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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Rose of a Hundred Leaves, by 
+Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
+
+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 Rose of a Hundred Leaves
+       A Love Story
+
+Author: Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
+
+Release Date: September 1, 2010 [EBook #33599]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A ROSE OF A HUNDRED LEAVES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Katherine Ward and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+A ROSE OF A HUNDRED LEAVES
+
+A Love Story
+
+
+BY AMELIA E. BARR
+
+AUTHOR OF "FRIEND OLIVIA," "THE BOW OF ORANGE RIBBON,"
+"JAN VEDDER'S WIFE," ETC.
+
+
+  NEW YORK
+  DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
+  1891
+
+Copyright, 1891, By J. B. Lippincott Company.
+
+Copyright, 1891, By Dodd, Mead and Company.
+
+All rights reserved.
+
+University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                                         PAGE
+       I. The Wild Rose is the Sweetest                              9
+      II. Forgive me, Christ!                                       35
+     III. Only Brother Will                                         77
+      IV. For Mother's Sake                                        113
+       V. But they were Young                                      151
+      VI. "Love shall be Lord of Sandy-Side"                       180
+     VII. "A Rose of a Hundred Leaves"                             208
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE WILD ROSE IS THE SWEETEST.
+
+
+I tell again the oldest and the newest story of all the world,--the
+story of Invincible Love!
+
+This tale divine--ancient as the beginning of things, fresh and young
+as the passing hour--has forms and names various as humanity. The
+story of Aspatria Anneys is but one of these,--one leaf from all the
+roses in the world, one note of all its myriad of songs.
+
+Aspatria was born at Seat-Ambar, an old house in Allerdale. It had
+Skiddaw to shelter it on the northwest; and it looked boldly out
+across the Solway, and into that sequestered valley in Furness known
+as "the Vale of the Deadly Nightshade." The plant still grew there
+abundantly, and the villagers still kept the knowledge of its medical
+value taught them by the old monks of Furness. For these curious,
+patient herbalists had discovered the blessing hidden in the fair,
+poisonous amaryllis, long before modern physicians called it
+"belladonna."
+
+The plant, with all its lovely relations, had settled in the garden at
+Seat-Ambar. Aspatria's mother had loved them all: the girl could still
+remember her thin white hands clasping the golden jonquils in her
+coffin. This memory was in her heart, as she hastened through the
+lonely place one evening in spring. It ought to have been a pleasant
+spot, for it was full of snowdrops and daffodils, and many sweet
+old-fashioned shrubs and flowers; but it was a stormy night, and the
+blossoms were plashed and downcast, and all the birds in hiding from
+the fierce wind and driving rain.
+
+She was glad to get out of the gray, wet, shivery atmosphere, and
+to come into the large hall, ruddy and glowing with fire and
+candle-light. Her brothers William and Brune sat at the table. Will
+was counting money; it stood in small gold and silver pillars
+before him. Brune was making fishing-flies. Both looked up at her
+entrance; they did not think words necessary for such a little
+maid. Yet both loved her; she was their only sister, and both gave
+her the respect to which she was entitled as co-heir with them of
+the Ambar estate.
+
+She was just sixteen, and not yet beautiful. She was too young for
+beauty. Her form was not developed; she would probably gain two or
+three inches in height; and her face, though exquisitely modelled,
+wanted the refining which comes either from a multitude of complex
+emotions or is given at once by some great heart-sorrow. Yet she had
+fascination for those capable of feeling her charm. Her large brown
+eyes had their childlike clearness; they looked every one in the face
+with its security of good-will. Her mouth was a tempting mouth; the
+lips had not lost their bow-shape; they were red and pouting, but
+withal ever ready to part. She might have been born with a smile. Her
+hair, soft and dark, had that rarest quality of soft hair,--a tendency
+to make itself into little curls and tendrils and stray down the white
+throat and over the white brow; yet it was carefully parted and
+confined in two long braids, tied at the ends with a black ribbon.
+
+She wore a black dress. It was plainly made, and its broad ruffle
+around the open throat gave it an air of simplicity almost childlike
+in effect. Her arms below the elbows were uncovered, and her hands
+were small and finely formed, as patrician hands should be. There was
+no ring upon them, and no bracelet above them. She wore neither brooch
+nor locket, nor ornament of any kind about her person; only a daffodil
+laid against the snowy skin of her bosom. Even this effect was not the
+result of coquetry; it was a holy and loving sentiment materialized.
+
+Altogether, she was a girl quite in keeping with the antique, homelike
+air of the handsome room she entered; her look, her manner, and even
+her speech had the local stamp; she was evidently a daughter of the
+land. Her brothers resembled her after their masculine fashion. They
+were big men, whom nature had built for the spaces of the moors and
+mountains and the wide entrances of these old Cumberland homes. They
+would have been pushed to pass through narrow city doorways. A fine
+open-air colour was in their faces; they had that confident manner
+which great physical strength imparts, and that air of conscious pride
+which is born in lords of the soil.
+
+Indeed, William and Brune Anneys made one understand how truthfully
+popular nomenclature has called an Englishman "John Bull." For whoever
+has seen a bull in its native pastures--proud, obstinate, conscious of
+his strength, and withal a little surly--must understand that there is
+a taurine basis to the English character, finely expressed by the
+national appellation.
+
+A great thing was to happen that hour, and all three were as
+unconscious of the approaching fate as if it was to be a part of
+another existence. Squire William finished his accounts, and played a
+game of chess with his brother. Aspatria walked up and down the hall,
+with her hands clasped behind her, or sat still in the Squire's
+hearth-chair, with her dress lifted a little in front, to let the
+pleasant heat fall upon her ankles. She did not think of reading or of
+sewing, or of improving the time in any way. Perhaps she was not as
+dependent on books as the women of this generation. Aspatria's mind
+was sensitive and observing; it lived very well on its own ideas.
+
+The storm increased in violence; the rain beat against the windows,
+and the wind howled at the nail-studded oak door, as if it intended to
+blow it down. A big ploughman entered the room, shyly pulled his
+front hair, and looked with stolid inquiry into his master's face.
+The Squire pushed aside the chess-board, rose, and went to the
+hearth-stone; for he was young in his authority, and he felt himself
+on the hearth-stone to hold an impregnable position.
+
+"Well, Steve Bell, what is it?"
+
+"Be I to sow the high land next, sir?"
+
+"If you can have a face or back wind, it will be best; if you have an
+elbow-wind, you must give the land an extra half-bushel."
+
+"Be I to sow mother-of-corn[1] on the east holme?"
+
+  [1] Clover.
+
+"It is matterless. Is it going to be a flashy spring?"
+
+"A right season, sir,--plenty of manger-meat."
+
+"How is the weather?"
+
+"The rain is near past; it will take up at midnight."
+
+As he spoke, Aspatria, who had been sitting with folded hands and
+half-shut eyes, straightened herself suddenly, and threw up her head
+to listen. There was certainly the tramp of a horse's feet, and in a
+moment the door was loudly and impatiently struck with the metal
+handle of a riding-whip.
+
+Steve Bell went to answer the summons; Brune trailed slowly after
+him. Aspatria and the Squire heard nothing on the hearth but a human
+voice blown about and away by the wind. But Steve's reply was distinct
+enough,--
+
+"You be wanting Redware Hall, sir? Cush! it's unsensible to try for
+it. The hills are slape as ice; the becks are full; the moss will make
+a mouthful of you--horse and man--to-night."
+
+The Squire went forward, and Aspatria also. Aspatria lifted a candle,
+and carried it high in her hand. That was the first glimpse of her
+that Sir Ulfar Fenwick had.
+
+"You must stay at Seat-Ambar to-night," said William Anneys. "You
+cannot go farther and be sure of your life. You are welcome here
+heartily, sir."
+
+The traveller dismounted, gave his horse to Steve, and with words of
+gratitude came out of the rain and darkness into the light and comfort
+of the home opened to him. "I am Ulfar Fenwick," he said,--"Fenwick of
+Fenwick and Outerby; and I think you must be William Anneys of
+Ambar-Side."
+
+"The same, sir. This is my brother Brune, and my sister Aspatria. You
+are dreeping wet, sir. Come to my room and change your clothing."
+
+Sir Ulfar bowed and smiled assent; and the bow and the smile were
+Aspatria's. Her cheeks burned; a strange new life was in all her
+veins. She hurried the housekeeper and the servants, and she brought
+out the silver and the damask, and the famous crystal cup in its stand
+of gold, which was the lucky bowl of Ambar-Side. When Fenwick came
+back to the hall, there was a feast spread for him; and he ate and
+drank, and charmed every one with his fine manner and his witty
+conversation.
+
+They sat until midnight,--an hour strange to Seat-Ambar. No one
+native in that house had ever seen it before, no one ever felt its
+mysterious influence. Sir Ulfar had been charming them with tales of
+the strange lands he had visited, and the strange peoples who dwelt
+in them. He had not spoken much to Aspatria, but it was in her face
+he had found inspiration and sympathy. For her young eyes looked
+out with such eager interest, with glances so seeking, so without
+guile and misgiving, that their bright rays found a corner in his
+heart into which no woman had ever before penetrated. And she was
+equally subjugated by his more modern orbs,--orbs with that steely
+point of brilliant light, generated by large experience and varied
+emotion,--electric orbs, such as never shone in the elder world.
+
+When the clock struck twelve, Squire Anneys rose with amazement. "Why,
+it is strike of midnight!" he said. "It is past all, how the hours
+have flown! But we mustn't put off sleeping-time any longer.
+Good-night heartily to you, sir. It will be many a long day till I
+forget this night. What doings you have seen, sir!"
+
+He was talking thus to his guest, as he led him to the guest-room.
+Aspatria still stood by the dying fire. Brune rose silently,
+stretched his big arms, and said: "I'll be going likewise. You had
+best remember the time of night, Aspatria."
+
+"What do you think of him, Brune?"
+
+"Fenwick! I wouldn't think too high of him. One might have to come
+down a peg or two. He sets a good deal of store by himself, I should
+say."
+
+"You and I are of two ways of judging, Brune."
+
+"Never mind; time will let light into all our ways of judging."
+
+He went yawning upstairs and Aspatria slowly followed. She was not a
+bit sleepy. She was wider awake than she had ever been before. Her
+hands quivered like a swallow's wings; her face was rosy and luminous.
+She removed her clothing, and unbraided her hair and shook it loose
+over her slim shoulders. There was a smile on her lips through all
+these preparations for sleep,--a smile innocent and glad. Suddenly she
+lifted the candle and carried it to the mirror. She desired to look at
+herself, and she blushed deeply as she gratified the wish. Was she
+fair enough to please this wonderful stranger?
+
+It was the first time such a query had ever come to her heart. She was
+inclined to answer it honestly. Holding the light slightly above her
+head, she examined her claims to his regard. Her expressive face, her
+starry eyes, her crimson, pouting lips, her long dark hair, her
+slight, virginal figure in its gown of white muslin scantily trimmed
+with English thread-lace, her small, bare feet, her air of childlike,
+curious happiness,--all these things, taken together, pleased and
+satisfied her desires, though she knew not how or why.
+
+Then she composed herself with intentional earnestness. She must "say
+her prayers." As yet it was only saying prayers with Aspatria,--only a
+holy habit. A large Book of Common Prayer stood open against an oaken
+rest on a table; a cushion of black velvet was beneath it. Ere she
+knelt, she reflected that it was very late, and that her Collect and
+Lord's Prayer would be sufficient. Youth has such confidence in the
+sympathy of God. She dropped softly on her knees and said her portion.
+God would understand the rest. The little ceremony soothed her, as a
+mother's kiss might have done; and with a happy sigh she put out the
+light. The old house was dark and still, but her guardian angel saw
+her small hands loose lying on the snowy linen, and heard her whisper,
+"Dear God! how happy I am!" And this joyous orison was the acceptable
+prayer that left the smile of peace upon her sleeping face.
+
+In the guest-chamber Ulfar Fenwick was also holding a session with
+himself. He had come to his room very wide awake; midnight was an
+early hour to him. And the incidents he had been telling filled his
+mind with images of the past. He could not at once put them aside.
+Women he had loved and left visited his memory,--light loves of a
+season, in which both had declared themselves broken-hearted at
+parting, and both had known that they would very soon forget. Neither
+was much to blame: the maid had long ceased to remember his vows and
+kisses; he, in some cases, had forgotten her name. Yet, sitting there
+by the glowing oak logs, he had visions of fair faces in all kinds of
+surroundings,--in lighted halls, in moon-lit groves under the great
+stars of the tropics, on the Shetland seas when the aurora made for
+lovers an enchanted atmosphere and a light in which beauty was
+glorified. Well, they had passed as April passes, and now,--
+
+  As a glimpse of a burnt-out ember
+    Recalls a regret of the sun,
+  He remembered, forgot, and remembered
+    What love saw done and undone.
