth tried to soothe the invalid,
+muttering all the time, however, her scorn of "Readers" and hatred of
+"Papish priests."
+
+George Hendrick was easily found, and in a few minutes was sitting by
+the old man's side, soothing him with simple, kindly words, and waiting
+for an opening through which to approach the inner man.
+
+"I 've not treated you fair, my mon, and I didn't wish to die without
+tellin' you so.  Besides, there 's a thing or two I 've been thinkin'
+long to speak about, and now the time's come.  I 've sent for Father
+Donnelly."
+
+"It's far to send and long to wait, Mike; do you not think we can do as
+well without him?" asked the reader.
+
+"I've not sent for him, and ye may be sure I 'll have none o' your
+Papish priests coomin' about the house, leastways whiles I 'm in it,"
+interrupted Mrs. McAravey.
+
+"Then you 'd better get out of it," said the old man; "I never
+interfered with you and your Ranters and Covenanters, and I don't mean
+to be interfered with.  I tell ye, George Hendrick, I'll die in the
+Church of my fathers, even if I 'm----"
+
+"Hush!" cried Hendrick, putting his hand to the excited man's mouth;
+"we 'll send for the priest if you wish.  God forbid that I should
+stand between you.  Young Jim McAuley is going over to Ballycastle, and
+will take a message if Elsie gives it him; but he can't be here for
+three or four hours at least, so let us be quiet a wee bit now.  You
+said you wanted to see me, Mike; and perhaps while we are waiting you
+'d like to hear the message of God out of His own book--you needn't
+wait to send to Ballycastle for it."
+
+"You may read a bit if ye like," responded McAravey, leaning back on
+the bed, quite satisfied now that the priest had been sent for; "only
+no controversy; it's not fit for a dyin' man--or for any man, for the
+matter o' that."
+
+"No controversy!" said Hendrick, smiling; "well, will this suit you?
+'_Without controversy_ great is the mystery of godliness.  God was
+manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels,
+preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into
+glory.'  Do you believe that, Mike?"
+
+"Aye, aye; it's wonderful to think on," murmured the dying man, in his
+deep, solemn voice.  "I doubt I 've been a bit hard sometimes, but I
+'ve always been honest and paid my way."  Then after a pause, "Ye may
+go on with your readin'; I 'm no ways prejudiced.  I think Prodestan
+and Catholic is pretty much alike with God."
+
+"Aye, Mike, alike in this, that '_all_ have sinned and come short of
+the glory of God.'  None of us can stand before Him as we are; but
+remember what Paul says again, there could be no disputing about, 'This
+is a true saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came
+into the world to save sinners.'"
+
+"I believe that," said McAravey; "but now I 'd like to sleep a bit;
+only don't go away, for if the priest don't come in time, I must
+confess to you, George.  Ye won't object to hear me and give me
+absolution, will you?" he added with an effort to smile.
+
+"I won't leave you, Mike, and I'll hear what you have to say; and as
+for absolution, I 'll try to point you to the great Absolver--our
+Advocate with the Father--who is the propitiation for our sins."
+
+It was after ten o'clock when Father Donnelly arrived.  After a short
+private interview with the patient, Hendrick was summoned to the room.
+
+"There is a part of my confession," said the old man, "which, by your
+leave, father, I 'd like my friend to hear--it will save us the time of
+going over the same bit twice."
+
+The priest nodded silently, not, however, looking very pleased at the
+somewhat light tone in which McAravey spoke.
+
+"It's about the two children, and the poor creature that was found by
+them on the sands last spring.  It's been heavy on my mind this long
+time, and I can't go out of the world without explaining all I know
+about the story.  And now to begin at the beginning.  It's just about
+seven years ago, and a couple before we came here, that the children
+came to us.  We were very hard-up at that time, and 'Lisbeth and I were
+down in heart about loosin' our own wains, when one day I was in the
+market at Ballymena, and there I met James Kinley.  He asked me, would
+the missus like to make a trifle by taking charge of a couple of
+children?  I said I thought she might, and so he brought me to the
+hotel, and I saw a young woman as said she and her husband were going
+abroad, and wished to leave the two little ones with some respectable
+person in the glens.  Well, I saw her a second time, and then it was
+all settled.  She gave us 20 pounds down, and said she would write.  I
+didn't like to ask questions, thinking, perhaps, it wasn't all on the
+square about the bairns, and so I'm not sure I ever even knew the name
+rightly--it was Davis, or Davison, or Dawson, or something that way.
+Tom Kinley knew all about the parties, and so I did not trouble.  And
+then when he went to America there was no one to inquire of.  Well, we
+had one letter about a year after, from some place in Inja, I think,
+and in it they said they was going further, and mightn't be able to
+write for some time.  There was a directed envelope inside, and I sent
+off a few lines to say the wains was well.  After that we never heard
+more, and we always thought the father and mother had got killed in the
+strange parts they went to.  So we never told the young 'uns anything,
+but determined to make the best shift we could for them.  Then came the
+day they found the body, and this is where my sore trouble began.
+After Elsie left me, I was still lookin' at the poor dead thing, when
+it come on me like a dream that I had seen the face before.  At first I
+couldn't think where it was, and then I remembered the lady Kinley had
+brought me to see in Ballymena.  I stooped down to look at her, and
+then I noticed the chain round her neck.  There was no watch on it, but
+a sort of wee case that opened, and inside there was a picture and a
+wee bit o' paper folded.  You may be sure Mike McAravey had no thought
+of stealing; but when I saw some one comin', I said to myself, 'These
+things belong to the wains, and if I leave 'em here they 'll not get
+'em unless I tell all I knows.'  And my heart bled to think of the
+children hearing the first of their mother, when they saw her lying
+dead.  So I slipt the chain and case into my pocket, just as George
+Hendrick came up.  Ye remember, perhaps, I was so confused-like I
+didn't know what I was doing.  Maybe ye thought I was scared.  Then,
+when we brought up the body, I went and put the chain under the big
+heap o' sea-weed.  When all the fuss was made at the inquest, I was
+sorry I had hid the things, but I daren't tell then.  And mind ye,
+Father Donnelly, I told no lie, for there was no watch, and the chain
+wasn't gold at all, but an old-fashioned silver affair.  Even so it was
+a weight on me, so I thought the best thing I could do was to sell it,
+and they gave me fifteen shillings in Coleraine.  And that's how I got
+the first money for the monument.  The wee case--a locket, I believe,
+they call it--I 've kept yet.  It's made up in a parcel in the corner
+of the wee box under the bed.  And now that's all I 've to say; but I
+knows this affair, and the way the folk has doubted me has been the
+cause of my breaking up.  And there 's poor Elsie--I believe she swore
+she didn't see the chain just to keep me out of trouble, and that cut
+me most of all to be the means o' bringin' the poor innocent lass to
+tell a lie."
+
+"I'm sorry you did not tell me all this before," said George Hendrick,
+his eyes filling with tears as he gazed on the stern, deep-lined face
+of the old man; "it might all have been explained."
+
+"I'm sorry too, and often thought to do it; but you see I took a
+dislike to you, because your mentioning about the watch--when after all
+there was no watch--was the cause of my trouble."
+
+"And now you see, Mike," said the priest, "the evil results of not
+coming to confession; I 've often warned you."
+
+"So you have, Father Donnelly, and it's no fault o' yours if I haven't
+been a better Catholic; but I 'm punished now, so let us forget the
+past."
+
+"Aye," said the priest, "you have suffered for your fault; and now
+wouldn't you like to receive the last rites, in case anything might
+happen before I come again?"
+
+It was not too soon, for when daylight dawned the proud, restless
+spirit had taken flight.  Long after the priest had left, Hendrick had
+sat, Bible in hand, pointing the dying sinner to the Great High Priest
+of our profession; and when the struggle was over he started home
+across the moors in the bleak morning, cheered and thankful in heart,
+believing that his labours that night had "not been in vain in the
+Lord."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+Michael McAravey's death made a considerable difference in the position
+of his family.  His widow was unable to retain and work the land; and
+though she obtained a considerable sum by way of tenant-right from
+McAuley, to whose farm the little patch was now united, she yet found
+herself in very straitened circumstances, especially as she regarded
+spending her principal as almost a sin.  It was a bitter struggle, and,
+yet by degrees there crept into her heart a degree of peace and
+contentment such as she had never known before.  Both she and Elsie had
+been deeply affected by the earnest and simple appeals of the
+Scripture-reader during that last sad night of watching by the bed of
+death.  The more so, in all probability, in that the words were not
+addressed directly to them, so that there was none of that irritation
+which often results when one feels himself being "preached at."
+Hendrick was now a weekly visitor at Mrs. McAravey's cottage, and he
+had at length the gratification of seeing, in this one home at least,
+the results of his long-continued and faithful labours.  At his
+suggestion, Jim, who, especially after the old man's death, could be
+made nothing of at home, was sent to a distant relative in Coleraine,
+where he had an opportunity of pursuing his studies at the Model
+School, with a view to entering some sort of business.  This was almost
+the only object for which Mrs. McAravey would permit a portion of her
+small capital to be touched.  For the rest, she and Elsie struggled on
+almost in poverty, but helped and, as far as possible, kept in work by
+the kindness of the neighbours.  In some mysterious way the substance
+of McAravey's confession had become public property, and it was known
+and suspected by everybody but herself that something had come out to
+identify the drowned woman as Elsie's mother.  Thus the child found
+herself, she knew not why, an object of interest to every member of the
+little community.  And the remembrance of the dead woman was really
+like that of a mother to her.  As Mrs. McAravey grew rapidly aged,
+Elsie acquired the habit of calling her "gran;" while the feelings of
+tenderness and sympathy that had been first roused in her by the sight
+of that poor soiled dead face, with the hair and sea-weed dashed across
+it, were cherished and sanctified by the daily call made on them in
+consequence of the old woman's increasing infirmities.  The child had
+even come, strangely enough, to think of and speak to the object of her
+dreams as "mother."  Was it an accident?  Was it an instinct?  Was it
+the result of some overheard expressions which, passing through her
+consciousness unnoticed, had yet made a lasting impression on the brain
+of the imaginative child?  Or was it a providential suggestion sent by
+an all-pitying Father to this desolate and wandering lamb?
+
+Thus time slipped by uneventfully, as far as external circumstances
+were concerned, but not purposelessly.  The hard lot of the poor
+suffering old woman was being lighted, and her spirit trained for that
+eternity which was now growing large upon her vision, as earthly
+affairs shrank into a smaller compass.  Elsie, too, who had never yet
+crossed the hill that seemed to meet the sky at the top of the glen,
+was learning lessons of perseverance and patient endurance, which would
+not be lost upon her, whatever the future of the child might be.  Jim
+was seldom at home, and, alas! but little of the old childish
+attachment survived.  The boy was ambitious, business-like, and
+plodding.  His heart was in the town, and he seemed to retain no
+affection for the associations of his childhood: some of them were
+absolutely abhorrent to him.  George Hendrick was profoundly
+disappointed in the lad.  Not that a word could be said against his
+character.  He was steady, diligent, and submissive.  And when he was
+placed in a position where he could earn something, he never failed to
+send what he could to the old woman who had sacrificed so much to bring
+him on.  But there seemed a total absence of feeling or religious
+sentiment about the lad.  If he was sober and steady, it was merely
+because he scorned the weakness and waste consequent upon dissipation.
+He was pushing and ambitious, well spoken of and respected, but his old
+teacher failed not to see that all his thoughts were "of the earth,
+earthy."
+
+When she was nearly fifteen (as far as her ago was known) a new world
+was opened up for Elsie.  The rector's family were now growing up, and
+he was blest enough to find in his children, not a hindrance, but the
+greatest comfort and assistance in his arduous and often cheerless
+work.  Miss Smith and her sister Louisa had recently taken the musical
+arrangements of the church in hand, and not before it was needed, were
+now busying themselves to select and train a rustic choir.  The fame of
+Elsie's vocal abilities had been brought to Rossleigh Rectory by
+Hendrick, and so one day Mrs. McAravey was surprised by a visit from
+two bright, fresh young girls.  In her reception of them you could not
+recognise the hard, rude woman who had so sorely repulsed their father
+on his first visit to the glen.
+
+"Mr. Hendrick has been telling us about you and Elsie," began Miss
+Smith, "and we have only been waiting for the moors to be tolerably dry
+to come over and see you.  Now we 've once got here, I hope we shall be
+good friends."
+
+"Thank ye, miss; thank ye kindly.  I shall be glad to see ye, and I
+hope ye won't be strangers.  It's not often any one passes this way,
+and I often think very long when Elsie's out."
+
+"We hear Elsie has a very good voice, and we want to know whether she
+could not manage to come over and sing in the choir, in summer-time at
+least."
+
+"Aye, the lass has a good voice enough, and a good heart too, God bless
+her!  She 'll sing her hymns to me here half the night when I'm kept
+awake with the pain.  But, begging your pardon, young ladies, I don't
+care much for these new-fangled hymns; it's the good old psalms that I
+like--them's the Lord's work and not man's.  And, as for Elsie singing
+in the church, it's very kind of you to think of her; but it 'a a long
+road, or rather no road at all.  But here 's the lass, and she 'll
+speak for hersel'."
+
+At this moment Elsie entered the cottage, and was delighted at the
+invitation, for which, it may be told, George Hendrick had already
+prepared her.  "But how could she leave poor gran?"  The old woman
+thought this could be managed if she was only wanted for the morning.
+And so it was finally settled that Elsie should, on fine Sundays, walk
+over to Rossleigh in time for the half-past eleven service, remaining
+for dinner at the rectory, in order that she might attend the afternoon
+Sunday-school, and thence return to Tor Bay at about four in the
+afternoon.  To all this Mrs. McAravey assented, though probably the
+three young girls had no conception of the sacrifice it was to the
+invalid thus to consent to her being left alone from ten o'clock of a
+Sunday morning till nearly five.
+
+Elsie soon became a favourite at the rectory.  Young and enthusiastic,
+she thought nothing of the four miles' walk across the rough moorland;
+nor did it ever occur either to her or Mrs. McAravey that, in partaking
+of the rector's hospitality, she was profiting by the delicate sympathy
+of the girls for their hard-worked and ill-fed _protégée_.
+
+Mrs. Cooper Smith was much interested in Elsie, and offered to procure
+her a situation, or to take her into her own house as maid for the
+younger children.  But Elsie, who thankfully received every other
+favour, and availed herself of every opportunity for improving herself,
+steadily declined to leave poor Mrs. McAravey.  The family at the
+rectory could not but approve this resolve, and so for the time nothing
+further was said on the subject.
+
+The rector had now established a monthly service at Tor Bay, over which
+he himself presided.  This service, as well as the Scripture-reader's
+classes, was held in Mrs. McAravey's cottage, for which accommodation
+the old woman was almost compelled to accept a consideration that went
+far towards paying her rent.  Elsie, from having been the chief care,
+had now become the invaluable assistant of the reader.  The population
+of the neighbourhood had been recently augmented by the advent of a
+number of miners, engaged in opening up the numerous streaks of iron
+ore that have of recent years begun to be worked in the Antrim glens.
+Elsie, who had long since overcome her prejudice against the arts of
+reading and writing, was now quite competent to act as Mr. Hendrick's
+assistant, or even as his substitute.  For this help, too, she was,
+after a time, induced to accept a trifling remuneration.
+
+So had the good providence of God opened out a way for this poor
+parentless child, that at the age of sixteen or seventeen she found
+herself in a position of usefulness and importance that was pleasing to
+her.  A homely night-school had been established on four evenings of
+the week, of which Elsie was the recognised and paid mistress.  Her old
+and trusty friend George Hendrick came over as of yore on Wednesdays,
+and also on Fridays when no school was held, the evening being occupied
+by the service, and singing practice which followed.
+
+Elsie's pure and sweet example, and bright and playful manner, were of
+priceless value among the somewhat rough and careless mining population
+which had now been settled on the moors about the headlands.
+
+The girl was happy in herself, and therefore failed not to inspire
+others with something of the innocent sunshine of her own nature.  She
+still was haunted by the dear, dead face of her whom she had learned to
+love as a sort of angelic mother.  But she had learnt a better faith
+than that of hero-worship, and had come to look to another Presence,
+that was human and yet divinely glorious, for guidance, sympathy, and
+direction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Thus matters continued for two years.  Elsie was now a grown young
+woman, and her school was regularly established.  Her's was a happy and
+contented time--
+
+  "Never feeling of unrest
+    Broke the pleasant dream she dreamed.
+  Only made to be her nest
+    All that lovely valley seemed,
+  No desire of soaring higher
+    Stirred or flattered in her breast."
+
+Even had she desired to move, the presence of Mrs. McAravey would have
+rendered it impossible.  Though much softened and improved, the old
+woman had scarcely become an agreeable companion.  The hard,
+Covenanting leaven had moulded her from childhood, and though of late
+years she had been touched by a gentler spirit, it was impossible that
+habits of a lifetime should be entirely eradicated.  She suffered much
+pain, borne for the most part uncomplainingly, and was now nearly
+helpless.  Elsie was not the sort of person to think herself a martyr.
+Indeed, it never occurred to her that, in thus watching and consoling
+the declining years of this poor, decrepid old body, she was even
+performing a noble, and at times fatiguing and painful, duty.  She took
+it all as a matter of course.  It came to her in the order of
+Providence, and formed an element and feature in the state of life to
+which it had pleased God to call her, and in which she had resolved by
+the Divine blessing to do her duty.
+
+Thus matters might long have held their quiet course had it not been
+for Jim.  As it has been said, he was very different in disposition
+from Elsie.  Restless, eager, and full of curiosity, he could not
+understand her placid yet cheerful nature.  He knew not the secret of
+her inner life, and of the way in which that life animated and directed
+the outer.  The young man saw less and less of Tor Glen, having now
+obtained a good situation in a flax store at Ballymena.
+
+Some little time previous Elsie and Jim had both been confirmed; and
+since that event the Rev. Cooper Smith and George Hendrick had had
+several consultations with regard to them.  They were very unwilling to
+disturb the minds of the young people, nor had they anything definite
+to impart; yet it did not seem right to keep them in ignorance of what
+was known or suspected as to their parentage.  Jim, moreover, had
+displayed a good deal of curiosity on the subject, and had questioned
+Hendrick as to the meaning of the reports that had come to his ever
+open ears about old McAravey's knowledge of the drowned woman.
+
+At length it was resolved that Elsie and Jim should be invited to the
+rectory on a Saturday afternoon, and the whole matter fully explained.
+All being assembled on the day named, the rector briefly repeated what
+McAravey had said on his death-bed, as it had been told to him by
+Hendrick.  It appeared that before the old man's death the locket had
+been brought out from its place of concealment, and, in presence of the
+priest, handed over to Hendrick, who had next day brought it to the
+rector.  Upon investigation the locket had been found to contain the
+portrait of a man, and also a small folded piece of paper.  The face
+was intelligent and powerful, but by no means pleasing.  The eyes were
+eager and piercing, the lines about the mouth firm and deep-cut; the
+features in general somewhat coarse, and plainly those of a man in the
+lower walks of life, and one accustomed to hard toil both of mind and
+body.  The paper had proved to be the pawn ticket of a watch pledged in
+Belfast for the sum of one pound, the name upon it being Henderson.
+Mr. Smith had redeemed the watch, which now lay before him with the
+locket on the table.
+
+"You see, Elsie," he said, turning to the girl, whose eyes were full of
+tears, "we have but slight evidence to show either that this is your
+father's portrait, or that the poor creature who came to so untimely an
+end was your mother.  It is curious that the name on the ticket is
+Henderson, while McAravey said the person who brought you and Jim to
+him was called Davison or Davis, or something like that.  Of course it
+is quite possible the poor creature did not like to give her right name
+at a pawn office.  What do you think?"
+
+"I have always felt as if she was my mother," said Elsie; "and I should
+be glad if it turned out so.  It seems very probable."
+
+"I'm sure this rough-looking fellow is no father of mine," cried Jim,
+who had been sadly disappointed at the unromantic character of the
+revelation; "but I'll find out the secret of this matter yet.
+Meantime, I suppose, sir, the watch is mine.  Elsie may take the
+locket."
+
+"Don't you think you are somewhat precipitate, Jim?" said the rector,
+smiling.  "This is just one of the points Mr. Hendrick and I have been
+considering.  Of course it is just possible that some day the poor
+drowned woman may be identified, and turn out to have no connection
+with you at all.  But I am inclined to think she was your mother, and
+that that accounts for her coming to Tor Bay.  We have thought it only
+right, therefore, that you and Elsie should have the locket and watch,
+for the present at least.  As for the division, you must arrange that
+between you."
+
+"I think I ought to have the watch, as I said, sir, and Elsie the
+locket."
+
+"Well, perhaps that is the most suitable division," said the rector,
+coldly; "but I don't think you are quite consistent in claiming the
+watch so eagerly, and at the same time scorning the miniature, since,
+in all probability, if the watch belonged to your mother, the likeness
+is that of your father."
+
+"As such I at least shall be glad to keep it," said Elsie.
+
+Jim was somewhat crestfallen at the rector's rebuke, but merely added,
+with some pomposity--
+
+"Now that I have been informed of the circumstances, I shall probably,
+by the aid of this watch, be able to unravel the mystery of my
+parentage."
+
+He meant it merely as a piece of brag to cover his retreat, and as such
+the rector and Hendrick took it, receiving his words with a quiet smile.
+
+"I consider that Mr. Smith has acted very wrongly in keeping these
+things from us so long," commenced the young man, as he and Elsie
+walked home together after ac early dinner at the rectory.
+
+"O Jim! how can you say so?  Mr. Smith could have had no motive but
+consideration for our feelings."
+
+"I say nothing against his motives, only that I think he acted wrongly.
+Valuable time has been lost; but clergymen are never good men of
+business, and Scripture-readers are like them, I suppose."
+
+"Jim, I don't like to hear you speak like that; it's ungrateful.  And
+what you mean by valuable time I can't conceive."
+
+"I dare say you don't understand the value of time, leading the sort of
+life you do in a place where nobody ever knows the hour," said the
+youth, superciliously, as he glanced at his newly-acquired treasure;
+"but of course I mean time has been lost in investigating our family
+history."
+
+"I'm quite content to be as I am," said Elsie.  "If the history was
+known, it would probably be neither important nor interesting.  I don't
+see how the watch will help you, Jim; and you know you won't have the
+likeness."
+
+And she looked into the lad's face with her merry brown eyes.  But Jim
+was on his high horse, and merely replied--
+
+"I cannot say what I shall do all at once, but the matter shall be
+looked into at an early date."
+
+Elsie smiled, as the rector and Scripture-reader had done--not visibly,
+indeed, as they had, yet Jim somehow felt he was being laughed at,
+which made him angry.
+
+"He is a smart lad that, but I don't like him," said the rector, as he
+and Hendrick watched Elsie and Jim going down the avenue.  "He wants to
+be a fine gentleman, and is ashamed of his father's portrait--an
+ill-looking fellow enough, it must be admitted."
+
+"Aye, I didn't like that," said Hendrick; "but he is a steady boy, and
+may do well when the conceit has been taken out of him a wee bit."
+
+"If only a 'wee bit' is taken, there will be what the people call a
+good little wee lock left.  But I sincerely hope, for his own sake,
+that his pride will be taken out of him.  He is insufferable."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+For the present, at least, Jim was elated with a pardonable pride in
+his watch, and, after the manner of youths thus recently set up, he
+looked at it again and again during his walk next morning across the
+headlands to Ballycastle, where he had to catch the Ballymoney car,
+thence to proceed to Ballymena by train.  Ho was looking at his watch
+for the hundredth time, and half smiling to himself at his rash and
+boastful words as to making it the means of discovering his family
+history, when a sudden thought occurred to him.  He looked long and
+eagerly at the watch, while his pale face flushed up.  "I have it," he
+muttered; "and if I'm right, I shall take down the minister a bit."
+
+It was a long, tedious journey by foot and car and rail that lay before
+him, and his patience was almost exhausted when he reached his
+destination.  Once arrived, he immediately sat down to write in his
+humble lodgings.  The watch bore the name of the maker, "John Turnwell,
+Leeds, 7002."  Was it not possible that a record had been preserved,
+stating when and to whom the watch had been sold.  Ho did not know
+whether such was the practice, but at all events he would inquire.  A
+brief note was soon written and left ready for the morning mail; then
+the tired and excited lad went to bed, and dreamed of a beautiful lady
+who said she was his mother, and that his father was a lord, and had
+been murdered by the repulsive-looking man in the locket; and then a
+carriage and pair came thundering up to his lodgings, and his employer
+stood in the hall as he passed down, and congratulated him, and called
+him "my lord."  Then he thought he saw the man in the locket looking at
+him with hard, cold mouth, and then the face grew smaller till it
+shrunk into the locket, and it was open on the breast of the dead woman
+as she lay on the sands; and he saw himself and Elsie standing by the
+body.  In a moment he passed into the little figure, and felt himself
+turning to call Mike McAravey, as he had done so long ago.  The horror
+of that last vision awoke him.  It was late, and he had only time to
+get his letter posted and to hurry to his office.
+
+But Jim could not rest, till in the course of a few days a letter
+arrived with the Leeds post-mark.  He trembled as he took it in his
+hand, and then as he read a flush mantled up his face, and he burst
+into a laugh as he saluted himself in the cheap mirror that adorned the
+mantelpiece--
+
+"Aw, mi lord!  Glad to make your lordship's acquaintance!"
+
+The note ran thus:--
+
+
+"WATCH AND CLOCK FACTORY, LEEDS,
+
+"August 19, 187--.
+
+"SIR,--In reply to your favour of the 16th inst. we beg to say that we
+always keep a register of all watches made or sold by us.
+
+"No. 7002, an English lever made by ourselves, appears to have been
+purchased by Lady Waterham, of Burnham Park, in this neighbourhood, on
+the 21st of October, 185--.
+
+"We should advise you to communicate at once with her ladyship, who is
+now at home.
+
+"We remain, Sir, your obedient Servants,
+  "J. TURNWELL & Co.
+
+"Mr. J. McARAVEY,
+  "Market Street, Ballymena, Ireland."
+
+
+It was enough to turn the head of an ambitious boy.  Poor Jim, though
+generally cautious and reticent, could not contain himself, and, in
+strict confidence, revealed his coming splendour to one or two of his
+companions.  It was soon reported that Jim McAravey had come in for a
+fortune of 50,000 pounds, and was the son of a lord.  Even his
+employers seemed to treat him with new consideration, and, though
+annoyed that the affair had got so soon bruited about, he could not
+feel angry when he saw himself pointed at in the street, and half
+jokingly spoken of as "my lord" by his fellow-clerks.
+
+[Illustration: Jim building castles-in-the-air.]
+
+Jim's first step was to write a somewhat haughty letter to the Rev.
+Cooper Smith, and an excessively gushing and almost affectionate one to
+Elsie.  Both letters were shown to George Hendrick, the consequence
+being that one afternoon on returning home Jim found the
+Scripture-reader awaiting him.  "The young lord" (as they called him)
+was about to offer a gracious but distant welcome, when Hendrick, who
+had heard the town talk, anticipated him by exclaiming--
+
+"Well, Jim, my boy, I'm afraid you have been making a rare fool of
+yourself!"
+
+"I would thank you to explain your language," said the young man with
+great hauteur.
+
+"There, don't be offended, lad," replied the reader, kindly; "I only
+meant it was a pity you let this thing get talked of before you had
+more certainty.  I needn't tell you, Jim, how glad we shall all be to
+hear of anything really to your advantage."
+
+"I'm not aware that the thing has been talked about.  I only mentioned
+it to one or two personal friends, with a view to obtaining their
+advice."
+
+"Your friends have not been discreet, then," said Hendrick; "why, Jim,
+the whole town is talking about you, and should this come to nothing,
+you will have made yourself ridiculous.  Had you no truer or older
+friends with whom you might have consulted?  I 'm sorry for this, Jim."
+
+"If you mean Mr. Smith and yourself, I must say you did not seem to
+take much interest in my welfare--and Elsie is not much better," he
+added, bitterly.  "Perhaps it will be different now."
+
+"Come, Jim, you don't believe a word of all that.  You know well who
+your truest friends are, though we don't always encourage all your
+notions.  But will you not let me see this famous letter?"
+
+Hendrick read the letter carefully, and then asked, "And what do you
+mean to do, Jim?"
+
+"Why of course go over to see her ladyship as soon as I can arrange
+matters here.  I shall speak to Messrs. Moore to-morrow, and see
+whether they can let me free at once--I should think under the
+circumstances they would."
+
+"My dear Jim," cried the reader, "are you mad?  You don't seriously
+mean to give up, or run the risk of losing, your situation for what may
+after all prove a wild goose chase?"
+
+This was just what Jim had contemplated, and it was not without
+difficulty that good George Hendrick brought him to a sounder judgment.
+Unlike Jim's youthful friends, who, partly animated by love of mischief
+and partly by youth's natural hopefulness, had encouraged him to
+indulge the most glowing fancies, Hendrick showed him gently, but
+plainly, how fragile was the foundation on which he had been building.
+The watch might have been stolen, or lost, or given away.  There might
+turn out to be no direct or traceable connection between Lady Waterham
+and the unknown woman whose property it had been.  Jim was not shaken
+in his own private conviction (strengthened as it had been by his
+dream), but he was too hard-headed not to admit the reasonableness of
+Mr. Hendrick's arguments; and the more he heard of the tales that had
+been circulated, the more deeply he regretted his pride and misplaced
+confidence.  He finally made no objection to Hendrick's proposal that
+the matter should be left in the hands of the Rev. Cooper Smith, who
+was going to England in the course of ten days, and was willing to make
+a slight detour to Leeds.  So it was settled.  The watch and locket
+were entrusted to the rector, who promised to see the watchmaker and
+Lady Waterham.
+
+"You seem more annoyed than anything else," said Jim crossly to Elsie,
+when the final arrangements were being made in the rectory study.
+
+"I cannot say I am pleased," replied the girl.  "I fear lest you should
+be disappointed, Jim; and, on the other hand, I don't want to be
+anything but what I am.  I have not been brought up a lady, and to find
+that I had been born one would be no pleasure.  If you could be a lord,
+Jim, without affecting me, it would be all right."
+
+"Why, Elsie, you have no ambition."
+
+"None to be put in a false position, which I could not rightly fill."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+"What a solemn and mysterious communication," said Lady Waterham,
+laughing, as she handed a letter across the breakfast table to her
+husband.
+
+"Pooh! my dear, it is some Irish beggar; you had better not see him,"
+said his lordship as he rose from the table.
+
+"O scarcely--it would be too impertinent."
+
+The letter ran as follows:--
+
+
+"The Rev. Cooper Gore Smith presents his compliments to Lady Waterham,
+and trusts that she will find it convenient to receive him on Tuesday
+morning at about eleven o'clock, when he hopes to have the honour of
+waiting on her ladyship.
+
+"The Rev. Cooper Gore Smith's reasons for troubling Lady Waterham can
+scarcely be explained in a letter.  Suffice it that the affair on which
+he is engaged is of considerable importance to those chiefly concerned,
+and may even prove not to be without interest for her ladyship.
+
+"_Railway Hotel, Leeds,_
+  "Sept. 3, 187--."
+
+
+This the worthy man flattered himself was in his best style.  He was
+considerably puffed up by the importance of his mission, and, although
+he had the wisdom to keep them secret, his aspirations were nearly as
+far-reaching as those of Jim himself.  To have been the friend and
+patron of two long-lost scions of nobility was an idea too romantic and
+agreeable not to be dwelt on, even though he reminded himself again and
+again that it had probably no foundation.  It was, therefore, with no
+little self-importance that the note was penned, and in a similar frame
+of mind he started for Burnham Park next morning.
+
+Lady Waterham was sitting in the morning-room with her two daughters
+when the clergyman was announced.
+
+Lady Eleanor and Lady Constance More were like each other, being both
+agreeable-looking, simple, and yet elegant.  They seemed about the same
+age, and were certainly past their first youth; still they looked
+bright and cheerful, and evidently troubled themselves but little about
+the advancing years.  Lady Waterham was somewhat frigid in her manner,
+and as she slightly rose and pointed Mr. Smith to a chair, he became
+conscious that he had forgotten the exact words in which he had
+intended to commence the conversation.  This led to a slight pause, but
+having plenty to say, he soon found a way to begin.
+
+"I have ventured to call on your ladyship about two young persons in
+whom I am deeply interested, and into whose parentage I am making
+inquiries.  The story is a romantic one, and will take some little time
+to relate----"  He was brought to a sudden pause by the cold, inquiring
+look of Lady Waterham.
+
+"But I ought to tell your ladyship how I come to call on you."
+
+"Thank you, sir," said her ladyship, drily--she was beginning to
+suspect that her husband had been right.
+
+"Well, the fact is," continued Mr. Smith, "the only clue to identity
+which we have is this watch, which it appears was purchased by you some
+twenty-three years ago at Mr. Turnwell's in Leeds."
+
+Her ladyship was not like her daughters, and scarcely quite relished
+being reminded of what happened twenty-three years ago.  She took the
+watch coldly, and, after looking at it a moment, said--
+
+"Really, sir, I think there must be some mistake.  I remember nothing
+about this watch.  I am sure it was never mine, nor have any of us lost
+a watch.  I am sorry you should have had so much trouble."
+
+"Excuse me, your ladyship, but it seems almost certain that the watch
+was bought on your account.  I have seen the entry in Messrs.
+Turnwell's books, from which this is a copy."
+
+"This is very strange," said Lady Waterham, as she read the memorandum.
+"L7 10s. it cost, I see."
+
+"When was it, mamma?" asked Lady Eleanor, looking up for the first time.