+
+Aspatria was different from all. He whispered her strange name on his
+lips, and he thought it must have wandered from some sunny southern
+clime into these northern solitudes. His eyes shone; his heart beat.
+He said to it: "Make room for this innocent little one! What a darling
+she is! How clear, how candid, how beautiful! Oh, to be loved by such
+a woman! Oh, to kiss her!--to feel her kiss me!" He set his mouth
+tightly; the soft dreamy look in his face changed to one of purpose
+and pleasure.
+
+"I shall win her, or die for it," he said. "By Saint George! I would
+rather die than know that any other man had married her."
+
+Yet the thought of marriage somewhat sobered him. "I should have to
+give up my voyage to the Spanish Colonies,--and I am very much
+interested in their struggle. I could not take her to Mexico, I
+suppose,--there is nothing but fighting there; and I could not--no, I
+could not leave her. If she were mine, I should hate to have any one
+else breathe the same air with her. I could not endure that others
+should speak to her. I should want to strike any man who touched her
+hand. Perhaps I had better go away in the morning, and ride this road
+no more. I have made my plans."
+
+And fate had made other plans. Who can fight against his destiny? When
+he saw Aspatria in the morning, every plan that did not include her
+seemed unworthy of his consideration. She was ten times lovelier in
+the daylight. She had that fresh invincible charm which women of
+culture and intellect seldom have: she was inspired by her heart. It
+taught her a thousand delightful subjugating ways. She served his
+breakfast with her own fair hands; she offered him the first sweet
+flowers in the garden; she fluttered around his necessities, his
+desires, his intentions, with a grace and a kindness nothing but love
+could have taught her.
+
+He thanked her with marvellous glances, with smiles, with single words
+dropped only for her ears, with all the potent eloquence which passion
+and experience teach. And he had to pay the price, as all men must do.
+The lesson he taught he also learned. "Aspatria!" he said, in soft,
+penetrating accents; and when she answered his call and came to his
+side, her dress trailing across his feet bewitched him. They were in
+the garden, and he clasped her hand, and went down the budding alleys
+with her, speechless, but gazing into her face until she dropped her
+tremulous, transparent lids before her eyes; they were too full of
+light and love to show to any mortal.
+
+The sky was white and blue, the air fresh and sweet; the swallows had
+just come, and were chattering with the starlings; hundreds of
+daffodils "danced in the wind" and lighted the ground at their
+feet; troops of celandines starred the brook that babbled by the
+bee-skips; the southernwood, the wall-flower, the budding thyme and
+sweet-brier,--a thousand exhalations filled the air and intensified
+that intoxication of heart and senses which makes the first stage of
+love's fever delirious.
+
+Fenwick went away in the afternoon, and his adieus were mostly made to
+the Squire. He had done his best to win his favour, and he had been
+successful. He left Seat-Ambar under an engagement to return soon and
+try his skill in wrestling and pole-leaping with Brune. Aspatria knew
+he would return: a voice which Fenwick's voice only echoed told her
+so. She watched him from her own window across the meadows, and up the
+mountain, until he was lost to her vision.
+
+She was doubtless very much in love, though as yet she had not
+admitted the fact to herself. The experience had come with a really
+shocking swiftness. Her heart was half angry and half abashed by its
+instantaneous surrender. Two circumstances had promoted this
+condition. First, the singular charm of the man. Ulfar Fenwick was
+unlike any one she had ever seen. The squires and gentlemen who came
+to Seat-Ambar were physically the finest fellows in England, but noble
+women look for something more than mere bulk in a man. Sir Ulfar
+Fenwick had this something more. Culture, travel, great experience
+with women, had added to his heroic form a charm flesh and sinew alone
+could never compass. And if he had lacked all other physical
+advantages, he possessed eyes which had been filled to the brim with
+experiences of every kind,--gray eyes with pure, full lids thickly
+fringed,--eyes always lustrous, sometimes piercingly bright. Secondly,
+Aspatria had no knowledge which helped her to ward off attack or
+protract surrender. In a multitude of lovers there is safety; but
+Fenwick was Aspatria's first lover.
+
+He rode hard, as if he would ride from fate. Perhaps he hoped at this
+early stage of feeling to do as he had often done before,--
+
+  To love--and then ride away.
+
+He had also a fresh, pressing anxiety to see his sister, who was Lady
+of Redware Manor. Seven years--and much besides years--had passed
+since they met. She was his only sister, and ten years his senior. She
+loved him as mothers love, unquestioningly, with miraculous excuses
+for all his shortcomings. She had been watching for his arrival many
+hours before he appeared.
+
+"Ulfar! how welcome you are!" she cried, with tears in her eyes and
+her voice. "Oh, my dear! how happy I am to see you once more!"
+
+She might have been his only love, he kissed and embraced and kissed
+her again so fondly. Oh, wondrous tie of blood and kinship! At that
+moment there really seemed to Ulfar Fenwick no one in the whole world
+half so dear as his sister Elizabeth.
+
+He told her he had lost his way in the storm and been detained by
+Squire Anneys; and she praised the Squire, and said that she would
+evermore love him for his kindness. "I met him once, at the Election
+Ball in Kendal. He danced with me; 'we neighbour each other,' you
+see; and they are a grand old family, I can tell you."
+
+"There is a younger brother, called Brune."
+
+"I never saw him."
+
+"A sister also,--a child yet, but very handsome. You ought to see
+her."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You would like her. I do."
+
+"Ulfar, there is a 'thus far' in everything. In your wooing and
+pursuing, the line lies south of Seat-Ambar. To wrong a woman of that
+house would be wicked and dangerous."
+
+"Why should I wrong her? I have no intention to do so. I say she is a
+lovely lady, a great beauty, worthy of honest love and supreme
+devotion."
+
+"Such a rant about love and beauty! Nine tenths of the men who talk in
+this way do but blaspheme Love by taking his name in vain."
+
+"However, Elizabeth, it is marriage or the Spanish colonies for me. It
+is Miss Anneys, or Cuba, New Orleans, and Mexico. Santa Anna is a
+supreme villain; I have a fancy to see such a specimen."
+
+"You are then between the devil and the deep sea; and I should say
+that the one-legged Spaniard was preferable to the deep sea of
+matrimony."
+
+"She is so fair! She has a virgin timidity that enchants me."
+
+"It will become matronly indecision, or mental weakness of will. In
+the future it will drive you frantic."
+
+"Her sweet sensibility--"
+
+"Will crystallize into passionate irritation or callous opposition.
+These childlike, tender, clinging maidens are often capable of sudden
+and dangerous action. Better go to Cuba, or even to Mexico, Ulfar."
+
+"I suppose she has wealth. You will admit that excellence?"
+
+"She is co-heir with her brothers. She may have two thousand pounds a
+year. You cannot afford to marry a girl so poor."
+
+"I have not yet come to regard a large sum of money as a kind of
+virtue, or the want of it as a crime."
+
+"Your wife ought to represent you. How can this country-girl help you
+in the society to which you belong?"
+
+"Society! What is society? In its elemental verity it means
+toil, weariness, loss of rest and health, useless expense, envy,
+disappointment, heart-burnings,--all for the sake of exchanging
+entertainments with A and B, C and D. It means chaff instead of
+wheat."
+
+"If you want to be happy, Ulfar, put this girl out of your mind. I am
+sure her brothers will oppose your suit. They will not let their
+sister leave Allerdale. No Anneys has ever done so."
+
+"You have strengthened my fancy, Elizabeth. There is a deal of
+happiness in the idea of prevailing, of getting the mastery, of
+putting hindrances out of the way."
+
+"Well, I have given you good advice."
+
+"There are many 'counsels of perfection' nobody dreams of following.
+To advise a man in love not to love, is one of them."
+
+"Love!" she cried scornfully. "Before you make such a fuss about the
+Spanish Colonies and their new-found freedom, free yourself, Ulfar!
+You have been a slave to some woman all your life. You are one of
+those men who are naturally not their own property. A child can turn
+you hither and thither; a simple country girl can lead you."
+
+He laughed softly, and murmured,--
+
+  "There is a rose of a hundred leaves,
+  But the wild rose is the sweetest."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+FORGIVE ME, CHRIST!
+
+
+The ultimatum reached by Fenwick in the consideration of any subject
+was, to please himself. In the case of Aspatria Anneys he was
+particularly determined to do so. It was in vain Lady Redware
+entreated him to be rational. How could he be rational? It was the
+preponderance of the emotional over the rational in his nature which
+imparted so strong a personality to him. He grasped all circumstances
+by feeling rather than by reason.
+
+In a few days he was again at Seat-Ambar. Aspatria drew him, as the
+candle draws the moth which has once burned its wings at it. And among
+the simple Anneys folk he found a hearty welcome. With Squire William
+he travelled the hills, and counted the flocks, and speculated on the
+value of the iron-ore cropping out of the ground. With Brune he went
+line-fishing, and in the wide barns tried his skill in wrestling or
+pole-leaping or single-stick. He tolerated the rusticity of the life,
+for the charming moments he found with Aspatria.
+
+No one like Ulfar Fenwick had ever visited Ambar-Side. To the young
+men, who read nothing but the Gentleman's Magazine and the Whitehaven
+Herald, and to Aspatria, who had but a volume of the Ladies' Garden
+Manual, Notable Things, her Bible and Common Prayer, Fenwick was a
+book of travel, song, and story, of strange adventures, of odd bits of
+knowledge, and funny experiences. Things old and new fell from his
+handsome lips. Squire William and Brune heard them with grave
+attention, with delight and laughter; Aspatria with eyes full of
+wonder and admiration.
+
+As the season advanced and they grew more familiar, Aspatria was
+thrown naturally into his society. The Squire was in the hay-field;
+Brune had his task there also. Or they were down at the Long Pool,
+washing the sheep, or on the fells, shearing them. In the haymaking,
+Aspatria and Fenwick made some pretence of assistance; but they both
+very soon wearied of the real labour. Aspatria would toss a few
+furrows of the warm, sweet grass; but it was much sweeter to sit down
+under the oak-tree with Fenwick at her side, and watch the moving
+picture, and listen to the women singing in their high shrill voices,
+as they turned the swaths, the Song of the Mower, and the men
+mournfully shouting out the chorus to it,--
+
+  "We be all like grass! We be all like grass!"
+
+As for the oak, it liked them to sit under it; all its leaves talked
+to each other about them. The starlings, though they are always in a
+hurry, stopped to look at the lovers, and went off with a Q-q-q of
+satisfaction. The crows, who are a bad lot, croaked innuendoes, and
+said it was to be hoped that evil would not come of such folly. But
+Aspatria and Fenwick listened only to each other; they saw the whole
+round world in each other's eyes.
+
+Fenwick spoke very low; Aspatria had to droop her ear to his mouth to
+understand his words. And they were such delightful words, she could
+not bear to lose one of them. Then, as the sun grew warm, and the
+scent of the grass filled the soft air, and the haymakers were more
+and more subdued and quiet, heavenly languors stole over them. They
+sat hand in hand,--Aspatria sometimes with shut eyes humming to
+herself, sometimes dreamily pulling the long grass at her side;
+Fenwick mostly silent, yet often whispering those words which are
+single because they are too sweet to be double,--"Darling! Dearest!
+Angel!" and the words drew her eyes to his eyes, drew her lips to his
+lips; ere she was aware, her heart had passed from her in long,
+loving, stolen kisses. On the fells, in the garden, in the empty,
+silent rooms of the old house, it was a repetition of the same divine
+song, with wondrously celestial variations. Goethe puts in Faust an
+Interlude in Heaven: Fenwick and Aspatria were in their Interlude.
+
+One evening they stood among the wheat-sheaves. The round, yellow
+harvest-moon was just rising above the fells, and the stars trembling
+into vision. The reapers had gone away; their voices made faint,
+fitful echoes down the misty lane. The Squire was driving home one
+load of ripe wheat, and Brune another. Aspatria said softly, "The day
+is over. We must go home. Come!"
+
+She stood in the warm mystical light, with one hand upon the bound
+sheaf, the other stretched out to him. Her slim form in its white
+dress, her upturned face, her star-like eyes,--he saw all at a glance.
+He was subjugated to the innermost room of his heart. He answered,
+with inexpressible emotion,--
+
+"Come! Come to me, my Dear One! My Love! My Joy! My Wife!" He held her
+close to his heart; he claimed her by no formal special yes, but by
+all the sweet reluctances and sweeter yieldings, the thousand nameless
+consents won day by day.
+
+Oh, the glory of that homeward walk! The moon beamed upon them. The
+trees bent down to touch them. The heath and the honeysuckle made a
+posy for them. The nightingale sang them a canticle. They did not seem
+to walk; they trod on ether; they moved as people move in happy dreams
+of other stars, where thought and wish are motion. It would have been
+heaven upon earth if those minutes could have lasted; but it was only
+an interlude.
+
+That night Fenwick spoke to Squire William and asked him for his
+sister. The Squire was honestly confounded by the question. Aspatria
+was such a little lass! It was beyond everything to talk of marrying
+her. Still, in his heart he was proud and pleased at such high fortune
+for the little lass; and he said, as soon as Fenwick's father and
+family came forward as they should do, he would never be the one to
+say nay.
+
+Fenwick's father lived at Fenwick Castle, on the shore of bleak
+Northumberland. He was an old man, but his natural feelings and wisdom
+were not abated. He consulted the History of Cumberland, and found
+that the family of Ambar-Anneys was as ancient and honourable as his
+own. But the girl was country-bred, and her fortune was small, and in
+a measure dependent upon her brother's management of the estate. A
+careless master of Ambar-Side would make Aspatria poor. While he was
+considering these things, Lady Redware arrived at the castle, and they
+talked over the matter together.
+
+"I expected Ulfar to marry very differently, and I must say I am
+disappointed. But I suppose it will be useless to make any opposition,
+Elizabeth," the old man said to his daughter.
+
+"Quite useless, father. But absence works miracles. Try to secure
+twelve months. You ought to go to a warm climate this winter; ask
+Ulfar to take you to Italy. In a year time may re-shuffle the cards.
+And you must write to the girl, and to her eldest brother, who is a
+fine fellow and as proud as Lucifer. I called upon them before I left
+Cumberland. She is very handsome."
+
+"Handsome! Old men know, Elizabeth, that six months after a man is
+married, it makes little difference to him whether his wife is
+handsome or not."
+
+"That may be, or it may not be, father. The thing to consider is, that
+young men unfortunately persist in marrying for that first six
+months."
+
+"Well, then, fortune pilots many a ship not steered. Suppose we leave
+things to circumstances?"
+
+"No, no! Human affairs are for the most part arranged in such a way
+that those turn out best to which most care is devoted."
+
+So the letters were thoughtfully written; the one to Aspatria being of
+a paternal character, that to her brother polite and complimentary. To
+his son Ulfar the old baronet made a very clever appeal. He reminded
+him of his great age, and of the few opportunities left for showing
+his affection and obedience. He regretted the necessity for a
+residence in Italy during the winter, but trusted to his son's love to
+see him through the experience. He congratulated Ulfar on winning the
+love of a young girl so fresh and unspoiled by the world, but kindly
+insisted upon the wisdom of a little delay, and the great benefit this
+delay would be to himself.
+
+It was altogether a very temperate, wise letter, appealing to the best
+side of Ulfar's nature. Squire William read it also, and gave it his
+most emphatic approval. He was in no hurry to lose his little sister.
+She was but a child yet, and knew nothing of the world she was going
+into; and "surely to goodness," he said, looking at the child, "she
+will have a lot of things to look after, before she can think of
+wedding."
+
+This last conjecture touched Aspatria on a very womanly point. Of
+course there were all her "things" to get ready. She had never
+possessed more than a few frocks at a time, and those of the simplest
+character; but she was quite alive to the necessity of an elaborate
+wardrobe, and she had also an instinctive sense of what would be
+proper for her position.
+
+So the suggestions of Ulfar's father were accepted in their entirety,
+and the old gentleman was put into a very good temper by the fact. And
+what was a year? "It will pass like a dream," said Ulfar. "And I shall
+write constantly to you, and you will write to me; and when we meet
+again it will be to part no more." Oh, the poverty of words in such
+straits as these! Men say the same things in the same extremities now
+that have been said millions of times before them. And Aspatria felt
+as if there ought to have been entirely new words, to express the joy
+of their betrothal and the sorrow of their parting.
+
+The short delay of a last week together was perhaps a mistake. A very
+young girl, to whom great joy and great sorrow are alike fresh
+experiences, may afford a prolonged luxury of the emotions of
+parting. Love, more worldly-wise, deprecates its demonstrativeness,
+and would avert it altogether. The farewell walks, the sentimental
+souvenirs, the pretty and petty devices of love's first dream, are
+tiresome to more practised lovers; and Ulfar had often proved what
+very cobwebs they were to bind a straying fancy.
+
+"Absence makes the heart grow fonder." Perhaps so, if the last memory
+be an altogether charming one. It was, unfortunately, not so in
+Aspatria's case. It should have been a closely personal farewell with
+Ulfar alone; but Squire Anneys, in his hospitable ignorance, gave it a
+public character. Several neighbouring squires and dames came to
+breakfast. There was cup-drinking, and toasting, and speech-making;
+and Ulfar's last glimpse of his betrothed was of her standing in the
+wide porch, surrounded by a waving, jubilant crowd of strangers, whose
+intermeddling in his joy he deeply resented. Anneys had invited them
+in accord with the traditions of his house and order. Fenwick thought
+it was a device to make stronger his engagement to Aspatria.
+
+"As if it needed such contrivances!" he muttered angrily. "When it
+does, it is a broken thread, and no Anneys can knot it again."
+
+The weeks that followed were full of new interests to Aspatria.
+Mistress Frostham, the wife of a near shepherd-lord, had been the
+friend of Aspatria's mother; she was fairly conversant with the world
+outside the fells and dales, and she took the girl under her care,
+accompanied her to Whitehaven, and directed her in the purchase of all
+considered necessary for the wife of Ulfar Fenwick.
+
+Then the deep snows shut in Seat-Ambar, and the great white hills
+stood round about it like fortifications. But as often as it was
+possible the Dalton postman fought his way up there, with his packet
+of accumulated mail; for he knew that a warm welcome and a large
+reward awaited him. In the main, the long same days went happily by.
+William and Brune had a score of resources for the season; the
+farm-servants worked in the barn; they were making and mending sacks
+for the wheat, and caps for the sheeps' heads in fly-time, sharpening
+scythes and tools, doing the indoor work of a great farm, and mostly
+singing as they did it.
+
+As Aspatria sat in her room, surrounded by fine cambric and linen and
+that exquisite English thread-lace now gone out of fashion, she could
+hear their laughter and their song, and she unconsciously set her
+stitches to its march and melody. The days were not long to her. So
+many dozens of garments to make with her own slight fingers! She had
+not a moment to waste, but the necessity was one of the sweetest
+delight. The solitude and secrecy of her labour added to its charm.
+She never took her sewing into the parlour. And yet she might have
+done so: William and Brune had a delicacy of affection for her which
+would have made them blind to her occupation and densely stupid as to
+its design.
+
+So, although the days were mostly alike, they were not unhappily so;
+and at intervals destiny sent her the surprises she loved. One morning
+in the beginning of February, Aspatria felt that the postman ought to
+come; her heart presaged him. The day was clear and warm,--so much so,
+that the men working in the barn had all the windows open. They were
+singing in rousing tones the famous North Country song to the
+barley-mow, and drinking it through all its verses, out of the jolly
+brown bowl, the nipperkin, the quarter-pint, the quart and the
+pottle,--the gallon and the anker,--the hogshead and the pipe,--the
+well, and the river, and the ocean,--and then rolling back the chorus,
+from ocean to the jolly brown bowl. Suddenly, while a dozen men were
+shouting in unison,--
+
+  "Here's a health to the barley mow!"
+
+the verse was broken by the cry of "Here comes Ringham the postman!"
+Then Aspatria ran to the window and saw him climbing the fell. She did
+not like to go downstairs until Will called her; but she could not sew
+another stitch. And when at last the aching silence in her ears was
+filled by Will's joyful "Come here, Aspatria! Here is such a parcel as
+never was,--from foreign parts too!" she hardly knew how her feet
+twinkled down the long corridor and stairs.
+
+The parcel was from Rome. Ulfar had sent it to his London banker, and
+the banker had sent a special messenger to Dalton with it. Over the
+fells at that season no one but Ringham could have found a safe way;
+and Ringham was made so welcome that he was quite imperious. He
+ordered himself a rasher of bacon, and a bowl of the famous barley
+broth, and spread himself comfortably before the great hearth-place.
+At the table stood Aspatria, William, and Brune. Aspatria was
+nervously trying to undo the seals and cords that bound love's message
+to her. Will finally took his pocket-knife and cut them. There was a
+long letter, and a box containing exquisite ornaments of Roman
+cameos,--precious onyx, made more precious by work of rare artistic
+beauty, a comb for her dark hair, a necklace for her white throat,
+bracelets for her slender wrists, a girdle of stones linked with gold
+for her waist. Oh, how full of simple delight she was! She was too
+happy to speak. Then Will discovered a smaller package. It was for
+himself and Brune. Will's present was a cameo ring, on which were
+engraved the Anneys and Fenwick arms. Brune had a scarf-pin,
+representing a lovely Hebe. It was a great day at Seat-Ambar. Aspatria
+could work no more; Will and Brune felt it impossible to finish the
+game they had begun.
+
+There is a tide in everything: this was the spring-tide of Aspatria's
+love. In its overflowing she was happy for many a day after her
+brothers had begun to speculate and wonder why Ringham did not come.
+Suddenly it struck her that the snow was gone, and the road open, and
+that there was no letter. She began to worry, and Will quietly rode
+over to Dalton, to ask if any letter was lying there. He came back
+empty-handed, silent, and a little surly. The anniversary of their
+meeting was at hand: surely Ulfar would remember it, so Aspatria
+thought, and she watched from dawn to dark, but no token of
+remembrance came. The flowers began to bloom, the birds to sing, the
+May sunshine flooded the earth with glory, but fear and doubt and
+dismay and daily disappointment made deepest, darkest winter in the
+low, long room where Aspatria watched and waited. Her sewing had been
+thrown aside. The half-finished garments, neatly folded, lay under a
+cover she had no strength to remove.
+
+In June she wrote a pitiful little note to her lover. She said that he
+ought to tell her, if he was tired of their engagement. She told Will
+what she had said, and asked him to post the letter. He answered
+angrily, "Don't you write a word to him, good or bad!" And he tore the
+letter into twenty pieces before her eyes.
+
+"Oh, Will, I cannot bear it!"
+
+"Thou art a woman: bear what other women have tholed before thee."
+Then he went angrily from her presence. Brune was thrumming on the
+window-pane. She thought he looked sorry for her; she touched his arm
+and said, "Brune, will you take a letter to Dalton post for me?"
+
+"For sure I will. Go thy ways and write it, and I'll be gone before
+Will is back."
+
+It was an unfortunate letter, as letters written in a hurry always
+are. Absolute silence would have piqued and worried Ulfar. He would
+have fancied her ill, dying perhaps; and the uncertainty, vague and
+portentous, would have prompted him to action, if only to satisfy his
+own mind. Sometimes he feared that a girl so sensitive would fade away
+in neglect; and he expected a letter from William Anneys saying so.
+But a hurried, halting, not very correct epistle, whose whole tenour
+was, "What is the matter? What have I done? Do you remember last year
+at this time?" irritated him beyond reply.
+
+He was still in Italy when it reached him. Sir Thomas Fenwick was not
+likely ever to return to England. He was slowly dying, and he had been
+removed to a villa in the Italian hills. And Elizabeth Redware had a
+friend with her, a young widow just come from Athens, who affected at
+times its splendid picturesque national costume. She was a very
+bright, handsome woman, whose fine education had been supplemented by
+travel, society, and a rather unhappy matrimonial experience. She knew
+how to pique and provoke, how to flirt to the very edge of danger and
+then sheer off, how to manipulate men before the fire of passion, as
+witches used to manipulate their waxen images before the blazing
+coals.
+
+She had easily won Ulfar's confidence; she had even assisted in the
+selection of the cameos; and she declared to Elizabeth that she would
+not for a whole world interfere between Ulfar and his pretty innocent!
+A natural woman was such a phenomenon! She was glad Ulfar was going to
+marry a phenomenon.
+
+Elizabeth knew her better. She gave the couple opportunity, and
+they needed nothing more. There were already between them a good
+understanding, transparent secrets, little jokes, a confessed
+confidence. They quickly became affectionate. The lovely Sarah,
+relict of Herbert Sandys, Esq., not only reminded Ulfar of his
+vows to Aspatria, but in the very reminder she tempted him to break
+them. When Aspatria's letter was put into his hand, she was with
+him, marvellously arrayed in tissue of silver and brilliant colours. A
+head-dress of gold coins glittered in her fair braided hair; her
+long white arms were shining with bracelets; she was at once languid
+and impulsive, provoking Elizabeth and Ulfar to conversation, and
+then amazing them by the audacity and contradiction of her opinions.
+
+"It is so fortunate," she said, "that Ulfar has found a little
+out-of-the-way girl to appreciate his great beauty. The world at
+present does not think much of masculine beauty. A handsome fellow who
+starts for any of its prizes is judged to be frivolous and poetical,
+perhaps immoral: you see Byron's beauty made him unfit for a
+legislator, he could do nothing but write poetry. I should say it was
+Ulfar's best card to marry this innocent with the queer name: with his
+face and figure, he will never get into Parliament. No one would trust
+him with taxes. He is born to make love, and he and his country
+Phyllis can go simpering and kissing through life together. If I were
+interested in Ulfar----"
+
+"You are interested in Ulfar, Sarah," interrupted Elizabeth. "You said
+so to me last night."