+
+"The 18th of April, 185--."
+
+"O mamma, I know!  It must be the watch we gave to dear Elsie before
+she was married.  You remember the marriage was in May, and that was
+the year I am sure.  I was just fourteen."
+
+"Fourteen and twenty-three are thirty-seven," said the Rev. Cooper
+Smith to himself, as he looked at the still fresh and eager face.
+
+"Poor dear Elsie! what has become of her?  Do you know her, sir?" she
+continued, turning to the clergyman.
+
+"The girl on whose behalf I am inquiring is called Elsie, and it seems
+probable she was your friend's daughter."
+
+"I must tell you, sir, who _our Elsie_ was," said her ladyship, who had
+caught and did not like the word "friend."  "She had been my maid; but
+we found her so conscientious, nice-mannered, and well-informed, that
+she almost occupied the position of nursery governess to the younger
+children.  We were all very much attached to her, and when she married
+we gave her a watch, which Lady Eleanor supposes must be the same as
+this.  The marriage was not a happy one, and we opposed it as long as
+we could.  After some time she went to India, and thence I think to
+China, with her husband.  For many years we have heard nothing of her,
+though I think we fancied we saw his name among those lost in a
+terrible shipwreck some years ago.  It was a sad story altogether.
+Poor Elsie!  Do you remember how anxious we used to be about her,
+girls?"
+
+"It was only the other day I was thinking of her, and wondering what
+had become of the little baby.  You know I was its god-mother, and she
+was called after me."
+
+"Yes, indeed, I had forgotten," said Lady Waterham; "but perhaps, sir,
+you would kindly tell us what you know about our former protégée."
+
+Mr. Smith told the sad tale with which our readers are acquainted as
+briefly as he could.  At the end there was a pause, and then her
+ladyship said--
+
+"Poor foolish girl!  She would not take my advice, and I foresaw that
+her end would not be happy."
+
+"Our poor dear Elsie!" said Lady Constance, her eyes overflowing.  "It
+was a sad day for her when she first saw that horrid man Damer; her
+head was quite turned afterwards."
+
+"At all events my baby godchild is living, and a credit to me
+apparently," said Lady Eleanor.
+
+"And the boy?" said the clergyman.
+
+There was a pause.  The Ladies Constance and Eleanor looked at each
+other, and then at their mother.
+
+"I have not mentioned the boy," said her ladyship; "but that is the
+most painful part of the subject.  He is not Elsie's brother at all;
+and what is worse, it was never exactly known who he was.  About four
+months after the marriage a poor woman came to the village.  She said
+her name was Damer, and inquired for Elsie's husband.  He was very much
+put out by her appearance, but at once took a lodging for her, where
+the poor thing had a baby, and died immediately after.  Damer said the
+woman was his only sister, and accordingly that he must take the child.
+At the time Elsie seemed to have no doubts, but every one else talked
+about it.  Some said the woman was his wife, and others--you can
+imagine what they said.  Shortly after that they left the
+neighbourhood, and we never saw Elsie again.  Her husband, I must tell
+you, was a mechanical engineer, and considered an excellent workman.
+He got a capital appointment in India after he left Leeds, and Elsie
+wrote to tell us she was going with him.  It was then I so strongly
+urged her to stay at home with the children; but she would not be
+guided, and merely wrote to say she had placed them with some people in
+the north of Ireland, where, I think, she came from herself."
+
+"I fancy," said Lady Eleanor, "I have some of her letters still.  You
+remember, mamma, they were imprisoned in China, with a number of other
+English people, for ever so long.  It was after they were released that
+we had the last letter (which I am sure I kept), saying that she was
+coming home.  We did not know at the time whether she meant _alone_ or
+not; and then when we saw Edgar Damer's name among the people lost in
+that vessel--I forget its name--we concluded that she must have gone on
+before."
+
+Thus piecing together the broken memories of the past, the morning went
+by.  The Rev. Cooper Smith stayed to luncheon, and in the course of
+conversation various confirmatory incidents came out.  The miniature in
+the locket was at once recognised, and it appeared that the locket
+itself had been the special gift of little Lady Eleanor.  A more
+careful comparison of dates proved quite satisfactory, showing, among
+other things, that the body had been found at Tor Bay just four months
+after the date of the letter which Lady Eleanor had succeeded in
+finding, and in which Elsie said she was to start in a few days, and
+would be nearly four months on the voyage.  "My first visit will be to
+the glens, and then I shall try to go over and see you.  I have so much
+to tell, and to ask your kind advice about.  I am unhappy and anxious,
+and feel somehow as if I would never see either my child or you, though
+I am writing about it.  It is so long since we have heard of anybody,
+we seem to have been dead, as it were."
+
+Having returned to his hotel, the clergyman made some brief notes of
+the story that had thus providentially been brought to light.  He did
+not know whether to feel pleasure or disappointment.  He was glad to
+have the mystery cleared up; glad, too, to find that Elsie had had so
+sweet a mother, and was likely to have such kind and liberal friends.
+Yet he could not but feel sorry for the collapse that was awaiting
+Jim's castle in the air.  It would be a bitter trial for him, and he
+knew not how Jim would bear it.  Mr. Smith was somewhat puzzled,
+moreover, what to do himself.  He had promised to write to the
+expectant Jim; but now he could not bring himself to do so.  His own
+holiday would not expire for a fortnight, and he was naturally
+reluctant to return home sooner than was necessary.  While debating
+what was best to be done, a telegram was put into his hand.  It was
+from the irrepressible and anxious Jim.  "Please telegraph results
+obtained immediately.  Reply paid for."  "The fool!" muttered Mr.
+Smith; and, yielding to a sudden irritation, he filled up the reply for
+which the boy was waiting:
+
+"All clear enough, but quite unsatisfactory as far as you are
+concerned."
+
+It was a cruel blow, and no sooner was it dealt than he was sorry for
+it.  He resolved to write to the poor lad, and, finding an invitation
+to dine at Burnham Park, which had first to be accepted, he sat down,
+well pleased with himself and all the world.  The letter to Jim was
+kindly.  The whole truth was not told, but it was announced that Jim
+and Elsie were no connections of the Waterham family.  All else was
+reserved for verbal explanation.
+
+The dinner at Burnham was pleasant enough.  The earl was affable, and
+after dinner had several reminiscences of that "clever dog Damer" to
+tell, which did not raise his character in the clergyman's estimation.
+When about to leave, Lady Eleanor handed him a note for Elsie, adding--
+
+"I do wish so she would come over and see us!  Of course I should
+gladly pay all her expenses."
+
+The Rev. Cooper Smith left Leeds next morning quite satisfied with
+himself, and, having written a long letter to Hendrick, giving a
+general idea of his discoveries, he went on his tour with a light heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+Poor Jim! his pride had indeed met with a fall.  The rector's letter
+was soothing enough, but the winged messenger which he himself had
+demanded had arrived full twenty-four hours earlier.  Full of the most
+ridiculous dreams, that he would have been ashamed to put in words even
+to himself, the young man tore open the brown cover.  One glance at the
+cruelly brief, well-written announcement, and all the top-heavy aerial
+erection his vanity had heaped up lay shattered around him.  Poor boy!
+shall we not pity him?  From very childhood, though so silent and
+undemonstrative, he had fed himself with extravagant visions and wild
+speculations.  All this had been merely an amusement, though an
+unhealthy one.  The dreamer had scarcely entertained the idea of his
+dreams possibly proving true.  But the train was laid for a future
+explosion--the imagination was diseased, and so when the watchmaker's
+letter came, all the shadowy fancies of the past seemed to be suddenly
+transformed into substantial realities.  He fancied ho had always
+_known_ that which hitherto he had only amused himself by fancying.
+
+The blow was sharp and decisive, and Jim felt he had brought it on
+himself.  Curiously enough, however, the sudden stinging pain acted as
+a tonic stimulant.  The lad summoned up all the latent manliness and
+force of his character.  He looked the thing in the face, and saw
+clearly that he had played the fool.  He knew that he would be laughed
+at, and resolved to bear it like a man.
+
+Next day came Mr. Smith's letter, and it was as balm to the wounded
+spirit.  Elsie also wrote a line to say she was glad not to be a lady,
+and believed that he would get on all the better for not being a lord.
+
+Thus it came to pass that when the Rev. Cooper Smith arrived at
+Ballymena station, the first person he met was Jim McAravey.
+
+"I do not know how to thank you, sir, for all the trouble you have
+taken; I at least was not worthy of it.  But I trust this piece of
+folly has been enough for me.  I hope I am wiser, but I shall strive
+not to be sadder."
+
+Mr. Smith was as much surprised as pleased at this change in the young
+man's character, and he the more regretted having to tell the whole of
+the narrative, which was sure to cause further pain to the lad.
+However, it had to be done, and Jim, who was no coward, took it all
+better than might have been expected.
+
+"And so I am only Elsie's half-brother, at best--or shall I say at
+_worst_?" said the poor lad, with trembling voice.  "I'm afraid, sir, I
+shall be terribly laughed at here, but I must bear it as best I can.  I
+have brought it on myself."
+
+Elsie was profoundly thankful for the result of the investigation.  As
+she had said herself, she "did not feel like being a lady," and was
+therefore glad to be delivered from what would have been, to her, an
+unwelcome fate.  At the same time it was a pleasure to obtain definite
+information as to her parentage, and also to find that in Lady Eleanor
+she had a friend who had known and loved her mother, and who was bound
+to herself by a sacred tie.  That Jim had proved not to be her brother
+was, if the truth be told, a relief.  Elsie had often reproached
+herself that she did not feel for him that sisterly affection which she
+believed it her duty to cultivate.  In fact she began to like Jim
+better now, partly because he was decidedly improved by the "taking
+down" he had received, and partly because affection was no longer a
+duty to which the girl had to school her heart.
+
+Lady Eleanor's letter was kind in the extreme.  She told Elsie in
+simple language how they had all loved her mother, and enclosed for her
+perusal the one or two letters that had been preserved.  "Although
+Elsie could not remember their last meeting, yet they were not
+strangers, since Lady Eleanor did not forget that she had held her in
+her arms at the baptismal font."  Elsie was urged most affectionately
+to go over to England, if it were only for a time; and it was suggested
+that if she settled there Mrs. McAravey might accompany her.  Elsie,
+however, felt at once that, even could she bear the journey, it would
+be a cruelty to transplant the aged woman from her native soil to a
+region where she would find all things alien and strange.  Nor would
+she entertain the idea of deserting the poor old body, though Mrs.
+McAravey stoically offered to give her up.
+
+"I won't stand in your way, Elsie, lass, though I can't bear to think
+of it; but it's not long I'll be here to trouble anyone, and I'd like
+to know you were well provided."
+
+But Elsie would not be persuaded, nor could her new friends do
+otherwise than approve her noble resolve.  They were disappointed, but
+felt that such a girl was worthy of their affection and patronage, and
+trusted that time would afford them opportunities of benefiting her.
+
+The winter that ensued was a trying one.  The snow lay deep on the
+moors, so that Tor Bay was practically shut off from the rest of the
+world.  The rector was not able to get over, and even George Hendrick's
+visits were few and far between.  For several weeks Elsie could not go
+to church, and when she did the fatigue and wet brought on a cold which
+stuck to her all the winter.  Old Mrs. McAravey seemed fast approaching
+her end; she long had been quite crippled with rheumatism, and now her
+mind was at times beginning to give way.  It was a sad, dreary time for
+Elsie.  Scarcely any children were able to come to school; and as she
+struggled on day after day at what seemed, in her present low state of
+health, a barren and uninteresting task, she could not but have visions
+of the comfortable home she might have acquired with her hitherto
+unseen friends.  Not that she ever regretted her decision; indeed Elsie
+was scarcely capable of entertaining a selfish thought.  Without any
+apparent effort she lived for others, and habitually thought of them
+before herself.  Yet it was a trying time for the poor young
+girl--gloomy and disheartening days, succeeded by restless and anxious
+nights, and literally not a soul to speak to.
+
+Jim, too, had a bad time of it that winter.  So great had been the
+ridicule to which he had been subjected in Ballymena, that he was at
+length forced to abandon his position.  Messrs. Moore accepted his
+resignation somewhat coldly.  They regretted the loss of a valuable
+servant, but Jim had failed to gain the affection of his employers.  He
+had "kept himself to himself" with such reserve that no one took much
+interest in him, though his good business qualities were fully
+appreciated.  Messrs. Moore gave him a high character for steadiness
+and capacity, but they did not seem inclined to go out of their way to
+obtain him employment.  Poor Jim was much mortified at the calmness
+with which his resignation was received.  He knew that he had done his
+duty to his employers faithfully, and therefore he felt hurt when they
+made no effort to retain him.  The poor lad had well-nigh to begin
+again.  He went to Belfast, and there soon obtained employment, but in
+a far inferior position to that which he had occupied at Messrs.
+Moore's.  Moreover, he soon found that in the great capital of the
+linen trade there were numbers of young men as capable, as energetic,
+and in many cases better educated than himself.  It was a harsh and
+unpleasant experience, but Jim had the strength and courage to bear up
+under it.  He still was full of a laudable confidence in himself, and
+felt sure that patience and diligence would have their due reward.  It
+was a hard struggle, however.  Trade was bad, and after a few months
+the house in which he was just getting established was compelled to
+stop payment.  For a few weeks Jim was absolutely without employment.
+After that time he obtained another situation, and thus escaped being
+reduced to actual poverty; for the first time, however, he was brought
+face to face with the possibility of privation--of being unable
+(however willing and however anxious) to obtain the means of gaining
+his daily bread.
+
+Thus the winter and spring wore on.  Almost the first gleam of sunshine
+that came to Elsie with the reviving year was a letter from Lady
+Eleanor, in which she said that as Elsie would not come to see them,
+they had almost resolved to go and look for her.  The earl, her father,
+had often spoken of taking them to the Giant's Causeway, and so they
+thought of running over before Easter if the weather was fine, which
+after so severe a winter they hoped it might be.  The hope thus held
+out was destined to be gratified.  Easter was late that year, and the
+weather in March and April beautiful.  Jim was astonished one day early
+in April by receiving a letter from Elsie, directing him to wait upon
+the Earl and Lady Waterham, who were to arrive from Fleetwood next
+morning, and would stay a day at the Royal Hotel.  Jim blushed as he
+recalled the vain dreams of six mouths before, and naturally felt some
+embarrassment at the prospect of meeting such exalted personages.
+However, he conducted himself so modestly and naturally that he won the
+approval of the whole party.  Even the earl, who, out of dislike to
+Damer, was much prejudiced against the lad, spoke kindly to him, and
+expressed a willingness to serve him, if possible, at any time.
+
+Having proceeded to Larne by train, the party posted along the noble
+coast road, arriving at the Ballycastle Inn in time for a very late
+dinner.  Next day the younger ladies, having procured two stout ponies
+and a guide, started for Tor Bay, taking the magnificent Fair Head _en
+route_.  They were determined to find out Elsie for themselves, and to
+take her by surprise in the midst of her ordinary work.  It was one of
+those glorious spring days that might have belonged to June, were it
+not for a keenness in the air that surprised you when the sun was for a
+few seconds over-clouded.  There was, too, a clearness in the
+atmosphere that warm summer days cannot claim, with a suspicion of
+frost, as you looked towards the sea.  And often did the two ladies
+look in that direction during their ride on the lofty headlands.
+Rathlin Island lay below them, separated by the few miles of narrow and
+often impassable sea, but to-day it was but a "silver streak."  Far in
+the horizon the Scotch coast could be seen all along the line, while
+the Mull of Cantyre looked but a few miles away, the very houses and
+boundaries being almost distinguishable.  Full in front the sun gleamed
+on Ailsa Craig, as it rose abrupt and lovely from out of the sea.
+Elsie, though familiar with it, had not been insensible to all this
+beauty.  She had spent almost the entire night at Mrs. McAravey's side,
+nor did the old woman fall off to sleep till it was almost time to open
+school.  It was a weary morning's work; and when the children went home
+to dinner the exhausted girl wandered down to the beach (having seen
+that Mrs. McAravey still slept) in search of fresh air and quiet before
+resuming her duties.  Since the arrival of Lady Eleanor's last letter
+she had naturally enough been excited and nervous.  She knew that in a
+few days at latest she should see her mother's friend, and one who
+promised to be hers.  Would she like her?  Would the meeting be a
+disappointment, or otherwise?  What should she say?  Where would they
+meet?  How should she dress herself?  The first meeting with one to
+whom we are bound by any ties, whom we have long corresponded with, or
+are likely in the future to be much associated with, is always looked
+forward to with embarrassment and nervousness.  How much was this the
+case with a poor, simple orphan girl, who had never been five miles
+from home, called upon to encounter a titled lady, who actually claimed
+her as her godchild, and to whom she felt bound by so many tender
+associations?  Filled with thoughts of the approaching interview, Elsie
+wandered, she knew not whither, on the beach.  Suddenly a shadow seemed
+to pass over her, and she became conscious of the bitterness of the
+north-east wind that blew upon the shore.  Drawing her cloak round her,
+she looked up and found that she had come under the shade of the great
+cliff that rose at the extremity of Sandy Creek.  She stood still a
+moment, gazing on the dreary scene, and then a sudden flood of
+recollection came over her.  The tide was low, and she stood on the
+very spot, as it seemed, where, twelve years before, she had caught
+sight of the strange black mass that was being tossed on the sand amid
+the tangled sea-weed.  She saw herself a trembling, ragged child, alone
+by the dead body in the fast gathering twilight.  And this was the only
+time that she had seen her mother.  The girl was out of spirits, low in
+health, and very weary, and so, for the only time almost in her life,
+she gave way to repining thoughts.  All the gracious path by which a
+kindly Providence had led her was obscured, and she thought of herself
+merely as the orphan child of this poor dead thing that lay upon the
+sand.  The whole history of the past flooded back upon her.  She saw
+little Jim, so eager to escape from the gruesome sight; then Mike
+McAravey approaching through the twilight, and herself as she ran up
+against good George Hendrick; then rose up the horrid bewildering scene
+at the inquest; and finally she seemed to stand in the bleak wind-blown
+moorland churchyard, and before her was the nameless head-stone, "In
+Memory of E. D."  The sense of loneliness was complete as she stood
+beneath the overhanging cliff exposed to the biting nor'-east wind.
+With an effort she aroused herself, and looking up with tear-filled
+eyes to the pale clear blue sky so far away, she resolutely turned back
+into the warm sunshine that seemed the more dazzling after its
+temporary withdrawal.  It was almost school-time, and on the far
+hill-side path Elsie's quick eyes caught sight of two or three tiny
+little figures, as they trotted down the path towards her
+cottage-school.  In a moment all sadness was banished, and she felt
+herself again.
+
+"Have we not all one Father?" she murmured; "and have I not One to love
+me who has said, 'Inasmuch as ye did it to the least of these, ye did
+it unto Me'?"
+
+Glancing again to the hill, she perceived that the children had
+stopped, and were forming a little group as they looked backward up the
+path.
+
+"They 'll be late, my little loiterers," said Elsie, with a smile; "I
+must scold them well.  But what is it?"
+
+An uncommon sight indeed for Tor Glen, and one that might well distract
+the whole school's attention.  Two discreet ponies were picking their
+way down the zig-zag path, while behind walked a man.  But greatest
+wonder! on each pony was seated a real lady.  Erect and gracefully,
+too, did they keep their seats, as the patient beasts let themselves
+slip down the gravelly path.
+
+"It's early for tourists," thought Elsie, as she quietly walked on her
+way.
+
+The travellers and their attendant group of urchins had now passed out
+of sight behind a screen of the thick foliage, which we have described
+as adorning the sheltered bottom of the glen.  Elsie thought no more of
+the tourists.  Their pleasure-seeking was a thing she had absolutely no
+experience of, and the sight of her scholars had banished all other
+thoughts but practical ones as to the conduct of the afternoon lesson.
+
+A sudden turn brought the young mistress in front of her school.  It
+was a humble enough affair--a mere shed in fact, built on to the end of
+Mrs. McAravey's cottage, and adorned over the door with a plainly
+printed sign-board, "Tor Glen National School."  But the place did not
+look uncared for.  The school indeed was bare enough, and surrounded by
+a brown wilderness, in which the children used to play, but the
+adjoining dwelling-house was made green and warm with ivy and fuschia,
+while the little garden was neat, and for April almost gay.
+
+To her surprise, Elsie's ear caught no sweet clamour of children at
+play; there was indeed a sound of voices, and as she turned the corner
+some dozen eager voices cried together, "Here she is; here's mistress."
+
+Elsie stepped hastily forward, fearing some mischief, and then paused
+as she saw the two strange ladies standing in the midst of an admiring
+and wondering group of children, while the guide stood by, a pony
+bridle in each hand.
+
+In a moment one of the ladies had pushed through the little circle and
+seized the girl's hand.
+
+"Elsie Damer!  I 'm your godmother, Eleanor More.  I 'm so glad."
+
+Poor Elsie knew not where she was, or what it meant, and could find no
+better thing to say than "Your ladyship!"
+
+"There, don't talk like that," was the quick reply; "I'm so glad we've
+met at length.  What a sweet little nest this is, hidden away from the
+world by these great cliffs.  We were fortunate, too, to find you out
+so soon," continued Lady Eleanor, who, perceiving that Elsie had not
+recovered the sudden shock and embarrassment, considerately gave rein
+to her power of speech, which was by no means limited.
+
+"We met a nice little fellow on the top of the hill, and I asked him
+whether he knew where Elsie Damer lived.  I stupidly forgot about the
+name, so he answered 'Now.'  Then I remembered, and asked about Mrs.
+McAravey.  'It's teacher she 's askin' for,' said a little girl who had
+come up.  Then I saw it was all right, and so we all came tumbling down
+the hill together."
+
+"I saw you," said Elsie, "in the distance, but of course I had no idea
+who it was.  How very kind you have been to me!" and again the tears
+were trembling in the nervous eyes of the poor, overwrought girl.
+
+Lady Constance had now joined them, and the children stood around, all
+eyes and ears.
+
+"Kate, take them in," said the mistress to a tiny monitress, when she
+became conscious of the inquiring glances.  All were seated demurely as
+Elsie and the two ladies entered.
+
+"Now," said Lady Constance, "do you not think you might give these
+little ones a holiday this fine afternoon, so that you and my sister
+may have a good chat?"
+
+"Perhaps I had better," replied Elsie; then turning to the eager
+audience, "Children, these kind ladies have come all this way to see
+me, and have asked me to give you a holiday; what do you say?"
+
+"Thank you, ma'am," responded the little chorus.
+
+"Very well," said the mistress; "mind you don't get into any mischief.
+No noise," she added quickly, as she perceived that Lady Eleanor's
+friend was expanding his lungs, and gathering up his little
+bantam-cock-like figure, preparatory to starting a cheer.  "No noise;
+poor gran is very bad to-day, and would not like it.  Go quietly."
+
+And so they did, under the generalship of tiny Kate, all defiling past
+in silence, save Master "Naw," who, being the hero of the school,
+thought it necessary to distinguish himself; therefore, being forbidden
+to cheer, he stepped forward, and touching his forehead with a bow,
+said--
+
+"Thank your ladyships both;" and then, with a rush to the door, "Now,
+boys, we'll have a look at the ponies."
+
+"He is almost past me," said Elsie, laying her hand on the boy's
+shoulder as he darted through the door.
+
+"You have them in very good order, I think," said Lady Constance; "but
+I was sorry to hear you say the old lady was so poorly.  Let us go and
+see her."
+
+Elsie led the way, and as she lifted the latch they caught Mrs.
+McAravey's plaintive voice--
+
+"I 've been thinking long for you, Elsie, lass, for I heard the
+children say as the ladies had come.  You won't take her from a poor
+old creature, will you, miss?" she added, as the visitors came in view;
+"I won't have long to trouble you."
+
+"O no," said Lady Eleanor, kindly; "we 've only come to pay you and
+Elsie a visit.  She is just like her mother, Mrs. McAravey; and now
+that you are so weak and low you ought to be glad she has found some of
+her mother's friends.  We will always take care of her."
+
+"The Lord be thanked!" murmured the old woman, lying back with closed
+eyes; "and I bless His name He has brought me to see the day.  Elsie's
+a good lass--none better, ladies."
+
+Almost immediately she fell off into a broken and uneasy sleep, while
+Elsie and her friends whispered together at the door.
+
+"We shall gee you again the day after to-morrow, Sunday," said Lady
+Eleanor, as they prepared to start.  "We are going to Ashleigh Church,
+and will lunch at Mr. Smith's--he says you always stay for
+Sunday-school."
+
+"Yes," said Elsie, "that is very nice, and I'll be sure to be
+out--unless gran is too bad," she added, anxiously glancing towards the
+bed.
+
+Sunday came, and there was quite an excitement at Ashleigh Church when
+the clumsy hired carriage from Ballycastle drove up, and the two ladies
+appeared.
+
+The Rev. Cooper Smith, who had been popping his head out of the vestry
+door off and on for the last ten minutes, was in readiness to receive
+his guests, and then retired to have as much time as possible for a
+last look at the specially prepared sermon.  Mrs. Cooper Smith was too
+anxious about the lunch to go to church, but all the rest of the family
+were assembled in full force.  Elsie, however, did not put in an
+appearance, and the absence of her fine voice left a sad gap in the
+somewhat too elaborate service that had been, got up for the occasion.
+
+After service was over the clergyman took his guests to see poor Elsie
+Damer's grave.  Lady Eleanor suggested that something should be added
+to the inscription, setting forth the way in which the name had been
+discovered.  How this should be done was the subject of conversation
+during the walk to the rectory.  There they found Elsie just arrived.
+Mrs. McAravey had been much worse all Saturday, and Elsie could not get
+away in time for church.  She had only come now because the dying woman
+had expressed a wish to see Mr. Smith.  This news cast a shadow over
+the party.  Elsie remained for luncheon, on Mr. Smith's promising to be
+ready to start immediately after, when the returning carriage could
+bring them a considerable distance on the way, dropping them at a point
+not more than two miles from Tor Bay.
+
+"I must say good-bye now," said Lady Eleanor, drawing Elsie aside as
+they left the dining-room; "I cannot tell you how glad we are to have
+found you, and to have found you so like your dear mother too.  It is
+too bad papa and mamma cannot see you, as we must leave to-morrow; but
+we shall meet again soon."
+
+"I do not know about that," replied poor Elsie, almost breaking down.
+
+"My dear child, you do not think we are going to let you be lost again!
+And this is what I want to say to you, Elsie, dear: will you promise to
+come over to us when--I mean if anything happens to Mrs. McAravey?--she
+cannot live long, poor old body."
+
+"Oh, you are too kind!" cried Elsie, fairly bursting into tears, and
+hiding her face on her new friend's shoulder--"you are too kind; but
+how can I promise?  It sometimes seems my duty to stay here."
+
+Eleanor More was a true woman, and so--though surprised at this sudden
+outbreak--she lifted the girl's head between her hands, and kissing her
+forehead, said, "There, Elsie, child, don't fret, I will not press you
+now.  God will show you your duty, and make your way plain before you.
+They are coming now, and the carriage is at the door."
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+The summer had waned away; the autumn tints were already on the trees,
+and the light of the September afternoon was growing feeble and
+uncertain, as a dainty little figure scrambled out of the low carriage
+that had drawn up before the neatest and most ideal of English cottage
+homes.  Lady Eleanor More stood at the garden wicket to receive her
+friend, and behind her in the doorway was to be seen a tidy,
+white-capped little old woman.
+
+"So we have got you at last, Elsie; and here is the prison where you
+are to be confined at hard labour, and this is your gaoler, Mrs.
+Nugent.  How do you like it all?"
+
+Elsie was delighted, and could find no words in which to thank her kind
+patron.  Everything was charming, and everything had been arranged with
+that thoughtful consideration which nothing but real affection produce.
+
+The old man and woman with whom Elsie was to be lodged, for the present
+at least, were established pensioners of the Waterham family.  They had
+known and sorrowed for Elsie's mother, who had stayed with them for a
+few weeks after her unfortunate marriage.  Thus the orphan felt almost
+at home, and was rejoiced to find that a little room had been set apart
+for her private and special use.
+
+Nor was it designed that Elsie should become a mere dependent.
+Fortunately enough a vacancy had recently occurred (by marriage) in the
+mistress-ship of a small school situated close to the gate of Burnham
+Park, and almost opposite Nugent's cottage.  This was the sphere of
+labour for which Elsie was destined.  The school was a neat,
+well-cared-for place--the special hobby of Lady Eleanor, who seldom let
+a day pass when at home without visiting it.  Here Elsie Damer at once
+commenced her labours.  The children were bright and clean, and had
+evidently been carefully taught by her predecessor.  Miss Damer was
+also a welcome acquisition to the village choir; and those were among
+the happiest moments of her life when she let her rich, clear voice
+ascend in songs of praise to the throne of Him who had guided her all
+her journey through, while her dear friend and second mother presided
+at the organ.
+
+Elsie's only care was about Jim.  She had seen him in Belfast looking
+worn and anxious.  His letters had never been complaining, nor were his
+words so then; yet he could not conceal the fact that his position was
+by no means satisfactory.  But this cloud too was soon to be cleared
+away.  The earl had been favourably impressed with the lad, and was
+highly amused when he heard from his daughter a somewhat toned down
+version of the foolish conduct which had resulted in his resigning his
+situation.  In the course of a year after Elsie's establishment at
+Burnham, a post of some responsibility in the earl's rent office became
+vacant, in which we find Jim shortly afterwards comfortably installed.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+And here ends our tale.  Elsie Damer's life is after all only
+beginning, and doubtless she will have her trials and sorrows.  Not for
+ever can she be the young girl living in that sweet rose-covered
+cottage.  Indeed, before we lose sight of Elsie, there is rumour of a
+coming change.  Mrs. Nugent said, "It's a shame to take you from us,
+Missie, but every one likes a spot of their own, I suppose; I know I
+did in my time."  And Robert Everley, the head-gamekeeper's strapping
+son, who was settled now in one of the home farms of Burnham, blushed
+and looked apologetic as the earl hailed him one day, "Hey, Bob! what's
+this I hear about you, lad?  I wonder what Lady Eleanor will say to it,
+stealing her godchild from her."
+
+"I couldn't help it, your lordship," replied the embarrassed Bob.
+
+"Well, all I say is you are a lucky fellow, and Elsie might have done
+worse too."
+
+But whatever lies before our Elsie, she has deep stored within her that
+hidden peace that the world knoweth not, and which can smooth over, as
+with holy oil, the roughest and most sudden-rising of life's stormy
+waves.  The discipline of the past had moulded and set, without unduly
+hardening, the lines of her simple, cheerful character.  Looking back
+to the earliest dawn of her recollection, she believed herself able to
+trace a golden thread through all.  The ideal of calm beauty and purity
+which the child's vivid imagination had developed out of the dim memory
+of her drowned mother's face had been her good angel, and had led her,
+by sweet, insensible gradations, up to Him of whose glory all earthly
+beauties are but the far-off reflection.  From first to last she had
+lived in the consciousness of the Unseen Presence, and no words better
+expressed her simple faith for the present and for the future than
+those of her favourite hymn--
+
+  "The King of Love my Shepherd is,
+    Whose goodness faileth never,
+  I nothing lack if I am His
+    And He is mine for ever.
+    *     *     *     *
+  "And so, through all the length of days,
+    Thy goodness faileth never;
+  Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise
+    Within Thy house for ever."
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Child of the Glens, by Edward Newenham Hoare
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+<BODY>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Child of the Glens, by Edward Newenham Hoare
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Child of the Glens
+       or, Elsie's Fortune
+
+Author: Edward Newenham Hoare
+
+Release Date: May 25, 2007 [EBook #21612]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHILD OF THE GLENS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<A NAME="img-front"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="THE CLERGYMAN'S VISIT TO TOR BAY." BORDER="2" WIDTH="319" HEIGHT="497">
+<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 400px">
+THE CLERGYMAN'S VISIT TO TOR BAY.
+</H3>
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+A CHILD OF THE GLENS;
+</H1>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+OR,
+</H3>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+Elsie's Fortunes.
+</H2>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE<BR>
+COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION,<BR>
+APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING<BR>
+CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE<BR>
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+LONDON:
+SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE<BR>
+SOLD AT THE DEPOSITORIES:<BR>
+77, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS;<BR>
+4, ROYAL EXCHANGE; 48, PICCADILLY;<BR>
+AND BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.<BR>
+<BR>
+NEW YORK: POTT, YOUNG &amp; CO.
+</H4>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+1875
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+Contents
+</H2>
+
+<BR>
+
+<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%">
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%">
+<A HREF="#chap01">CHAPTER I</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%">
+<A HREF="#chap04">CHAPTER IV</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%">
+<A HREF="#chap07">CHAPTER VII</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%">
+<A HREF="#chap10">CHAPTER X</A>
+</TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap02">CHAPTER II</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap05">CHAPTER V</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap11">CHAPTER XI</A>
+</TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap03">CHAPTER III</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap06">CHAPTER VI</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap09">CHAPTER IX</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">&nbsp;</TD>
+</TR>
+
+</TABLE>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+Illustrations
+</H2>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+<A HREF="#img-front">
+The clergyman's visit to Tor Bay&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. <I>Frontispiece</I>
+</A>
+</H3>
+
+<H3>
+<A HREF="#img-034">
+A strange waif of the sea
+</A>
+</H3>
+
+<H3>
+<A HREF="#img-080">
+Jim building castles-in-the-air.
+</A>
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+A CHILD OF THE GLENS;
+</H1>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+or,
+</H4>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+Elsie's Fortunes.