+
+"Did I? Nevertheless, life does not give us time really to question
+ourselves, and it is the infirmity of my nature to mistake feeling for
+evidence."
+
+"You must not change your opinions so quickly, Sarah."
+
+"It is often an element of success to change your opinions. It is
+hesitating among a variety of views that is fatal. The man who does
+not know what he wants is the man who is held cheap."
+
+"I am sure I know what I want, Sarah." And as he spoke, Ulfar looked
+with intelligence at the fair widow, and in answer she shot from her
+bright blue eyes a bolt of summer lightning that set aflame at once
+the emotional side of Ulfar's nature.
+
+"You say strange things, Sarah. I wish it was possible to understand
+you."
+
+"'Who shall read the interpretation thereof?' is written on everything
+we see, especially on women."
+
+"I believe," said Elizabeth, "that Ulfar has quarrelled with his
+country maid. Is there a quarrel, Ulfar, really?"
+
+"No," he answered, with some temper.
+
+Sarah nodded at Ulfar, and said softly: "The absent must be satisfied
+with the second place. However, if you have quarrelled with her,
+Ulfar, turn over a new leaf. I found that out when poor Sandys was
+alive. People who have to live together must blot a leaf now and then
+with their little tempers. The only thing is to turn over a new one."
+
+"If anything unpleasant happens to me," said Ulfar, "I try to bury
+it."
+
+"You cannot do it. The past is a ghost not to be laid; and a past
+which is buried alive, it is terrible." It was Sarah who spoke, and
+with a sombre earnestness not in keeping with her usual character.
+There was a minute's pregnant silence, and it was broken by the
+entrance of a servant with a letter. He gave it to Ulfar.
+
+It was Aspatria's sorrowful, questioning note. Written while Brune
+waited, it was badly written, incorrectly constructed and spelled, and
+generally untidy. It had the same effect upon Ulfar that a badly
+dressed, untidy woman would have had. He was ashamed of the
+irregular, childish scrawl. He did not take the trouble to put himself
+in the atmosphere in which the anxious, sorrowful words had been
+written. He crushed the paper in his hand with much the same
+contemptuous temper with which Elizabeth had seen him treat a dunning
+letter. She knew, however, that this letter was from Aspatria, and,
+saying something about her father, she went into an adjoining room,
+and left Ulfar and Sarah together. She thought Sarah would be the
+proper alterative.
+
+The first words Sir Thomas Fenwick uttered regarded Aspatria. Turning
+his head feebly, he asked: "Has Ulfar quarrelled with Miss Anneys? I
+hear nothing of her lately."
+
+"I think he is tired of his fancy for her. There is no quarrel."
+
+"She was a good girl,--eh? Kindhearted, beautiful,--eh, Elizabeth?"
+
+"She certainly was."
+
+He said no more then; but at midnight, when Ulfar was sitting beside
+him, he called his son, and spoke to him on the subject. "I am
+going--almost gone--the way of all flesh, Ulfar. Take heed of my last
+words. You promised to make Miss Anneys your wife,--eh?"
+
+"I did, father."
+
+"Do not break your promise. If she gives it back to you, that might be
+well; but you cannot escape from your own word and deed. Honour keeps
+the door of the house of life. To break your word is to set the door
+wide open,--open for sorrow and evil of all kinds. Take care, Ulfar."
+
+The next day he died, and one of Ulfar's first thoughts was that the
+death set him free from his promise for one year at the least. A year
+contained a multitude of chances. He could afford to write to
+Aspatria under such circumstances. So he answered her letter at
+once, and it seemed proper to be affectionate, preparatory to
+reminding her that their marriage was impossible until the mourning
+for Sir Thomas was over. Also death had softened his heart, and
+his father's last words had made him indeterminate and a little
+superstitious. A clever woman of the world would not have believed
+in this letter; its _aura_--subtle but persistent, as the perfume of
+the paper--would have made her doubt its fondest lines. But Aspatria
+had no idea other than that certain words represented absolutely
+certain feelings.
+
+The letter made her joyful. It brought back the roses to her cheeks,
+the spring of motion to her steps. She began to work in her room once
+more. Now and then her brothers heard her singing the old song she had
+sung so constantly with Ulfar,--
+
+  "A shepherd in a shade his plaining made,
+    Of love, and lovers' wrong,
+  Unto the fairest lass that trod on grass,
+    And thus began his song:
+  'Restore, restore my heart again,
+  Which thy sweet looks have slain,
+  Lest that, enforced by your disdain, I sing,
+  Fye! fye on love! It is a foolish thing!
+
+  "'Since love and fortune will, I honour still
+    Your dark and shining eye;
+  What conquest will it be, sweet nymph, to thee,
+    If I for sorrow die?
+  Restore, restore my heart again,
+  Which thy sweet looks have slain,
+  Lest that, enforced by your disdain, I sing,
+  Fye! fye on love! It is a foolish thing!'"
+
+But the lifting of the sorrow was only that it might press more
+heavily. No more letters came; no message of any kind; none of the
+pretty love-gages he delighted in giving during the first months of
+their acquaintance. A gloom more wretched than that of death or
+sickness settled in the old rooms of Seat-Ambar. William and Brune
+carried its shadow on their broad, rosy faces into the hay-fields and
+the wheat-fields. It darkened all the summer days, and dulled all the
+usual mirth-making of the ingathering feasts. William was cross and
+taciturn. He loved his sister with all his heart, but he did not know
+how to sympathize with her. Even mother-love, when in great anxiety,
+sometimes wraps itself in this unreasonable irritability. Brune
+understood better. He had suffered from a love-change himself; he
+knew its ache and longing, its black despairs and still more cruel
+hopes. He was always on the lookout for Aspatria; and one day he heard
+news which he thought would interest her. Lady Redware was at the
+Hall. William had heard it a week before, but he had not considered it
+prudent to name the fact. Brune had a kinder intelligence.
+
+"Aspatria," he said, "Redware Hall is open again. I saw Lady Redware
+in the village."
+
+"Brune! Oh, Brune, is he there too?"
+
+"No, he isn't. I made sure of that."
+
+"Brune, I want to go to Redware. Perhaps his sister may tell me the
+truth. Go with me. Oh, Brune, go with me! I am dying of suspense and
+uncertainty."
+
+"Ay, they're fit to kill anybody, let alone a little lass like you. It
+will put William about, and it may make bad bread between us; but I'll
+go with you, even if we do have a falling out. I'm not flayed for
+William's rages."
+
+The next market-day Brune kept his word. As soon as Squire Anneys had
+climbed the fell breast and passed over the brow of the hill, Brune
+was at the door with horses for Aspatria and himself. She was a good
+rider, and they made the distance, in spite of hills and hollows, in
+two hours. Lady Redware was troubled at the visit, but she came to the
+door to welcome Aspatria, and she asked Brune with particular warmth
+to come into the house with his sister. Brune knew better; he was sure
+in such a case that it would prove a mere formal call, and that
+Aspatria would never have the courage to ask the questions she wished
+to.
+
+But Aspatria had come to that point of mental suffering when she
+wanted to know the truth, even though the truth was the worst. Lady
+Redware saw the determination on her face, and resolved to gratify it.
+She was shocked at the change in Aspatria's appearance. Her beauty
+was, in a measure, gone. Her eyes were hollow, and the lids dark and
+swollen with weeping. Her figure was more angular. The dew of youth,
+the joy of youth, was over. She drooped like a fading flower. If Ulfar
+saw her in such condition he might pity, but assuredly he would not
+admire her.
+
+Lady Redware kissed the poor girl. "Come in, my dear," she said
+kindly. "How ill you look! Here is wine: take a drink."
+
+"I am ill. I even hope I am dying. Life is so hard to bear. Ulfar has
+forgotten me. I have vexed him, and cannot find out in what way. If
+you would only tell me!"
+
+"You have not vexed him at all."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"He is tired, or he has seen a fresher face. That is Ulfar's great
+fault. He loves too well, because he does not love very long. Can you
+not forget him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You must have other lovers?"
+
+"No. I never had a lover until Ulfar wooed me. I will have none after
+him. I shall love him until I die."
+
+"What folly!"
+
+"Perhaps. I am only a foolish child. If I had been wise and clever, he
+would not have left me. It is my fault. Do you believe he will ever
+come to Seat-Ambar again?"
+
+"I do not think he will. It is best to tell you the truth. My dear, I
+am truly sorry for you! Indeed I am, Aspatria!"
+
+The girl had covered her face with her thin white hands. Her attitude
+was so hopeless that it brought the tears to Lady Redware's eyes.
+Hoping to divert her attention, she said,--
+
+"Who called you Aspatria?"
+
+"It was my mother's name. She was born in Aspatria, and she loved the
+place very much."
+
+"Where is it, child? I never heard of it."
+
+"Not far away, on the sea-coast,--a little town that brother Will says
+has been asleep for centuries. Such a pretty place, straggling up the
+hillside, and looking over the sea. Mother was born there, and she is
+buried there, in the churchyard. It is such an old church, one
+thousand years old! Mother said it was built by Saint Kentigern. I
+went there to pray last week, by mother's grave. I thought she might
+hear me, and help me to bear the suffering."
+
+"You poor child! It is shameful of Ulfar!"
+
+"He is not to blame. Will told me that it was a poor woman who
+couldn't keep what she had won."
+
+"It was very brutal in Will to say such a thing."
+
+"He did not mean it unkindly. We are plain-spoken people, Lady
+Redware. Tell me, as plainly as Will would tell me, if there is any
+hope for me. Does Ulfar love me at all now?"
+
+"I fear not."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"I am sure."
+
+"Thank you. Now I will go." She put out her hands before her, as if
+she was blind and had to feel her way; and in answer to all Lady
+Redware's entreaties to remain, to rest, to eat something, she only
+shook her head, and stumbled forward. Brune saw her coming. He was
+standing by the horses, but he left them, and went to meet his sister.
+Her misery was so visible that he put her in the saddle with fear. But
+she gathered the reins silently, and motioned him to proceed; and
+Aspatria's last sad smile haunted Lady Redware for many a day. Long
+afterward she recalled it with a sharp gasp of pity and annoyance. It
+was such a proud, sorrowful farewell.
+
+She reached home, but it took the last remnant of her strength. She
+was carried to her bed, and she remained there many weeks. The hills
+were white with snow, and the winter winds were sounding among them
+like the chant of a high mass, when she came down once more to the
+parlor. Even then Will carried her like a baby in his arms. He had
+carried her mother in the same way, when she began to die; and his
+heart trembled and smote him. He was very tender with his little
+sister, but tempests of rage tossed him to and fro when he thought of
+Ulfar Fenwick.
+
+And he was compelled lately to think of him very often. All over the
+fell-side, all through Allerdale, it had begun to be whispered,
+"Aspatria Anneys has been deserted by her lover." How the fact had
+become known it was difficult to discover: it was as if it had flown
+from roof to roof with the sparrows. Will could see it in the faces of
+his neighbours, could hear it in the tones of their speech, could feel
+it in the clasp of their hands. And he thought of these things, until
+he could not eat a meal or sleep an hour in peace. His heart was on
+fire with suppressed rage. He told Brune that all he wanted was to lay
+Fenwick across his knees and break his neck. And then he spread out
+his mighty hands, and clasped and unclasped them with a silent force
+that had terrible anticipation in it. And he noticed that after her
+illness his sister no longer wore the circlet of diamonds which had
+been her betrothal-ring. She had evidently lost all hope. Then it was
+time for him to interfere.
+
+Aspatria feared it when he came to her room one morning and kissed her
+and bade her good-by. He said he was going a bit off, and might be a
+week away,--happen more. But she did not dare to question him. Will at
+times had masterful ways, which no one dared to question.
+
+Brune knew where his brother was going. The night before he had taken
+Brune to the little room which was called the Squire's room. In it
+there was a large oak chest, black with age and heavy with iron bars.
+It contained the title-deeds, and many other valuable papers. Will
+explained these and the other business of the farm to Brune; and Brune
+did not need to ask him why. He was well aware what business William
+Anneys was bent on, before Will said,--"I am going to Fenwick Castle,
+Brune. I am going to make that measureless villain marry Aspatria."
+
+"Is it worth while, Will?"
+
+"It is worth while. He shall keep his promise. If he does not, I will
+kill him, or he must kill me."
+
+"If he kills you, Will, he must then fight me." And Brune's face grew
+red and hot, and his eyes flashed angry fire.