+</H2>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER I.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Doubtless some of our readers are acquainted with the noble "coast
+road" that skirts round the north-eastern corner of Ireland, extending,
+it might almost be said, from Belfast to Londonderry.  The
+characteristic features of this noble esplanade (for such it is) are
+chiefly to be seen between the little town of Larne, where the railway
+ends, and Cushendall.  Throughout this drive of forty miles you are
+never out of sight or sound of the sea.  The almost level road is seen
+far ahead of the traveller, like a white boundary line between cliff
+and wave.  You wonder at first if the road was made merely to gladden
+the tourist, for it does not seem likely that there could be much
+traffic other than that of pleasure-seekers thus along the margin of
+the sea.  The configuration of this part of the County Antrim, however,
+explains the position of the road, and justifies the engineer who was
+so happily enabled to combine the utilitarian with the romantic.  A
+series of deep cut gorges, locally known as "The Glens," intersect the
+country, running at right angles to the coast-line and thus forming a
+succession of gigantic ridges, over which it would be impossible to
+drive a road.  For this reason it has been found necessary to wind
+round the mouths of these romantic valleys, which are guarded and shut
+off from each other by a number of formidable and noble headlands,
+foremost among which ranks the beautiful Garron Point.  Thus a
+succession of surprises await the tourist.  Having fairly made your way
+between the foot of the towering cliff and the inflowing tide, with no
+prospect in front but huge and grotesque-shaped rocks, which look bent
+on opposing all further advance, you suddenly find that you have
+doubled the point.  A blue bay opens before you, shut in at its farther
+side by the next promontory, at the base of which you can distinctly
+trace the white streak of dusty road, that sweeps round the bay in a
+graceful semicircle.  To your left&mdash;or while you are speaking, almost
+directly ahead&mdash;is the wide opening of one of the "Glens"&mdash;sweet,
+retired abodes of peace, sheltered and happy as they look out forever
+on the sea.  The barren and rocky highlands, terminated by the wild
+bluffs that so courageously plunge themselves into the waves, become
+gradually softened and verdure-clad as they slope downward, while the
+narrow valley itself is studded with trees and pretty homesteads.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The people of "The Glens" are peculiar, primitive, and distinct.  In
+these shut-in retreats the ancient Irish and Roman Catholic element
+largely prevails.  When, in consequence of frequent rebellions, the
+original inhabitants were well-nigh exterminated, and their places
+taken by Scotch and English settlers, the natives found a refuge in the
+wilder and more remote parts of the country.  Thus, here and there in
+Ulster&mdash;generally known as "Protestant Ulster"&mdash;we come upon little
+nooks and nests where for two centuries the primitive Irish race has
+survived.  Naturally, living in the presence of their more pushing and
+prosperous Presbyterian neighbours, these last representatives of a
+conquered nationality are for the most part of a retiring and
+suspicious disposition.  In quiet country places there is seldom any
+manifestation of open hostility, and intermarriages and neighbourly
+feeling have done much to smooth away the edge of bitter memories, but
+at bottom there remains a radical difference of sentiment, as of creed,
+which constitutes an impassable, though for the most invisible, barrier.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Michael McAravey was a good specimen of the old Ulster Roman Catholic.
+He was a tall, powerful man, of nearly seventy at the time when our
+story opens, while he did not look sixty.  His hair was long,
+iron-grey, and wiry, and it was only when uncovered that the high,
+bald, wrinkled forehead gave indication of his real age.  A rebel at
+heart, the son of a man who had been "out" in '98, Michael had gone
+through life with a feeling that every man's hand was against him.
+Sober, self-reliant, and hard-working, the man was grasping and hard as
+flint.  By tradition and instinct a bitter enemy to Protestantism, he
+was not on that account a friend of the priest, or a particularly
+faithful son of the Church.  He had his own "notions" about things, and
+though a professed "Catholic," his neighbours used to speculate whether
+age or sickness would ever have power to bend that proud spirit, and
+bring Michael to confession and a humble reception of the "last rites"
+of the Church.  Early in life McAravey had married a Presbyterian girl,
+and the almost inevitable estrangement that results from a "mixed
+marriage" had cast its shadow over the lives of the pair.  The Kanes
+had belonged to the small and rigid body of "Covenanters," and never a
+Sabbath from childhood till her marriage had 'Lisbeth failed to walk
+the four rough, up-hill, dreary miles that separated her father's home
+from the meeting-house that rose alone, and stern as the Covenant
+itself, on the bleak moorland above Glenariff.  But her last
+Sabbath-day's journey was taken the week before her wedding.  Michael
+had gloomily announced that no wife of his should be seen going to a
+"meeting-house," and though he never sought to bring her to mass
+(perhaps in part because it might have involved going himself), his
+resolution never varied.  Nor did his wife contend against it.  The
+habit once broken, she felt no inclination to undertake those long and
+wearisome journeys.  But a Covenanter she meant to live and die.
+Nothing would have tempted her into the Presbyterian chapel close by.
+And thus when there came two children to be baptized the difficulty as
+to religion was compromised, and a triumph allowed to neither side, by
+the babes being solemnly received into the compassionate and truly
+Catholic fold of what was then the Established Church.  That both these
+little ones had been taken away by death was a misfortune, and tended
+to harden even more the somewhat disagreeable and rigid lines that
+marked the individuality of both Mr. and Mrs. McAravey.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Not that the home thus early laid desolate was altogether unblessed by
+young faces.  For many years the McAraveys had had charge of two little
+children, who called them father and mother.  But, as it was quite
+evident that no such relationship as this could exist, so it came to be
+generally understood that there was no tie of blood at all.  What
+connection there might be, or who the children were, was a mystery none
+had ever solved, nor was it likely that any inquiries&mdash;if such had ever
+been ventured upon&mdash;had met with much encouragement on the part of
+"auld Mike" or his equally taciturn wife.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Though the Antrim glens had been the scene of such courtship as it is
+possible to conceive of between Michael McAravey and Elizabeth Kane,
+they had for many years ceased to be the place of their abode.
+Previous to the opening of our tale, McAravey had fallen into the
+tenant-right and goodwill of a farm held by an elder and unmarried
+brother, and hither he had accordingly moved with his wife, now past
+middle-age, and the two little ones that called her mother.  To find
+the spot where the McAraveys now lived&mdash;a spot yet more retired and
+more lovely than any in the glens properly so called&mdash;we must once more
+return to the great "coast road."  Having reached Cushendall, the
+scenery becomes more imposing, and the high background almost deserves
+the name of a mountain.  Here, at length, the rugged and towering
+coast-line successfully defies further violation of its lonely majesty.
+Accordingly the baffled road bends abruptly to the left, and turning
+its back upon the sea proceeds to climb the long, dreary slope of a
+flat-topped, uninteresting mountain, and then, having reached the
+highest point (which is scarcely to be discerned), descends, till once
+more the sea is come upon at the secluded little country town of
+Ballycastle.  The extreme northeast point of Ireland is thus cut off,
+and thus the ordinary tourist is cut off too, from one of Nature's most
+fairy-like retreats.  On looking back from Ballycastle you at once
+perceive the necessity for your bleak and tedious mountain drive.  The
+eye immediately catches and rests fascinated upon the gigantic and
+literally overhanging precipice of Fair Head, as it rears its peculiar
+and acute-angled summit against the sky.  One look, and you are
+convinced that no road could wind its way round the base of that
+frowning monster.  But let us strive to penetrate this cut-off region
+either on foot across the moors, or by the rough mountain road that
+suffices for the wants of the few and scattered residents.  Standing
+(sometimes not without difficulty) on the pitched-up edge of the mighty
+headland, and gazing on the remote sea beneath, you feel oppressed by
+the sense of Nature's vastness and your own insignificance.  Nor does
+the dreary extent of rock and pool-dotted moor that stretches inland to
+the very horizon afford any relief to such feelings.  So you turn away
+in search of rest and shelter.  Then but a comparatively few downward
+steps and you find that the tempestuous wind has ceased to wrangle with
+you; already you are beneath the shadow of the great rock.  Descending
+further, the bleak aspect of Nature is transformed.  The heather gives
+place to dwarf shrubs; the bare, weather-beaten rocks are clothed with
+blackberry bushes, or hidden amid luxurious bracken.  Dark hollies
+clinging to detached rocks present varied and life-like forms.  The air
+has suddenly become still.  The butterflies hover over the foxgloves.
+The wild strawberry is at your feet.  The sloeberries ripen around you.
+The sea before you might be the Mediterranean, so gently does it ripple
+up to the very edge of the hundred tiny plants that force their way
+amid the sand.  Great rock bastions shut you in on either side, and
+behind, the green slope you had descended rises upward till it meets
+the blue sky beyond.  You might be in the south of England rather than
+in the "black north" of Ireland; and you are struck with the probably
+accidental suggestiveness of the name&mdash;Tor Bay.  It was here that
+McAravey's lot was cast, and here that Elsie and Jim used in their
+leisure hours to gather the strawberries and stain themselves with
+sloes.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER II.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Not that Elsie and Jim had many leisure hours.  Like all else in the
+little household, they had their work to do.  McAravey's "farm" was but
+a little patch of ten acres, part of it not even yet quite won back
+from rock and bracken.  On this he toiled as only a man can toil who
+works for himself, and is assured of his interest in the soil on which
+he drops his sweat.  That he had no grown-up son (as might have been)
+to aid his declining strength was a hidden sorrow to the old man.  He
+worked on, however, and bravely did his uncomplaining wife assist him.
+Neither of them had ever known an hour of either ill health or
+idleness, and they were guiltless of any conscious or intentional
+cruelty when they early and sternly disciplined their young charges to
+the same laborious life.  The duties of the children were manifold.
+Jim herded McAravey's two or three cows, or acted as scarecrow in the
+little patch of corn, each precious grain of which was grudged to the
+passing birds.  Elsie scoured the house, and carried out milk to one or
+two somewhat distant neighbours.  But the most arduous labour of the
+children was one that they shared together.  When the weather
+suited&mdash;after a stormy night, or when there was a spring tide&mdash;they
+would stand for hours on the beach, often wet to the waists, dragging
+the tempest-tossed sea-weed to the shore with large wooden rakes.  This
+occupation was not merely arduous but dangerous.  More than once had
+little Jim, who was of lighter build than the girl, been fairly dragged
+off his feet by the force of the receding wave, as it wrestled with him
+for the possession of the mass of floating weed which he had hooked in
+his rake.  The weed thus drawn to shore was subsequently sorted, the
+greater part being used for manure, while the rest was burned in one of
+those rough kilns that abound along the coast, and reduced to kelp,
+which is used in the manufacture of soap and glass, and from which
+iodine is extracted.  Thus, almost from infancy, the children had been
+inured to labour, and alas! for them the sunny hours of idle rambling
+amid the tangled foliage of the glen were few and far between.  Neither
+child had received any education.  The only school was nearly four
+miles off, up on the open moorland.  It was only in summer that the
+children could possibly attend, and even then their visits were
+infrequent and irregular.  On all religious subjects their young minds
+were dark as night.  Even a few days at school had taught them that
+such things as reading and writing existed, and Jim especially had
+developed in him vague ideas as to the power and wealth that might be
+obtained if once he could master these mysterious subjects.  But
+religion was only known to them as being provocative of party quarrels
+and domestic disagreements.  Harsh and brief as was the general style
+of intercourse between Mr. and Mrs. McAravey, there was no absolute
+anger or violence about it, except when allusion was made to the
+difference that through life had separated husband and wife.  Even then
+it seemed strange to the children that such fierce feelings and such
+ill words should be excited by a matter that had absolutely no
+influence on ordinary life, and which was never introduced but as a
+bone of contention.  Nor hitherto had the poor neglected ones any
+opportunity of learning the blessed truths of a Father's and a
+Saviour's love from any other quarter.  There was no place of worship
+in the glen.  The Presbyterian chapel was a mile away, and even there
+no Sunday-school was held.  As for the Church, into the fold of which
+the poor babes had been received, it was scarcely to be thought of,
+being fully four miles off, across a rough mountain district.  Here the
+Rev. Cooper Smith ministered to a congregation that fluctuated much,
+but was never very large.  The parish was enormous, and the
+Church-people dotted over it in a most unmanageable fashion.  Yet it
+was surprising what a considerable number of people were brought
+together on a fine Sunday morning in summer.  The clergyman, too,
+persevered in keeping together what was at least the nucleus of a
+Sunday-school, consisting of some twelve or fifteen children, whom he
+and the clerk taught in the church before service.  But from this means
+of grace Elsie and Jim were cut off by distance, even if, as was more
+than doubtful, their foster-parents would have allowed them to attend.
+In the glen that sloped down to Tor Bay, there were no Church-people,
+and but few children of any sort.  Thus spiritual darkness reigned
+supreme throughout this beautiful domain.  Twice during five years in a
+professional capacity (though several times on pic-nics) had the Rev.
+Cooper Smith made his way to Tor Bay.  The people had received him with
+a patronising kindness, that was peculiarly irritating to his sensitive
+and somewhat small nature.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sit down, mon, and rest yeresel' a bit; ye must be tired," said
+McAravey, looking over his shoulder as he stalked out of the cottage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't you think you ought to send those children to school, Mrs.
+McAravey?" asked the clergyman, whose kind heart had been touched, on
+the occasion of a recent pic-nic, to see the half-drowned little ones
+toiling amid the heaps of wet and writhing sea-wrack.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Maybe ye 'd send yere carriage to fetch them up the brae!" remarked
+Mrs. McAravey, with a harsh, disagreeable laugh at her own pleasantry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, it is rather far," replied Mr. Smith, somewhat apologetically;
+"but it grieves me to see them growing up in ignorance, and without any
+knowledge of the Saviour."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank ye, sir," cried Mrs. McAravey, satirically, "but I think ma mon
+and mysel' knows our duties, and can teach the wains, too, wi'out any
+parson comin' to help us.  A pretty thing to tell us we knows nothing
+o' the Saviour!  I can tell you, mon, I've walked more miles o' the
+Sawbath to my place o' worship than some folks as I know walks in a
+week."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The clergyman, somewhat taken aback at this outbreak, felt a rising
+flush of anger, and could only reply&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think, my good woman, you might remember whom you are speaking to,
+and might be civil to a stranger when he comes into your house."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To judge by the response, the second part of this appeal was more
+effective than the first.  An appeal to authority or respect of persons
+is not usually successful in Ulster.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I knows rightly who I 'm speakin' to, and I don't see as it makes any
+differ; but I 'm sorry I spoke sharp, seein' ye come so far, only I
+can't thole to be towd I 'm na fit to train up a wain in the knowledge
+o' the Saviour."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Expressing a hope that Elsie and Jim would come to school when weather
+and work permitted, and with a somewhat vague remark about "calling
+again," the Rev. Cooper Smith beat as graceful a retreat as was
+possible.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His other calls that day were scarcely more satisfactory, for though he
+encountered no such actual rudeness, there was everywhere the same
+patronising familiarity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Andrew McAuley, the wealthiest farmer in the glen, invited him to have
+"a drop o' something," adding, by way of encouragement, "Ye needn't be
+afeerd&mdash;there's plenty iv it in the house."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The only person who seemed to recognise his spiritual office was widow
+Spence, who, as the clergyman stood hesitating before leaving the
+cottage (he was debating whether he should offer the old woman a
+shilling), sympathetically remarked&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Maybe, then, ye 'd like to mak' a wee bit o' a prayer afore ye go
+back?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Unreasonably, perhaps, the rector felt rebuked and annoyed by this
+incident, and he walked home with a heavy heart.  What could be done
+for Tor Bay&mdash;so beautiful, yet so barbarous&mdash;so out of the way in every
+sense?  His personal efforts did not seem likely to be rewarded with
+success, even if he could keep&mdash;which he did not himself believe that
+he could&mdash;to the often-made resolution to be more frequent and regular
+in his visits across the hill.  He had been wounded in many points that
+day, yet he had not gone away without hearing one note of
+encouragement.  Many a day and many a night he saw, like Paul, the
+figure of one who said to him, "Come over&nbsp;&#8230; and help us."  Only the
+figure was that of a brown, blushing, merry-eyed girl of nine, who held
+by the hand a delicate-looking, white-haired, timid boy.  Again and
+again he fancied himself walking sadly and dreamily on the pure smooth
+sand of the beautiful secluded bay.  Again and again he was murmuring
+the lines&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"Every prospect pleases,<BR>
+And only man is vile"&mdash;<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+when he hears a voice, and turning, sees the half-amused, half-eager
+look of Elsie as she had said&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Please, Jim says he 'd like to go to school, minister; and I 'd like
+too, if it wasn't so far."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER III.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The pleading voice was not in vain.  After much anxious consideration
+the Rev. Cooper Smith resolved to use his efforts to get the aid of a
+Scripture-reader for Tor Bay, and other outlying districts of his vast
+parish.  The munificence of an elderly lady enabled him to bring his
+arrangements to a successful issue more rapidly than he had hoped.  He
+was also fortunate in obtaining a fit and proper person for the post.
+Robert Hendrick was by birth and education an Ulster man; but having
+been for several years employed in the south-west, he had acquired
+something of that geniality, tact, and courtesy which is, perhaps,
+deficient in the hard Scotch character of the Northerns.  There was
+nothing of professional piety or of the professional reader about
+Hendrick.  A bright, active, smiling little man, he was soon a
+favourite in Tor Glen.  His visits were made twice a-week, and the
+inhabitants soon found him a useful and obliging friend.  He executed
+small commissions, carried letters from Ballycastle, and acted
+generally as a medium of communication with the outer world.  But while
+thus wisely winning his way by kindly offices, he was not unmindful of
+that other world which it was his duty to bring before the minds of the
+people of the secluded vale.  One evening of the week a homely service,
+half Bible-class, half prayer-meeting, was held, to which a
+considerable number of the Presbyterians, and even a few Roman
+Catholics, dropped in.  The other evening was devoted to teaching the
+few little ones who could be gathered together.  Elsie and Jim were
+among the earliest pupils; Jim was actuated by an almost morbid craving
+for knowledge, and for Elsie anything novel had sufficient attraction.
+Mrs. McAravey, notwithstanding her self-righteous indignation when
+questioned by the clergyman, had in her heart a belief that religious
+instruction was the proper thing for children.  She remembered the
+stern discipline of her own early years&mdash;not, indeed, with any
+pleasure, but with a firm conviction that severe spiritual as well as
+physical labour was good for the young.  That "Auld Mike" permitted the
+children to attend the reader's class was a matter of surprise to many,
+and that Hendrick had been able to capture them added not a little to
+his reputation.  McAravey had, however, been pleased with the frank,
+obliging address of the reader; and perhaps, too, there was some softer
+feeling in his hard, silent nature than folks gave him credit for.
+Anyhow he made no opposition; and though he did not fail to notice
+their absence every Friday evening, he "asked no questions for
+conscience sake"&mdash;or rather he rested satisfied with the result of his
+first inquiry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where's the wains, 'Lisbeth, I wonder?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How should I know?" was the somewhat Jesuitical reply.  "Maybe they
+'re gone to the town end; but they 'll be right enough, you may be
+sure."  And there the matter dropped for many a day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile school-work went on.  The precocious Jim made amazing
+progress in reading and writing&mdash;arts from which Elsie's impatient
+nature revolted.  This distaste was, however, counterbalanced by the
+girl's quickness in other respects.  By dint of memory, and an
+excellent ear, she soon had at her finger ends whole passages of
+Scripture, together with a number of psalms and hymns, from one to the
+other of which she ran with a vivacity and heedlessness, that often
+pained her teacher.  She was soon the leader of the little choir, and
+could sing, with wonderful correctness, "Shall we gather at the river?"
+"I think when I read that sweet story of old, How when Jesus was here
+among men." "As pants the hart for cooling streams," &amp;c.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert Hendrick was deeply interested in his little pupils.  Jim seemed
+likely to grow up a pattern boy.  Punctual and diligent, with grave,
+attentive eyes and quiet demeanour, he could not but elicit the
+approval of his teacher.  Yet Hendrick could not conceal from himself
+that Elsie was his favourite&mdash;Elsie, so reckless and so irreverent, so
+headstrong, and at times even violent.  He used to tremble for the
+child's future, as, attracted by the sweet, true ring of her voice, he
+saw the eager, merry eyes wandering all round the room, while the lips
+were singing the most sacred words.  Those awful and profound truths,
+that were to him the only realities, and which animated his every
+effort, were apparently to this sweet young singer but as fairy tales,
+or even as mere empty words on which to build up the fabric of her
+song; and at times he even doubted whether it was right to lay bare the
+mysterious agonies of redeeming love to such a careless eye, and to
+familiarise such a child with scenes so awful, but which seemed to wake
+no note of love or reverence.  Yet Robert Hendrick loved and prayed for
+the child, content to work on for her, as for so many others in the
+glen, in simple faith and loving hope.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With the approach of winter the Friday evening class had to be
+discontinued.  Most of the children lived at a considerable distance
+from the place of meeting; nor was a walk across the moors always
+feasible in rough weather.  Even for a time the Wednesday service had
+to be suspended; so that for a couple of months the glen relapsed into
+its former state of spiritual night.  Not altogether, however.  The
+good seed cast upon the waters had found a resting-place in several
+hearts; and the opening of spring, and with it the resumption of the
+Scripture-reader's visits, were eagerly looked forward to by many, both
+young and old.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap04"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IV.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It was the end of March, when an event occurred which would have been a
+more than nine days' wonder even in a busier spot than Tor Bay.  The
+equinoctial gales had been protracted and severe.  For days the sea off
+Fair Head, and through the strait that separates the mainland from
+Rathlin Island, had run mountains high; and now, though the surface was
+smooth and glistening in the bright spring sun, the long, heavy swell,
+as it broke in thundering rollers on the shore, bore witness to the
+fierceness of the recent conflict.  The night had been wild and dark,
+but it was succeeded by one of those balmy days that are sent as
+harbingers of coming summer.  Elsie and Jim had been busy ever since
+the return of the tide, about noon, dragging to shore the masses of
+sea-wrack that the recent storms had loosened and sent adrift.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The afternoon was now far advanced, and the children were growing weary
+of their work.  Several heaps of brown, wet, shining weed stood at
+intervals along the sands, as monuments of their zeal.  They began to
+look wistfully towards the hill for "father," who had promised to meet
+them at the conclusion of the day's work; but again and again they had
+looked in vain.  It was now growing almost dusk.  They had thought of
+desisting from their task, when a succession of gigantic rollers, like
+the fierce rear-guard of the great army that for so many hours had been
+broken to pieces on the sands, was seen approaching.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With a solemn reverberation the first giant toppled over, and swept a
+mass of mingled foam and sea-weed up the sands, far past where the wet
+and weary little toilers were standing.  Knee-deep in the rapidly
+returning body of water, they strove with their rakes to arrest some
+fragments of the whirling and tangled mass of weeds.  But the second
+giant was at hand.  Checked in its advance by the retreating fragments
+of its predecessors, the monster hesitated.  And then the two masses of
+water clashing together rose up in fierce embrace, while the foam and
+spray of their contention was blown by the keen east wind into the
+children's faces.  But the force of the tide was spent, and the second
+wave, though victorious in the wrestle, scarce survived the conflict,
+and did not even flow over the children's feet.  Elsie, therefore,
+sprang forward almost to the spot where the wave had broken, and
+brought down her rake into the midst of a huge and tangled mass.  The
+retiring wave struggled hard to retain its own, so that the child was
+fairly drawn out by its force.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let go, let go!" cried Jim, as he caught the girl's dress to help her
+resistance; "the rake will float in again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Elsie was fascinated.  She felt at once that the body she held was
+solid, though soft and yielding, and so she clung to the long
+rake-handle with all her might.  The conflict was over in a few
+moments.  The waters retired defeated, and left upon the sands a dark,
+limp, saturated body.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come away, come away!" shrieked the boy, as Elsie was cautiously
+advancing towards the mysterious object.  The girl stood still, and
+hesitated a moment, while a vague dread crept over her.  What was it
+that lay there in the bleak, cold twilight, so still and shapeless, and
+yet with such an awful suggestion of life about it?  She was lost in
+bewilderment when the boy's voice recalled her&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Elsie, Elsie, mind the wave!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She had but a moment in which to spring back, as the third giant,
+towering above its predecessors, lifted the inert body on its crest,
+and flung it contemptuously high up upon the shore.  Then the waters
+swept back and left the two children shivering alone on the strand:
+behind them were the dull, dead heaps of sea-weed, and at their feet a
+black mass of clothing.  The children clung together in silent awe.
+Neither of them had ever seen a dead body.  Hitherto death had been an
+abstraction, but now they felt themselves face to face with the reality.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-034"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-034.jpg" ALT="A strange waif of the sea." BORDER="2" WIDTH="330" HEIGHT="487">
+<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 330px">
+A strange waif of the sea.
+</H3>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+"Let's run and look for father," suggested Jim, in a frightened whisper.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We can't leave her alone, Jim," responded the girl, now pale and grave
+as she had never been before, and looking from the body to the line of
+foaming water but a few feet beyond; "the tide might turn and take her
+away again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wish it had not brought her!" gasped Jim, through his chattering
+teeth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hush," said Elsie; and then, after a pause, "if you go fetch some one,
+I'll stay here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Aren't you afraid?  I am."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go," said Elsie, "go quick; it's getting dark."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hesitatingly the boy left her, and walked almost backwards till he
+reached the top of the beach; then, with a short cry of fear, he turned
+his hack on the sea, and ran up the path towards his home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Elsie stood alone with the dead.  She looked on the heaps of sea-weeds,
+and then along the line of breakers, that seemed even now gathering
+strength for a return movement.  It was a trying ordeal for a child of
+ten, but the terrible novelty of the situation seemed to give her
+courage.  She advanced towards the body, which she now saw was that of
+a woman dressed in black.  She lay upon her back, the face only hidden
+by the tangled hair and sea-weed.  Elsie noticed as she gazed, for what
+seemed hours, on the still form, that there was a gold chain round the
+neck, and two rings on the finger of the hand that rested upon the
+beach.  As the gloom of the afternoon deepened, a sense of pity and
+yearning quite new to her, and which destroyed all fear, crept over the
+child.  An irresistible longing urged her to draw back the tangled hair
+from the face.  For a moment she turned away terrified, but then knelt
+down, and with trembling hands began to draw out the weeds, and to
+smooth back the heavy brown hair from the cold face.  She grew absorbed
+in her task, and almost fancied the worn, yet beautiful and gentle
+features looked pleased and grateful.  She even ventured to lift the
+heavy arm from the sand, but it fell back so stiffly that the child was
+terrified, and stood a little apart, wondering where the poor lady had
+come from.  She knew not how long she had waited, when she was aroused
+by the sound of a voice.  Looking up, she beheld Michael McAravey by
+her side.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, Elsie, lass, what's all this?  There 's that wee fool Jim crying
+himself into fits, and raving about dead bodies in the sea-weed.
+Blessed mother! so it is a dead body," he added, excitedly, as he
+caught sight of the object of Elsie's regard.  The old man was only
+unnerved for a moment; then turning his back to the sea and putting his
+hands to his mouth, he gave a loud "halloa," which echoed across the
+silent bay, but brought no other response.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, lass, look sharp and run up the brae, and call some of the men,
+or the tide will be in upon us.  And we 'll lose the wrack, too, for
+the matter of that.  Away you go in a moment," he added, sternly, as
+the child seemed reluctant to abandon what she held to be her peculiar
+charge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Elsie obeyed, and was fortunate enough, just as she was turning into
+the by-road that led to the shore, to run against George Hendrick.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What has scared you so, Elsie?" he said, kindly, as he stopped the
+headlong child; "are you in mischief, and running away from anybody?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"O Mr. Hendrick, we 've found a drowned lady on the shore, and I 'm
+running to tell the people; father's with her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where?" cried the reader, quickly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In the sandy cove, where we get the sea-wrack."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, Elsie, you run on to McAuley's, and ask him to bring down some
+spirits in case she might be alive still; and lose no time&mdash;there's a
+good girl."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So saying, Hendrick sprang over the low fence and hurried down the
+shore.  He soon saw through the dusk a tall figure bending over some
+object on the sand.  It rose as he approached, and he at once
+recognised McAravey.  The old man was singularly excited and
+flurried&mdash;far more so than when he had joined Elsie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank God some one has come!" he cried; "and you 're the very man I 'd
+like to see."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is she quite dead?" said Hendrick, kneeling beside the body.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Aye, dead enough and stiff," answered the old man; "but see, the tide
+is almost on us.  Let's fetch her up a bit.  I did not like to touch
+her till some one came."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Between them they lifted the body into a place of safety, and then
+McAravey, whose agitation had not diminished, said, with affected
+indifference&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"While we are waiting I 'll just drag up a wee lock of that weed; there
+is no use letting the tide fetch it away again."  So saying, he
+proceeded to lift in his arms the heaps that were nearest the sea, and
+to place them beyond the high-water line.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile Hendrick had been examining the features of the dead woman,
+and was startled to recognise one with whom he had conversed only the
+day before.  This was the only important point brought out at the
+inquest, which took place in a couple of days.  Hendrick deposed to
+having met a woman dressed like the deceased, as far as he could judge,
+walking on the cliffs past Fair Head.  She had asked him about a short
+cut to Tor Bay by a rocky path which led abruptly down to the shore,
+and which, she said, she half-remembered.  He had warned her that the
+way was a dangerous one, especially in bad weather.  She had laughed,
+and said she had once been down the Grey Man's Path, and had known the
+coast well in childhood.  She had not told him her business in Tor Bay,
+but had said they might, perhaps, meet there.  Had anything else
+passed?  Yes, he had given her a little tract, as she seemed anxious
+and troubled.  Anything else?  No, except that when parting she had
+asked him the correct time in order to set her watch.  Did Hendrick see
+the watch?  No, but he thought she wore a chain, and was certain she
+had spoken of setting her watch, which she said had gone down.  This
+matter excited some interest, because, though the tract given by
+Hendrick was found in the pocket of the dress, no watch or chain could
+be discovered.  Had the unfortunate woman been robbed, and then thrown
+into the sea?  Or had the watch and chain been stolen by Mike or the
+children, who first found the body?  Or might they not easily have been
+lost from the body that had been so long tossed by the waves?  Elsie's
+examination did not tend to clear her of suspicion.  Her answers to the
+preliminary questions as to "the nature of an oath" were somewhat
+flippant and unsatisfactory.  As to the chain, she first spoke
+positively of having seen it, then hesitatingly, ending by saying she
+was frightened and knew nothing about it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+McAravey swore positively that he had seen no gold chain, and therefore
+had not taken one.  Though an ugly suspicion was thus created, no
+further steps could be taken, Hendrick declining to vouch for more than
+an "impression" that the deceased wore a chain.  Evidence of identity
+there was none.  The linen was marked "E. D," and the mourning ring,
+which guarded a plain gold one, had merely the words, "In memory, H.
+D., 186&mdash;."  The only further evidence was that of a public car-driver
+between Cushendall and Ballycastle, who deposed to having had a
+passenger who corresponded to the description of the dead woman.  She
+had no luggage, and walked away when the car stopped.  A woman was also
+found who had given deceased a night's lodging.  She said she had
+seemed excited and somewhat flighty&mdash;was restless at night, and started
+off early, having paid a shilling for her lodging and breakfast.  This
+last witness added to the confusion by saying she saw no chain, and did
+not believe her lodger had a watch, since she had several times asked
+her the hour, and had annoyed her into saying she ought to have a watch
+of her own.  This witness's "impression" was that deceased had replied,
+"I wish I had, and I wouldn't trouble you."  This was absolutely all
+that could be ascertained.  And accordingly the dead woman was buried
+by the Rev. Cooper Smith, in Rossleigh graveyard, which she had told
+Hendrick she had known well in her childhood.  All the neighbourhood
+flocked to the funeral, and even Michael McAravey was for the first
+time in his life seen inside the doors of a Protestant church.  The old
+man seemed much cut up, probably owing to the doubts cast on his
+honesty.  So sad was the fate of the unknown wanderer, and so great the
+interest excited, that it was determined to record the mysterious event
+in a simple headstone, erected by subscription.  To the surprise of
+everybody, McAravey, who had never been known to trouble himself about
+any one else's affairs, or to give away a shilling, took the matter up
+warmly, and himself subscribed fifteen shillings, which he paid in
+three instalments.  The stone was erected, bearing this inscription:&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+"In Memory"
+<BR>
+OF MRS. E. D. (NAME UNKNOWN),
+<BR>
+FOUND DROWNED NEAR TOR POINT
+<BR>
+<I>On the 13th of March, 186&mdash;</I>.
+<BR><BR>
+This Stone is Erected by Subscription.
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap05"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER V.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The events narrated in the last chapter were not without lasting
+effects on most of the persons immediately concerned in them.  Michael
+McAravey was an altered man.  His proud reserve seemed changing into
+petulant self-vindication.  He began to look fully his age, and, like
+many other men of so-called iron constitution, when his strength began
+to give way it collapsed at once.  He also conceived a violent
+antipathy to George Hendrick.  The children were forbidden to attend
+the class, which had now been resumed; and although they came twice
+surreptitiously, Mr. Hendrick was no sooner aware of this than he felt
+obliged to tell them that their first duty was obedience to their
+guardians.  It was a hard parting both for teacher and pupils.  It cost
+George Hendrick no slight effort to dismiss his two favourite scholars,
+nor could he at once see his duty plain in the matter.  As for the
+children they were broken-hearted and rebellious; but the quiet,
+sympathetic tenderness of their friend at length reconciled them to
+their lot.  Except on this point, McAravey was far more considerate
+with the children than formerly.  He was now a good deal in the house,
+having become very asthmatic, and often shielded Elsie and Jim from
+Mrs. McAravey's harsh tongue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The effect of what they had gone through was no less evident in the
+children, though they were very differently affected.  Jim never
+recovered the panic of that March day.  Nothing could induce him to go
+near the shore alone, and the very sight of the sea excited the lad.
+It was otherwise with Elsie.  That solitary interview with the dead had
+sobered her.  The dead woman's face was seldom absent from her
+thoughts.  Elsie had grown to love it, and to regard it as something
+mysterious and superhuman.  She had never before seen so refined and
+beautiful a countenance; and there was something in the rigid aspect of
+death that quieted and awed, while it did not the least terrify the
+child.  As the months went by, and the actual event began to fade in
+the distance, the pale sweet face, with the dripping brown hair drawn
+back from it, became more and more of an ideal for veneration and love.
+Thus, while Jim could never be induced to pass near the sandy cove
+alone, Elsie ceased to have any special association with the actual
+scene of the occurrence.  But in her moments of passion or heedlessness
+she ever saw before her the dead face&mdash;kind, but so calm and firm, that
+it repressed in an instant her most impetuous outbursts.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the autumn drew on it became evident that Michael McAravey was
+dying.  That he knew it himself was gathered from the fact that more
+than once, during the summer, he had walked over to Ballycastle to
+attend Mass.  There seemed a weight on the old man's mind, which he was
+unable or unwilling to shake off.  'Lisbeth, who for years had suffered
+severely from "rheumatics," and who had made up her mind that she was
+to die before the "old man," was but an indifferent nurse.  Elsie,
+however, more than took her place.  Michael had become much attached to
+the child, and as he daily grew weaker he came to look to her for
+everything.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ye 'r a brave wee lass, Elsie," he used to say, "and I doubt I 've not
+been over kind to ye, but I can't do without ye now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One gloomy September afternoon, when the blustering winds were again
+celebrating the return of the equinox, Michael, who had been sleeping
+heavily all day, suddenly started up and astonished his wife by an
+eager request that she would send at once for George Hendrick and
+Father Donnelly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I doubt you 're raving, Mike, to send for such a pair.  What do you
+want with either, not to say both?  Nice company they 'd be for each
+other."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I tell you I'm dying, and I must see them both," cried her husband,
+rising, gaunt and excited, in the bed.  "I say, Elsie," he continued,
+"this is Wednesday; run down and see can you find Mr. Hendrick anywhere
+about."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Elsie departed at once, while 'Lisbeth tried to soothe the invalid,
+muttering all the time, however, her scorn of "Readers" and hatred of
+"Papish priests."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+George Hendrick was easily found, and in a few minutes was sitting by
+the old man's side, soothing him with simple, kindly words, and waiting
+for an opening through which to approach the inner man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I 've not treated you fair, my mon, and I didn't wish to die without
+tellin' you so.  Besides, there 's a thing or two I 've been thinkin'
+long to speak about, and now the time's come.  I 've sent for Father
+Donnelly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's far to send and long to wait, Mike; do you not think we can do as
+well without him?" asked the reader.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I've not sent for him, and ye may be sure I 'll have none o' your
+Papish priests coomin' about the house, leastways whiles I 'm in it,"
+interrupted Mrs. McAravey.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then you 'd better get out of it," said the old man; "I never
+interfered with you and your Ranters and Covenanters, and I don't mean
+to be interfered with.  I tell ye, George Hendrick, I'll die in the
+Church of my fathers, even if I 'm&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hush!" cried Hendrick, putting his hand to the excited man's mouth;
+"we 'll send for the priest if you wish.  God forbid that I should
+stand between you.  Young Jim McAuley is going over to Ballycastle, and
+will take a message if Elsie gives it him; but he can't be here for
+three or four hours at least, so let us be quiet a wee bit now.  You
+said you wanted to see me, Mike; and perhaps while we are waiting you
+'d like to hear the message of God out of His own book&mdash;you needn't
+wait to send to Ballycastle for it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You may read a bit if ye like," responded McAravey, leaning back on
+the bed, quite satisfied now that the priest had been sent for; "only
+no controversy; it's not fit for a dyin' man&mdash;or for any man, for the
+matter o' that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No controversy!" said Hendrick, smiling; "well, will this suit you?
+'<I>Without controversy</I> great is the mystery of godliness.  God was
+manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels,
+preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into
+glory.'  Do you believe that, Mike?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Aye, aye; it's wonderful to think on," murmured the dying man, in his
+deep, solemn voice.  "I doubt I 've been a bit hard sometimes, but I
+'ve always been honest and paid my way."  Then after a pause, "Ye may
+go on with your readin'; I 'm no ways prejudiced.  I think Prodestan
+and Catholic is pretty much alike with God."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Aye, Mike, alike in this, that '<I>all</I> have sinned and come short of
+the glory of God.'  None of us can stand before Him as we are; but
+remember what Paul says again, there could be no disputing about, 'This
+is a true saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came
+into the world to save sinners.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I believe that," said McAravey; "but now I 'd like to sleep a bit;
+only don't go away, for if the priest don't come in time, I must
+confess to you, George.  Ye won't object to hear me and give me
+absolution, will you?" he added with an effort to smile.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I won't leave you, Mike, and I'll hear what you have to say; and as
+for absolution, I 'll try to point you to the great Absolver&mdash;our
+Advocate with the Father&mdash;who is the propitiation for our sins."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was after ten o'clock when Father Donnelly arrived.  After a short
+private interview with the patient, Hendrick was summoned to the room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is a part of my confession," said the old man, "which, by your
+leave, father, I 'd like my friend to hear&mdash;it will save us the time of
+going over the same bit twice."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The priest nodded silently, not, however, looking very pleased at the
+somewhat light tone in which McAravey spoke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's about the two children, and the poor creature that was found by
+them on the sands last spring.  It's been heavy on my mind this long
+time, and I can't go out of the world without explaining all I know
+about the story.  And now to begin at the beginning.  It's just about
+seven years ago, and a couple before we came here, that the children
+came to us.  We were very hard-up at that time, and 'Lisbeth and I were
+down in heart about loosin' our own wains, when one day I was in the
+market at Ballymena, and there I met James Kinley.  He asked me, would
+the missus like to make a trifle by taking charge of a couple of
+children?  I said I thought she might, and so he brought me to the
+hotel, and I saw a young woman as said she and her husband were going
+abroad, and wished to leave the two little ones with some respectable
+person in the glens.  Well, I saw her a second time, and then it was
+all settled.  She gave us 20 pounds down, and said she would write.  I
+didn't like to ask questions, thinking, perhaps, it wasn't all on the
+square about the bairns, and so I'm not sure I ever even knew the name
+rightly&mdash;it was Davis, or Davison, or Dawson, or something that way.
+Tom Kinley knew all about the parties, and so I did not trouble.  And
+then when he went to America there was no one to inquire of.  Well, we
+had one letter about a year after, from some place in Inja, I think,
+and in it they said they was going further, and mightn't be able to
+write for some time.  There was a directed envelope inside, and I sent
+off a few lines to say the wains was well.  After that we never heard
+more, and we always thought the father and mother had got killed in the
+strange parts they went to.  So we never told the young 'uns anything,
+but determined to make the best shift we could for them.  Then came the
+day they found the body, and this is where my sore trouble began.
+After Elsie left me, I was still lookin' at the poor dead thing, when
+it come on me like a dream that I had seen the face before.  At first I
+couldn't think where it was, and then I remembered the lady Kinley had
+brought me to see in Ballymena.  I stooped down to look at her, and
+then I noticed the chain round her neck.  There was no watch on it, but
+a sort of wee case that opened, and inside there was a picture and a
+wee bit o' paper folded.  You may be sure Mike McAravey had no thought
+of stealing; but when I saw some one comin', I said to myself, 'These
+things belong to the wains, and if I leave 'em here they 'll not get
+'em unless I tell all I knows.'  And my heart bled to think of the
+children hearing the first of their mother, when they saw her lying
+dead.  So I slipt the chain and case into my pocket, just as George
+Hendrick came up.  Ye remember, perhaps, I was so confused-like I
+didn't know what I was doing.  Maybe ye thought I was scared.  Then,
+when we brought up the body, I went and put the chain under the big
+heap o' sea-weed.  When all the fuss was made at the inquest, I was
+sorry I had hid the things, but I daren't tell then.  And mind ye,
+Father Donnelly, I told no lie, for there was no watch, and the chain
+wasn't gold at all, but an old-fashioned silver affair.  Even so it was
+a weight on me, so I thought the best thing I could do was to sell it,
+and they gave me fifteen shillings in Coleraine.  And that's how I got
+the first money for the monument.  The wee case&mdash;a locket, I believe,
+they call it&mdash;I 've kept yet.  It's made up in a parcel in the corner
+of the wee box under the bed.  And now that's all I 've to say; but I
+knows this affair, and the way the folk has doubted me has been the
+cause of my breaking up.  And there 's poor Elsie&mdash;I believe she swore
+she didn't see the chain just to keep me out of trouble, and that cut
+me most of all to be the means o' bringin' the poor innocent lass to
+tell a lie."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm sorry you did not tell me all this before," said George Hendrick,
+his eyes filling with tears as he gazed on the stern, deep-lined face
+of the old man; "it might all have been explained."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm sorry too, and often thought to do it; but you see I took a
+dislike to you, because your mentioning about the watch&mdash;when after all
+there was no watch&mdash;was the cause of my trouble."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And now you see, Mike," said the priest, "the evil results of not
+coming to confession; I 've often warned you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So you have, Father Donnelly, and it's no fault o' yours if I haven't
+been a better Catholic; but I 'm punished now, so let us forget the
+past."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Aye," said the priest, "you have suffered for your fault; and now
+wouldn't you like to receive the last rites, in case anything might
+happen before I come again?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was not too soon, for when daylight dawned the proud, restless
+spirit had taken flight.  Long after the priest had left, Hendrick had
+sat, Bible in hand, pointing the dying sinner to the Great High Priest
+of our profession; and when the struggle was over he started home
+across the moors in the bleak morning, cheered and thankful in heart,
+believing that his labours that night had "not been in vain in the
+Lord."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap06"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VI.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Michael McAravey's death made a considerable difference in the position
+of his family.  His widow was unable to retain and work the land; and
+though she obtained a considerable sum by way of tenant-right from
+McAuley, to whose farm the little patch was now united, she yet found
+herself in very straitened circumstances, especially as she regarded
+spending her principal as almost a sin.  It was a bitter struggle, and,
+yet by degrees there crept into her heart a degree of peace and
+contentment such as she had never known before.  Both she and Elsie had
+been deeply affected by the earnest and simple appeals of the
+Scripture-reader during that last sad night of watching by the bed of
+death.  The more so, in all probability, in that the words were not
+addressed directly to them, so that there was none of that irritation
+which often results when one feels himself being "preached at."
+Hendrick was now a weekly visitor at Mrs. McAravey's cottage, and he
+had at length the gratification of seeing, in this one home at least,
+the results of his long-continued and faithful labours.  At his
+suggestion, Jim, who, especially after the old man's death, could be
+made nothing of at home, was sent to a distant relative in Coleraine,
+where he had an opportunity of pursuing his studies at the Model
+School, with a view to entering some sort of business.  This was almost
+the only object for which Mrs. McAravey would permit a portion of her
+small capital to be touched.  For the rest, she and Elsie struggled on
+almost in poverty, but helped and, as far as possible, kept in work by
+the kindness of the neighbours.  In some mysterious way the substance
+of McAravey's confession had become public property, and it was known
+and suspected by everybody but herself that something had come out to
+identify the drowned woman as Elsie's mother.  Thus the child found
+herself, she knew not why, an object of interest to every member of the
+little community.  And the remembrance of the dead woman was really
+like that of a mother to her.  As Mrs. McAravey grew rapidly aged,
+Elsie acquired the habit of calling her "gran;" while the feelings of
+tenderness and sympathy that had been first roused in her by the sight
+of that poor soiled dead face, with the hair and sea-weed dashed across
+it, were cherished and sanctified by the daily call made on them in
+consequence of the old woman's increasing infirmities.  The child had
+even come, strangely enough, to think of and speak to the object of her
+dreams as "mother."  Was it an accident?  Was it an instinct?  Was it
+the result of some overheard expressions which, passing through her
+consciousness unnoticed, had yet made a lasting impression on the brain
+of the imaginative child?  Or was it a providential suggestion sent by
+an all-pitying Father to this desolate and wandering lamb?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus time slipped by uneventfully, as far as external circumstances
+were concerned, but not purposelessly.  The hard lot of the poor
+suffering old woman was being lighted, and her spirit trained for that
+eternity which was now growing large upon her vision, as earthly
+affairs shrank into a smaller compass.  Elsie, too, who had never yet
+crossed the hill that seemed to meet the sky at the top of the glen,
+was learning lessons of perseverance and patient endurance, which would
+not be lost upon her, whatever the future of the child might be.  Jim
+was seldom at home, and, alas! but little of the old childish
+attachment survived.  The boy was ambitious, business-like, and
+plodding.  His heart was in the town, and he seemed to retain no
+affection for the associations of his childhood: some of them were
+absolutely abhorrent to him.  George Hendrick was profoundly
+disappointed in the lad.  Not that a word could be said against his
+character.  He was steady, diligent, and submissive.  And when he was
+placed in a position where he could earn something, he never failed to
+send what he could to the old woman who had sacrificed so much to bring
+him on.  But there seemed a total absence of feeling or religious
+sentiment about the lad.  If he was sober and steady, it was merely
+because he scorned the weakness and waste consequent upon dissipation.
+He was pushing and ambitious, well spoken of and respected, but his old
+teacher failed not to see that all his thoughts were "of the earth,
+earthy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When she was nearly fifteen (as far as her ago was known) a new world
+was opened up for Elsie.  The rector's family were now growing up, and
+he was blest enough to find in his children, not a hindrance, but the
+greatest comfort and assistance in his arduous and often cheerless
+work.  Miss Smith and her sister Louisa had recently taken the musical
+arrangements of the church in hand, and not before it was needed, were
+now busying themselves to select and train a rustic choir.  The fame of
+Elsie's vocal abilities had been brought to Rossleigh Rectory by
+Hendrick, and so one day Mrs. McAravey was surprised by a visit from
+two bright, fresh young girls.  In her reception of them you could not
+recognise the hard, rude woman who had so sorely repulsed their father
+on his first visit to the glen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Hendrick has been telling us about you and Elsie," began Miss
+Smith, "and we have only been waiting for the moors to be tolerably dry
+to come over and see you.  Now we 've once got here, I hope we shall be
+good friends."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank ye, miss; thank ye kindly.  I shall be glad to see ye, and I
+hope ye won't be strangers.  It's not often any one passes this way,
+and I often think very long when Elsie's out."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We hear Elsie has a very good voice, and we want to know whether she
+could not manage to come over and sing in the choir, in summer-time at
+least."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Aye, the lass has a good voice enough, and a good heart too, God bless
+her!  She 'll sing her hymns to me here half the night when I'm kept
+awake with the pain.  But, begging your pardon, young ladies, I don't
+care much for these new-fangled hymns; it's the good old psalms that I
+like&mdash;them's the Lord's work and not man's.  And, as for Elsie singing
+in the church, it's very kind of you to think of her; but it 'a a long
+road, or rather no road at all.  But here 's the lass, and she 'll
+speak for hersel'."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At this moment Elsie entered the cottage, and was delighted at the
+invitation, for which, it may be told, George Hendrick had already
+prepared her.  "But how could she leave poor gran?"  The old woman
+thought this could be managed if she was only wanted for the morning.
+And so it was finally settled that Elsie should, on fine Sundays, walk
+over to Rossleigh in time for the half-past eleven service, remaining
+for dinner at the rectory, in order that she might attend the afternoon
+Sunday-school, and thence return to Tor Bay at about four in the
+afternoon.  To all this Mrs. McAravey assented, though probably the
+three young girls had no conception of the sacrifice it was to the
+invalid thus to consent to her being left alone from ten o'clock of a
+Sunday morning till nearly five.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Elsie soon became a favourite at the rectory.  Young and enthusiastic,
+she thought nothing of the four miles' walk across the rough moorland;
+nor did it ever occur either to her or Mrs. McAravey that, in partaking
+of the rector's hospitality, she was profiting by the delicate sympathy
+of the girls for their hard-worked and ill-fed <I>protégée</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Cooper Smith was much interested in Elsie, and offered to procure
+her a situation, or to take her into her own house as maid for the
+younger children.  But Elsie, who thankfully received every other
+favour, and availed herself of every opportunity for improving herself,
+steadily declined to leave poor Mrs. McAravey.  The family at the
+rectory could not but approve this resolve, and so for the time nothing
+further was said on the subject.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The rector had now established a monthly service at Tor Bay, over which
+he himself presided.  This service, as well as the Scripture-reader's
+classes, was held in Mrs. McAravey's cottage, for which accommodation
+the old woman was almost compelled to accept a consideration that went
+far towards paying her rent.  Elsie, from having been the chief care,
+had now become the invaluable assistant of the reader.  The population
+of the neighbourhood had been recently augmented by the advent of a
+number of miners, engaged in opening up the numerous streaks of iron
+ore that have of recent years begun to be worked in the Antrim glens.
+Elsie, who had long since overcome her prejudice against the arts of
+reading and writing, was now quite competent to act as Mr. Hendrick's
+assistant, or even as his substitute.  For this help, too, she was,
+after a time, induced to accept a trifling remuneration.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So had the good providence of God opened out a way for this poor
+parentless child, that at the age of sixteen or seventeen she found
+herself in a position of usefulness and importance that was pleasing to
+her.  A homely night-school had been established on four evenings of
+the week, of which Elsie was the recognised and paid mistress.  Her old
+and trusty friend George Hendrick came over as of yore on Wednesdays,
+and also on Fridays when no school was held, the evening being occupied
+by the service, and singing practice which followed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Elsie's pure and sweet example, and bright and playful manner, were of
+priceless value among the somewhat rough and careless mining population
+which had now been settled on the moors about the headlands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl was happy in herself, and therefore failed not to inspire
+others with something of the innocent sunshine of her own nature.  She
+still was haunted by the dear, dead face of her whom she had learned to
+love as a sort of angelic mother.  But she had learnt a better faith
+than that of hero-worship, and had come to look to another Presence,
+that was human and yet divinely glorious, for guidance, sympathy, and
+direction.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap07"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Thus matters continued for two years.  Elsie was now a grown young
+woman, and her school was regularly established.  Her's was a happy and
+contented time&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"Never feeling of unrest<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Broke the pleasant dream she dreamed.</SPAN><BR>
+Only made to be her nest<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">All that lovely valley seemed,</SPAN><BR>
+No desire of soaring higher<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Stirred or flattered in her breast."</SPAN><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+Even had she desired to move, the presence of Mrs. McAravey would have
+rendered it impossible.  Though much softened and improved, the old
+woman had scarcely become an agreeable companion.  The hard,
+Covenanting leaven had moulded her from childhood, and though of late
+years she had been touched by a gentler spirit, it was impossible that
+habits of a lifetime should be entirely eradicated.  She suffered much
+pain, borne for the most part uncomplainingly, and was now nearly
+helpless.  Elsie was not the sort of person to think herself a martyr.
+Indeed, it never occurred to her that, in thus watching and consoling
+the declining years of this poor, decrepid old body, she was even
+performing a noble, and at times fatiguing and painful, duty.  She took
+it all as a matter of course.  It came to her in the order of
+Providence, and formed an element and feature in the state of life to
+which it had pleased God to call her, and in which she had resolved by
+the Divine blessing to do her duty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus matters might long have held their quiet course had it not been
+for Jim.  As it has been said, he was very different in disposition
+from Elsie.  Restless, eager, and full of curiosity, he could not
+understand her placid yet cheerful nature.  He knew not the secret of
+her inner life, and of the way in which that life animated and directed
+the outer.  The young man saw less and less of Tor Glen, having now
+obtained a good situation in a flax store at Ballymena.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Some little time previous Elsie and Jim had both been confirmed; and
+since that event the Rev. Cooper Smith and George Hendrick had had
+several consultations with regard to them.  They were very unwilling to
+disturb the minds of the young people, nor had they anything definite
+to impart; yet it did not seem right to keep them in ignorance of what
+was known or suspected as to their parentage.  Jim, moreover, had
+displayed a good deal of curiosity on the subject, and had questioned
+Hendrick as to the meaning of the reports that had come to his ever
+open ears about old McAravey's knowledge of the drowned woman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At length it was resolved that Elsie and Jim should be invited to the
+rectory on a Saturday afternoon, and the whole matter fully explained.
+All being assembled on the day named, the rector briefly repeated what
+McAravey had said on his death-bed, as it had been told to him by
+Hendrick.  It appeared that before the old man's death the locket had
+been brought out from its place of concealment, and, in presence of the
+priest, handed over to Hendrick, who had next day brought it to the
+rector.  Upon investigation the locket had been found to contain the
+portrait of a man, and also a small folded piece of paper.  The face
+was intelligent and powerful, but by no means pleasing.  The eyes were
+eager and piercing, the lines about the mouth firm and deep-cut; the
+features in general somewhat coarse, and plainly those of a man in the
+lower walks of life, and one accustomed to hard toil both of mind and
+body.  The paper had proved to be the pawn ticket of a watch pledged in
+Belfast for the sum of one pound, the name upon it being Henderson.
+Mr. Smith had redeemed the watch, which now lay before him with the
+locket on the table.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You see, Elsie," he said, turning to the girl, whose eyes were full of
+tears, "we have but slight evidence to show either that this is your
+father's portrait, or that the poor creature who came to so untimely an
+end was your mother.  It is curious that the name on the ticket is
+Henderson, while McAravey said the person who brought you and Jim to
+him was called Davison or Davis, or something like that.  Of course it
+is quite possible the poor creature did not like to give her right name
+at a pawn office.  What do you think?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have always felt as if she was my mother," said Elsie; "and I should
+be glad if it turned out so.  It seems very probable."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm sure this rough-looking fellow is no father of mine," cried Jim,
+who had been sadly disappointed at the unromantic character of the
+revelation; "but I'll find out the secret of this matter yet.
+Meantime, I suppose, sir, the watch is mine.  Elsie may take the
+locket."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't you think you are somewhat precipitate, Jim?" said the rector,
+smiling.  "This is just one of the points Mr. Hendrick and I have been
+considering.  Of course it is just possible that some day the poor
+drowned woman may be identified, and turn out to have no connection
+with you at all.  But I am inclined to think she was your mother, and
+that that accounts for her coming to Tor Bay.  We have thought it only
+right, therefore, that you and Elsie should have the locket and watch,
+for the present at least.  As for the division, you must arrange that
+between you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think I ought to have the watch, as I said, sir, and Elsie the
+locket."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, perhaps that is the most suitable division," said the rector,
+coldly; "but I don't think you are quite consistent in claiming the
+watch so eagerly, and at the same time scorning the miniature, since,
+in all probability, if the watch belonged to your mother, the likeness
+is that of your father."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As such I at least shall be glad to keep it," said Elsie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jim was somewhat crestfallen at the rector's rebuke, but merely added,
+with some pomposity&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now that I have been informed of the circumstances, I shall probably,
+by the aid of this watch, be able to unravel the mystery of my
+parentage."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He meant it merely as a piece of brag to cover his retreat, and as such
+the rector and Hendrick took it, receiving his words with a quiet smile.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I consider that Mr. Smith has acted very wrongly in keeping these
+things from us so long," commenced the young man, as he and Elsie
+walked home together after ac early dinner at the rectory.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"O Jim! how can you say so?  Mr. Smith could have had no motive but
+consideration for our feelings."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I say nothing against his motives, only that I think he acted wrongly.
+Valuable time has been lost; but clergymen are never good men of
+business, and Scripture-readers are like them, I suppose."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jim, I don't like to hear you speak like that; it's ungrateful.  And
+what you mean by valuable time I can't conceive."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I dare say you don't understand the value of time, leading the sort of
+life you do in a place where nobody ever knows the hour," said the
+youth, superciliously, as he glanced at his newly-acquired treasure;
+"but of course I mean time has been lost in investigating our family
+history."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm quite content to be as I am," said Elsie.  "If the history was
+known, it would probably be neither important nor interesting.  I don't
+see how the watch will help you, Jim; and you know you won't have the
+likeness."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And she looked into the lad's face with her merry brown eyes.  But Jim
+was on his high horse, and merely replied&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I cannot say what I shall do all at once, but the matter shall be
+looked into at an early date."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Elsie smiled, as the rector and Scripture-reader had done&mdash;not visibly,
+indeed, as they had, yet Jim somehow felt he was being laughed at,
+which made him angry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is a smart lad that, but I don't like him," said the rector, as he
+and Hendrick watched Elsie and Jim going down the avenue.  "He wants to
+be a fine gentleman, and is ashamed of his father's portrait&mdash;an
+ill-looking fellow enough, it must be admitted."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Aye, I didn't like that," said Hendrick; "but he is a steady boy, and
+may do well when the conceit has been taken out of him a wee bit."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If only a 'wee bit' is taken, there will be what the people call a
+good little wee lock left.  But I sincerely hope, for his own sake,
+that his pride will be taken out of him.  He is insufferable."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap08"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VIII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+For the present, at least, Jim was elated with a pardonable pride in
+his watch, and, after the manner of youths thus recently set up, he
+looked at it again and again during his walk next morning across the
+headlands to Ballycastle, where he had to catch the Ballymoney car,
+thence to proceed to Ballymena by train.  Ho was looking at his watch
+for the hundredth time, and half smiling to himself at his rash and
+boastful words as to making it the means of discovering his family
+history, when a sudden thought occurred to him.  He looked long and
+eagerly at the watch, while his pale face flushed up.  "I have it," he
+muttered; "and if I'm right, I shall take down the minister a bit."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a long, tedious journey by foot and car and rail that lay before
+him, and his patience was almost exhausted when he reached his
+destination.  Once arrived, he immediately sat down to write in his
+humble lodgings.  The watch bore the name of the maker, "John Turnwell,
+Leeds, 7002."  Was it not possible that a record had been preserved,
+stating when and to whom the watch had been sold.  Ho did not know
+whether such was the practice, but at all events he would inquire.  A
+brief note was soon written and left ready for the morning mail; then
+the tired and excited lad went to bed, and dreamed of a beautiful lady
+who said she was his mother, and that his father was a lord, and had
+been murdered by the repulsive-looking man in the locket; and then a
+carriage and pair came thundering up to his lodgings, and his employer
+stood in the hall as he passed down, and congratulated him, and called
+him "my lord."  Then he thought he saw the man in the locket looking at
+him with hard, cold mouth, and then the face grew smaller till it
+shrunk into the locket, and it was open on the breast of the dead woman
+as she lay on the sands; and he saw himself and Elsie standing by the
+body.  In a moment he passed into the little figure, and felt himself
+turning to call Mike McAravey, as he had done so long ago.  The horror
+of that last vision awoke him.  It was late, and he had only time to
+get his letter posted and to hurry to his office.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Jim could not rest, till in the course of a few days a letter
+arrived with the Leeds post-mark.  He trembled as he took it in his
+hand, and then as he read a flush mantled up his face, and he burst
+into a laugh as he saluted himself in the cheap mirror that adorned the
+mantelpiece&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Aw, mi lord!  Glad to make your lordship's acquaintance!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The note ran thus:&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+"WATCH AND CLOCK FACTORY, LEEDS,
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+"August 19, 187&mdash;.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"SIR,&mdash;In reply to your favour of the 16th inst. we beg to say that we
+always keep a register of all watches made or sold by us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No. 7002, an English lever made by ourselves, appears to have been
+purchased by Lady Waterham, of Burnham Park, in this neighbourhood, on
+the 21st of October, 185&mdash;.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We should advise you to communicate at once with her ladyship, who is
+now at home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We remain, Sir, your obedient Servants,<BR>
+"J. TURNWELL & Co.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. J. McARAVEY,<BR>
+"Market Street, Ballymena, Ireland."<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+It was enough to turn the head of an ambitious boy.  Poor Jim, though
+generally cautious and reticent, could not contain himself, and, in
+strict confidence, revealed his coming splendour to one or two of his
+companions.  It was soon reported that Jim McAravey had come in for a
+fortune of 50,000 pounds, and was the son of a lord.  Even his
+employers seemed to treat him with new consideration, and, though
+annoyed that the affair had got so soon bruited about, he could not
+feel angry when he saw himself pointed at in the street, and half
+jokingly spoken of as "my lord" by his fellow-clerks.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-080"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-080.jpg" ALT="Jim building castles-in-the-air." BORDER="2" WIDTH="312" HEIGHT="486">
+<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 312px">
+Jim building castles-in-the-air.
+</H3>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+Jim's first step was to write a somewhat haughty letter to the Rev.
+Cooper Smith, and an excessively gushing and almost affectionate one to
+Elsie.  Both letters were shown to George Hendrick, the consequence
+being that one afternoon on returning home Jim found the
+Scripture-reader awaiting him.  "The young lord" (as they called him)
+was about to offer a gracious but distant welcome, when Hendrick, who
+had heard the town talk, anticipated him by exclaiming&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, Jim, my boy, I'm afraid you have been making a rare fool of
+yourself!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I would thank you to explain your language," said the young man with
+great hauteur.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There, don't be offended, lad," replied the reader, kindly; "I only
+meant it was a pity you let this thing get talked of before you had
+more certainty.  I needn't tell you, Jim, how glad we shall all be to
+hear of anything really to your advantage."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm not aware that the thing has been talked about.  I only mentioned
+it to one or two personal friends, with a view to obtaining their
+advice."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your friends have not been discreet, then," said Hendrick; "why, Jim,
+the whole town is talking about you, and should this come to nothing,
+you will have made yourself ridiculous.  Had you no truer or older
+friends with whom you might have consulted?  I 'm sorry for this, Jim."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you mean Mr. Smith and yourself, I must say you did not seem to
+take much interest in my welfare&mdash;and Elsie is not much better," he
+added, bitterly.  "Perhaps it will be different now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come, Jim, you don't believe a word of all that.  You know well who
+your truest friends are, though we don't always encourage all your
+notions.  But will you not let me see this famous letter?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hendrick read the letter carefully, and then asked, "And what do you
+mean to do, Jim?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why of course go over to see her ladyship as soon as I can arrange
+matters here.  I shall speak to Messrs. Moore to-morrow, and see
+whether they can let me free at once&mdash;I should think under the
+circumstances they would."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My dear Jim," cried the reader, "are you mad?  You don't seriously
+mean to give up, or run the risk of losing, your situation for what may
+after all prove a wild goose chase?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was just what Jim had contemplated, and it was not without
+difficulty that good George Hendrick brought him to a sounder judgment.
+Unlike Jim's youthful friends, who, partly animated by love of mischief
+and partly by youth's natural hopefulness, had encouraged him to
+indulge the most glowing fancies, Hendrick showed him gently, but
+plainly, how fragile was the foundation on which he had been building.
+The watch might have been stolen, or lost, or given away.  There might
+turn out to be no direct or traceable connection between Lady Waterham
+and the unknown woman whose property it had been.  Jim was not shaken
+in his own private conviction (strengthened as it had been by his
+dream), but he was too hard-headed not to admit the reasonableness of
+Mr. Hendrick's arguments; and the more he heard of the tales that had
+been circulated, the more deeply he regretted his pride and misplaced
+confidence.  He finally made no objection to Hendrick's proposal that
+the matter should be left in the hands of the Rev. Cooper Smith, who
+was going to England in the course of ten days, and was willing to make
+a slight detour to Leeds.  So it was settled.  The watch and locket
+were entrusted to the rector, who promised to see the watchmaker and
+Lady Waterham.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You seem more annoyed than anything else," said Jim crossly to Elsie,
+when the final arrangements were being made in the rectory study.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I cannot say I am pleased," replied the girl.  "I fear lest you should
+be disappointed, Jim; and, on the other hand, I don't want to be
+anything but what I am.  I have not been brought up a lady, and to find
+that I had been born one would be no pleasure.  If you could be a lord,
+Jim, without affecting me, it would be all right."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, Elsie, you have no ambition."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"None to be put in a false position, which I could not rightly fill."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap09"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IX.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+"What a solemn and mysterious communication," said Lady Waterham,
+laughing, as she handed a letter across the breakfast table to her
+husband.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Pooh! my dear, it is some Irish beggar; you had better not see him,"
+said his lordship as he rose from the table.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"O scarcely&mdash;it would be too impertinent."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The letter ran as follows:&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"The Rev. Cooper Gore Smith presents his compliments to Lady Waterham,
+and trusts that she will find it convenient to receive him on Tuesday
+morning at about eleven o'clock, when he hopes to have the honour of
+waiting on her ladyship.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Rev. Cooper Gore Smith's reasons for troubling Lady Waterham can
+scarcely be explained in a letter.  Suffice it that the affair on which
+he is engaged is of considerable importance to those chiefly concerned,
+and may even prove not to be without interest for her ladyship.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+"<I>Railway Hotel, Leeds,</I><BR>
+"Sept. 3, 187&mdash;."<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+This the worthy man flattered himself was in his best style.  He was
+considerably puffed up by the importance of his mission, and, although
+he had the wisdom to keep them secret, his aspirations were nearly as
+far-reaching as those of Jim himself.  To have been the friend and
+patron of two long-lost scions of nobility was an idea too romantic and
+agreeable not to be dwelt on, even though he reminded himself again and
+again that it had probably no foundation.  It was, therefore, with no
+little self-importance that the note was penned, and in a similar frame
+of mind he started for Burnham Park next morning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lady Waterham was sitting in the morning-room with her two daughters
+when the clergyman was announced.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lady Eleanor and Lady Constance More were like each other, being both
+agreeable-looking, simple, and yet elegant.  They seemed about the same
+age, and were certainly past their first youth; still they looked
+bright and cheerful, and evidently troubled themselves but little about
+the advancing years.  Lady Waterham was somewhat frigid in her manner,
+and as she slightly rose and pointed Mr. Smith to a chair, he became
+conscious that he had forgotten the exact words in which he had
+intended to commence the conversation.  This led to a slight pause, but
+having plenty to say, he soon found a way to begin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have ventured to call on your ladyship about two young persons in
+whom I am deeply interested, and into whose parentage I am making
+inquiries.  The story is a romantic one, and will take some little time
+to relate&mdash;&mdash;"  He was brought to a sudden pause by the cold, inquiring
+look of Lady Waterham.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I ought to tell your ladyship how I come to call on you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you, sir," said her ladyship, drily&mdash;she was beginning to
+suspect that her husband had been right.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, the fact is," continued Mr. Smith, "the only clue to identity
+which we have is this watch, which it appears was purchased by you some
+twenty-three years ago at Mr. Turnwell's in Leeds."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her ladyship was not like her daughters, and scarcely quite relished
+being reminded of what happened twenty-three years ago.  She took the
+watch coldly, and, after looking at it a moment, said&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Really, sir, I think there must be some mistake.  I remember nothing
+about this watch.  I am sure it was never mine, nor have any of us lost
+a watch.  I am sorry you should have had so much trouble."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Excuse me, your ladyship, but it seems almost certain that the watch
+was bought on your account.  I have seen the entry in Messrs.