+
+"That is as it should be; only keep your anger at interest until you
+have lads to take your place. We mustn't leave Ambar-Side without an
+Anneys to heir it. I fancy your wrath won't get cold while it is
+waiting."
+
+"It will get hotter and hotter."
+
+"And whatever happens, don't you be saving of kind words to Aspatria.
+The little lass has suffered more than a bit; and she is that like
+mother! I couldn't bide, even if I was in my grave, to think of her
+wanting kindness."
+
+The next morning Will went away. Brune would not talk to Aspatria
+about the journey. This course was a mistake; it would have done her
+good to talk continually of it. As it was, she was left to chew over
+and over the cud of her mournful anticipations. She had no womanly
+friend near her. Mrs. Frostham had drawn back a little when people
+began to talk of "poor Miss Anneys." She had daughters, and she did
+not feel that her friendship for the dead included the living, when
+the living were unfortunate and had questionable things said about
+them.
+
+And the last bitter drop in Aspatria's cup full of sorrow was the
+hardness of her heart toward Heaven. She could not care about God; she
+thought God did not care for her. She had tried to make herself pray,
+even by going to her mother's grave, but she felt no spark of that
+hidden fire which is the only acceptable prayer. There was a Christ
+cut out of ivory, nailed to a large ebony cross, in her room. It had
+been taken from the grave of an old abbot in Aspatria Church, and had
+been in her mother's family three hundred years. It was a Christ that
+had been in the grave and had come back to earth. Her mother's eyes
+had closed forever while fixed upon it, and to Aspatria it had always
+been an object of supreme reverence and love. She was shocked to find
+herself unmoved by its white pathos. Even at her best hours she could
+only stand with clasped hands and streaming eyes before it, and with
+sad imploration cry,--
+
+"I cannot pray! I cannot pray! Forgive me, Christ!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ONLY BROTHER WILL.
+
+
+It was a dull raw day in late autumn, especially dull and raw near the
+sea, where there was an evil-looking sky to the eastward. Ulfar
+Fenwick stood at a window in Castle Fenwick which commanded the black,
+white-frilled surges. He was watching anxiously the point at which the
+pale gray wall of fog was thickest, a wall of inconceivable height,
+resting on the sea, reaching to the clouds, when suddenly there
+emerged from it a beautifully built schooner-yacht. She cut her way
+through the mysterious barrier as if she had been a knife, and came
+forward with short, stubborn plunges.
+
+All over the North Sea there are desolate places full of the cries of
+parting souls, but nowhere more desolate spaces than around Fenwick
+Castle; and as the winter was approaching, Ulfar was anxious to escape
+its loneliness. His yacht had been taking in supplies; she was making
+for the pier at the foot of Fenwick Cliff, and he was dressed for the
+voyage and about to start upon it. He was going to the Mediterranean,
+to Civita Vecchia, and his purpose was the filial one of bringing home
+the remains of the late baronet. He had promised faithfully to see
+them laid with those of his fore-elders on the windy Northumberland
+coast; and he felt that this duty must be done, ere he could
+comfortably travel the westward route he had so long desired.
+
+He was slowly buttoning his pilot-coat, when he heard a heavy step
+upon the flagged passage. Many such steps had been up and down it
+that hour, but none with the same fateful sound. He turned his face
+anxiously to the door, and as he did so, it was flung open, as if by
+an angry man, and William Anneys walked in, frowning and handling his
+big walking-stick with a subdued passion that filled the room as if it
+had been suddenly charged with electricity. The two men looked
+steadily at each other, neither of them flinching, neither of them
+betraying by the movement of an eyelash the emotion that sent the
+blood to their faces and the wrath to their eyes.
+
+"William Anneys! What do you want?"
+
+"I want you to set your wedding-day. It must not be later than the
+fifteenth of this month."
+
+"Suppose I refuse to do so? I am going to Italy for my father's
+body."
+
+"You shall not leave England until you marry my sister."
+
+"Suppose I refuse to do so?"
+
+"Then you will have to take your chances of life or death. You will
+give me satisfaction first; and if you escape the fate you well
+deserve, Brune may have better fortune."
+
+"Duelling is now murder, sir, unless we pass over to France."
+
+"I will not go to France. Wrestling is not murder, and we both know
+there is a 'throw' to kill; and I will 'throw' until I do kill,--or am
+killed. There's Brune after me."
+
+"I have ceased to love your sister. I dare say she has forgotten me.
+Why do you insist on our marriage? Is it that she may be Lady
+Fenwick?"
+
+"Look you, sir! I care nothing for lordships or ladyships; such things
+are matterless to me. But your desertion has set wicked suspicions
+loose about Miss Anneys; and the woman they dare to think her, you
+shall make your wife. By God in heaven, I swear it!"
+
+"They have said wrong of Miss Anneys! Impossible!"
+
+"No, sir! they have not said wrong. If any man in Allerdale had dared
+to say wrong, I had torn his tongue from his mouth before I came here;
+and as for the women, they know well I would hold their husbands or
+brothers or sons responsible for every ill word they spoke. But they
+think wrong, and they make me feel it everywhere. They look it, they
+shy off from Aspatria,--oh, you know well enough the kind of thing
+going on."
+
+"A wrong thought of Miss Anneys is atrocious. The angels are not more
+pure." He said the words softly, as if to himself; and William Anneys
+stood watching him with an impatience that in a moment or two found
+vent in an emphatic stamp with his foot.
+
+"I have no time to waste, sir. Are you afraid to sup the ill broth you
+have brewed?"
+
+"Afraid!"
+
+"I see you have no mind to marry. Well, then, we will fight! I like
+that better."
+
+"I will fight both you and your brother, make any engagement you
+wish; but if the fair name of Miss Anneys is in danger, I have a prior
+engagement to marry her. I will keep it first. Afterward I am at your
+service, Squire, yours and your brother's; for I tell you plainly that
+I shall leave my wife at the church door and never see her again."
+
+"I care not how soon you leave her; the sooner the better. Will the
+eleventh of this month suit you?"
+
+"Make it the fifteenth. To what church will you bring my fair bride?"
+
+"Keep your scoffing for a fitter time. If you look in that way again,
+I will strike the smile off your lips with a hand that will leave you
+little smiling in the future." And he passed his walking-stick to his
+left, and doubled his large right hand with an ominous readiness.
+
+"We may even quarrel like gentlemen, Mr. Anneys."
+
+"Then don't you laugh like a blackguard, that's all."
+
+"Answer me civilly. At what church shall I meet Miss Anneys, and at
+what hour on the fifteenth?"
+
+"At Aspatria Church, at eleven o'clock."
+
+"Aspatria?"
+
+"Ay, to be sure! There will be witnesses there, I can tell
+you,--generations of them, centuries of generations. They will see
+that you do the right thing, or they will dog your steps till you have
+paid the uttermost farthing of the wrong. Mind what you do, then!"
+
+"The dead frighten me no more than the living do."
+
+"You will find out, maybe, what the vengeance of the dead is. I would
+be willing to leave you to it, if you shab off, and I am not sure but
+you will."
+
+"William Anneys, you are sure I will not. You are saying such things
+to provoke me to a fight."
+
+"What reason have I to be sure? All the vows you made to Aspatria you
+have counted as a fool's babble."
+
+"I give you my word of honour. Between gentlemen that is enough."
+
+"To be sure, to be sure! Gentlemen can make it enough. But a poor
+little lass, what can she do but pine herself into a grave?"
+
+"I will listen to you no longer, Squire Anneys. If your sister's good
+name is at stake, it is my first duty to shield it with my own name.
+If that does not satisfy your sense of honour, I will give you and
+your brother whatever satisfaction you desire. On the fifteenth of
+this month, at eleven o'clock, I will meet you at Aspatria Church.
+Where shall I find the place?"
+
+"It is not far from Gosforth and Dalton, on the coast. You cannot miss
+it, unless you never look for it."
+
+"Sir!"
+
+"Unless you never look for it. I do not feel to trust you. But this is
+a promise made to a man, made to William Anneys; and he will see that
+you keep it, or else that you pay for the breaking of it."
+
+"Good-morning, Squire. There is no necessity to prolong such an
+unpleasant visit."
+
+"Nay, I will not 'good-morning' with you. I have not a good wish of
+any kind for you."
+
+With these defiant words he left the castle, and Fenwick threw off his
+pilot-coat and sat down to consider. First thoughts generally come
+from the selfish, and therefore the worst, side of any nature; and
+Fenwick's first thoughts were that his yacht was ready to sail, and
+that he could go away, and stay away until Aspatria married, or some
+other favourable change took place. He cared little for England. With
+good management he could bring home and bury his father's dust without
+the knowledge of William Anneys. Then there was the west! America was
+before him, north and south. He had always promised himself to see
+the whole western continent ere he settled for life in England.
+
+Such thoughts were naturally foremost, but he did not encourage them.
+He felt no lingering sentiment of pity or love for Aspatria, but he
+realized very clearly what suspicion, what the slant eye, the
+whispered word, the scornful glance, the doubtful shrug, meant in
+those primitive valleys. And he had loved the girl dearly; he had
+promised to marry her. If she wished him to keep his promise, if it
+was a necessity to her honour, then he would redeem with his own
+honour his foolish words. He told himself constantly that he had not a
+particle of fear, that he despised Will and Brune Anneys and their
+brutal vows of vengeance; but--but perhaps they did unconsciously
+influence him. Life was sweet to Ulfar Fenwick, full of new dreams and
+hopes set in all kinds of new surroundings. For Aspatria Anneys why
+should he die? It was better to marry her. The girl had been sweet to
+him, very sweet! After all, he was not sure but he preferred that she
+should be so bound to him as to prevent her marrying any other man. He
+still liked her well enough to feel pleasure in the thought that he
+had put her out of the reach of any future lover she might have.
+
+Squire Anneys rode home in what Brune called "a pretty temper for any
+man." His horse was at the last point of endurance when he reached
+Seat-Ambar, he himself wet and muddy, "cross and unreasonable beyond
+everything." Aspatria feared the very sound of his voice. She fled to
+her room and bolted the door. At that hour she felt as if death would
+be the best thing for her; she had brought only sorrow and trouble and
+apprehended disgrace to all who loved her.
+
+"I think God has forgotten me too!" she cried, glancing with eyes full
+of anguish to the pale Crucified One hanging alone and forsaken in the
+darkest corner of the room. Only the white figure was visible; the
+cross had become a part of the shadows. She remembered the joyous,
+innocent prayers that had been wont to make peace in her heart and
+music on her lips; and she looked with a sorrow that was almost
+reproach at her Book of Common Prayer, lying dusty and neglected on
+its velvet cushion. In her rebellious, hopeless grief, she had missed
+all its wells of comfort. Oh, if an angel would only open her eyes!
+One had come to Hagar in the desert: Aspatria was almost in equal
+despair.
+
+Yet when she heard her brother Will's voice she knew not of any other
+sanctuary than the little table which held her Bible and Prayer Book,
+and upon which the wan, sad ivory Christ looked down. In speechless
+misery, with clasped hands and low-bowed head, she knelt there. Will's
+voice, strenuous and stern, reached her at intervals. She knew from
+the silence in the kitchen and farm-offices, and the hasty movements
+of the servants, that Will was cross; and she greatly feared her
+eldest brother when he was in what Brune called one of his rages.
+
+A long lull was followed by a sharp call. It was Will calling her
+name. She felt it impossible to answer, impossible to move; and as he
+ascended the stairs and came grumbling along the corridor, she
+crouched lower and lower. He was at her door, his hand on the latch;
+then a few piteous words broke from her lips: "Help, Christ, Saviour
+of the world!"
+
+Instantly, like a flash of lightning, came the answer, "It is I. Be
+not afraid." She said the words herself, gave to her heart the promise
+and the comfort of it, and, so saying them, she drew back the bolt and
+stood facing her brother. He had a candle in his hand, and it showed
+her his red, angry face, and showed him the pale, resolute countenance
+of a woman who had prayed and been comforted.
+
+He walked into the room and put the candle down on a small table in
+its centre. They both stood a moment by it; then Aspatria lifted her
+face to her brother and kissed him. He was taken aback and softened,
+and troubled at his heart. Her suffering was so evident; she was such
+a gray shadow of her former self.
+
+"Aspatria! Aspatria! my little lass!" Then he stopped and looked at
+her again.
+
+"What is it, Will? Dear Will, what is it?"
+
+"You must be married on the fifteenth. Get something ready. I will see
+Mrs. Frostham and ask her to help you a bit."
+
+"Whom am I to marry, Will? On the fifteenth? It is impossible! See how
+ill I am!"
+
+"You are to marry Ulfar Fenwick. Ill? Of course you are ill; but you
+must go to Aspatria Church on the fifteenth. Ulfar Fenwick will meet
+you there. He will make you his wife."
+
+"You have forced him to marry me. I will not go, I will not go. I will
+not marry Ulfar Fenwick."