+Turnwell's books, from which this is a copy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This is very strange," said Lady Waterham, as she read the memorandum.
+"L7 10s. it cost, I see."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When was it, mamma?" asked Lady Eleanor, looking up for the first time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The 18th of April, 185&mdash;."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"O mamma, I know!  It must be the watch we gave to dear Elsie before
+she was married.  You remember the marriage was in May, and that was
+the year I am sure.  I was just fourteen."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fourteen and twenty-three are thirty-seven," said the Rev. Cooper
+Smith to himself, as he looked at the still fresh and eager face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Poor dear Elsie! what has become of her?  Do you know her, sir?" she
+continued, turning to the clergyman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The girl on whose behalf I am inquiring is called Elsie, and it seems
+probable she was your friend's daughter."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I must tell you, sir, who <I>our Elsie</I> was," said her ladyship, who had
+caught and did not like the word "friend."  "She had been my maid; but
+we found her so conscientious, nice-mannered, and well-informed, that
+she almost occupied the position of nursery governess to the younger
+children.  We were all very much attached to her, and when she married
+we gave her a watch, which Lady Eleanor supposes must be the same as
+this.  The marriage was not a happy one, and we opposed it as long as
+we could.  After some time she went to India, and thence I think to
+China, with her husband.  For many years we have heard nothing of her,
+though I think we fancied we saw his name among those lost in a
+terrible shipwreck some years ago.  It was a sad story altogether.
+Poor Elsie!  Do you remember how anxious we used to be about her,
+girls?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was only the other day I was thinking of her, and wondering what
+had become of the little baby.  You know I was its god-mother, and she
+was called after me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, indeed, I had forgotten," said Lady Waterham; "but perhaps, sir,
+you would kindly tell us what you know about our former protégée."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Smith told the sad tale with which our readers are acquainted as
+briefly as he could.  At the end there was a pause, and then her
+ladyship said&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Poor foolish girl!  She would not take my advice, and I foresaw that
+her end would not be happy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Our poor dear Elsie!" said Lady Constance, her eyes overflowing.  "It
+was a sad day for her when she first saw that horrid man Damer; her
+head was quite turned afterwards."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At all events my baby godchild is living, and a credit to me
+apparently," said Lady Eleanor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And the boy?" said the clergyman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a pause.  The Ladies Constance and Eleanor looked at each
+other, and then at their mother.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have not mentioned the boy," said her ladyship; "but that is the
+most painful part of the subject.  He is not Elsie's brother at all;
+and what is worse, it was never exactly known who he was.  About four
+months after the marriage a poor woman came to the village.  She said
+her name was Damer, and inquired for Elsie's husband.  He was very much
+put out by her appearance, but at once took a lodging for her, where
+the poor thing had a baby, and died immediately after.  Damer said the
+woman was his only sister, and accordingly that he must take the child.
+At the time Elsie seemed to have no doubts, but every one else talked
+about it.  Some said the woman was his wife, and others&mdash;you can
+imagine what they said.  Shortly after that they left the
+neighbourhood, and we never saw Elsie again.  Her husband, I must tell
+you, was a mechanical engineer, and considered an excellent workman.
+He got a capital appointment in India after he left Leeds, and Elsie
+wrote to tell us she was going with him.  It was then I so strongly
+urged her to stay at home with the children; but she would not be
+guided, and merely wrote to say she had placed them with some people in
+the north of Ireland, where, I think, she came from herself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I fancy," said Lady Eleanor, "I have some of her letters still.  You
+remember, mamma, they were imprisoned in China, with a number of other
+English people, for ever so long.  It was after they were released that
+we had the last letter (which I am sure I kept), saying that she was
+coming home.  We did not know at the time whether she meant <I>alone</I> or
+not; and then when we saw Edgar Damer's name among the people lost in
+that vessel&mdash;I forget its name&mdash;we concluded that she must have gone on
+before."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus piecing together the broken memories of the past, the morning went
+by.  The Rev. Cooper Smith stayed to luncheon, and in the course of
+conversation various confirmatory incidents came out.  The miniature in
+the locket was at once recognised, and it appeared that the locket
+itself had been the special gift of little Lady Eleanor.  A more
+careful comparison of dates proved quite satisfactory, showing, among
+other things, that the body had been found at Tor Bay just four months
+after the date of the letter which Lady Eleanor had succeeded in
+finding, and in which Elsie said she was to start in a few days, and
+would be nearly four months on the voyage.  "My first visit will be to
+the glens, and then I shall try to go over and see you.  I have so much
+to tell, and to ask your kind advice about.  I am unhappy and anxious,
+and feel somehow as if I would never see either my child or you, though
+I am writing about it.  It is so long since we have heard of anybody,
+we seem to have been dead, as it were."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Having returned to his hotel, the clergyman made some brief notes of
+the story that had thus providentially been brought to light.  He did
+not know whether to feel pleasure or disappointment.  He was glad to
+have the mystery cleared up; glad, too, to find that Elsie had had so
+sweet a mother, and was likely to have such kind and liberal friends.
+Yet he could not but feel sorry for the collapse that was awaiting
+Jim's castle in the air.  It would be a bitter trial for him, and he
+knew not how Jim would bear it.  Mr. Smith was somewhat puzzled,
+moreover, what to do himself.  He had promised to write to the
+expectant Jim; but now he could not bring himself to do so.  His own
+holiday would not expire for a fortnight, and he was naturally
+reluctant to return home sooner than was necessary.  While debating
+what was best to be done, a telegram was put into his hand.  It was
+from the irrepressible and anxious Jim.  "Please telegraph results
+obtained immediately.  Reply paid for."  "The fool!" muttered Mr.
+Smith; and, yielding to a sudden irritation, he filled up the reply for
+which the boy was waiting:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All clear enough, but quite unsatisfactory as far as you are
+concerned."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a cruel blow, and no sooner was it dealt than he was sorry for
+it.  He resolved to write to the poor lad, and, finding an invitation
+to dine at Burnham Park, which had first to be accepted, he sat down,
+well pleased with himself and all the world.  The letter to Jim was
+kindly.  The whole truth was not told, but it was announced that Jim
+and Elsie were no connections of the Waterham family.  All else was
+reserved for verbal explanation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dinner at Burnham was pleasant enough.  The earl was affable, and
+after dinner had several reminiscences of that "clever dog Damer" to
+tell, which did not raise his character in the clergyman's estimation.
+When about to leave, Lady Eleanor handed him a note for Elsie, adding&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do wish so she would come over and see us!  Of course I should
+gladly pay all her expenses."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Rev. Cooper Smith left Leeds next morning quite satisfied with
+himself, and, having written a long letter to Hendrick, giving a
+general idea of his discoveries, he went on his tour with a light heart.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap10"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER X.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Poor Jim! his pride had indeed met with a fall.  The rector's letter
+was soothing enough, but the winged messenger which he himself had
+demanded had arrived full twenty-four hours earlier.  Full of the most
+ridiculous dreams, that he would have been ashamed to put in words even
+to himself, the young man tore open the brown cover.  One glance at the
+cruelly brief, well-written announcement, and all the top-heavy aerial
+erection his vanity had heaped up lay shattered around him.  Poor boy!
+shall we not pity him?  From very childhood, though so silent and
+undemonstrative, he had fed himself with extravagant visions and wild
+speculations.  All this had been merely an amusement, though an
+unhealthy one.  The dreamer had scarcely entertained the idea of his
+dreams possibly proving true.  But the train was laid for a future
+explosion&mdash;the imagination was diseased, and so when the watchmaker's
+letter came, all the shadowy fancies of the past seemed to be suddenly
+transformed into substantial realities.  He fancied ho had always
+<I>known</I> that which hitherto he had only amused himself by fancying.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The blow was sharp and decisive, and Jim felt he had brought it on
+himself.  Curiously enough, however, the sudden stinging pain acted as
+a tonic stimulant.  The lad summoned up all the latent manliness and
+force of his character.  He looked the thing in the face, and saw
+clearly that he had played the fool.  He knew that he would be laughed
+at, and resolved to bear it like a man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Next day came Mr. Smith's letter, and it was as balm to the wounded
+spirit.  Elsie also wrote a line to say she was glad not to be a lady,
+and believed that he would get on all the better for not being a lord.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus it came to pass that when the Rev. Cooper Smith arrived at
+Ballymena station, the first person he met was Jim McAravey.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not know how to thank you, sir, for all the trouble you have
+taken; I at least was not worthy of it.  But I trust this piece of
+folly has been enough for me.  I hope I am wiser, but I shall strive
+not to be sadder."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Smith was as much surprised as pleased at this change in the young
+man's character, and he the more regretted having to tell the whole of
+the narrative, which was sure to cause further pain to the lad.
+However, it had to be done, and Jim, who was no coward, took it all
+better than might have been expected.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And so I am only Elsie's half-brother, at best&mdash;or shall I say at
+<I>worst</I>?" said the poor lad, with trembling voice.  "I'm afraid, sir, I
+shall be terribly laughed at here, but I must bear it as best I can.  I
+have brought it on myself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Elsie was profoundly thankful for the result of the investigation.  As
+she had said herself, she "did not feel like being a lady," and was
+therefore glad to be delivered from what would have been, to her, an
+unwelcome fate.  At the same time it was a pleasure to obtain definite
+information as to her parentage, and also to find that in Lady Eleanor
+she had a friend who had known and loved her mother, and who was bound
+to herself by a sacred tie.  That Jim had proved not to be her brother
+was, if the truth be told, a relief.  Elsie had often reproached
+herself that she did not feel for him that sisterly affection which she
+believed it her duty to cultivate.  In fact she began to like Jim
+better now, partly because he was decidedly improved by the "taking
+down" he had received, and partly because affection was no longer a
+duty to which the girl had to school her heart.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lady Eleanor's letter was kind in the extreme.  She told Elsie in
+simple language how they had all loved her mother, and enclosed for her
+perusal the one or two letters that had been preserved.  "Although
+Elsie could not remember their last meeting, yet they were not
+strangers, since Lady Eleanor did not forget that she had held her in
+her arms at the baptismal font."  Elsie was urged most affectionately
+to go over to England, if it were only for a time; and it was suggested
+that if she settled there Mrs. McAravey might accompany her.  Elsie,
+however, felt at once that, even could she bear the journey, it would
+be a cruelty to transplant the aged woman from her native soil to a
+region where she would find all things alien and strange.  Nor would
+she entertain the idea of deserting the poor old body, though Mrs.
+McAravey stoically offered to give her up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I won't stand in your way, Elsie, lass, though I can't bear to think
+of it; but it's not long I'll be here to trouble anyone, and I'd like
+to know you were well provided."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Elsie would not be persuaded, nor could her new friends do
+otherwise than approve her noble resolve.  They were disappointed, but
+felt that such a girl was worthy of their affection and patronage, and
+trusted that time would afford them opportunities of benefiting her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The winter that ensued was a trying one.  The snow lay deep on the
+moors, so that Tor Bay was practically shut off from the rest of the
+world.  The rector was not able to get over, and even George Hendrick's
+visits were few and far between.  For several weeks Elsie could not go
+to church, and when she did the fatigue and wet brought on a cold which
+stuck to her all the winter.  Old Mrs. McAravey seemed fast approaching
+her end; she long had been quite crippled with rheumatism, and now her
+mind was at times beginning to give way.  It was a sad, dreary time for
+Elsie.  Scarcely any children were able to come to school; and as she
+struggled on day after day at what seemed, in her present low state of
+health, a barren and uninteresting task, she could not but have visions
+of the comfortable home she might have acquired with her hitherto
+unseen friends.  Not that she ever regretted her decision; indeed Elsie
+was scarcely capable of entertaining a selfish thought.  Without any
+apparent effort she lived for others, and habitually thought of them
+before herself.  Yet it was a trying time for the poor young
+girl&mdash;gloomy and disheartening days, succeeded by restless and anxious
+nights, and literally not a soul to speak to.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jim, too, had a bad time of it that winter.  So great had been the
+ridicule to which he had been subjected in Ballymena, that he was at
+length forced to abandon his position.  Messrs. Moore accepted his
+resignation somewhat coldly.  They regretted the loss of a valuable
+servant, but Jim had failed to gain the affection of his employers.  He
+had "kept himself to himself" with such reserve that no one took much
+interest in him, though his good business qualities were fully
+appreciated.  Messrs. Moore gave him a high character for steadiness
+and capacity, but they did not seem inclined to go out of their way to
+obtain him employment.  Poor Jim was much mortified at the calmness
+with which his resignation was received.  He knew that he had done his
+duty to his employers faithfully, and therefore he felt hurt when they
+made no effort to retain him.  The poor lad had well-nigh to begin
+again.  He went to Belfast, and there soon obtained employment, but in
+a far inferior position to that which he had occupied at Messrs.
+Moore's.  Moreover, he soon found that in the great capital of the
+linen trade there were numbers of young men as capable, as energetic,
+and in many cases better educated than himself.  It was a harsh and
+unpleasant experience, but Jim had the strength and courage to bear up
+under it.  He still was full of a laudable confidence in himself, and
+felt sure that patience and diligence would have their due reward.  It
+was a hard struggle, however.  Trade was bad, and after a few months
+the house in which he was just getting established was compelled to
+stop payment.  For a few weeks Jim was absolutely without employment.
+After that time he obtained another situation, and thus escaped being
+reduced to actual poverty; for the first time, however, he was brought
+face to face with the possibility of privation&mdash;of being unable
+(however willing and however anxious) to obtain the means of gaining
+his daily bread.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus the winter and spring wore on.  Almost the first gleam of sunshine
+that came to Elsie with the reviving year was a letter from Lady
+Eleanor, in which she said that as Elsie would not come to see them,
+they had almost resolved to go and look for her.  The earl, her father,
+had often spoken of taking them to the Giant's Causeway, and so they
+thought of running over before Easter if the weather was fine, which
+after so severe a winter they hoped it might be.  The hope thus held
+out was destined to be gratified.  Easter was late that year, and the
+weather in March and April beautiful.  Jim was astonished one day early
+in April by receiving a letter from Elsie, directing him to wait upon
+the Earl and Lady Waterham, who were to arrive from Fleetwood next
+morning, and would stay a day at the Royal Hotel.  Jim blushed as he
+recalled the vain dreams of six mouths before, and naturally felt some
+embarrassment at the prospect of meeting such exalted personages.
+However, he conducted himself so modestly and naturally that he won the
+approval of the whole party.  Even the earl, who, out of dislike to
+Damer, was much prejudiced against the lad, spoke kindly to him, and
+expressed a willingness to serve him, if possible, at any time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Having proceeded to Larne by train, the party posted along the noble
+coast road, arriving at the Ballycastle Inn in time for a very late
+dinner.  Next day the younger ladies, having procured two stout ponies
+and a guide, started for Tor Bay, taking the magnificent Fair Head <I>en
+route</I>.  They were determined to find out Elsie for themselves, and to
+take her by surprise in the midst of her ordinary work.  It was one of
+those glorious spring days that might have belonged to June, were it
+not for a keenness in the air that surprised you when the sun was for a
+few seconds over-clouded.  There was, too, a clearness in the
+atmosphere that warm summer days cannot claim, with a suspicion of
+frost, as you looked towards the sea.  And often did the two ladies
+look in that direction during their ride on the lofty headlands.
+Rathlin Island lay below them, separated by the few miles of narrow and
+often impassable sea, but to-day it was but a "silver streak."  Far in
+the horizon the Scotch coast could be seen all along the line, while
+the Mull of Cantyre looked but a few miles away, the very houses and
+boundaries being almost distinguishable.  Full in front the sun gleamed
+on Ailsa Craig, as it rose abrupt and lovely from out of the sea.
+Elsie, though familiar with it, had not been insensible to all this
+beauty.  She had spent almost the entire night at Mrs. McAravey's side,
+nor did the old woman fall off to sleep till it was almost time to open
+school.  It was a weary morning's work; and when the children went home
+to dinner the exhausted girl wandered down to the beach (having seen
+that Mrs. McAravey still slept) in search of fresh air and quiet before
+resuming her duties.  Since the arrival of Lady Eleanor's last letter
+she had naturally enough been excited and nervous.  She knew that in a
+few days at latest she should see her mother's friend, and one who
+promised to be hers.  Would she like her?  Would the meeting be a
+disappointment, or otherwise?  What should she say?  Where would they
+meet?  How should she dress herself?  The first meeting with one to
+whom we are bound by any ties, whom we have long corresponded with, or
+are likely in the future to be much associated with, is always looked
+forward to with embarrassment and nervousness.  How much was this the
+case with a poor, simple orphan girl, who had never been five miles
+from home, called upon to encounter a titled lady, who actually claimed
+her as her godchild, and to whom she felt bound by so many tender
+associations?  Filled with thoughts of the approaching interview, Elsie
+wandered, she knew not whither, on the beach.  Suddenly a shadow seemed
+to pass over her, and she became conscious of the bitterness of the
+north-east wind that blew upon the shore.  Drawing her cloak round her,
+she looked up and found that she had come under the shade of the great
+cliff that rose at the extremity of Sandy Creek.  She stood still a
+moment, gazing on the dreary scene, and then a sudden flood of
+recollection came over her.  The tide was low, and she stood on the
+very spot, as it seemed, where, twelve years before, she had caught
+sight of the strange black mass that was being tossed on the sand amid
+the tangled sea-weed.  She saw herself a trembling, ragged child, alone
+by the dead body in the fast gathering twilight.  And this was the only
+time that she had seen her mother.  The girl was out of spirits, low in
+health, and very weary, and so, for the only time almost in her life,
+she gave way to repining thoughts.  All the gracious path by which a
+kindly Providence had led her was obscured, and she thought of herself
+merely as the orphan child of this poor dead thing that lay upon the
+sand.  The whole history of the past flooded back upon her.  She saw
+little Jim, so eager to escape from the gruesome sight; then Mike
+McAravey approaching through the twilight, and herself as she ran up
+against good George Hendrick; then rose up the horrid bewildering scene
+at the inquest; and finally she seemed to stand in the bleak wind-blown
+moorland churchyard, and before her was the nameless head-stone, "In
+Memory of E. D."  The sense of loneliness was complete as she stood
+beneath the overhanging cliff exposed to the biting nor'-east wind.
+With an effort she aroused herself, and looking up with tear-filled
+eyes to the pale clear blue sky so far away, she resolutely turned back
+into the warm sunshine that seemed the more dazzling after its
+temporary withdrawal.  It was almost school-time, and on the far
+hill-side path Elsie's quick eyes caught sight of two or three tiny
+little figures, as they trotted down the path towards her
+cottage-school.  In a moment all sadness was banished, and she felt
+herself again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have we not all one Father?" she murmured; "and have I not One to love
+me who has said, 'Inasmuch as ye did it to the least of these, ye did
+it unto Me'?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Glancing again to the hill, she perceived that the children had
+stopped, and were forming a little group as they looked backward up the
+path.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They 'll be late, my little loiterers," said Elsie, with a smile; "I
+must scold them well.  But what is it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An uncommon sight indeed for Tor Glen, and one that might well distract
+the whole school's attention.  Two discreet ponies were picking their
+way down the zig-zag path, while behind walked a man.  But greatest
+wonder! on each pony was seated a real lady.  Erect and gracefully,
+too, did they keep their seats, as the patient beasts let themselves
+slip down the gravelly path.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's early for tourists," thought Elsie, as she quietly walked on her
+way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The travellers and their attendant group of urchins had now passed out
+of sight behind a screen of the thick foliage, which we have described
+as adorning the sheltered bottom of the glen.  Elsie thought no more of
+the tourists.  Their pleasure-seeking was a thing she had absolutely no
+experience of, and the sight of her scholars had banished all other
+thoughts but practical ones as to the conduct of the afternoon lesson.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A sudden turn brought the young mistress in front of her school.  It
+was a humble enough affair&mdash;a mere shed in fact, built on to the end of
+Mrs. McAravey's cottage, and adorned over the door with a plainly
+printed sign-board, "Tor Glen National School."  But the place did not
+look uncared for.  The school indeed was bare enough, and surrounded by
+a brown wilderness, in which the children used to play, but the
+adjoining dwelling-house was made green and warm with ivy and fuschia,
+while the little garden was neat, and for April almost gay.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To her surprise, Elsie's ear caught no sweet clamour of children at
+play; there was indeed a sound of voices, and as she turned the corner
+some dozen eager voices cried together, "Here she is; here's mistress."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Elsie stepped hastily forward, fearing some mischief, and then paused
+as she saw the two strange ladies standing in the midst of an admiring
+and wondering group of children, while the guide stood by, a pony
+bridle in each hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a moment one of the ladies had pushed through the little circle and
+seized the girl's hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Elsie Damer!  I 'm your godmother, Eleanor More.  I 'm so glad."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Poor Elsie knew not where she was, or what it meant, and could find no
+better thing to say than "Your ladyship!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There, don't talk like that," was the quick reply; "I'm so glad we've
+met at length.  What a sweet little nest this is, hidden away from the
+world by these great cliffs.  We were fortunate, too, to find you out
+so soon," continued Lady Eleanor, who, perceiving that Elsie had not
+recovered the sudden shock and embarrassment, considerately gave rein
+to her power of speech, which was by no means limited.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We met a nice little fellow on the top of the hill, and I asked him
+whether he knew where Elsie Damer lived.  I stupidly forgot about the
+name, so he answered 'Now.'  Then I remembered, and asked about Mrs.
+McAravey.  'It's teacher she 's askin' for,' said a little girl who had
+come up.  Then I saw it was all right, and so we all came tumbling down
+the hill together."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I saw you," said Elsie, "in the distance, but of course I had no idea
+who it was.  How very kind you have been to me!" and again the tears
+were trembling in the nervous eyes of the poor, overwrought girl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lady Constance had now joined them, and the children stood around, all
+eyes and ears.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Kate, take them in," said the mistress to a tiny monitress, when she
+became conscious of the inquiring glances.  All were seated demurely as
+Elsie and the two ladies entered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now," said Lady Constance, "do you not think you might give these
+little ones a holiday this fine afternoon, so that you and my sister
+may have a good chat?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Perhaps I had better," replied Elsie; then turning to the eager
+audience, "Children, these kind ladies have come all this way to see
+me, and have asked me to give you a holiday; what do you say?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you, ma'am," responded the little chorus.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Very well," said the mistress; "mind you don't get into any mischief.
+No noise," she added quickly, as she perceived that Lady Eleanor's
+friend was expanding his lungs, and gathering up his little
+bantam-cock-like figure, preparatory to starting a cheer.  "No noise;
+poor gran is very bad to-day, and would not like it.  Go quietly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so they did, under the generalship of tiny Kate, all defiling past
+in silence, save Master "Naw," who, being the hero of the school,
+thought it necessary to distinguish himself; therefore, being forbidden
+to cheer, he stepped forward, and touching his forehead with a bow,
+said&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank your ladyships both;" and then, with a rush to the door, "Now,
+boys, we'll have a look at the ponies."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is almost past me," said Elsie, laying her hand on the boy's
+shoulder as he darted through the door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have them in very good order, I think," said Lady Constance; "but
+I was sorry to hear you say the old lady was so poorly.  Let us go and
+see her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Elsie led the way, and as she lifted the latch they caught Mrs.
+McAravey's plaintive voice&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I 've been thinking long for you, Elsie, lass, for I heard the
+children say as the ladies had come.  You won't take her from a poor
+old creature, will you, miss?" she added, as the visitors came in view;
+"I won't have long to trouble you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"O no," said Lady Eleanor, kindly; "we 've only come to pay you and
+Elsie a visit.  She is just like her mother, Mrs. McAravey; and now
+that you are so weak and low you ought to be glad she has found some of
+her mother's friends.  We will always take care of her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Lord be thanked!" murmured the old woman, lying back with closed
+eyes; "and I bless His name He has brought me to see the day.  Elsie's
+a good lass&mdash;none better, ladies."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Almost immediately she fell off into a broken and uneasy sleep, while
+Elsie and her friends whispered together at the door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We shall gee you again the day after to-morrow, Sunday," said Lady
+Eleanor, as they prepared to start.  "We are going to Ashleigh Church,
+and will lunch at Mr. Smith's&mdash;he says you always stay for
+Sunday-school."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said Elsie, "that is very nice, and I'll be sure to be
+out&mdash;unless gran is too bad," she added, anxiously glancing towards the
+bed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sunday came, and there was quite an excitement at Ashleigh Church when
+the clumsy hired carriage from Ballycastle drove up, and the two ladies
+appeared.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Rev. Cooper Smith, who had been popping his head out of the vestry
+door off and on for the last ten minutes, was in readiness to receive
+his guests, and then retired to have as much time as possible for a
+last look at the specially prepared sermon.  Mrs. Cooper Smith was too
+anxious about the lunch to go to church, but all the rest of the family
+were assembled in full force.  Elsie, however, did not put in an
+appearance, and the absence of her fine voice left a sad gap in the
+somewhat too elaborate service that had been, got up for the occasion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After service was over the clergyman took his guests to see poor Elsie
+Damer's grave.  Lady Eleanor suggested that something should be added
+to the inscription, setting forth the way in which the name had been
+discovered.  How this should be done was the subject of conversation
+during the walk to the rectory.  There they found Elsie just arrived.
+Mrs. McAravey had been much worse all Saturday, and Elsie could not get
+away in time for church.  She had only come now because the dying woman
+had expressed a wish to see Mr. Smith.  This news cast a shadow over
+the party.  Elsie remained for luncheon, on Mr. Smith's promising to be
+ready to start immediately after, when the returning carriage could
+bring them a considerable distance on the way, dropping them at a point
+not more than two miles from Tor Bay.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I must say good-bye now," said Lady Eleanor, drawing Elsie aside as
+they left the dining-room; "I cannot tell you how glad we are to have
+found you, and to have found you so like your dear mother too.  It is
+too bad papa and mamma cannot see you, as we must leave to-morrow; but
+we shall meet again soon."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not know about that," replied poor Elsie, almost breaking down.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My dear child, you do not think we are going to let you be lost again!
+And this is what I want to say to you, Elsie, dear: will you promise to
+come over to us when&mdash;I mean if anything happens to Mrs. McAravey?&mdash;she
+cannot live long, poor old body."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, you are too kind!" cried Elsie, fairly bursting into tears, and
+hiding her face on her new friend's shoulder&mdash;"you are too kind; but
+how can I promise?  It sometimes seems my duty to stay here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Eleanor More was a true woman, and so&mdash;though surprised at this sudden
+outbreak&mdash;she lifted the girl's head between her hands, and kissing her
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap11"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CONCLUSION.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The summer had waned away; the autumn tints were already on the trees,
+and the light of the September afternoon was growing feeble and
+uncertain, as a dainty little figure scrambled out of the low carriage
+that had drawn up before the neatest and most ideal of English cottage
+homes.  Lady Eleanor More stood at the garden wicket to receive her
+friend, and behind her in the doorway was to be seen a tidy,
+white-capped little old woman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So we have got you at last, Elsie; and here is the prison where you
+are to be confined at hard labour, and this is your gaoler, Mrs.
+Nugent.  How do you like it all?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Elsie was delighted, and could find no words in which to thank her kind
+patron.  Everything was charming, and everything had been arranged with
+that thoughtful consideration which nothing but real affection produce.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The old man and woman with whom Elsie was to be lodged, for the present
+at least, were established pensioners of the Waterham family.  They had
+known and sorrowed for Elsie's mother, who had stayed with them for a
+few weeks after her unfortunate marriage.  Thus the orphan felt almost
+at home, and was rejoiced to find that a little room had been set apart
+for her private and special use.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nor was it designed that Elsie should become a mere dependent.
+Fortunately enough a vacancy had recently occurred (by marriage) in the
+mistress-ship of a small school situated close to the gate of Burnham
+Park, and almost opposite Nugent's cottage.  This was the sphere of
+labour for which Elsie was destined.  The school was a neat,
+well-cared-for place&mdash;the special hobby of Lady Eleanor, who seldom let
+a day pass when at home without visiting it.  Here Elsie Damer at once
+commenced her labours.  The children were bright and clean, and had
+evidently been carefully taught by her predecessor.  Miss Damer was
+also a welcome acquisition to the village choir; and those were among
+the happiest moments of her life when she let her rich, clear voice
+ascend in songs of praise to the throne of Him who had guided her all
+her journey through, while her dear friend and second mother presided
+at the organ.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Elsie's only care was about Jim.  She had seen him in Belfast looking
+worn and anxious.  His letters had never been complaining, nor were his
+words so then; yet he could not conceal the fact that his position was
+by no means satisfactory.  But this cloud too was soon to be cleared
+away.  The earl had been favourably impressed with the lad, and was
+highly amused when he heard from his daughter a somewhat toned down
+version of the foolish conduct which had resulted in his resigning his
+situation.  In the course of a year after Elsie's establishment at
+Burnham, a post of some responsibility in the earl's rent office became
+vacant, in which we find Jim shortly afterwards comfortably installed.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+<HR WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center">
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+And here ends our tale.  Elsie Damer's life is after all only
+beginning, and doubtless she will have her trials and sorrows.  Not for
+ever can she be the young girl living in that sweet rose-covered
+cottage.  Indeed, before we lose sight of Elsie, there is rumour of a
+coming change.  Mrs. Nugent said, "It's a shame to take you from us,
+Missie, but every one likes a spot of their own, I suppose; I know I
+did in my time."  And Robert Everley, the head-gamekeeper's strapping
+son, who was settled now in one of the home farms of Burnham, blushed
+and looked apologetic as the earl hailed him one day, "Hey, Bob! what's
+this I hear about you, lad?  I wonder what Lady Eleanor will say to it,
+stealing her godchild from her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I couldn't help it, your lordship," replied the embarrassed Bob.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, all I say is you are a lucky fellow, and Elsie might have done
+worse too."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But whatever lies before our Elsie, she has deep stored within her that
+hidden peace that the world knoweth not, and which can smooth over, as
+with holy oil, the roughest and most sudden-rising of life's stormy
+waves.  The discipline of the past had moulded and set, without unduly
+hardening, the lines of her simple, cheerful character.  Looking back
+to the earliest dawn of her recollection, she believed herself able to
+trace a golden thread through all.  The ideal of calm beauty and purity
+which the child's vivid imagination had developed out of the dim memory
+of her drowned mother's face had been her good angel, and had led her,
+by sweet, insensible gradations, up to Him of whose glory all earthly
+beauties are but the far-off reflection.  From first to last she had
+lived in the consciousness of the Unseen Presence, and no words better
+expressed her simple faith for the present and for the future than
+those of her favourite hymn&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"The King of Love my Shepherd is,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Whose goodness faileth never,</SPAN><BR>
+I nothing lack if I am His<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And He is mine for ever.</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em; letter-spacing: 2em">****</SPAN><BR>
+"And so, through all the length of days,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Thy goodness faileth never;</SPAN><BR>
+Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Within Thy house for ever."</SPAN><BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="finis">
+THE END.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Child of the Glens, by Edward Newenham Hoare
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Child of the Glens
+       or, Elsie's Fortune
+
+Author: Edward Newenham Hoare
+
+Release Date: May 25, 2007 [EBook #21612]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHILD OF THE GLENS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: THE CLERGYMAN'S VISIT TO TOR BAY.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A CHILD OF THE GLENS;
+
+OR,
+
+Elsie's Fortunes.
+
+
+
+
+  PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE
+  COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION,
+  APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
+  CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
+
+
+
+
+LONDON:
+  SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
+  SOLD AT THE DEPOSITORIES:
+  77, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS;
+  4, ROYAL EXCHANGE; 48, PICCADILLY;
+  AND BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.
+
+NEW YORK: POTT, YOUNG & CO.
+
+1875
+
+
+
+
+Illustrations
+
+
+The clergyman's visit to Tor Bay . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
+
+A strange waif of the sea
+
+Jim building castles-in-the-air.
+
+
+
+
+A CHILD OF THE GLENS;
+
+or,
+
+Elsie's Fortunes.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Doubtless some of our readers are acquainted with the noble "coast
+road" that skirts round the north-eastern corner of Ireland, extending,
+it might almost be said, from Belfast to Londonderry.  The
+characteristic features of this noble esplanade (for such it is) are
+chiefly to be seen between the little town of Larne, where the railway
+ends, and Cushendall.  Throughout this drive of forty miles you are
+never out of sight or sound of the sea.  The almost level road is seen
+far ahead of the traveller, like a white boundary line between cliff
+and wave.  You wonder at first if the road was made merely to gladden
+the tourist, for it does not seem likely that there could be much
+traffic other than that of pleasure-seekers thus along the margin of
+the sea.  The configuration of this part of the County Antrim, however,
+explains the position of the road, and justifies the engineer who was
+so happily enabled to combine the utilitarian with the romantic.  A
+series of deep cut gorges, locally known as "The Glens," intersect the
+country, running at right angles to the coast-line and thus forming a
+succession of gigantic ridges, over which it would be impossible to
+drive a road.  For this reason it has been found necessary to wind
+round the mouths of these romantic valleys, which are guarded and shut
+off from each other by a number of formidable and noble headlands,
+foremost among which ranks the beautiful Garron Point.  Thus a
+succession of surprises await the tourist.  Having fairly made your way
+between the foot of the towering cliff and the inflowing tide, with no
+prospect in front but huge and grotesque-shaped rocks, which look bent
+on opposing all further advance, you suddenly find that you have
+doubled the point.  A blue bay opens before you, shut in at its farther
+side by the next promontory, at the base of which you can distinctly
+trace the white streak of dusty road, that sweeps round the bay in a
+graceful semicircle.  To your left--or while you are speaking, almost
+directly ahead--is the wide opening of one of the "Glens"--sweet,
+retired abodes of peace, sheltered and happy as they look out forever
+on the sea.  The barren and rocky highlands, terminated by the wild
+bluffs that so courageously plunge themselves into the waves, become
+gradually softened and verdure-clad as they slope downward, while the
+narrow valley itself is studded with trees and pretty homesteads.
+
+The people of "The Glens" are peculiar, primitive, and distinct.  In
+these shut-in retreats the ancient Irish and Roman Catholic element
+largely prevails.  When, in consequence of frequent rebellions, the
+original inhabitants were well-nigh exterminated, and their places
+taken by Scotch and English settlers, the natives found a refuge in the
+wilder and more remote parts of the country.  Thus, here and there in
+Ulster--generally known as "Protestant Ulster"--we come upon little
+nooks and nests where for two centuries the primitive Irish race has
+survived.  Naturally, living in the presence of their more pushing and
+prosperous Presbyterian neighbours, these last representatives of a
+conquered nationality are for the most part of a retiring and
+suspicious disposition.  In quiet country places there is seldom any
+manifestation of open hostility, and intermarriages and neighbourly
+feeling have done much to smooth away the edge of bitter memories, but
+at bottom there remains a radical difference of sentiment, as of creed,
+which constitutes an impassable, though for the most invisible, barrier.
+
+Michael McAravey was a good specimen of the old Ulster Roman Catholic.
+He was a tall, powerful man, of nearly seventy at the time when our
+story opens, while he did not look sixty.  His hair was long,
+iron-grey, and wiry, and it was only when uncovered that the high,
+bald, wrinkled forehead gave indication of his real age.  A rebel at
+heart, the son of a man who had been "out" in '98, Michael had gone
+through life with a feeling that every man's hand was against him.
+Sober, self-reliant, and hard-working, the man was grasping and hard as
+flint.  By tradition and instinct a bitter enemy to Protestantism, he
+was not on that account a friend of the priest, or a particularly
+faithful son of the Church.  He had his own "notions" about things, and
+though a professed "Catholic," his neighbours used to speculate whether
+age or sickness would ever have power to bend that proud spirit, and
+bring Michael to confession and a humble reception of the "last rites"
+of the Church.  Early in life McAravey had married a Presbyterian girl,
+and the almost inevitable estrangement that results from a "mixed
+marriage" had cast its shadow over the lives of the pair.  The Kanes
+had belonged to the small and rigid body of "Covenanters," and never a
+Sabbath from childhood till her marriage had 'Lisbeth failed to walk
+the four rough, up-hill, dreary miles that separated her father's home
+from the meeting-house that rose alone, and stern as the Covenant
+itself, on the bleak moorland above Glenariff.  But her last
+Sabbath-day's journey was taken the week before her wedding.  Michael
+had gloomily announced that no wife of his should be seen going to a
+"meeting-house," and though he never sought to bring her to mass
+(perhaps in part because it might have involved going himself), his
+resolution never varied.  Nor did his wife contend against it.  The
+habit once broken, she felt no inclination to undertake those long and
+wearisome journeys.  But a Covenanter she meant to live and die.
+Nothing would have tempted her into the Presbyterian chapel close by.
+And thus when there came two children to be baptized the difficulty as
+to religion was compromised, and a triumph allowed to neither side, by
+the babes being solemnly received into the compassionate and truly
+Catholic fold of what was then the Established Church.  That both these
+little ones had been taken away by death was a misfortune, and tended
+to harden even more the somewhat disagreeable and rigid lines that
+marked the individuality of both Mr. and Mrs. McAravey.
+
+Not that the home thus early laid desolate was altogether unblessed by
+young faces.  For many years the McAraveys had had charge of two little
+children, who called them father and mother.  But, as it was quite
+evident that no such relationship as this could exist, so it came to be
+generally understood that there was no tie of blood at all.  What
+connection there might be, or who the children were, was a mystery none
+had ever solved, nor was it likely that any inquiries--if such had ever
+been ventured upon--had met with much encouragement on the part of
+"auld Mike" or his equally taciturn wife.
+
+Though the Antrim glens had been the scene of such courtship as it is
+possible to conceive of between Michael McAravey and Elizabeth Kane,
+they had for many years ceased to be the place of their abode.
+Previous to the opening of our tale, McAravey had fallen into the
+tenant-right and goodwill of a farm held by an elder and unmarried
+brother, and hither he had accordingly moved with his wife, now past
+middle-age, and the two little ones that called her mother.  To find
+the spot where the McAraveys now lived--a spot yet more retired and
+more lovely than any in the glens properly so called--we must once more
+return to the great "coast road."  Having reached Cushendall, the
+scenery becomes more imposing, and the high background almost deserves
+the name of a mountain.  Here, at length, the rugged and towering
+coast-line successfully defies further violation of its lonely majesty.
+Accordingly the baffled road bends abruptly to the left, and turning
+its back upon the sea proceeds to climb the long, dreary slope of a
+flat-topped, uninteresting mountain, and then, having reached the
+highest point (which is scarcely to be discerned), descends, till once
+more the sea is come upon at the secluded little country town of
+Ballycastle.  The extreme northeast point of Ireland is thus cut off,
+and thus the ordinary tourist is cut off too, from one of Nature's most
+fairy-like retreats.  On looking back from Ballycastle you at once
+perceive the necessity for your bleak and tedious mountain drive.  The
+eye immediately catches and rests fascinated upon the gigantic and
+literally overhanging precipice of Fair Head, as it rears its peculiar
+and acute-angled summit against the sky.  One look, and you are
+convinced that no road could wind its way round the base of that
+frowning monster.  But let us strive to penetrate this cut-off region
+either on foot across the moors, or by the rough mountain road that
+suffices for the wants of the few and scattered residents.  Standing
+(sometimes not without difficulty) on the pitched-up edge of the mighty
+headland, and gazing on the remote sea beneath, you feel oppressed by
+the sense of Nature's vastness and your own insignificance.  Nor does
+the dreary extent of rock and pool-dotted moor that stretches inland to
+the very horizon afford any relief to such feelings.  So you turn away
+in search of rest and shelter.  Then but a comparatively few downward
+steps and you find that the tempestuous wind has ceased to wrangle with
+you; already you are beneath the shadow of the great rock.  Descending
+further, the bleak aspect of Nature is transformed.  The heather gives
+place to dwarf shrubs; the bare, weather-beaten rocks are clothed with
+blackberry bushes, or hidden amid luxurious bracken.  Dark hollies
+clinging to detached rocks present varied and life-like forms.  The air
+has suddenly become still.  The butterflies hover over the foxgloves.
+The wild strawberry is at your feet.  The sloeberries ripen around you.
+The sea before you might be the Mediterranean, so gently does it ripple
+up to the very edge of the hundred tiny plants that force their way
+amid the sand.  Great rock bastions shut you in on either side, and
+behind, the green slope you had descended rises upward till it meets
+the blue sky beyond.  You might be in the south of England rather than
+in the "black north" of Ireland; and you are struck with the probably
+accidental suggestiveness of the name--Tor Bay.  It was here that
+McAravey's lot was cast, and here that Elsie and Jim used in their
+leisure hours to gather the strawberries and stain themselves with
+sloes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Not that Elsie and Jim had many leisure hours.  Like all else in the
+little household, they had their work to do.  McAravey's "farm" was but
+a little patch of ten acres, part of it not even yet quite won back
+from rock and bracken.  On this he toiled as only a man can toil who
+works for himself, and is assured of his interest in the soil on which
+he drops his sweat.  That he had no grown-up son (as might have been)
+to aid his declining strength was a hidden sorrow to the old man.  He
+worked on, however, and bravely did his uncomplaining wife assist him.
+Neither of them had ever known an hour of either ill health or
+idleness, and they were guiltless of any conscious or intentional
+cruelty when they early and sternly disciplined their young charges to
+the same laborious life.  The duties of the children were manifold.
+Jim herded McAravey's two or three cows, or acted as scarecrow in the
+little patch of corn, each precious grain of which was grudged to the
+passing birds.  Elsie scoured the house, and carried out milk to one or
+two somewhat distant neighbours.  But the most arduous labour of the
+children was one that they shared together.  When the weather
+suited--after a stormy night, or when there was a spring tide--they
+would stand for hours on the beach, often wet to the waists, dragging
+the tempest-tossed sea-weed to the shore with large wooden rakes.  This
+occupation was not merely arduous but dangerous.  More than once had
+little Jim, who was of lighter build than the girl, been fairly dragged
+off his feet by the force of the receding wave, as it wrestled with him
+for the possession of the mass of floating weed which he had hooked in
+his rake.  The weed thus drawn to shore was subsequently sorted, the
+greater part being used for manure, while the rest was burned in one of
+those rough kilns that abound along the coast, and reduced to kelp,
+which is used in the manufacture of soap and glass, and from which
+iodine is extracted.  Thus, almost from infancy, the children had been
+inured to labour, and alas! for them the sunny hours of idle rambling
+amid the tangled foliage of the glen were few and far between.  Neither
+child had received any education.  The only school was nearly four
+miles off, up on the open moorland.  It was only in summer that the
+children could possibly attend, and even then their visits were
+infrequent and irregular.  On all religious subjects their young minds
+were dark as night.  Even a few days at school had taught them that
+such things as reading and writing existed, and Jim especially had
+developed in him vague ideas as to the power and wealth that might be
+obtained if once he could master these mysterious subjects.  But
+religion was only known to them as being provocative of party quarrels
+and domestic disagreements.  Harsh and brief as was the general style
+of intercourse between Mr. and Mrs. McAravey, there was no absolute
+anger or violence about it, except when allusion was made to the
+difference that through life had separated husband and wife.  Even then
+it seemed strange to the children that such fierce feelings and such
+ill words should be excited by a matter that had absolutely no
+influence on ordinary life, and which was never introduced but as a
+bone of contention.  Nor hitherto had the poor neglected ones any
+opportunity of learning the blessed truths of a Father's and a
+Saviour's love from any other quarter.  There was no place of worship
+in the glen.  The Presbyterian chapel was a mile away, and even there
+no Sunday-school was held.  As for the Church, into the fold of which
+the poor babes had been received, it was scarcely to be thought of,
+being fully four miles off, across a rough mountain district.  Here the
+Rev. Cooper Smith ministered to a congregation that fluctuated much,
+but was never very large.  The parish was enormous, and the
+Church-people dotted over it in a most unmanageable fashion.  Yet it
+was surprising what a considerable number of people were brought
+together on a fine Sunday morning in summer.  The clergyman, too,
+persevered in keeping together what was at least the nucleus of a
+Sunday-school, consisting of some twelve or fifteen children, whom he
+and the clerk taught in the church before service.  But from this means
+of grace Elsie and Jim were cut off by distance, even if, as was more
+than doubtful, their foster-parents would have allowed them to attend.
+In the glen that sloped down to Tor Bay, there were no Church-people,
+and but few children of any sort.  Thus spiritual darkness reigned
+supreme throughout this beautiful domain.  Twice during five years in a
+professional capacity (though several times on pic-nics) had the Rev.
+Cooper Smith made his way to Tor Bay.  The people had received him with
+a patronising kindness, that was peculiarly irritating to his sensitive
+and somewhat small nature.
+
+"Sit down, mon, and rest yeresel' a bit; ye must be tired," said
+McAravey, looking over his shoulder as he stalked out of the cottage.
+
+"Don't you think you ought to send those children to school, Mrs.
+McAravey?" asked the clergyman, whose kind heart had been touched, on
+the occasion of a recent pic-nic, to see the half-drowned little ones
+toiling amid the heaps of wet and writhing sea-wrack.
+
+"Maybe ye 'd send yere carriage to fetch them up the brae!" remarked
+Mrs. McAravey, with a harsh, disagreeable laugh at her own pleasantry.
+
+"Well, it is rather far," replied Mr. Smith, somewhat apologetically;
+"but it grieves me to see them growing up in ignorance, and without any
+knowledge of the Saviour."
+
+"Thank ye, sir," cried Mrs. McAravey, satirically, "but I think ma mon
+and mysel' knows our duties, and can teach the wains, too, wi'out any
+parson comin' to help us.  A pretty thing to tell us we knows nothing
+o' the Saviour!  I can tell you, mon, I've walked more miles o' the
+Sawbath to my place o' worship than some folks as I know walks in a
+week."
+
+The clergyman, somewhat taken aback at this outbreak, felt a rising
+flush of anger, and could only reply--
+
+"I think, my good woman, you might remember whom you are speaking to,
+and might be civil to a stranger when he comes into your house."
+
+To judge by the response, the second part of this appeal was more
+effective than the first.  An appeal to authority or respect of persons
+is not usually successful in Ulster.
+
+"I knows rightly who I 'm speakin' to, and I don't see as it makes any
+differ; but I 'm sorry I spoke sharp, seein' ye come so far, only I
+can't thole to be towd I 'm na fit to train up a wain in the knowledge
+o' the Saviour."
+
+Expressing a hope that Elsie and Jim would come to school when weather
+and work permitted, and with a somewhat vague remark about "calling
+again," the Rev. Cooper Smith beat as graceful a retreat as was
+possible.
+
+His other calls that day were scarcely more satisfactory, for though he
+encountered no such actual rudeness, there was everywhere the same
+patronising familiarity.
+
+Andrew McAuley, the wealthiest farmer in the glen, invited him to have
+"a drop o' something," adding, by way of encouragement, "Ye needn't be
+afeerd--there's plenty iv it in the house."
+
+The only person who seemed to recognise his spiritual office was widow
+Spence, who, as the clergyman stood hesitating before leaving the
+cottage (he was debating whether he should offer the old woman a
+shilling), sympathetically remarked--
+
+"Maybe, then, ye 'd like to mak' a wee bit o' a prayer afore ye go
+back?"
+
+Unreasonably, perhaps, the rector felt rebuked and annoyed by this
+incident, and he walked home with a heavy heart.  What could be done
+for Tor Bay--so beautiful, yet so barbarous--so out of the way in every
+sense?  His personal efforts did not seem likely to be rewarded with
+success, even if he could keep--which he did not himself believe that
+he could--to the often-made resolution to be more frequent and regular
+in his visits across the hill.  He had been wounded in many points that
+day, yet he had not gone away without hearing one note of
+encouragement.  Many a day and many a night he saw, like Paul, the
+figure of one who said to him, "Come over . . . and help us."  Only the
+figure was that of a brown, blushing, merry-eyed girl of nine, who held
+by the hand a delicate-looking, white-haired, timid boy.  Again and
+again he fancied himself walking sadly and dreamily on the pure smooth
+sand of the beautiful secluded bay.  Again and again he was murmuring
+the lines--
+
+  "Every prospect pleases,
+  And only man is vile"--
+
+when he hears a voice, and turning, sees the half-amused, half-eager
+look of Elsie as she had said--
+
+"Please, Jim says he 'd like to go to school, minister; and I 'd like
+too, if it wasn't so far."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+The pleading voice was not in vain.  After much anxious consideration
+the Rev. Cooper Smith resolved to use his efforts to get the aid of a
+Scripture-reader for Tor Bay, and other outlying districts of his vast
+parish.  The munificence of an elderly lady enabled him to bring his
+arrangements to a successful issue more rapidly than he had hoped.  He
+was also fortunate in obtaining a fit and proper person for the post.
+Robert Hendrick was by birth and education an Ulster man; but having
+been for several years employed in the south-west, he had acquired
+something of that geniality, tact, and courtesy which is, perhaps,
+deficient in the hard Scotch character of the Northerns.  There was
+nothing of professional piety or of the professional reader about
+Hendrick.  A bright, active, smiling little man, he was soon a
+favourite in Tor Glen.  His visits were made twice a-week, and the
+inhabitants soon found him a useful and obliging friend.  He executed
+small commissions, carried letters from Ballycastle, and acted
+generally as a medium of communication with the outer world.  But while
+thus wisely winning his way by kindly offices, he was not unmindful of
+that other world which it was his duty to bring before the minds of the
+people of the secluded vale.  One evening of the week a homely service,
+half Bible-class, half prayer-meeting, was held, to which a
+considerable number of the Presbyterians, and even a few Roman
+Catholics, dropped in.  The other evening was devoted to teaching the
+few little ones who could be gathered together.  Elsie and Jim were
+among the earliest pupils; Jim was actuated by an almost morbid craving
+for knowledge, and for Elsie anything novel had sufficient attraction.
+Mrs. McAravey, notwithstanding her self-righteous indignation when
+questioned by the clergyman, had in her heart a belief that religious
+instruction was the proper thing for children.  She remembered the
+stern discipline of her own early years--not, indeed, with any
+pleasure, but with a firm conviction that severe spiritual as well as
+physical labour was good for the young.  That "Auld Mike" permitted the
+children to attend the reader's class was a matter of surprise to many,
+and that Hendrick had been able to capture them added not a little to
+his reputation.  McAravey had, however, been pleased with the frank,
+obliging address of the reader; and perhaps, too, there was some softer
+feeling in his hard, silent nature than folks gave him credit for.
+Anyhow he made no opposition; and though he did not fail to notice
+their absence every Friday evening, he "asked no questions for
+conscience sake"--or rather he rested satisfied with the result of his
+first inquiry.
+
+"Where's the wains, 'Lisbeth, I wonder?"
+
+"How should I know?" was the somewhat Jesuitical reply.  "Maybe they
+'re gone to the town end; but they 'll be right enough, you may be
+sure."  And there the matter dropped for many a day.
+
+Meanwhile school-work went on.  The precocious Jim made amazing
+progress in reading and writing--arts from which Elsie's impatient
+nature revolted.  This distaste was, however, counterbalanced by the
+girl's quickness in other respects.  By dint of memory, and an
+excellent ear, she soon had at her finger ends whole passages of
+Scripture, together with a number of psalms and hymns, from one to the
+other of which she ran with a vivacity and heedlessness, that often
+pained her teacher.  She was soon the leader of the little choir, and
+could sing, with wonderful correctness, "Shall we gather at the river?"
+"I think when I read that sweet story of old, How when Jesus was here
+among men." "As pants the hart for cooling streams," &c.
+
+Robert Hendrick was deeply interested in his little pupils.  Jim seemed
+likely to grow up a pattern boy.  Punctual and diligent, with grave,
+attentive eyes and quiet demeanour, he could not but elicit the
+approval of his teacher.  Yet Hendrick could not conceal from himself
+that Elsie was his favourite--Elsie, so reckless and so irreverent, so
+headstrong, and at times even violent.  He used to tremble for the
+child's future, as, attracted by the sweet, true ring of her voice, he
+saw the eager, merry eyes wandering all round the room, while the lips
+were singing the most sacred words.  Those awful and profound truths,
+that were to him the only realities, and which animated his every
+effort, were apparently to this sweet young singer but as fairy tales,
+or even as mere empty words on which to build up the fabric of her
+song; and at times he even doubted whether it was right to lay bare the
+mysterious agonies of redeeming love to such a careless eye, and to
+familiarise such a child with scenes so awful, but which seemed to wake
+no note of love or reverence.  Yet Robert Hendrick loved and prayed for
+the child, content to work on for her, as for so many others in the
+glen, in simple faith and loving hope.
+
+With the approach of winter the Friday evening class had to be
+discontinued.  Most of the children lived at a considerable distance
+from the place of meeting; nor was a walk across the moors always
+feasible in rough weather.  Even for a time the Wednesday service had
+to be suspended; so that for a couple of months the glen relapsed into
+its former state of spiritual night.  Not altogether, however.  The
+good seed cast upon the waters had found a resting-place in several
+hearts; and the opening of spring, and with it the resumption of the
+Scripture-reader's visits, were eagerly looked forward to by many, both
+young and old.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+It was the end of March, when an event occurred which would have been a
+more than nine days' wonder even in a busier spot than Tor Bay.  The
+equinoctial gales had been protracted and severe.  For days the sea off
+Fair Head, and through the strait that separates the mainland from
+Rathlin Island, had run mountains high; and now, though the surface was
+smooth and glistening in the bright spring sun, the long, heavy swell,
+as it broke in thundering rollers on the shore, bore witness to the
+fierceness of the recent conflict.  The night had been wild and dark,
+but it was succeeded by one of those balmy days that are sent as
+harbingers of coming summer.  Elsie and Jim had been busy ever since
+the return of the tide, about noon, dragging to shore the masses of
+sea-wrack that the recent storms had loosened and sent adrift.
+
+The afternoon was now far advanced, and the children were growing weary
+of their work.  Several heaps of brown, wet, shining weed stood at
+intervals along the sands, as monuments of their zeal.  They began to
+look wistfully towards the hill for "father," who had promised to meet
+them at the conclusion of the day's work; but again and again they had
+looked in vain.  It was now growing almost dusk.  They had thought of
+desisting from their task, when a succession of gigantic rollers, like
+the fierce rear-guard of the great army that for so many hours had been
+broken to pieces on the sands, was seen approaching.
+
+With a solemn reverberation the first giant toppled over, and swept a
+mass of mingled foam and sea-weed up the sands, far past where the wet
+and weary little toilers were standing.  Knee-deep in the rapidly
+returning body of water, they strove with their rakes to arrest some
+fragments of the whirling and tangled mass of weeds.  But the second
+giant was at hand.  Checked in its advance by the retreating fragments
+of its predecessors, the monster hesitated.  And then the two masses of
+water clashing together rose up in fierce embrace, while the foam and
+spray of their contention was blown by the keen east wind into the
+children's faces.  But the force of the tide was spent, and the second
+wave, though victorious in the wrestle, scarce survived the conflict,
+and did not even flow over the children's feet.  Elsie, therefore,
+sprang forward almost to the spot where the wave had broken, and
+brought down her rake into the midst of a huge and tangled mass.  The
+retiring wave struggled hard to retain its own, so that the child was
+fairly drawn out by its force.
+
+"Let go, let go!" cried Jim, as he caught the girl's dress to help her
+resistance; "the rake will float in again."
+
+But Elsie was fascinated.  She felt at once that the body she held was
+solid, though soft and yielding, and so she clung to the long
+rake-handle with all her might.  The conflict was over in a few
+moments.  The waters retired defeated, and left upon the sands a dark,
+limp, saturated body.
+
+"Come away, come away!" shrieked the boy, as Elsie was cautiously
+advancing towards the mysterious object.  The girl stood still, and
+hesitated a moment, while a vague dread crept over her.  What was it
+that lay there in the bleak, cold twilight, so still and shapeless, and
+yet with such an awful suggestion of life about it?  She was lost in
+bewilderment when the boy's voice recalled her--
+
+"Elsie, Elsie, mind the wave!"
+
+She had but a moment in which to spring back, as the third giant,
+towering above its predecessors, lifted the inert body on its crest,
+and flung it contemptuously high up upon the shore.  Then the waters
+swept back and left the two children shivering alone on the strand:
+behind them were the dull, dead heaps of sea-weed, and at their feet a
+black mass of clothing.  The children clung together in silent awe.
+Neither of them had ever seen a dead body.  Hitherto death had been an
+abstraction, but now they felt themselves face to face with the reality.
+
+[Illustration: A strange waif of the sea.]
+
+"Let's run and look for father," suggested Jim, in a frightened whisper.
+
+"We can't leave her alone, Jim," responded the girl, now pale and grave
+as she had never been before, and looking from the body to the line of
+foaming water but a few feet beyond; "the tide might turn and take her
+away again."
+
+"I wish it had not brought her!" gasped Jim, through his chattering
+teeth.
+
+"Hush," said Elsie; and then, after a pause, "if you go fetch some one,
+I'll stay here."
+
+"Aren't you afraid?  I am."
+
+"Go," said Elsie, "go quick; it's getting dark."
+
+Hesitatingly the boy left her, and walked almost backwards till he
+reached the top of the beach; then, with a short cry of fear, he turned
+his hack on the sea, and ran up the path towards his home.
+
+Elsie stood alone with the dead.  She looked on the heaps of sea-weeds,
+and then along the line of breakers, that seemed even now gathering
+strength for a return movement.  It was a trying ordeal for a child of
+ten, but the terrible novelty of the situation seemed to give her
+courage.  She advanced towards the body, which she now saw was that of
+a woman dressed in black.  She lay upon her back, the face only hidden
+by the tangled hair and sea-weed.  Elsie noticed as she gazed, for what
+seemed hours, on the still form, that there was a gold chain round the
+neck, and two rings on the finger of the hand that rested upon the
+beach.  As the gloom of the afternoon deepened, a sense of pity and
+yearning quite new to her, and which destroyed all fear, crept over the
+child.  An irresistible longing urged her to draw back the tangled hair
+from the face.  For a moment she turned away terrified, but then knelt
+down, and with trembling hands began to draw out the weeds, and to
+smooth back the heavy brown hair from the cold face.  She grew absorbed
+in her task, and almost fancied the worn, yet beautiful and gentle
+features looked pleased and grateful.  She even ventured to lift the
+heavy arm from the sand, but it fell back so stiffly that the child was
+terrified, and stood a little apart, wondering where the poor lady had
+come from.  She knew not how long she had waited, when she was aroused
+by the sound of a voice.  Looking up, she beheld Michael McAravey by
+her side.
+
+"Well, Elsie, lass, what's all this?  There 's that wee fool Jim crying
+himself into fits, and raving about dead bodies in the sea-weed.
+Blessed mother! so it is a dead body," he added, excitedly, as he
+caught sight of the object of Elsie's regard.  The old man was only
+unnerved for a moment; then turning his back to the sea and putting his
+hands to his mouth, he gave a loud "halloa," which echoed across the
+silent bay, but brought no other response.
+
+"Now, lass, look sharp and run up the brae, and call some of the men,
+or the tide will be in upon us.  And we 'll lose the wrack, too, for
+the matter of that.  Away you go in a moment," he added, sternly, as
+the child seemed reluctant to abandon what she held to be her peculiar
+charge.
+
+Elsie obeyed, and was fortunate enough, just as she was turning into
+the by-road that led to the shore, to run against George Hendrick.
+
+"What has scared you so, Elsie?" he said, kindly, as he stopped the
+headlong child; "are you in mischief, and running away from anybody?"
+
+"O Mr. Hendrick, we 've found a drowned lady on the shore, and I 'm
+running to tell the people; father's with her."
+
+"Where?" cried the reader, quickly.
+
+"In the sandy cove, where we get the sea-wrack."
+
+"Well, Elsie, you run on to McAuley's, and ask him to bring down some
+spirits in case she might be alive still; and lose no time--there's a
+good girl."
+
+So saying, Hendrick sprang over the low fence and hurried down the
+shore.  He soon saw through the dusk a tall figure bending over some
+object on the sand.  It rose as he approached, and he at once
+recognised McAravey.  The old man was singularly excited and
+flurried--far more so than when he had joined Elsie.
+
+"Thank God some one has come!" he cried; "and you 're the very man I 'd
+like to see."
+
+"Is she quite dead?" said Hendrick, kneeling beside the body.
+
+"Aye, dead enough and stiff," answered the old man; "but see, the tide
+is almost on us.  Let's fetch her up a bit.  I did not like to touch
+her till some one came."
+
+Between them they lifted the body into a place of safety, and then
+McAravey, whose agitation had not diminished, said, with affected
+indifference--
+
+"While we are waiting I 'll just drag up a wee lock of that weed; there
+is no use letting the tide fetch it away again."  So saying, he
+proceeded to lift in his arms the heaps that were nearest the sea, and
+to place them beyond the high-water line.
+
+Meanwhile Hendrick had been examining the features of the dead woman,
+and was startled to recognise one with whom he had conversed only the
+day before.  This was the only important point brought out at the
+inquest, which took place in a couple of days.  Hendrick deposed to
+having met a woman dressed like the deceased, as far as he could judge,
+walking on the cliffs past Fair Head.  She had asked him about a short
+cut to Tor Bay by a rocky path which led abruptly down to the shore,
+and which, she said, she half-remembered.  He had warned her that the
+way was a dangerous one, especially in bad weather.  She had laughed,
+and said she had once been down the Grey Man's Path, and had known the
+coast well in childhood.  She had not told him her business in Tor Bay,
+but had said they might, perhaps, meet there.  Had anything else
+passed?  Yes, he had given her a little tract, as she seemed anxious
+and troubled.  Anything else?  No, except that when parting she had
+asked him the correct time in order to set her watch.  Did Hendrick see
+the watch?  No, but he thought she wore a chain, and was certain she
+had spoken of setting her watch, which she said had gone down.  This
+matter excited some interest, because, though the tract given by
+Hendrick was found in the pocket of the dress, no watch or chain could
+be discovered.  Had the unfortunate woman been robbed, and then thrown
+into the sea?  Or had the watch and chain been stolen by Mike or the
+children, who first found the body?  Or might they not easily have been
+lost from the body that had been so long tossed by the waves?  Elsie's
+examination did not tend to clear her of suspicion.  Her answers to the
+preliminary questions as to "the nature of an oath" were somewhat
+flippant and unsatisfactory.  As to the chain, she first spoke
+positively of having seen it, then hesitatingly, ending by saying she
+was frightened and knew nothing about it.
+
+McAravey swore positively that he had seen no gold chain, and therefore
+had not taken one.  Though an ugly suspicion was thus created, no
+further steps could be taken, Hendrick declining to vouch for more than
+an "impression" that the deceased wore a chain.  Evidence of identity
+there was none.  The linen was marked "E. D," and the mourning ring,
+which guarded a plain gold one, had merely the words, "In memory, H.
+D., 186--."  The only further evidence was that of a public car-driver
+between Cushendall and Ballycastle, who deposed to having had a
+passenger who corresponded to the description of the dead woman.  She
+had no luggage, and walked away when the car stopped.  A woman was also
+found who had given deceased a night's lodging.  She said she had
+seemed excited and somewhat flighty--was restless at night, and started
+off early, having paid a shilling for her lodging and breakfast.  This
+last witness added to the confusion by saying she saw no chain, and did
+not believe her lodger had a watch, since she had several times asked
+her the hour, and had annoyed her into saying she ought to have a watch
+of her own.  This witness's "impression" was that deceased had replied,
+"I wish I had, and I wouldn't trouble you."  This was absolutely all
+that could be ascertained.  And accordingly the dead woman was buried
+by the Rev. Cooper Smith, in Rossleigh graveyard, which she had told
+Hendrick she had known well in her childhood.  All the neighbourhood
+flocked to the funeral, and even Michael McAravey was for the first
+time in his life seen inside the doors of a Protestant church.  The old
+man seemed much cut up, probably owing to the doubts cast on his
+honesty.  So sad was the fate of the unknown wanderer, and so great the
+interest excited, that it was determined to record the mysterious event
+in a simple headstone, erected by subscription.  To the surprise of
+everybody, McAravey, who had never been known to trouble himself about
+any one else's affairs, or to give away a shilling, took the matter up
+warmly, and himself subscribed fifteen shillings, which he paid in
+three instalments.  The stone was erected, bearing this inscription:--
+
+"In Memory"
+
+OF MRS. E. D. (NAME UNKNOWN),
+
+FOUND DROWNED NEAR TOR POINT
+
+_On the 13th of March, 186--_.
+
+This Stone is Erected by Subscription.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+The events narrated in the last chapter were not without lasting
+effects on most of the persons immediately concerned in them.  Michael
+McAravey was an altered man.  His proud reserve seemed changing into
+petulant self-vindication.  He began to look fully his age, and, like
+many other men of so-called iron constitution, when his strength began
+to give way it collapsed at once.  He also conceived a violent
+antipathy to George Hendrick.  The children were forbidden to attend
+the class, which had now been resumed; and although they came twice
+surreptitiously, Mr. Hendrick was no sooner aware of this than he felt
+obliged to tell them that their first duty was obedience to their
+guardians.  It was a hard parting both for teacher and pupils.  It cost
+George Hendrick no slight effort to dismiss his two favourite scholars,
+nor could he at once see his duty plain in the matter.  As for the
+children they were broken-hearted and rebellious; but the quiet,
+sympathetic tenderness of their friend at length reconciled them to
+their lot.  Except on this point, McAravey was far more considerate
+with the children than formerly.  He was now a good deal in the house,
+having become very asthmatic, and often shielded Elsie and Jim from
+Mrs. McAravey's harsh tongue.
+
+The effect of what they had gone through was no less evident in the
+children, though they were very differently affected.  Jim never
+recovered the panic of that March day.  Nothing could induce him to go
+near the shore alone, and the very sight of the sea excited the lad.