+
+"You shall go, if I carry you in my arms! You shall marry him, or
+I--will--kill--you!"
+
+"Then kill me! Death does not terrify me. Nothing can be more cruel
+hard than the life I have lived for a long time."
+
+He looked at her steadily, and she returned the gaze. His face was
+like a flame; hers was white as snow.
+
+"There are things in life worse than death, Aspatria. There is
+dishonour, disgrace, shame."
+
+"Is sorrow dishonour? Is it a disgrace to love? Is it a shame to weep
+when love is dead?"
+
+"Ay, my little lass, it may be a great wrong to love and to weep.
+There is a shadow around you, Aspatria; if people speak of you they
+drop their voices and shake their heads; they wonder, and they think
+evil. Your good name is being smiled and shaken away, and I cannot
+find any one, man or woman, to thrash for it."
+
+She stood listening to him with wide-open eyes, and lips dropping a
+little apart, every particle of colour fled from them.
+
+"It is for this reason Fenwick is to marry you."
+
+"You forced him; I know you forced him." She seemed to drag the words
+from her mouth; they almost shivered; they broke in two as they fell
+halting on the ear.
+
+"Well, I must say he did not need forcing, when he heard your good
+name was in danger. He said, manly enough, that he would make it good
+with his own name. I do not much think I could have either frightened
+or flogged him into marrying you."
+
+"Oh, Will! I cannot marry him in this way! Let people say wicked
+things of me, if they will."
+
+"Nay, I will not! I cannot help them thinking evil; but they shall not
+look it, and they shall not say it."
+
+"Perhaps they do not even think it, Will. How can you tell?"
+
+"Well enough, Aspatria. How many women come to Ambar-Side now? If you
+gave a dance next week, you could not get a girl in Allerdale to
+accept your invitation."
+
+"Will!"
+
+"It is the truth. You must stop all this by marrying Ulfar Fenwick. He
+saw it was only just and right: I will say that much for him."
+
+"Let me alone until morning. I will do what you say.--Oh, mother!
+mother I want mother now!"
+
+"My poor little lass! I am only brother Will; but I am sorry for thee,
+I am that!"
+
+She tottered to the bedside, and he lifted her gently, and laid her on
+it; and then, as softly as if he was afraid of waking her, he went out
+of the room. Outside the door he found Brune. He had taken off his
+shoes, and was in his stocking-feet. Will grasped him by the shoulder
+and led him to his own chamber.
+
+"What were you watching me for? What were you listening to me for? I
+have a mind to hit you, Brune."
+
+"You had better not hit me, Will. I was not bothering myself about
+you. I was watching Aspatria. I was listening, because I knew the
+madman in you had got loose, and I was feared for my sister. I was not
+going to let you say or do things you would be sorry to death for when
+you came to yourself. And so you are going to let that villain marry
+Aspatria? You are not of my mind, Will. I would not let him put a foot
+into our decent family, or have a claim of any kind on our sister."
+
+"I have done what I thought best."
+
+"I don't say it is best."
+
+"And I don't ask for your opinion. Go to your own room, Brune, and
+mind your own affairs."
+
+And Brune, brought up in the religious belief of the natural supremacy
+of the elder brother, went off without another word, but with a heart
+full to overflowing of turbulent, angry thoughts.
+
+In the morning Will went to see Mrs. Frostham. He told her of his
+interview with Ulfar Fenwick, and begged her to help Aspatria with
+such preparations as could be made. But neither to her nor yet to
+Aspatria did he speak of Fenwick's avowed intention to leave his wife
+after the ceremony. In the first place, he did not believe that
+Fenwick would dare to give him such a cowardly insult; and then, also,
+he thought that the sight of Aspatria's suffering would make him
+tender toward her. William Anneys's simple, kindly soul did not
+understand that of all things the painful results of our sins are the
+most irritating. The hatred we ought to give to the sin or to the
+sinner, we give to the results.
+
+Surely it was the saddest preparation for a wedding that could be.
+Will and Brune were "out." They did not speak to each other, except
+about the farm business. Aspatria spent most of her time in her
+own room with a sempstress, who was making the long-delayed
+wedding-dress. The silk for it had been bought more than a year, and
+it had lost some of its lustrous colour. Mrs. Frostham paid a short
+visit every day, and occasionally Alice Frostham came with her. She
+was a very pretty girl, gentle and affectionate to Aspatria; and
+just because of her kindness Will determined at some time to make
+her Mistress of Seat-Ambar.
+
+But in the house there was a great depression, a depression that no
+one could avoid feeling. Will gave no orders for wedding-festivities;
+a great dinner and ball would have been a necessity under the usual
+circumstances, but there were no arrangements even for a breakfast.
+Aspatria wondered at the omission, but she did not dare to question
+Will; indeed. Will appeared to avoid her as much as he could.
+
+Really, William Anneys was very anxious and miserable. He had no
+dependence upon Fenwick's promise, and he felt that if Fenwick
+deceived him there was nothing possible but the last vengeance. He
+had this thought constantly in his mind; and he was quietly ordering
+things on the farm for a long absence, and for Brune's management or
+succession. He paid several visits to Whitehaven, where was his
+banker, and to Gosport, where his lawyer lived. He felt, during that
+terrible interval of suspense, very much as a man under sentence of
+death might feel.
+
+The morning of the fifteenth broke chill and dark, with a promise of
+rain. Great Gable was carrying on a conflict with an army of gray
+clouds assailing his summit and boding no good for the weather. The
+fog rolled and eddied from side to side of the mountains, which
+projected their black forms against a ghastly, neutral tint behind
+them; and the air was full of that melancholy stillness which so often
+pervades the last days of autumn.
+
+Squire Anneys had slept little for two weeks, and he had been awake
+all the night before. While yet very early, he had every one in the
+house called. Still there were no preparations for company or
+feasting. Brune came down grumbling at a breakfast by candle-light,
+and he and William drank their coffee and made a show of eating almost
+in silence. But there was an unspeakable tenderness in William's
+heart, if he had known how to express it. He looked at Brune with a
+new speculation in his eyes. Brune might soon be master of Ambar-Side:
+what kind of a master would he make? Would he be loving to Aspatria?
+When Brune had sons to inherit the land, would he remember his
+promise, and avenge the insult to the Anneys, if he, William, should
+give his life in vain? Out of these questions many others arose; but
+he was naturally a man of few words, and not able to talk himself into
+a conviction that he was doing right; nor yet was he able to give
+utterance to the vague objections which, if defined by words, might
+perhaps have changed his feelings and his plans.
+
+He had sent Aspatria word that she must be ready by ten o'clock. At
+eight she began to dress. Her sleep had been broken and miserable. She
+looked anxiously in the glass at her face. It was as white as the silk
+robe she was to wear. A feeling of dislike of the unhappy garment rose
+in her heart. She had bought the silk in the very noon of her love and
+hopes, a shining piece of that pearl-like tint which only the most
+brilliant freshness and youth can becomingly wear. Many little
+accessories were wanting. She tried the Roman cameos with it, and they
+looked heavy; she knew in her womanly heart that it needed the lustre
+of gems, the sparkle of diamonds or rubies.
+
+Mrs. Frostham came a little later, and assisted her in her toilet; but
+a passing thought of the four bridemaids she had once chosen for this
+office made her eyes dim, while the stillness of the house, the utter
+neglect of all symbols of rejoicing, gave an ominous and sorrowful
+atmosphere to the bride-robing. Still, Aspatria looked very handsome;
+for as the melancholy toilet offices proceeded with so little interest
+and so little sympathy, a sense of resentment had gradually gathered
+in the poor girl's heart. It made her carry herself proudly, it
+brought a flush to her cheeks, and a flashing, trembling light to her
+eyes which Mrs. Frostham could not comfortably meet.
+
+A few minutes before ten, she threw over all her fateful finery a
+large white cloak, which added a decided grace and dignity to her
+appearance. It was a garment Ulfar had sent her from London,--a long,
+mantle-like wrap, made of white cashmere, and lined with quilted
+white satin. Long cords and tassels of chenille fastened it at the
+throat, and the hood was trimmed with soft white fur. She drew the
+hood over her head, she felt glad to hide the wreath of orange-buds
+and roses which Mrs. Frostham had insisted upon her wearing,--the sign
+and symbol of her maidenhood.
+
+Will looked at her with stern lips, but as he wrapped up her
+satin-sandalled feet in the carriage, he said softly to her, "God
+bless you, Aspatria!" His voice trembled, but not more than Aspatria's
+as she answered,--
+
+"Thank you, Will. You and Brune are father and mother to me to-day.
+There is no one else."
+
+"Never mind, my little lass. We are enough."
+
+She was alone in the carriage. Will and Brune rode on either side of
+her. The Frosthams, the Dawsons, the Bellendens, the Atkinsons, and
+the Lutons followed. Will had invited every one to the church, and
+curiosity brought those who were not moved by sympathy or regard.
+Fortunately the rain held off, though the air was damp and exceedingly
+depressing.
+
+When they arrived at Aspatria Church, they found the yard full; every
+gravestone was occupied by a little party of gossips. At the gate
+there was a handsome travelling-chariot with four horses. It lifted a
+great weight of apprehension from William Anneys, for it told him that
+Fenwick had kept his word. He helped Aspatria to alight, and his heart
+ached for her. How would she be able to walk between that crowd of
+gazing, curious men and women? He held her arm tight against his big
+heart, and Brune, carefully watching her, followed close behind.
+
+But Aspatria's inner self had taken possession of the outer woman. She
+walked firmly and proudly, with an erect grace, without hesitation and
+without hurry, toward her fate. Something within her kept saying words
+of love and encouragement; she knew not what they were, only they
+strengthened her like wine. She passed the church door whispering the
+promise given her,--"It is I. Be not afraid." And then her eyes fell
+upon the ancient stone font, at which her father and mother had named
+her. She put out her hand and just touched its holy chalice.
+
+The church was crowded with a curious and not unsympathetic
+congregation. Aspatria Anneys was their own, a dales-woman by a
+thousand years of birthright. Fenwick was a stranger. If he were going
+to do her any wrong, and Will Anneys was ready to punish him for it,
+every man and woman present would have stood shoulder to shoulder with
+Will. There was an undefined expectation of something unusual, of
+something more than a wedding. This feeling, though unexpressed, made
+itself felt in a very pronounced way. Will and Brune looked
+confidingly around; Aspatria gathered courage with every step. She
+felt that she was among her own people, living and dead.
+
+As soon as they really entered the church, they saw Fenwick. He was
+with an officer wearing the uniform of the Household Troops; and
+he was evidently pointing out to him the ancient tombs of the
+Ambar-Anneys family, the Crusaders in stone, with sheathed swords
+and hands folded in prayer, and those of the family abbots, adorned
+with richly floriated crosses.
+
+When he saw Aspatria he bowed, and advanced rapidly to the altar. She
+had loosened her cloak and flung back her hood, and she watched his
+approach with eyes that seemed two separate souls of love and sorrow.
+One glance from them troubled him to the seat of life. He motioned to
+the waiting clergyman, and took his place beside his bride. There was
+a dead stillness in the church, and a dead stillness outside; the
+neighing of a horse sounded sharp, imperative, fateful. A ripple of a
+smile followed; it was a lucky omen to hear a horse neigh. Brune
+glanced at his sister, but she had not heeded it. Her whole being was
+swallowed up in the fact that she was standing at Ulfar's side, that
+she was going to be his wife.
+
+The aged clergyman was fumbling with the Prayer Book: "The Form of
+Solemnization of Matrimony" seemed hard to find. And so vagrant is
+thought, that while he turned the leaves Aspatria remembered the
+travelling-chariot, and wondered whether Ulfar meant to carry her away
+in it, and what she would do for proper clothing. Will ought to have
+told her something of the future. How cruel every one had been! It
+took but a moment for these and many other thoughts to invade
+Aspatria's heart, and spread dismay and anxiety and again the sense of
+resentment.
+
+Then she heard the clergyman begin. His voice was like that of some
+one speaking in a dream, till she sharply called herself together,
+hearing also Ulfar's voice, and knowing that she too would be called
+upon for her assent. She glanced up at Ulfar, who was dressed with
+great care and splendour and looking very handsome, and said her "I
+will" with the glance. Ulfar could not receive it unmoved; he looked
+steadily at her, and then he saw the ruin of youth that his
+faithlessness had made. Remorse bit him like a serpent, but remorse is
+not repentance. Then William Anneys gave his sister to his enemy; and
+the gift was like death to him, and the look accompanying the gift
+filled Ulfar's heart with a contemptuous anger fatal to all juster or
+kinder feelings.