+It was otherwise with Elsie.  That solitary interview with the dead had
+sobered her.  The dead woman's face was seldom absent from her
+thoughts.  Elsie had grown to love it, and to regard it as something
+mysterious and superhuman.  She had never before seen so refined and
+beautiful a countenance; and there was something in the rigid aspect of
+death that quieted and awed, while it did not the least terrify the
+child.  As the months went by, and the actual event began to fade in
+the distance, the pale sweet face, with the dripping brown hair drawn
+back from it, became more and more of an ideal for veneration and love.
+Thus, while Jim could never be induced to pass near the sandy cove
+alone, Elsie ceased to have any special association with the actual
+scene of the occurrence.  But in her moments of passion or heedlessness
+she ever saw before her the dead face--kind, but so calm and firm, that
+it repressed in an instant her most impetuous outbursts.
+
+As the autumn drew on it became evident that Michael McAravey was
+dying.  That he knew it himself was gathered from the fact that more
+than once, during the summer, he had walked over to Ballycastle to
+attend Mass.  There seemed a weight on the old man's mind, which he was
+unable or unwilling to shake off.  'Lisbeth, who for years had suffered
+severely from "rheumatics," and who had made up her mind that she was
+to die before the "old man," was but an indifferent nurse.  Elsie,
+however, more than took her place.  Michael had become much attached to
+the child, and as he daily grew weaker he came to look to her for
+everything.
+
+"Ye 'r a brave wee lass, Elsie," he used to say, "and I doubt I 've not
+been over kind to ye, but I can't do without ye now."
+
+One gloomy September afternoon, when the blustering winds were again
+celebrating the return of the equinox, Michael, who had been sleeping
+heavily all day, suddenly started up and astonished his wife by an
+eager request that she would send at once for George Hendrick and
+Father Donnelly.
+
+"I doubt you 're raving, Mike, to send for such a pair.  What do you
+want with either, not to say both?  Nice company they 'd be for each
+other."
+
+"I tell you I'm dying, and I must see them both," cried her husband,
+rising, gaunt and excited, in the bed.  "I say, Elsie," he continued,
+"this is Wednesday; run down and see can you find Mr. Hendrick anywhere
+about."
+
+Elsie departed at once, while 'Lisbeth tried to soothe the invalid,
+muttering all the time, however, her scorn of "Readers" and hatred of
+"Papish priests."
+
+George Hendrick was easily found, and in a few minutes was sitting by
+the old man's side, soothing him with simple, kindly words, and waiting
+for an opening through which to approach the inner man.
+
+"I 've not treated you fair, my mon, and I didn't wish to die without
+tellin' you so.  Besides, there 's a thing or two I 've been thinkin'
+long to speak about, and now the time's come.  I 've sent for Father
+Donnelly."
+
+"It's far to send and long to wait, Mike; do you not think we can do as
+well without him?" asked the reader.
+
+"I've not sent for him, and ye may be sure I 'll have none o' your
+Papish priests coomin' about the house, leastways whiles I 'm in it,"
+interrupted Mrs. McAravey.
+
+"Then you 'd better get out of it," said the old man; "I never
+interfered with you and your Ranters and Covenanters, and I don't mean
+to be interfered with.  I tell ye, George Hendrick, I'll die in the
+Church of my fathers, even if I 'm----"
+
+"Hush!" cried Hendrick, putting his hand to the excited man's mouth;
+"we 'll send for the priest if you wish.  God forbid that I should
+stand between you.  Young Jim McAuley is going over to Ballycastle, and
+will take a message if Elsie gives it him; but he can't be here for
+three or four hours at least, so let us be quiet a wee bit now.  You
+said you wanted to see me, Mike; and perhaps while we are waiting you
+'d like to hear the message of God out of His own book--you needn't
+wait to send to Ballycastle for it."
+
+"You may read a bit if ye like," responded McAravey, leaning back on
+the bed, quite satisfied now that the priest had been sent for; "only
+no controversy; it's not fit for a dyin' man--or for any man, for the
+matter o' that."
+
+"No controversy!" said Hendrick, smiling; "well, will this suit you?
+'_Without controversy_ great is the mystery of godliness.  God was
+manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels,
+preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into
+glory.'  Do you believe that, Mike?"
+
+"Aye, aye; it's wonderful to think on," murmured the dying man, in his
+deep, solemn voice.  "I doubt I 've been a bit hard sometimes, but I
+'ve always been honest and paid my way."  Then after a pause, "Ye may
+go on with your readin'; I 'm no ways prejudiced.  I think Prodestan
+and Catholic is pretty much alike with God."
+
+"Aye, Mike, alike in this, that '_all_ have sinned and come short of
+the glory of God.'  None of us can stand before Him as we are; but
+remember what Paul says again, there could be no disputing about, 'This
+is a true saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came
+into the world to save sinners.'"
+
+"I believe that," said McAravey; "but now I 'd like to sleep a bit;
+only don't go away, for if the priest don't come in time, I must
+confess to you, George.  Ye won't object to hear me and give me
+absolution, will you?" he added with an effort to smile.
+
+"I won't leave you, Mike, and I'll hear what you have to say; and as
+for absolution, I 'll try to point you to the great Absolver--our
+Advocate with the Father--who is the propitiation for our sins."
+
+It was after ten o'clock when Father Donnelly arrived.  After a short
+private interview with the patient, Hendrick was summoned to the room.
+
+"There is a part of my confession," said the old man, "which, by your
+leave, father, I 'd like my friend to hear--it will save us the time of
+going over the same bit twice."
+
+The priest nodded silently, not, however, looking very pleased at the
+somewhat light tone in which McAravey spoke.
+
+"It's about the two children, and the poor creature that was found by
+them on the sands last spring.  It's been heavy on my mind this long
+time, and I can't go out of the world without explaining all I know
+about the story.  And now to begin at the beginning.  It's just about
+seven years ago, and a couple before we came here, that the children
+came to us.  We were very hard-up at that time, and 'Lisbeth and I were
+down in heart about loosin' our own wains, when one day I was in the
+market at Ballymena, and there I met James Kinley.  He asked me, would
+the missus like to make a trifle by taking charge of a couple of
+children?  I said I thought she might, and so he brought me to the
+hotel, and I saw a young woman as said she and her husband were going
+abroad, and wished to leave the two little ones with some respectable
+person in the glens.  Well, I saw her a second time, and then it was
+all settled.  She gave us 20 pounds down, and said she would write.  I
+didn't like to ask questions, thinking, perhaps, it wasn't all on the
+square about the bairns, and so I'm not sure I ever even knew the name
+rightly--it was Davis, or Davison, or Dawson, or something that way.
+Tom Kinley knew all about the parties, and so I did not trouble.  And
+then when he went to America there was no one to inquire of.  Well, we
+had one letter about a year after, from some place in Inja, I think,
+and in it they said they was going further, and mightn't be able to
+write for some time.  There was a directed envelope inside, and I sent
+off a few lines to say the wains was well.  After that we never heard
+more, and we always thought the father and mother had got killed in the
+strange parts they went to.  So we never told the young 'uns anything,
+but determined to make the best shift we could for them.  Then came the
+day they found the body, and this is where my sore trouble began.
+After Elsie left me, I was still lookin' at the poor dead thing, when
+it come on me like a dream that I had seen the face before.  At first I
+couldn't think where it was, and then I remembered the lady Kinley had
+brought me to see in Ballymena.  I stooped down to look at her, and
+then I noticed the chain round her neck.  There was no watch on it, but
+a sort of wee case that opened, and inside there was a picture and a
+wee bit o' paper folded.  You may be sure Mike McAravey had no thought
+of stealing; but when I saw some one comin', I said to myself, 'These
+things belong to the wains, and if I leave 'em here they 'll not get
+'em unless I tell all I knows.'  And my heart bled to think of the
+children hearing the first of their mother, when they saw her lying
+dead.  So I slipt the chain and case into my pocket, just as George
+Hendrick came up.  Ye remember, perhaps, I was so confused-like I
+didn't know what I was doing.  Maybe ye thought I was scared.  Then,
+when we brought up the body, I went and put the chain under the big
+heap o' sea-weed.  When all the fuss was made at the inquest, I was
+sorry I had hid the things, but I daren't tell then.  And mind ye,
+Father Donnelly, I told no lie, for there was no watch, and the chain
+wasn't gold at all, but an old-fashioned silver affair.  Even so it was
+a weight on me, so I thought the best thing I could do was to sell it,
+and they gave me fifteen shillings in Coleraine.  And that's how I got
+the first money for the monument.  The wee case--a locket, I believe,
+they call it--I 've kept yet.  It's made up in a parcel in the corner
+of the wee box under the bed.  And now that's all I 've to say; but I
+knows this affair, and the way the folk has doubted me has been the
+cause of my breaking up.  And there 's poor Elsie--I believe she swore
+she didn't see the chain just to keep me out of trouble, and that cut
+me most of all to be the means o' bringin' the poor innocent lass to
+tell a lie."
+
+"I'm sorry you did not tell me all this before," said George Hendrick,
+his eyes filling with tears as he gazed on the stern, deep-lined face
+of the old man; "it might all have been explained."
+
+"I'm sorry too, and often thought to do it; but you see I took a
+dislike to you, because your mentioning about the watch--when after all
+there was no watch--was the cause of my trouble."
+
+"And now you see, Mike," said the priest, "the evil results of not
+coming to confession; I 've often warned you."
+
+"So you have, Father Donnelly, and it's no fault o' yours if I haven't
+been a better Catholic; but I 'm punished now, so let us forget the
+past."
+
+"Aye," said the priest, "you have suffered for your fault; and now
+wouldn't you like to receive the last rites, in case anything might
+happen before I come again?"
+
+It was not too soon, for when daylight dawned the proud, restless
+spirit had taken flight.  Long after the priest had left, Hendrick had
+sat, Bible in hand, pointing the dying sinner to the Great High Priest
+of our profession; and when the struggle was over he started home
+across the moors in the bleak morning, cheered and thankful in heart,
+believing that his labours that night had "not been in vain in the
+Lord."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+Michael McAravey's death made a considerable difference in the position
+of his family.  His widow was unable to retain and work the land; and
+though she obtained a considerable sum by way of tenant-right from
+McAuley, to whose farm the little patch was now united, she yet found
+herself in very straitened circumstances, especially as she regarded
+spending her principal as almost a sin.  It was a bitter struggle, and,
+yet by degrees there crept into her heart a degree of peace and
+contentment such as she had never known before.  Both she and Elsie had
+been deeply affected by the earnest and simple appeals of the
+Scripture-reader during that last sad night of watching by the bed of
+death.  The more so, in all probability, in that the words were not
+addressed directly to them, so that there was none of that irritation
+which often results when one feels himself being "preached at."
+Hendrick was now a weekly visitor at Mrs. McAravey's cottage, and he
+had at length the gratification of seeing, in this one home at least,
+the results of his long-continued and faithful labours.  At his
+suggestion, Jim, who, especially after the old man's death, could be
+made nothing of at home, was sent to a distant relative in Coleraine,
+where he had an opportunity of pursuing his studies at the Model
+School, with a view to entering some sort of business.  This was almost
+the only object for which Mrs. McAravey would permit a portion of her
+small capital to be touched.  For the rest, she and Elsie struggled on
+almost in poverty, but helped and, as far as possible, kept in work by
+the kindness of the neighbours.  In some mysterious way the substance
+of McAravey's confession had become public property, and it was known
+and suspected by everybody but herself that something had come out to
+identify the drowned woman as Elsie's mother.  Thus the child found
+herself, she knew not why, an object of interest to every member of the
+little community.  And the remembrance of the dead woman was really
+like that of a mother to her.  As Mrs. McAravey grew rapidly aged,
+Elsie acquired the habit of calling her "gran;" while the feelings of
+tenderness and sympathy that had been first roused in her by the sight
+of that poor soiled dead face, with the hair and sea-weed dashed across
+it, were cherished and sanctified by the daily call made on them in
+consequence of the old woman's increasing infirmities.  The child had
+even come, strangely enough, to think of and speak to the object of her
+dreams as "mother."  Was it an accident?  Was it an instinct?  Was it
+the result of some overheard expressions which, passing through her
+consciousness unnoticed, had yet made a lasting impression on the brain
+of the imaginative child?  Or was it a providential suggestion sent by
+an all-pitying Father to this desolate and wandering lamb?
+
+Thus time slipped by uneventfully, as far as external circumstances
+were concerned, but not purposelessly.  The hard lot of the poor
+suffering old woman was being lighted, and her spirit trained for that
+eternity which was now growing large upon her vision, as earthly
+affairs shrank into a smaller compass.  Elsie, too, who had never yet
+crossed the hill that seemed to meet the sky at the top of the glen,
+was learning lessons of perseverance and patient endurance, which would
+not be lost upon her, whatever the future of the child might be.  Jim
+was seldom at home, and, alas! but little of the old childish
+attachment survived.  The boy was ambitious, business-like, and
+plodding.  His heart was in the town, and he seemed to retain no
+affection for the associations of his childhood: some of them were
+absolutely abhorrent to him.  George Hendrick was profoundly
+disappointed in the lad.  Not that a word could be said against his
+character.  He was steady, diligent, and submissive.  And when he was
+placed in a position where he could earn something, he never failed to
+send what he could to the old woman who had sacrificed so much to bring
+him on.  But there seemed a total absence of feeling or religious
+sentiment about the lad.  If he was sober and steady, it was merely
+because he scorned the weakness and waste consequent upon dissipation.
+He was pushing and ambitious, well spoken of and respected, but his old
+teacher failed not to see that all his thoughts were "of the earth,
+earthy."
+
+When she was nearly fifteen (as far as her ago was known) a new world
+was opened up for Elsie.  The rector's family were now growing up, and
+he was blest enough to find in his children, not a hindrance, but the
+greatest comfort and assistance in his arduous and often cheerless
+work.  Miss Smith and her sister Louisa had recently taken the musical
+arrangements of the church in hand, and not before it was needed, were
+now busying themselves to select and train a rustic choir.  The fame of
+Elsie's vocal abilities had been brought to Rossleigh Rectory by
+Hendrick, and so one day Mrs. McAravey was surprised by a visit from
+two bright, fresh young girls.  In her reception of them you could not
+recognise the hard, rude woman who had so sorely repulsed their father
+on his first visit to the glen.
+
+"Mr. Hendrick has been telling us about you and Elsie," began Miss
+Smith, "and we have only been waiting for the moors to be tolerably dry
+to come over and see you.  Now we 've once got here, I hope we shall be
+good friends."
+
+"Thank ye, miss; thank ye kindly.  I shall be glad to see ye, and I
+hope ye won't be strangers.  It's not often any one passes this way,
+and I often think very long when Elsie's out."
+
+"We hear Elsie has a very good voice, and we want to know whether she
+could not manage to come over and sing in the choir, in summer-time at
+least."
+
+"Aye, the lass has a good voice enough, and a good heart too, God bless
+her!  She 'll sing her hymns to me here half the night when I'm kept
+awake with the pain.  But, begging your pardon, young ladies, I don't
+care much for these new-fangled hymns; it's the good old psalms that I
+like--them's the Lord's work and not man's.  And, as for Elsie singing
+in the church, it's very kind of you to think of her; but it 'a a long
+road, or rather no road at all.  But here 's the lass, and she 'll
+speak for hersel'."
+
+At this moment Elsie entered the cottage, and was delighted at the
+invitation, for which, it may be told, George Hendrick had already
+prepared her.  "But how could she leave poor gran?"  The old woman
+thought this could be managed if she was only wanted for the morning.
+And so it was finally settled that Elsie should, on fine Sundays, walk
+over to Rossleigh in time for the half-past eleven service, remaining
+for dinner at the rectory, in order that she might attend the afternoon
+Sunday-school, and thence return to Tor Bay at about four in the
+afternoon.  To all this Mrs. McAravey assented, though probably the
+three young girls had no conception of the sacrifice it was to the
+invalid thus to consent to her being left alone from ten o'clock of a
+Sunday morning till nearly five.
+
+Elsie soon became a favourite at the rectory.  Young and enthusiastic,
+she thought nothing of the four miles' walk across the rough moorland;
+nor did it ever occur either to her or Mrs. McAravey that, in partaking
+of the rector's hospitality, she was profiting by the delicate sympathy
+of the girls for their hard-worked and ill-fed _protegee_.
+
+Mrs. Cooper Smith was much interested in Elsie, and offered to procure
+her a situation, or to take her into her own house as maid for the
+younger children.  But Elsie, who thankfully received every other
+favour, and availed herself of every opportunity for improving herself,
+steadily declined to leave poor Mrs. McAravey.  The family at the
+rectory could not but approve this resolve, and so for the time nothing
+further was said on the subject.
+
+The rector had now established a monthly service at Tor Bay, over which
+he himself presided.  This service, as well as the Scripture-reader's
+classes, was held in Mrs. McAravey's cottage, for which accommodation
+the old woman was almost compelled to accept a consideration that went
+far towards paying her rent.  Elsie, from having been the chief care,
+had now become the invaluable assistant of the reader.  The population
+of the neighbourhood had been recently augmented by the advent of a
+number of miners, engaged in opening up the numerous streaks of iron
+ore that have of recent years begun to be worked in the Antrim glens.
+Elsie, who had long since overcome her prejudice against the arts of
+reading and writing, was now quite competent to act as Mr. Hendrick's
+assistant, or even as his substitute.  For this help, too, she was,
+after a time, induced to accept a trifling remuneration.
+
+So had the good providence of God opened out a way for this poor
+parentless child, that at the age of sixteen or seventeen she found
+herself in a position of usefulness and importance that was pleasing to
+her.  A homely night-school had been established on four evenings of
+the week, of which Elsie was the recognised and paid mistress.  Her old
+and trusty friend George Hendrick came over as of yore on Wednesdays,
+and also on Fridays when no school was held, the evening being occupied
+by the service, and singing practice which followed.
+
+Elsie's pure and sweet example, and bright and playful manner, were of
+priceless value among the somewhat rough and careless mining population
+which had now been settled on the moors about the headlands.
+
+The girl was happy in herself, and therefore failed not to inspire
+others with something of the innocent sunshine of her own nature.  She
+still was haunted by the dear, dead face of her whom she had learned to
+love as a sort of angelic mother.  But she had learnt a better faith
+than that of hero-worship, and had come to look to another Presence,
+that was human and yet divinely glorious, for guidance, sympathy, and
+direction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Thus matters continued for two years.  Elsie was now a grown young
+woman, and her school was regularly established.  Her's was a happy and
+contented time--
+
+  "Never feeling of unrest
+    Broke the pleasant dream she dreamed.
+  Only made to be her nest
+    All that lovely valley seemed,
+  No desire of soaring higher
+    Stirred or flattered in her breast."
+
+Even had she desired to move, the presence of Mrs. McAravey would have
+rendered it impossible.  Though much softened and improved, the old
+woman had scarcely become an agreeable companion.  The hard,
+Covenanting leaven had moulded her from childhood, and though of late
+years she had been touched by a gentler spirit, it was impossible that
+habits of a lifetime should be entirely eradicated.  She suffered much
+pain, borne for the most part uncomplainingly, and was now nearly
+helpless.  Elsie was not the sort of person to think herself a martyr.
+Indeed, it never occurred to her that, in thus watching and consoling
+the declining years of this poor, decrepid old body, she was even
+performing a noble, and at times fatiguing and painful, duty.  She took
+it all as a matter of course.  It came to her in the order of
+Providence, and formed an element and feature in the state of life to
+which it had pleased God to call her, and in which she had resolved by
+the Divine blessing to do her duty.
+
+Thus matters might long have held their quiet course had it not been
+for Jim.  As it has been said, he was very different in disposition
+from Elsie.  Restless, eager, and full of curiosity, he could not
+understand her placid yet cheerful nature.  He knew not the secret of
+her inner life, and of the way in which that life animated and directed
+the outer.  The young man saw less and less of Tor Glen, having now
+obtained a good situation in a flax store at Ballymena.
+
+Some little time previous Elsie and Jim had both been confirmed; and
+since that event the Rev. Cooper Smith and George Hendrick had had
+several consultations with regard to them.  They were very unwilling to
+disturb the minds of the young people, nor had they anything definite
+to impart; yet it did not seem right to keep them in ignorance of what
+was known or suspected as to their parentage.  Jim, moreover, had
+displayed a good deal of curiosity on the subject, and had questioned
+Hendrick as to the meaning of the reports that had come to his ever
+open ears about old McAravey's knowledge of the drowned woman.
+
+At length it was resolved that Elsie and Jim should be invited to the
+rectory on a Saturday afternoon, and the whole matter fully explained.
+All being assembled on the day named, the rector briefly repeated what
+McAravey had said on his death-bed, as it had been told to him by
+Hendrick.  It appeared that before the old man's death the locket had
+been brought out from its place of concealment, and, in presence of the
+priest, handed over to Hendrick, who had next day brought it to the
+rector.  Upon investigation the locket had been found to contain the
+portrait of a man, and also a small folded piece of paper.  The face
+was intelligent and powerful, but by no means pleasing.  The eyes were
+eager and piercing, the lines about the mouth firm and deep-cut; the
+features in general somewhat coarse, and plainly those of a man in the
+lower walks of life, and one accustomed to hard toil both of mind and
+body.  The paper had proved to be the pawn ticket of a watch pledged in
+Belfast for the sum of one pound, the name upon it being Henderson.
+Mr. Smith had redeemed the watch, which now lay before him with the
+locket on the table.
+
+"You see, Elsie," he said, turning to the girl, whose eyes were full of
+tears, "we have but slight evidence to show either that this is your
+father's portrait, or that the poor creature who came to so untimely an
+end was your mother.  It is curious that the name on the ticket is
+Henderson, while McAravey said the person who brought you and Jim to
+him was called Davison or Davis, or something like that.  Of course it
+is quite possible the poor creature did not like to give her right name
+at a pawn office.  What do you think?"
+
+"I have always felt as if she was my mother," said Elsie; "and I should
+be glad if it turned out so.  It seems very probable."
+
+"I'm sure this rough-looking fellow is no father of mine," cried Jim,
+who had been sadly disappointed at the unromantic character of the
+revelation; "but I'll find out the secret of this matter yet.
+Meantime, I suppose, sir, the watch is mine.  Elsie may take the
+locket."
+
+"Don't you think you are somewhat precipitate, Jim?" said the rector,
+smiling.  "This is just one of the points Mr. Hendrick and I have been
+considering.  Of course it is just possible that some day the poor
+drowned woman may be identified, and turn out to have no connection
+with you at all.  But I am inclined to think she was your mother, and
+that that accounts for her coming to Tor Bay.  We have thought it only
+right, therefore, that you and Elsie should have the locket and watch,
+for the present at least.  As for the division, you must arrange that
+between you."
+
+"I think I ought to have the watch, as I said, sir, and Elsie the
+locket."
+
+"Well, perhaps that is the most suitable division," said the rector,
+coldly; "but I don't think you are quite consistent in claiming the
+watch so eagerly, and at the same time scorning the miniature, since,
+in all probability, if the watch belonged to your mother, the likeness
+is that of your father."
+
+"As such I at least shall be glad to keep it," said Elsie.
+
+Jim was somewhat crestfallen at the rector's rebuke, but merely added,
+with some pomposity--
+
+"Now that I have been informed of the circumstances, I shall probably,
+by the aid of this watch, be able to unravel the mystery of my
+parentage."
+
+He meant it merely as a piece of brag to cover his retreat, and as such
+the rector and Hendrick took it, receiving his words with a quiet smile.
+
+"I consider that Mr. Smith has acted very wrongly in keeping these
+things from us so long," commenced the young man, as he and Elsie
+walked home together after ac early dinner at the rectory.
+
+"O Jim! how can you say so?  Mr. Smith could have had no motive but
+consideration for our feelings."
+
+"I say nothing against his motives, only that I think he acted wrongly.
+Valuable time has been lost; but clergymen are never good men of
+business, and Scripture-readers are like them, I suppose."
+
+"Jim, I don't like to hear you speak like that; it's ungrateful.  And
+what you mean by valuable time I can't conceive."
+
+"I dare say you don't understand the value of time, leading the sort of
+life you do in a place where nobody ever knows the hour," said the
+youth, superciliously, as he glanced at his newly-acquired treasure;
+"but of course I mean time has been lost in investigating our family
+history."
+
+"I'm quite content to be as I am," said Elsie.  "If the history was
+known, it would probably be neither important nor interesting.  I don't
+see how the watch will help you, Jim; and you know you won't have the
+likeness."
+
+And she looked into the lad's face with her merry brown eyes.  But Jim
+was on his high horse, and merely replied--
+
+"I cannot say what I shall do all at once, but the matter shall be
+looked into at an early date."
+
+Elsie smiled, as the rector and Scripture-reader had done--not visibly,
+indeed, as they had, yet Jim somehow felt he was being laughed at,
+which made him angry.
+
+"He is a smart lad that, but I don't like him," said the rector, as he
+and Hendrick watched Elsie and Jim going down the avenue.  "He wants to
+be a fine gentleman, and is ashamed of his father's portrait--an
+ill-looking fellow enough, it must be admitted."
+
+"Aye, I didn't like that," said Hendrick; "but he is a steady boy, and
+may do well when the conceit has been taken out of him a wee bit."
+
+"If only a 'wee bit' is taken, there will be what the people call a
+good little wee lock left.  But I sincerely hope, for his own sake,
+that his pride will be taken out of him.  He is insufferable."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+For the present, at least, Jim was elated with a pardonable pride in
+his watch, and, after the manner of youths thus recently set up, he
+looked at it again and again during his walk next morning across the
+headlands to Ballycastle, where he had to catch the Ballymoney car,
+thence to proceed to Ballymena by train.  Ho was looking at his watch
+for the hundredth time, and half smiling to himself at his rash and
+boastful words as to making it the means of discovering his family
+history, when a sudden thought occurred to him.  He looked long and
+eagerly at the watch, while his pale face flushed up.  "I have it," he
+muttered; "and if I'm right, I shall take down the minister a bit."
+
+It was a long, tedious journey by foot and car and rail that lay before
+him, and his patience was almost exhausted when he reached his
+destination.  Once arrived, he immediately sat down to write in his
+humble lodgings.  The watch bore the name of the maker, "John Turnwell,
+Leeds, 7002."  Was it not possible that a record had been preserved,
+stating when and to whom the watch had been sold.  Ho did not know
+whether such was the practice, but at all events he would inquire.  A
+brief note was soon written and left ready for the morning mail; then
+the tired and excited lad went to bed, and dreamed of a beautiful lady
+who said she was his mother, and that his father was a lord, and had
+been murdered by the repulsive-looking man in the locket; and then a
+carriage and pair came thundering up to his lodgings, and his employer
+stood in the hall as he passed down, and congratulated him, and called
+him "my lord."  Then he thought he saw the man in the locket looking at
+him with hard, cold mouth, and then the face grew smaller till it
+shrunk into the locket, and it was open on the breast of the dead woman
+as she lay on the sands; and he saw himself and Elsie standing by the
+body.  In a moment he passed into the little figure, and felt himself
+turning to call Mike McAravey, as he had done so long ago.  The horror
+of that last vision awoke him.  It was late, and he had only time to
+get his letter posted and to hurry to his office.
+
+But Jim could not rest, till in the course of a few days a letter
+arrived with the Leeds post-mark.  He trembled as he took it in his
+hand, and then as he read a flush mantled up his face, and he burst
+into a laugh as he saluted himself in the cheap mirror that adorned the
+mantelpiece--
+
+"Aw, mi lord!  Glad to make your lordship's acquaintance!"
+
+The note ran thus:--
+
+
+"WATCH AND CLOCK FACTORY, LEEDS,
+
+"August 19, 187--.
+
+"SIR,--In reply to your favour of the 16th inst. we beg to say that we
+always keep a register of all watches made or sold by us.
+
+"No. 7002, an English lever made by ourselves, appears to have been
+purchased by Lady Waterham, of Burnham Park, in this neighbourhood, on
+the 21st of October, 185--.
+
+"We should advise you to communicate at once with her ladyship, who is
+now at home.
+
+"We remain, Sir, your obedient Servants,
+  "J. TURNWELL & Co.
+
+"Mr. J. McARAVEY,
+  "Market Street, Ballymena, Ireland."
+
+
+It was enough to turn the head of an ambitious boy.  Poor Jim, though
+generally cautious and reticent, could not contain himself, and, in
+strict confidence, revealed his coming splendour to one or two of his
+companions.  It was soon reported that Jim McAravey had come in for a
+fortune of 50,000 pounds, and was the son of a lord.  Even his
+employers seemed to treat him with new consideration, and, though
+annoyed that the affair had got so soon bruited about, he could not
+feel angry when he saw himself pointed at in the street, and half
+jokingly spoken of as "my lord" by his fellow-clerks.
+
+[Illustration: Jim building castles-in-the-air.]
+
+Jim's first step was to write a somewhat haughty letter to the Rev.
+Cooper Smith, and an excessively gushing and almost affectionate one to
+Elsie.  Both letters were shown to George Hendrick, the consequence
+being that one afternoon on returning home Jim found the
+Scripture-reader awaiting him.  "The young lord" (as they called him)
+was about to offer a gracious but distant welcome, when Hendrick, who
+had heard the town talk, anticipated him by exclaiming--
+
+"Well, Jim, my boy, I'm afraid you have been making a rare fool of
+yourself!"
+
+"I would thank you to explain your language," said the young man with
+great hauteur.
+
+"There, don't be offended, lad," replied the reader, kindly; "I only
+meant it was a pity you let this thing get talked of before you had
+more certainty.  I needn't tell you, Jim, how glad we shall all be to
+hear of anything really to your advantage."
+
+"I'm not aware that the thing has been talked about.  I only mentioned
+it to one or two personal friends, with a view to obtaining their
+advice."
+
+"Your friends have not been discreet, then," said Hendrick; "why, Jim,
+the whole town is talking about you, and should this come to nothing,
+you will have made yourself ridiculous.  Had you no truer or older
+friends with whom you might have consulted?  I 'm sorry for this, Jim."
+
+"If you mean Mr. Smith and yourself, I must say you did not seem to
+take much interest in my welfare--and Elsie is not much better," he
+added, bitterly.  "Perhaps it will be different now."
+
+"Come, Jim, you don't believe a word of all that.  You know well who
+your truest friends are, though we don't always encourage all your
+notions.  But will you not let me see this famous letter?"
+
+Hendrick read the letter carefully, and then asked, "And what do you
+mean to do, Jim?"
+
+"Why of course go over to see her ladyship as soon as I can arrange
+matters here.  I shall speak to Messrs. Moore to-morrow, and see
+whether they can let me free at once--I should think under the
+circumstances they would."
+
+"My dear Jim," cried the reader, "are you mad?  You don't seriously
+mean to give up, or run the risk of losing, your situation for what may
+after all prove a wild goose chase?"
+
+This was just what Jim had contemplated, and it was not without
+difficulty that good George Hendrick brought him to a sounder judgment.
+Unlike Jim's youthful friends, who, partly animated by love of mischief
+and partly by youth's natural hopefulness, had encouraged him to
+indulge the most glowing fancies, Hendrick showed him gently, but
+plainly, how fragile was the foundation on which he had been building.
+The watch might have been stolen, or lost, or given away.  There might
+turn out to be no direct or traceable connection between Lady Waterham
+and the unknown woman whose property it had been.  Jim was not shaken
+in his own private conviction (strengthened as it had been by his
+dream), but he was too hard-headed not to admit the reasonableness of
+Mr. Hendrick's arguments; and the more he heard of the tales that had
+been circulated, the more deeply he regretted his pride and misplaced
+confidence.  He finally made no objection to Hendrick's proposal that
+the matter should be left in the hands of the Rev. Cooper Smith, who
+was going to England in the course of ten days, and was willing to make
+a slight detour to Leeds.  So it was settled.  The watch and locket
+were entrusted to the rector, who promised to see the watchmaker and
+Lady Waterham.
+
+"You seem more annoyed than anything else," said Jim crossly to Elsie,
+when the final arrangements were being made in the rectory study.
+
+"I cannot say I am pleased," replied the girl.  "I fear lest you should
+be disappointed, Jim; and, on the other hand, I don't want to be
+anything but what I am.  I have not been brought up a lady, and to find
+that I had been born one would be no pleasure.  If you could be a lord,
+Jim, without affecting me, it would be all right."
+
+"Why, Elsie, you have no ambition."
+
+"None to be put in a false position, which I could not rightly fill."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+"What a solemn and mysterious communication," said Lady Waterham,
+laughing, as she handed a letter across the breakfast table to her
+husband.
+
+"Pooh! my dear, it is some Irish beggar; you had better not see him,"
+said his lordship as he rose from the table.
+
+"O scarcely--it would be too impertinent."
+
+The letter ran as follows:--
+
+
+"The Rev. Cooper Gore Smith presents his compliments to Lady Waterham,
+and trusts that she will find it convenient to receive him on Tuesday
+morning at about eleven o'clock, when he hopes to have the honour of
+waiting on her ladyship.
+
+"The Rev. Cooper Gore Smith's reasons for troubling Lady Waterham can
+scarcely be explained in a letter.  Suffice it that the affair on which
+he is engaged is of considerable importance to those chiefly concerned,
+and may even prove not to be without interest for her ladyship.
+
+"_Railway Hotel, Leeds,_
+  "Sept. 3, 187--."
+
+
+This the worthy man flattered himself was in his best style.  He was
+considerably puffed up by the importance of his mission, and, although
+he had the wisdom to keep them secret, his aspirations were nearly as
+far-reaching as those of Jim himself.  To have been the friend and
+patron of two long-lost scions of nobility was an idea too romantic and
+agreeable not to be dwelt on, even though he reminded himself again and
+again that it had probably no foundation.  It was, therefore, with no
+little self-importance that the note was penned, and in a similar frame
+of mind he started for Burnham Park next morning.