+
+When the service was ended, Fenwick turned to Aspatria and offered her
+his hand. She put hers into his, and so he led her down the aisle,
+and through the churchyard, to her own carriage. William had followed
+close. He wondered if Fenwick meant to take his wife with him, and he
+resolved to give him the opportunity to do so. But as soon as he
+perceived that the bridegroom would carry out his threat, and desert
+his bride at the church gates, he stepped forward and said,--
+
+"That is enough, Sir Ulfar Fenwick. I have made you keep your word. I
+will care for your wife. She shall neither bear your name nor yet take
+anything from your bounty."
+
+Fenwick paid no heed to his brother-in-law. He looked at Aspatria. She
+was whiter than snow; she had the pallor of death. He lifted his hat
+and said,--
+
+"Farewell, Lady Fenwick. We shall meet no more."
+
+"Sir Ulfar," she answered calmly, "it is not my will that we met here
+to-day."
+
+"And as for meeting no more," said Brune, with passionate contempt, "I
+will warrant that is not in your say-so, Ulfar Fenwick."
+
+As he spoke, Fenwick's friend handed Will Anneys a card; then they
+drove rapidly away. Will was carefully wrapping his sister for her
+solitary ride back to Seat-Ambar; and he did this with forced
+deliberation, trying to appear undisturbed by what had occurred; for,
+since it had happened, he wished his neighbours to think he had fully
+expected it. And while so engaged he found opportunity to whisper to
+Aspatria: "Now, my little lass, bear up as bravely as may be. It is
+only one hour. Only one hour, dearie! Don't you try to speak. Only
+keep your head high till you get home, darling!"
+
+So the sad procession turned homeward, Aspatria sitting alone in her
+carriage, William and Brune riding on either side of her, the squires
+and dames bidden to the ceremony following slowly behind. Some talked
+softly of the affair; some passionately assailed William Anneys for
+not felling the villain where he stood. Gradually they said good-by,
+and so went to their own homes. Aspatria had to speak to each, she had
+to sit erect, she had to bear the wondering, curious gaze not only of
+her friends, but of the hinds and peasant-women in the small hamlets
+between the church and Seat-Ambar; she had to endure her own longing
+and disappointment, and make a poor attempt to smile when the children
+flung their little posies of late flowers into the passing carriage.
+
+To the last moment she bore it. "A good, brave girl!" said Will, as
+he left her at her own room door. "My word! it is better to have good
+blood than good fortune: good blood never was beat! Aspatria is only a
+little lass, but she is more than a match for yon villain! A big
+villain he is, a villain with a latchet!"
+
+The miserable are sacred. All through that wretched afternoon no one
+troubled Aspatria. Will and Brune sat by the parlour fire, for the
+most part silent. The rain, which had barely held off until their
+return from the church, now beat against the window-panes, and
+drenched and scattered even the hardy Michaelmas daisies. The house
+was as still as if there had been death instead of marriage in it. Now
+and then Brune spoke, and sometimes William answered him, and
+sometimes he did not.
+
+At last, after a long pause, Brune asked: "What was it Fenwick's
+friend gave you? A message?"
+
+"A message."
+
+"You might as well say what, Will."
+
+"Ay, I might. It said Fenwick would wait for me a week at the Sceptre
+Inn, Carlisle."
+
+"Will you go to Carlisle?"
+
+"To be sure I will go. I would not miss the chance of 'throwing'
+him,--no, not for ten years' life!"
+
+"Dear me! what a lot of trouble has come with just taking a stranger
+in out of the storm!"
+
+"Ay, it is a venturesome thing to do. How can any one tell what a
+stranger may bring in with him?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+FOR MOTHER'S SAKE.
+
+
+In the upper chamber where Will had left his sister, a great mystery
+of sorrow was being endured. Aspatria felt as if all had been. Life
+had no more joy to give, and no greater grief to inflict. She
+undressed with rapid, trembling fingers; her wedding finery was
+hateful in her sight. On the night before she had folded all her store
+of clothing, and laid it ready to put in a trunk. She had been quite
+in the dark as to her destiny; the only thing that appeared certain to
+her was that she would have to leave home. Perhaps she would go with
+Ulfar from the church door. In that case Will would have to send her
+clothing, and she had laid it in the neatest order for the emergency.
+
+On the top of one pile lay a crimson Canton crape shawl. Her mother
+had worn it constantly during the last year of her life; and Aspatria
+had put it away, as something too sacred for ordinary use. She now
+folded it around her shoulders, and sat down. Usually, when things
+troubled her, she was restless and kept in motion, but this trouble
+was too bitter and too great to resist; she was quiet, she took its
+blows passively, and they smote her on every side.
+
+Could she ever forget that cruel ride home, ever cease to burn and
+shiver when she remembered the eyes that had scanned her during its
+progress? The air seemed full of them. She covered her face to avoid
+the pitying, wondering, scornful glances. But this ride through the
+valley of humiliation was not the bitterest drop in her bitter cup;
+she could have smiled as she rode and drank it, if Ulfar had been at
+her side. It was his desertion that was so distracting to her. She had
+thought of many sorrows in connection with this forced marriage, but
+this sorrow had never suggested itself as possible.
+
+Therefore, when Ulfar bade her farewell she had felt as if standing on
+the void of the universe. It was the superhuman woman within her that
+had answered him, and that had held up her head and had strengthened
+her for her part all through that merciless ride. And the sight of her
+handsome, faithless lover, the tones of his voice, the touch of his
+hand, his half-respectful, half-pitying kindness, had awakened in her
+heart a tenfold love for him.
+
+For she understood then, for the first time, her social and
+educational inferiority. She felt even that she had done herself less
+than justice in her fine raiment: her country breeding and simple
+beauty would have appeared to greater advantage in the white merino
+she had desired to wear. She had been forced into a dress that
+accentuated her deficiencies. At that hour she thought she could never
+see Mrs. Frostham again.
+
+To these tempestuous, humiliating, heart-breaking reflections the
+storm outside made an angry accompaniment. The wind howled down the
+chimney and wailed around the house, and the rain beat against the
+window and pattered on the flagged walks. The darkness came on early,
+and the cold grew every hour more searching. She was not insensible to
+these physical discomforts, but they seemed so small a part of her
+misery that she made no resistance to their attack. Will and Brune,
+sitting almost speechless downstairs, were both thinking of her. When
+it was quite dark they grew unhappy. First one and then the other
+crept softly to her room door. All was as still as death. No movement,
+no sound of any kind, betrayed in what way the poor soul within
+suffered. No thread of light came from beneath the door: she was in
+the dark, and she had eaten nothing all day.
+
+About six o'clock Will could bear it no longer. He knocked softly at
+her door, and said: "My little lass, speak to Will! Have a cup of tea!
+Do have a cup of tea, dearie!"
+
+The voice was so unlike Will's voice that it startled Aspatria. It
+told her of a suffering almost equalling her own. She rose from the
+chair in which she had been sitting for hours, and went to him. The
+room was dark, the passage was dark; he saw nothing but the denser
+dark of her figure, and her white face above it. She saw nothing but
+his great bulk and his shining eyes. But she felt the love flowing
+out from his heart to her, she felt his sorrow and his sympathy, and
+it comforted her. She said: "Will, do not fret about me. I am
+over-getting the shame and sorrow. Yes, I will have a cup of tea, and
+tell Tabitha to make a fire here. Dear Will, I have been a great
+care and shame to you."
+
+"Ay, you have, Aspatria; but I would rather die than miss you, my
+little lass."
+
+This interview gave a new bent to Aspatria's thoughts. As she drank
+the tea, and warmed her chilled feet before the blaze, she took into
+consideration what misery her love for Ulfar Fenwick had brought to
+her brothers' once happy home, the anxiety, the annoyance, the shame,
+the ill-will and quarrelling, the humiliations that Will and Brune had
+been compelled to endure. Then suddenly there flashed across her mind
+the card given to Will by Ulfar's friend. She was not too simple to
+conceive of its meaning. It was a defiance of some kind, and she knew
+how Will would answer it. Her heart stood still with terror.
+
+She had seen Will and Ulfar wrestling; she had heard Will say to
+Brune, when Ulfar was absent, "He knows little about it; when I had
+that last grip, I could have flung him into eternity." It was common
+enough for dalesmen quarrelling to have a "fling" with one another and
+stand by its results. If Will and Ulfar met thus, one or both would be
+irremediably injured. In their relation to her, both were equally
+dear. She would have given her poor little life cheerfully for the
+love of either. Her cup shook in her hand. She had a sense of hurry in
+the matter, that drove her like a leaf before a strong wind. If Will
+got to bed before she saw him, he might be away in the morning ere she
+was aware. She put down her cup, and while she stood a moment to
+collect her strength and thoughts, the subject on all its sides
+flashed clearly before her.
+
+A minute afterward she opened the parlour door. Brune sat bent
+forward, with a poker in his hands. He was tracing a woman's name in
+the ashes, though he was hardly conscious of the act. Will's head was
+thrown back against his chair; he seemed to be asleep. But when
+Aspatria opened the door, he sat upright and looked at her. A pallor
+like death spread over his face; it was the crimson shawl, his
+mother's shawl, which caused it. Wearing it, Aspatria closely
+resembled her. Will had idolized his mother in life, and he worshipped
+her memory. If Aspatria had considered every earthly way of touching
+Will's heart, she could have selected none so certain as the shawl,
+almost accidentally assumed.
+
+She went direct to Will. He drew a low stool to his side, and Aspatria
+sat down upon it, and then stretched out her left hand to Brune. The
+two men looked at their sister, and then they looked at each other.
+The look was a vow. Both so understood it.
+
+"Will and Brune," the girl spoke softly, but with a great
+steadiness,--"Will and Brune, I am sorry to have given you so much
+shame and trouble."
+
+"It is not your fault, Aspatria," said Brune.
+
+"But I will do so no more. I will never name Ulfar again. I will try
+to be cheerful and to make home cheerful, try to carry on life as it
+used to be before he came. We will not let people talk of him, we will
+not mind it if they do. Eh, Will?"
+
+"Just now, dear, in a little while."
+
+"Will, dear Will! what did that card mean,--the one Ulfar's friend
+gave? You will not go near Ulfar, Will? Please do not!"
+
+"I have a bit of business to settle with him, Aspatria, and then I
+never want to see his face again."
+
+"Will, you must not go."
+
+"Ay, but I must. I have been thought of with a lot of bad names, but
+no one shall think 'coward' of me."
+
+"Will, remember all I have suffered to-day."
+
+"I am not likely to forget it."
+
+"That ride home, Will, was as if I was going up Calvary. My
+wedding-dress was heavy as a cross, and that foolish wreath of flowers
+was a wreath of cruel thorns. I was pitied and scorned, till I felt
+as if my heart--my real heart--was all bruised and torn. I have
+suffered so much, Will, spare me more suffering. Will! Will! for your
+little sister's sake, put that card in the fire, and stay here, right
+here with me."
+
+"My lass! my dear lass, you cannot tell what you are asking."
+
+"I am asking you to give up your revenge. I know that is a great thing
+for a man to do. But, Will, dear, you stand in father's place, you are
+sitting in father's chair; what would he say to you?"
+
+"He would say, 'Give the rascal a good thrashing, Will. When a man
+wrongs a woman, there is no other punishment for him. Thrash him to
+within an inch of his cruel, selfish, contemptible life!' That is what
+father would say, Aspatria. I know it, I feel it."
+
+"If you will not give up your revenge for me, nor yet for father, then
+I ask you for mother's sake! What would mother say to-night if she
+were here?--very like she is here. Listen to her, Will. She is
+saying, 'Spare my little girl any more sorrow and shame, Will, my boy
+Will!'--that is what mother would say. And if you hurt Ulfar you hurt
+me also, and if Ulfar hurts you my heart will break. The fell-side is
+ringing now with my troubles. If I have any more, I will go away where
+no one can find me. For mother's sake, Will! For mother's sake!"
+
+The strong man was sobbing behind his hands, the struggle was a
+terrific one. Brune watched it with tears streaming unconsciously down
+his cheeks. Aspatria sunk at Will's feet, and buried her face on his
+knees.
+
+"For mother's sake, Will! Let Ulfar go free."
+
+"My dear little lass, I cannot!"
+
+"For mother's sake, Will! I am speaking for mother! For mother's
+sake!"
+
+"I--I--Oh, what shall I do, Brune?"
+
+"For mother's sake, Will!"
+
+He trembled until the chair shook. He dared not look at the weeping
+girl. She rose up. She gently moved away his hands. She kissed his
+eyelids. She said, with an irresistible entreaty: "Look at me, Will. I
+am speaking for mother. Let Ulfar alone. I do not say forgive him."
+
+"Nay, I will never forgive him."
+
+"But let him alone. Will! Will! let him alone, for mother's sake!"
+
+Then he stood up. He looked into Aspatria's eyes; he let his gaze
+wander to the crimson shawl. He began to sob like a child.
+
+"You may go, Aspatria," he said, in broken words. "If you ask me
+anything in mother's name, I have no power to say no."