+
+Lady Waterham was sitting in the morning-room with her two daughters
+when the clergyman was announced.
+
+Lady Eleanor and Lady Constance More were like each other, being both
+agreeable-looking, simple, and yet elegant.  They seemed about the same
+age, and were certainly past their first youth; still they looked
+bright and cheerful, and evidently troubled themselves but little about
+the advancing years.  Lady Waterham was somewhat frigid in her manner,
+and as she slightly rose and pointed Mr. Smith to a chair, he became
+conscious that he had forgotten the exact words in which he had
+intended to commence the conversation.  This led to a slight pause, but
+having plenty to say, he soon found a way to begin.
+
+"I have ventured to call on your ladyship about two young persons in
+whom I am deeply interested, and into whose parentage I am making
+inquiries.  The story is a romantic one, and will take some little time
+to relate----"  He was brought to a sudden pause by the cold, inquiring
+look of Lady Waterham.
+
+"But I ought to tell your ladyship how I come to call on you."
+
+"Thank you, sir," said her ladyship, drily--she was beginning to
+suspect that her husband had been right.
+
+"Well, the fact is," continued Mr. Smith, "the only clue to identity
+which we have is this watch, which it appears was purchased by you some
+twenty-three years ago at Mr. Turnwell's in Leeds."
+
+Her ladyship was not like her daughters, and scarcely quite relished
+being reminded of what happened twenty-three years ago.  She took the
+watch coldly, and, after looking at it a moment, said--
+
+"Really, sir, I think there must be some mistake.  I remember nothing
+about this watch.  I am sure it was never mine, nor have any of us lost
+a watch.  I am sorry you should have had so much trouble."
+
+"Excuse me, your ladyship, but it seems almost certain that the watch
+was bought on your account.  I have seen the entry in Messrs.
+Turnwell's books, from which this is a copy."
+
+"This is very strange," said Lady Waterham, as she read the memorandum.
+"L7 10s. it cost, I see."
+
+"When was it, mamma?" asked Lady Eleanor, looking up for the first time.
+
+"The 18th of April, 185--."
+
+"O mamma, I know!  It must be the watch we gave to dear Elsie before
+she was married.  You remember the marriage was in May, and that was
+the year I am sure.  I was just fourteen."
+
+"Fourteen and twenty-three are thirty-seven," said the Rev. Cooper
+Smith to himself, as he looked at the still fresh and eager face.
+
+"Poor dear Elsie! what has become of her?  Do you know her, sir?" she
+continued, turning to the clergyman.
+
+"The girl on whose behalf I am inquiring is called Elsie, and it seems
+probable she was your friend's daughter."
+
+"I must tell you, sir, who _our Elsie_ was," said her ladyship, who had
+caught and did not like the word "friend."  "She had been my maid; but
+we found her so conscientious, nice-mannered, and well-informed, that
+she almost occupied the position of nursery governess to the younger
+children.  We were all very much attached to her, and when she married
+we gave her a watch, which Lady Eleanor supposes must be the same as
+this.  The marriage was not a happy one, and we opposed it as long as
+we could.  After some time she went to India, and thence I think to
+China, with her husband.  For many years we have heard nothing of her,
+though I think we fancied we saw his name among those lost in a
+terrible shipwreck some years ago.  It was a sad story altogether.
+Poor Elsie!  Do you remember how anxious we used to be about her,
+girls?"
+
+"It was only the other day I was thinking of her, and wondering what
+had become of the little baby.  You know I was its god-mother, and she
+was called after me."
+
+"Yes, indeed, I had forgotten," said Lady Waterham; "but perhaps, sir,
+you would kindly tell us what you know about our former protegee."
+
+Mr. Smith told the sad tale with which our readers are acquainted as
+briefly as he could.  At the end there was a pause, and then her
+ladyship said--
+
+"Poor foolish girl!  She would not take my advice, and I foresaw that
+her end would not be happy."
+
+"Our poor dear Elsie!" said Lady Constance, her eyes overflowing.  "It
+was a sad day for her when she first saw that horrid man Damer; her
+head was quite turned afterwards."
+
+"At all events my baby godchild is living, and a credit to me
+apparently," said Lady Eleanor.
+
+"And the boy?" said the clergyman.
+
+There was a pause.  The Ladies Constance and Eleanor looked at each
+other, and then at their mother.
+
+"I have not mentioned the boy," said her ladyship; "but that is the
+most painful part of the subject.  He is not Elsie's brother at all;
+and what is worse, it was never exactly known who he was.  About four
+months after the marriage a poor woman came to the village.  She said
+her name was Damer, and inquired for Elsie's husband.  He was very much
+put out by her appearance, but at once took a lodging for her, where
+the poor thing had a baby, and died immediately after.  Damer said the
+woman was his only sister, and accordingly that he must take the child.
+At the time Elsie seemed to have no doubts, but every one else talked
+about it.  Some said the woman was his wife, and others--you can
+imagine what they said.  Shortly after that they left the
+neighbourhood, and we never saw Elsie again.  Her husband, I must tell
+you, was a mechanical engineer, and considered an excellent workman.
+He got a capital appointment in India after he left Leeds, and Elsie
+wrote to tell us she was going with him.  It was then I so strongly
+urged her to stay at home with the children; but she would not be
+guided, and merely wrote to say she had placed them with some people in
+the north of Ireland, where, I think, she came from herself."
+
+"I fancy," said Lady Eleanor, "I have some of her letters still.  You
+remember, mamma, they were imprisoned in China, with a number of other
+English people, for ever so long.  It was after they were released that
+we had the last letter (which I am sure I kept), saying that she was
+coming home.  We did not know at the time whether she meant _alone_ or
+not; and then when we saw Edgar Damer's name among the people lost in
+that vessel--I forget its name--we concluded that she must have gone on
+before."
+
+Thus piecing together the broken memories of the past, the morning went
+by.  The Rev. Cooper Smith stayed to luncheon, and in the course of
+conversation various confirmatory incidents came out.  The miniature in
+the locket was at once recognised, and it appeared that the locket
+itself had been the special gift of little Lady Eleanor.  A more
+careful comparison of dates proved quite satisfactory, showing, among
+other things, that the body had been found at Tor Bay just four months
+after the date of the letter which Lady Eleanor had succeeded in
+finding, and in which Elsie said she was to start in a few days, and
+would be nearly four months on the voyage.  "My first visit will be to
+the glens, and then I shall try to go over and see you.  I have so much
+to tell, and to ask your kind advice about.  I am unhappy and anxious,
+and feel somehow as if I would never see either my child or you, though
+I am writing about it.  It is so long since we have heard of anybody,
+we seem to have been dead, as it were."
+
+Having returned to his hotel, the clergyman made some brief notes of
+the story that had thus providentially been brought to light.  He did
+not know whether to feel pleasure or disappointment.  He was glad to
+have the mystery cleared up; glad, too, to find that Elsie had had so
+sweet a mother, and was likely to have such kind and liberal friends.
+Yet he could not but feel sorry for the collapse that was awaiting
+Jim's castle in the air.  It would be a bitter trial for him, and he
+knew not how Jim would bear it.  Mr. Smith was somewhat puzzled,
+moreover, what to do himself.  He had promised to write to the
+expectant Jim; but now he could not bring himself to do so.  His own
+holiday would not expire for a fortnight, and he was naturally
+reluctant to return home sooner than was necessary.  While debating
+what was best to be done, a telegram was put into his hand.  It was
+from the irrepressible and anxious Jim.  "Please telegraph results
+obtained immediately.  Reply paid for."  "The fool!" muttered Mr.
+Smith; and, yielding to a sudden irritation, he filled up the reply for
+which the boy was waiting:
+
+"All clear enough, but quite unsatisfactory as far as you are
+concerned."
+
+It was a cruel blow, and no sooner was it dealt than he was sorry for
+it.  He resolved to write to the poor lad, and, finding an invitation
+to dine at Burnham Park, which had first to be accepted, he sat down,
+well pleased with himself and all the world.  The letter to Jim was
+kindly.  The whole truth was not told, but it was announced that Jim
+and Elsie were no connections of the Waterham family.  All else was
+reserved for verbal explanation.
+
+The dinner at Burnham was pleasant enough.  The earl was affable, and
+after dinner had several reminiscences of that "clever dog Damer" to
+tell, which did not raise his character in the clergyman's estimation.
+When about to leave, Lady Eleanor handed him a note for Elsie, adding--
+
+"I do wish so she would come over and see us!  Of course I should
+gladly pay all her expenses."
+
+The Rev. Cooper Smith left Leeds next morning quite satisfied with
+himself, and, having written a long letter to Hendrick, giving a
+general idea of his discoveries, he went on his tour with a light heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+Poor Jim! his pride had indeed met with a fall.  The rector's letter
+was soothing enough, but the winged messenger which he himself had
+demanded had arrived full twenty-four hours earlier.  Full of the most
+ridiculous dreams, that he would have been ashamed to put in words even
+to himself, the young man tore open the brown cover.  One glance at the
+cruelly brief, well-written announcement, and all the top-heavy aerial
+erection his vanity had heaped up lay shattered around him.  Poor boy!
+shall we not pity him?  From very childhood, though so silent and
+undemonstrative, he had fed himself with extravagant visions and wild
+speculations.  All this had been merely an amusement, though an
+unhealthy one.  The dreamer had scarcely entertained the idea of his
+dreams possibly proving true.  But the train was laid for a future
+explosion--the imagination was diseased, and so when the watchmaker's
+letter came, all the shadowy fancies of the past seemed to be suddenly
+transformed into substantial realities.  He fancied ho had always
+_known_ that which hitherto he had only amused himself by fancying.
+
+The blow was sharp and decisive, and Jim felt he had brought it on
+himself.  Curiously enough, however, the sudden stinging pain acted as
+a tonic stimulant.  The lad summoned up all the latent manliness and
+force of his character.  He looked the thing in the face, and saw
+clearly that he had played the fool.  He knew that he would be laughed
+at, and resolved to bear it like a man.
+
+Next day came Mr. Smith's letter, and it was as balm to the wounded
+spirit.  Elsie also wrote a line to say she was glad not to be a lady,
+and believed that he would get on all the better for not being a lord.
+
+Thus it came to pass that when the Rev. Cooper Smith arrived at
+Ballymena station, the first person he met was Jim McAravey.
+
+"I do not know how to thank you, sir, for all the trouble you have
+taken; I at least was not worthy of it.  But I trust this piece of
+folly has been enough for me.  I hope I am wiser, but I shall strive
+not to be sadder."
+
+Mr. Smith was as much surprised as pleased at this change in the young
+man's character, and he the more regretted having to tell the whole of
+the narrative, which was sure to cause further pain to the lad.
+However, it had to be done, and Jim, who was no coward, took it all
+better than might have been expected.
+
+"And so I am only Elsie's half-brother, at best--or shall I say at
+_worst_?" said the poor lad, with trembling voice.  "I'm afraid, sir, I
+shall be terribly laughed at here, but I must bear it as best I can.  I
+have brought it on myself."
+
+Elsie was profoundly thankful for the result of the investigation.  As
+she had said herself, she "did not feel like being a lady," and was
+therefore glad to be delivered from what would have been, to her, an
+unwelcome fate.  At the same time it was a pleasure to obtain definite
+information as to her parentage, and also to find that in Lady Eleanor
+she had a friend who had known and loved her mother, and who was bound
+to herself by a sacred tie.  That Jim had proved not to be her brother
+was, if the truth be told, a relief.  Elsie had often reproached
+herself that she did not feel for him that sisterly affection which she
+believed it her duty to cultivate.  In fact she began to like Jim
+better now, partly because he was decidedly improved by the "taking
+down" he had received, and partly because affection was no longer a
+duty to which the girl had to school her heart.
+
+Lady Eleanor's letter was kind in the extreme.  She told Elsie in
+simple language how they had all loved her mother, and enclosed for her
+perusal the one or two letters that had been preserved.  "Although
+Elsie could not remember their last meeting, yet they were not
+strangers, since Lady Eleanor did not forget that she had held her in
+her arms at the baptismal font."  Elsie was urged most affectionately
+to go over to England, if it were only for a time; and it was suggested
+that if she settled there Mrs. McAravey might accompany her.  Elsie,
+however, felt at once that, even could she bear the journey, it would
+be a cruelty to transplant the aged woman from her native soil to a
+region where she would find all things alien and strange.  Nor would
+she entertain the idea of deserting the poor old body, though Mrs.
+McAravey stoically offered to give her up.
+
+"I won't stand in your way, Elsie, lass, though I can't bear to think
+of it; but it's not long I'll be here to trouble anyone, and I'd like
+to know you were well provided."
+
+But Elsie would not be persuaded, nor could her new friends do
+otherwise than approve her noble resolve.  They were disappointed, but
+felt that such a girl was worthy of their affection and patronage, and
+trusted that time would afford them opportunities of benefiting her.
+
+The winter that ensued was a trying one.  The snow lay deep on the
+moors, so that Tor Bay was practically shut off from the rest of the
+world.  The rector was not able to get over, and even George Hendrick's
+visits were few and far between.  For several weeks Elsie could not go
+to church, and when she did the fatigue and wet brought on a cold which
+stuck to her all the winter.  Old Mrs. McAravey seemed fast approaching
+her end; she long had been quite crippled with rheumatism, and now her
+mind was at times beginning to give way.  It was a sad, dreary time for
+Elsie.  Scarcely any children were able to come to school; and as she
+struggled on day after day at what seemed, in her present low state of
+health, a barren and uninteresting task, she could not but have visions
+of the comfortable home she might have acquired with her hitherto
+unseen friends.  Not that she ever regretted her decision; indeed Elsie
+was scarcely capable of entertaining a selfish thought.  Without any
+apparent effort she lived for others, and habitually thought of them
+before herself.  Yet it was a trying time for the poor young
+girl--gloomy and disheartening days, succeeded by restless and anxious
+nights, and literally not a soul to speak to.
+
+Jim, too, had a bad time of it that winter.  So great had been the
+ridicule to which he had been subjected in Ballymena, that he was at
+length forced to abandon his position.  Messrs. Moore accepted his
+resignation somewhat coldly.  They regretted the loss of a valuable
+servant, but Jim had failed to gain the affection of his employers.  He
+had "kept himself to himself" with such reserve that no one took much
+interest in him, though his good business qualities were fully
+appreciated.  Messrs. Moore gave him a high character for steadiness
+and capacity, but they did not seem inclined to go out of their way to
+obtain him employment.  Poor Jim was much mortified at the calmness
+with which his resignation was received.  He knew that he had done his
+duty to his employers faithfully, and therefore he felt hurt when they
+made no effort to retain him.  The poor lad had well-nigh to begin
+again.  He went to Belfast, and there soon obtained employment, but in
+a far inferior position to that which he had occupied at Messrs.
+Moore's.  Moreover, he soon found that in the great capital of the
+linen trade there were numbers of young men as capable, as energetic,
+and in many cases better educated than himself.  It was a harsh and
+unpleasant experience, but Jim had the strength and courage to bear up
+under it.  He still was full of a laudable confidence in himself, and
+felt sure that patience and diligence would have their due reward.  It
+was a hard struggle, however.  Trade was bad, and after a few months
+the house in which he was just getting established was compelled to
+stop payment.  For a few weeks Jim was absolutely without employment.
+After that time he obtained another situation, and thus escaped being
+reduced to actual poverty; for the first time, however, he was brought
+face to face with the possibility of privation--of being unable
+(however willing and however anxious) to obtain the means of gaining
+his daily bread.
+
+Thus the winter and spring wore on.  Almost the first gleam of sunshine
+that came to Elsie with the reviving year was a letter from Lady
+Eleanor, in which she said that as Elsie would not come to see them,
+they had almost resolved to go and look for her.  The earl, her father,
+had often spoken of taking them to the Giant's Causeway, and so they
+thought of running over before Easter if the weather was fine, which
+after so severe a winter they hoped it might be.  The hope thus held
+out was destined to be gratified.  Easter was late that year, and the
+weather in March and April beautiful.  Jim was astonished one day early
+in April by receiving a letter from Elsie, directing him to wait upon
+the Earl and Lady Waterham, who were to arrive from Fleetwood next
+morning, and would stay a day at the Royal Hotel.  Jim blushed as he
+recalled the vain dreams of six mouths before, and naturally felt some
+embarrassment at the prospect of meeting such exalted personages.
+However, he conducted himself so modestly and naturally that he won the
+approval of the whole party.  Even the earl, who, out of dislike to
+Damer, was much prejudiced against the lad, spoke kindly to him, and
+expressed a willingness to serve him, if possible, at any time.
+
+Having proceeded to Larne by train, the party posted along the noble
+coast road, arriving at the Ballycastle Inn in time for a very late
+dinner.  Next day the younger ladies, having procured two stout ponies
+and a guide, started for Tor Bay, taking the magnificent Fair Head _en
+route_.  They were determined to find out Elsie for themselves, and to
+take her by surprise in the midst of her ordinary work.  It was one of
+those glorious spring days that might have belonged to June, were it
+not for a keenness in the air that surprised you when the sun was for a
+few seconds over-clouded.  There was, too, a clearness in the
+atmosphere that warm summer days cannot claim, with a suspicion of
+frost, as you looked towards the sea.  And often did the two ladies
+look in that direction during their ride on the lofty headlands.
+Rathlin Island lay below them, separated by the few miles of narrow and
+often impassable sea, but to-day it was but a "silver streak."  Far in
+the horizon the Scotch coast could be seen all along the line, while
+the Mull of Cantyre looked but a few miles away, the very houses and
+boundaries being almost distinguishable.  Full in front the sun gleamed
+on Ailsa Craig, as it rose abrupt and lovely from out of the sea.
+Elsie, though familiar with it, had not been insensible to all this
+beauty.  She had spent almost the entire night at Mrs. McAravey's side,
+nor did the old woman fall off to sleep till it was almost time to open
+school.  It was a weary morning's work; and when the children went home
+to dinner the exhausted girl wandered down to the beach (having seen
+that Mrs. McAravey still slept) in search of fresh air and quiet before
+resuming her duties.  Since the arrival of Lady Eleanor's last letter
+she had naturally enough been excited and nervous.  She knew that in a
+few days at latest she should see her mother's friend, and one who
+promised to be hers.  Would she like her?  Would the meeting be a
+disappointment, or otherwise?  What should she say?  Where would they
+meet?  How should she dress herself?  The first meeting with one to
+whom we are bound by any ties, whom we have long corresponded with, or
+are likely in the future to be much associated with, is always looked
+forward to with embarrassment and nervousness.  How much was this the
+case with a poor, simple orphan girl, who had never been five miles
+from home, called upon to encounter a titled lady, who actually claimed
+her as her godchild, and to whom she felt bound by so many tender
+associations?  Filled with thoughts of the approaching interview, Elsie
+wandered, she knew not whither, on the beach.  Suddenly a shadow seemed
+to pass over her, and she became conscious of the bitterness of the
+north-east wind that blew upon the shore.  Drawing her cloak round her,
+she looked up and found that she had come under the shade of the great
+cliff that rose at the extremity of Sandy Creek.  She stood still a
+moment, gazing on the dreary scene, and then a sudden flood of
+recollection came over her.  The tide was low, and she stood on the
+very spot, as it seemed, where, twelve years before, she had caught
+sight of the strange black mass that was being tossed on the sand amid
+the tangled sea-weed.  She saw herself a trembling, ragged child, alone
+by the dead body in the fast gathering twilight.  And this was the only
+time that she had seen her mother.  The girl was out of spirits, low in
+health, and very weary, and so, for the only time almost in her life,
+she gave way to repining thoughts.  All the gracious path by which a
+kindly Providence had led her was obscured, and she thought of herself
+merely as the orphan child of this poor dead thing that lay upon the
+sand.  The whole history of the past flooded back upon her.  She saw
+little Jim, so eager to escape from the gruesome sight; then Mike
+McAravey approaching through the twilight, and herself as she ran up
+against good George Hendrick; then rose up the horrid bewildering scene
+at the inquest; and finally she seemed to stand in the bleak wind-blown
+moorland churchyard, and before her was the nameless head-stone, "In
+Memory of E. D."  The sense of loneliness was complete as she stood
+beneath the overhanging cliff exposed to the biting nor'-east wind.
+With an effort she aroused herself, and looking up with tear-filled
+eyes to the pale clear blue sky so far away, she resolutely turned back
+into the warm sunshine that seemed the more dazzling after its
+temporary withdrawal.  It was almost school-time, and on the far
+hill-side path Elsie's quick eyes caught sight of two or three tiny
+little figures, as they trotted down the path towards her
+cottage-school.  In a moment all sadness was banished, and she felt
+herself again.
+
+"Have we not all one Father?" she murmured; "and have I not One to love
+me who has said, 'Inasmuch as ye did it to the least of these, ye did
+it unto Me'?"
+
+Glancing again to the hill, she perceived that the children had
+stopped, and were forming a little group as they looked backward up the
+path.
+
+"They 'll be late, my little loiterers," said Elsie, with a smile; "I
+must scold them well.  But what is it?"
+
+An uncommon sight indeed for Tor Glen, and one that might well distract
+the whole school's attention.  Two discreet ponies were picking their
+way down the zig-zag path, while behind walked a man.  But greatest
+wonder! on each pony was seated a real lady.  Erect and gracefully,
+too, did they keep their seats, as the patient beasts let themselves
+slip down the gravelly path.
+
+"It's early for tourists," thought Elsie, as she quietly walked on her
+way.
+
+The travellers and their attendant group of urchins had now passed out
+of sight behind a screen of the thick foliage, which we have described
+as adorning the sheltered bottom of the glen.  Elsie thought no more of
+the tourists.  Their pleasure-seeking was a thing she had absolutely no
+experience of, and the sight of her scholars had banished all other
+thoughts but practical ones as to the conduct of the afternoon lesson.
+
+A sudden turn brought the young mistress in front of her school.  It
+was a humble enough affair--a mere shed in fact, built on to the end of
+Mrs. McAravey's cottage, and adorned over the door with a plainly
+printed sign-board, "Tor Glen National School."  But the place did not
+look uncared for.  The school indeed was bare enough, and surrounded by
+a brown wilderness, in which the children used to play, but the
+adjoining dwelling-house was made green and warm with ivy and fuschia,
+while the little garden was neat, and for April almost gay.
+
+To her surprise, Elsie's ear caught no sweet clamour of children at
+play; there was indeed a sound of voices, and as she turned the corner
+some dozen eager voices cried together, "Here she is; here's mistress."
+
+Elsie stepped hastily forward, fearing some mischief, and then paused
+as she saw the two strange ladies standing in the midst of an admiring
+and wondering group of children, while the guide stood by, a pony
+bridle in each hand.
+
+In a moment one of the ladies had pushed through the little circle and
+seized the girl's hand.
+
+"Elsie Damer!  I 'm your godmother, Eleanor More.  I 'm so glad."
+
+Poor Elsie knew not where she was, or what it meant, and could find no
+better thing to say than "Your ladyship!"
+
+"There, don't talk like that," was the quick reply; "I'm so glad we've
+met at length.  What a sweet little nest this is, hidden away from the
+world by these great cliffs.  We were fortunate, too, to find you out
+so soon," continued Lady Eleanor, who, perceiving that Elsie had not
+recovered the sudden shock and embarrassment, considerately gave rein
+to her power of speech, which was by no means limited.
+
+"We met a nice little fellow on the top of the hill, and I asked him
+whether he knew where Elsie Damer lived.  I stupidly forgot about the
+name, so he answered 'Now.'  Then I remembered, and asked about Mrs.
+McAravey.  'It's teacher she 's askin' for,' said a little girl who had
+come up.  Then I saw it was all right, and so we all came tumbling down
+the hill together."
+
+"I saw you," said Elsie, "in the distance, but of course I had no idea
+who it was.  How very kind you have been to me!" and again the tears
+were trembling in the nervous eyes of the poor, overwrought girl.
+
+Lady Constance had now joined them, and the children stood around, all
+eyes and ears.
+
+"Kate, take them in," said the mistress to a tiny monitress, when she
+became conscious of the inquiring glances.  All were seated demurely as
+Elsie and the two ladies entered.
+
+"Now," said Lady Constance, "do you not think you might give these
+little ones a holiday this fine afternoon, so that you and my sister
+may have a good chat?"
+
+"Perhaps I had better," replied Elsie; then turning to the eager
+audience, "Children, these kind ladies have come all this way to see
+me, and have asked me to give you a holiday; what do you say?"
+
+"Thank you, ma'am," responded the little chorus.
+
+"Very well," said the mistress; "mind you don't get into any mischief.
+No noise," she added quickly, as she perceived that Lady Eleanor's
+friend was expanding his lungs, and gathering up his little
+bantam-cock-like figure, preparatory to starting a cheer.  "No noise;
+poor gran is very bad to-day, and would not like it.  Go quietly."
+
+And so they did, under the generalship of tiny Kate, all defiling past
+in silence, save Master "Naw," who, being the hero of the school,
+thought it necessary to distinguish himself; therefore, being forbidden
+to cheer, he stepped forward, and touching his forehead with a bow,
+said--
+
+"Thank your ladyships both;" and then, with a rush to the door, "Now,
+boys, we'll have a look at the ponies."
+
+"He is almost past me," said Elsie, laying her hand on the boy's
+shoulder as he darted through the door.
+
+"You have them in very good order, I think," said Lady Constance; "but
+I was sorry to hear you say the old lady was so poorly.  Let us go and
+see her."
+
+Elsie led the way, and as she lifted the latch they caught Mrs.
+McAravey's plaintive voice--
+
+"I 've been thinking long for you, Elsie, lass, for I heard the
+children say as the ladies had come.  You won't take her from a poor
+old creature, will you, miss?" she added, as the visitors came in view;
+"I won't have long to trouble you."
+
+"O no," said Lady Eleanor, kindly; "we 've only come to pay you and
+Elsie a visit.  She is just like her mother, Mrs. McAravey; and now
+that you are so weak and low you ought to be glad she has found some of
+her mother's friends.  We will always take care of her."
+
+"The Lord be thanked!" murmured the old woman, lying back with closed
+eyes; "and I bless His name He has brought me to see the day.  Elsie's
+a good lass--none better, ladies."
+
+Almost immediately she fell off into a broken and uneasy sleep, while
+Elsie and her friends whispered together at the door.
+
+"We shall gee you again the day after to-morrow, Sunday," said Lady
+Eleanor, as they prepared to start.  "We are going to Ashleigh Church,
+and will lunch at Mr. Smith's--he says you always stay for
+Sunday-school."
+
+"Yes," said Elsie, "that is very nice, and I'll be sure to be
+out--unless gran is too bad," she added, anxiously glancing towards the
+bed.
+
+Sunday came, and there was quite an excitement at Ashleigh Church when
+the clumsy hired carriage from Ballycastle drove up, and the two ladies
+appeared.
+
+The Rev. Cooper Smith, who had been popping his head out of the vestry
+door off and on for the last ten minutes, was in readiness to receive
+his guests, and then retired to have as much time as possible for a
+last look at the specially prepared sermon.  Mrs. Cooper Smith was too
+anxious about the lunch to go to church, but all the rest of the family
+were assembled in full force.  Elsie, however, did not put in an
+appearance, and the absence of her fine voice left a sad gap in the
+somewhat too elaborate service that had been, got up for the occasion.
+
+After service was over the clergyman took his guests to see poor Elsie
+Damer's grave.  Lady Eleanor suggested that something should be added
+to the inscription, setting forth the way in which the name had been
+discovered.  How this should be done was the subject of conversation
+during the walk to the rectory.  There they found Elsie just arrived.
+Mrs. McAravey had been much worse all Saturday, and Elsie could not get
+away in time for church.  She had only come now because the dying woman
+had expressed a wish to see Mr. Smith.  This news cast a shadow over
+the party.  Elsie remained for luncheon, on Mr. Smith's promising to be
+ready to start immediately after, when the returning carriage could
+bring them a considerable distance on the way, dropping them at a point
+not more than two miles from Tor Bay.
+
+"I must say good-bye now," said Lady Eleanor, drawing Elsie aside as
+they left the dining-room; "I cannot tell you how glad we are to have
+found you, and to have found you so like your dear mother too.  It is
+too bad papa and mamma cannot see you, as we must leave to-morrow; but
+we shall meet again soon."
+
+"I do not know about that," replied poor Elsie, almost breaking down.
+
+"My dear child, you do not think we are going to let you be lost again!
+And this is what I want to say to you, Elsie, dear: will you promise to
+come over to us when--I mean if anything happens to Mrs. McAravey?--she
+cannot live long, poor old body."
+
+"Oh, you are too kind!" cried Elsie, fairly bursting into tears, and
+hiding her face on her new friend's shoulder--"you are too kind; but
+how can I promise?  It sometimes seems my duty to stay here."
+
+Eleanor More was a true woman, and so--though surprised at this sudden
+outbreak--she lifted the girl's head between her hands, and kissing her
+forehead, said, "There, Elsie, child, don't fret, I will not press you
+now.  God will show you your duty, and make your way plain before you.
+They are coming now, and the carriage is at the door."
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+The summer had waned away; the autumn tints were already on the trees,
+and the light of the September afternoon was growing feeble and
+uncertain, as a dainty little figure scrambled out of the low carriage
+that had drawn up before the neatest and most ideal of English cottage
+homes.  Lady Eleanor More stood at the garden wicket to receive her
+friend, and behind her in the doorway was to be seen a tidy,
+white-capped little old woman.
+
+"So we have got you at last, Elsie; and here is the prison where you
+are to be confined at hard labour, and this is your gaoler, Mrs.
+Nugent.  How do you like it all?"
+
+Elsie was delighted, and could find no words in which to thank her kind
+patron.  Everything was charming, and everything had been arranged with
+that thoughtful consideration which nothing but real affection produce.
+
+The old man and woman with whom Elsie was to be lodged, for the present
+at least, were established pensioners of the Waterham family.  They had
+known and sorrowed for Elsie's mother, who had stayed with them for a
+few weeks after her unfortunate marriage.  Thus the orphan felt almost
+at home, and was rejoiced to find that a little room had been set apart
+for her private and special use.
+
+Nor was it designed that Elsie should become a mere dependent.
+Fortunately enough a vacancy had recently occurred (by marriage) in the
+mistress-ship of a small school situated close to the gate of Burnham
+Park, and almost opposite Nugent's cottage.  This was the sphere of
+labour for which Elsie was destined.  The school was a neat,
+well-cared-for place--the special hobby of Lady Eleanor, who seldom let
+a day pass when at home without visiting it.  Here Elsie Damer at once
+commenced her labours.  The children were bright and clean, and had
+evidently been carefully taught by her predecessor.  Miss Damer was
+also a welcome acquisition to the village choir; and those were among
+the happiest moments of her life when she let her rich, clear voice
+ascend in songs of praise to the throne of Him who had guided her all
+her journey through, while her dear friend and second mother presided
+at the organ.
+
+Elsie's only care was about Jim.  She had seen him in Belfast looking
+worn and anxious.  His letters had never been complaining, nor were his
+words so then; yet he could not conceal the fact that his position was
+by no means satisfactory.  But this cloud too was soon to be cleared
+away.  The earl had been favourably impressed with the lad, and was
+highly amused when he heard from his daughter a somewhat toned down
+version of the foolish conduct which had resulted in his resigning his
+situation.  In the course of a year after Elsie's establishment at
+Burnham, a post of some responsibility in the earl's rent office became
+vacant, in which we find Jim shortly afterwards comfortably installed.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+And here ends our tale.  Elsie Damer's life is after all only
+beginning, and doubtless she will have her trials and sorrows.  Not for
+ever can she be the young girl living in that sweet rose-covered
+cottage.  Indeed, before we lose sight of Elsie, there is rumour of a
+coming change.  Mrs. Nugent said, "It's a shame to take you from us,
+Missie, but every one likes a spot of their own, I suppose; I know I
+did in my time."  And Robert Everley, the head-gamekeeper's strapping
+son, who was settled now in one of the home farms of Burnham, blushed
+and looked apologetic as the earl hailed him one day, "Hey, Bob! what's
+this I hear about you, lad?  I wonder what Lady Eleanor will say to it,
+stealing her godchild from her."
+
+"I couldn't help it, your lordship," replied the embarrassed Bob.
+
+"Well, all I say is you are a lucky fellow, and Elsie might have done
+worse too."
+
+But whatever lies before our Elsie, she has deep stored within her that
+hidden peace that the world knoweth not, and which can smooth over, as
+with holy oil, the roughest and most sudden-rising of life's stormy
+waves.  The discipline of the past had moulded and set, without unduly
+hardening, the lines of her simple, cheerful character.  Looking back
+to the earliest dawn of her recollection, she believed herself able to
+trace a golden thread through all.  The ideal of calm beauty and purity
+which the child's vivid imagination had developed out of the dim memory
+of her drowned mother's face had been her good angel, and had led her,
+by sweet, insensible gradations, up to Him of whose glory all earthly
+beauties are but the far-off reflection.  From first to last she had
+lived in the consciousness of the Unseen Presence, and no words better
+expressed her simple faith for the present and for the future than
+those of her favourite hymn--
+
+  "The King of Love my Shepherd is,
+    Whose goodness faileth never,
+  I nothing lack if I am His
+    And He is mine for ever.
+    *     *     *     *
+  "And so, through all the length of days,
+    Thy goodness faileth never;
+  Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise
+    Within Thy house for ever."
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Child of the Glens, by Edward Newenham Hoare
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