+
+He walked to the window and looked out into the dark stormy night, and
+Brune motioned to Aspatria to go away. He knew Will would regain
+himself better in her absence. She was glad to go. As soon as Will had
+granted her request, she fell to the lowest ebb of life. She could
+hardly drag herself up the long, dark stairs. She dropped asleep as
+soon as she reached her room.
+
+It was a bitter awakening. The soul feels sorrow keenest at the first
+moments of consciousness. It has been away, perhaps, in happy scenes,
+or it has been lulling itself in deep repose, and then suddenly it is
+called to lift again the heavy burden of its daily life. Aspatria
+stood in her cold, dim room; and even while shivering in her thin
+night-dress, with bare feet treading the polished oak floor, she
+hastily put out of her sight the miserable wedding-garments. A large
+dower-chest stood conveniently near. She opened it wide, and flung
+dress and wreath and slippers and cloak into it. The lid fell from her
+hands with a great clang, and she said to herself, "I will never open
+it again."
+
+The storm still continued. She dressed in simple household fashion,
+and went downstairs. Brune sat by the fire. He said: "I was waiting
+for you, Aspatria. Will is in the barn. He had his coffee and bacon
+long ago."
+
+"Brune, will you be my friend through all this trouble?"
+
+"I will stand by you through thick and thin, Aspatria. There is my
+hand on it."
+
+About great griefs we do not chatter; and there was no further
+discussion of those events which had been barely turned away from
+tragedy and death. Murder and despairing love and sorrow might have a
+secret dwelling-place in Seat-Ambar, but it was in the background. The
+front of life went on as smoothly as ever; the cows were milked, the
+sheep tended, the men and maids had their tasks, the beds were made,
+and the tables set, with the usual order and regularity.
+
+And Aspatria found this "habit of living" to be a good staff to lean
+upon. She assumed certain duties, and performed them; and the house
+was pleasanter for her oversight. Will and Brune came far oftener to
+sit at the parlour fireside, when they found Aspatria there to welcome
+them. And so the days and weeks followed one another, bringing with
+them those commonplace duties and interests which give to existence a
+sense of stability and order. No one spoke of Fenwick; but all the
+more Aspatria nursed his image in her heart and her imagination. He
+had dressed himself for his marriage with great care and splendour.
+Never had he looked so handsome and so noble in her eyes, and never
+until that hour had she realized her social inferiority to him, her
+lack of polish and breeding, her ignorance of all things which a woman
+of birth and wealth ought to know and to possess.
+
+This was a humiliating acknowledgment; but it was Aspatria's first
+upward step, for with it came an invincible determination to make
+herself worthy of her husband's love and companionship. The hope and
+the object gave a new colour to her life. As she went about her simple
+duties, as she sat alone in her room, as she listened to her brothers
+talking, it occupied, strengthened, and inspired her. Dark as the
+present was, it held the hope of a future which made her blush and
+tingle to its far-off joy. To learn everything, to go everywhere, to
+become a brilliant woman, a woman of the world, to make her husband
+admire and adore her,--these were the dreams that brightened the long,
+sombre winter, and turned the low dim rooms into a palace of
+enchantment.
+
+She was aware of the difficulties in her way. She thought first of
+asking Will to permit her to go to a school in London. But she knew he
+would never consent. She had no friends to whom she could confide her
+innocent plans, she had as yet no money in her own control. But in
+less than two years she would be of age. Her fortune would then be at
+her disposal, and the law would permit her to order her own life. In
+the mean time she could read and study at home: when the spring came
+she would see the vicar, and he would lend her books from his library.
+There was an Encyclopædia in the house; she got together its scattered
+volumes, and began to make herself familiar with its _mélange_ of
+information.
+
+In such efforts her heart was purified from all bitterness, wounded
+vanity, and impatience. Life was neither lonely nor monotonous, she
+had a noble object to work for. So the winter passed, and the spring
+came again. All over the fells the ewes and their lambs made constant
+work for the shepherds; and Aspatria greatly pleased Will by going
+out frequently to pick up the perishing, weakly lambs and succour
+them.
+
+One day in April she took a bottle of warm milk and a bit of sponge
+and went up Calder Fell. On the first reach of the fell she found a
+dying lamb, and carried it down to the shelter of some whin-bushes.
+Then she fed it with the warm milk, and the little creature went to
+sleep in her arms.
+
+The grass was green and fresh, the sun warm; the whins sheltered her
+from the wind, and a little thrush in them, busy building her nest,
+was making sweet music out of air as sweet. All was so glad and quiet:
+she, too, was happy in her own thoughts. A wagon passed, and then a
+tax-cart, and afterward two old men going ditching. She hardly lifted
+her head; every one knew Aspatria Anneys. When the shadows told her
+that it was near noon, she rose to go home, holding the lamb in her
+arms. At that moment a carriage came slowly from behind the hedge.
+She saw the fine horses with their glittering harness, and knew it
+was a strange vehicle in Ambar-Side, so she sat down again until it
+should pass. The lamb was in her left arm. She threw back her head,
+and gazed fixedly into the whin-bush where the thrush had its nest.
+Whoever it was, she did not wish to be recognized.
+
+Lady Redware, Sarah Sandys, and Ulfar Fenwick were in the carriage. At
+the moment she stood with the lamb in her arms, Ulfar had known his
+wife. Lady Redware saw her almost as quickly, and in some occult way
+she transferred, by a glance, the knowledge to Sarah. The carriage was
+going very slowly; the beauty of the thrown-back head, the simplicity
+of her dress, the pastoral charm of her position, all were distinct.
+Ulfar looked at her with a fire of passion in his eyes, Lady Redware
+with annoyance. Sarah asked, with a mocking laugh, "Is that really
+Little Bo Peep?" The joke fell flat. Ulfar did not immediately answer
+it; and Sarah was piqued.
+
+"I shall go to Italy again," she said. "Englishmen may be admirable
+_en masse_, but individually they are stupid or cross."
+
+"In Italy there are the Capuchins," answered Ulfar. He remembered that
+Sarah had expressed herself strongly about the order.
+
+"I have just passed a week at Oxford among the Reverends; all things
+considered, I prefer the Capuchins. When you have dined with a lord
+bishop, you want to become a socialist."
+
+"Your Oxford friends are very nice people, Sarah."
+
+"Excellent people, Elizabeth, quite superior people, and they are all
+sure not only of going to heaven, but also of joining the very best
+society the place affords."
+
+"Best society!" said Ulfar, pettishly. "I am going to America. There,
+I hope, I shall hear nothing about it."
+
+"America is so truly admirable. Why was it put in such an out-of-the-way
+place? You have to sail three thousand miles to get to it," pouted Sarah.
+
+"All things worth having are put out of the way," replied Ulfar.
+
+"Yes," sighed Sarah. "What an admirable story is that of the serpent
+and the apple!"
+
+"Come, Ulfar!" said Lady Redware, "do try to be agreeable. You used to
+be so delightful! Was he not, Sarah?"
+
+"Was he? I have forgotten, Elizabeth. Since that time a great deal of
+water has run into the sea."
+
+"If you want an ill-natured opinion about yourself, by all means go to
+a woman for it." And Ulfar enunciated this dictum with a very scornful
+shrug of his shoulders.
+
+"Ulfar!"
+
+"It is so, Elizabeth."
+
+"Never mind him, dear!" said Sarah. "I do not. And I have noticed that
+the men who give bad characters to women have usually much worse ones
+themselves. I think Ulfar is quite ready for American society and its
+liberal ideas." And Sarah drew her shawl into her throat, and looked
+defiantly at Ulfar.
+
+"The Americans are all socialists. I have read that, Ulfar. You know
+what these liberal ideas come to,--always socialism."
+
+"Do not be foolish, Elizabeth. Socialism never comes from liberality
+of thought: it is always a bequest of tyranny."
+
+"Ulfar, when are you going to be really nice and good again?"
+
+"I do not know, Elizabeth."
+
+"Ulfar is a standing exception to the rule that when things are at
+their worst they must mend. Ulfar, lately, is always at his worst, and
+he never mends."
+
+There was really some excuse for Ulfar; he was suffering keenly, and
+neither of the two women cared to recognize the fact. He had just
+returned from Italy with his father's remains, and after their burial
+he had permitted Elizabeth to carry him off with her to Redware. In
+reality the neighbourhood of Aspatria drew him like a magnet. He had
+been haunted by her last, resentful, amazed, miserable look. He
+understood from it that Will had never told her of his intention to
+bid her farewell as soon as she was his wife, and he was not devoid of
+imagination. His mind had constantly pictured scenes of humiliation
+which he had condemned the woman he had once so tenderly loved to
+endure.
+
+And that passing glimpse of her under the whin-bushes had revived
+something of his old passion. He answered his sister's and Sarah's
+remarks pettishly, because he wanted to be left alone with the new
+hope that had come to him. Why not take Aspatria to America? She was
+his wife. He had been compelled, by his sense of justice and honour,
+to make her Lady Fenwick; why should he deny himself her company,
+merely to keep a passionate, impulsive threat?
+
+To the heart the past is eternal, and love survives the pang of
+separation. He thought of Aspatria for the next twenty-four hours. To
+see her! to speak to her! to hear her voice! to clasp her to his
+heart! Why should he deny himself these delights? What pleasure could
+pride and temper give him in exchange? Fenwick had always loved to
+overcome an obstacle, and such people cannot do without obstacles;
+they are a necessary aliment. To see and to speak with Aspatria was
+now the one thing in life worthy of his attention.
+
+It was not an easy thing to accomplish. Every day for nearly a week he
+rode furiously to Calder Wood, tied his horse there, and then hung
+about the brow of Calder Cliff, for it commanded Seat-Ambar, which lay
+below it as the street lies below a high tower. With his glass he
+could see Will and Brune passing from the house to the barns or the
+fields, and once he saw Aspatria go to meet her brother Will; he saw
+her lift her face to Will's face, he saw Will put her arm through his
+arm and so go with her to the house. How he hated Will Anneys! What a
+triumph it would be to carry off his sister unknown to him and without
+his say-so!
+
+One morning he determined if he found no opportunity to see Aspatria
+that day alone he would risk all, and go boldly to the house. Why
+should he not do so? He had scarcely made the decision when he saw
+Will and Brune drive away together. He remembered it was Dalton
+market-day; and he knew that they had gone there. Almost immediately
+Aspatria left the house also. Then he was jealous. Where was she going
+as soon as her brothers left her? She was going to the vicar's to
+return a book and carry him a cream cheese of her own making.
+
+He knew then how to meet her. She would pass through a meadow on her
+way home, and this meadow was skirted by a young plantation. Half-way
+down there was a broad stile between the two. He hurried his steps,
+and arrived there just as Aspatria entered the meadow. There was a
+high frolicking wind blowing right in her face. It had blown her
+braids loose, and her tippet and dress backward; her slim form was
+sharply defined by it, and it compelled her to hold up both her hands
+in order to keep her hat on her head.
+
+She came on so, treading lightly, almost dancing with the merry gusts
+to and fro. Once Ulfar heard a little cry that was half laughter, as
+the wind made her pirouette and then stand still to catch her breath.
+Ulfar thought the picture bewitching. He waited until she was within a
+yard or two of the stile, ere he crossed it. She was holding her hat
+down: she did not see him until he could have put his hand upon her.
+Then she let her hands fall, and her hat blew backward, and she stood
+quite still and quite speechless, her colour coming and going, all a
+woman's softest witchery beaming in her eyes.
+
+"Aspatria! dear Aspatria! I am come to take you with me. I am going to
+America." He spoke a little sadly, as if he had some reason for
+feeling grieved.
+
+She shook her head positively, but she did not, or she could not,
+speak.
+
+"Aspatria, have you no kiss, no word of welcome, no love to give me?"
+And he put out his hand, as if to draw her to his embrace.
+
+She stepped quickly backward: "No, no, no! Do not touch me, Ulfar. Go
+away. Please go away!"
+
+"But you must go with me. You are my wife, Aspatria." And he said the
+last words very like a command.
+
+"I am not your wife. Oh, no!"
+
+"I say you are. I married you in Aspatria Church."
+
+"You also left me there, left me to such shame and sorrow as no man
+gives to the woman he loves."
+
+"Perhaps I did act cruelly in two or three ways, Aspatria; but people
+who love forgive two or three offences. Let us be lovers as we used to
+be."
+
+"No, I will not be lovers as we used to be. People who love do not
+commit two or three such offences as you committed against me."
+
+"I will atone for them. I will indeed! Aspatria, I miss you very much.
+I will not go to America without you. How soon can you be ready? In a
+week?"
+
+"You will atone to me? How? There is but one way. You shall, in your
+own name, call every one in Allerdale, gentle and simple, to Aspatria
+Church. You shall marry me again in their presence, and go with me to
+my own home. The wedding-feast shall be held there. You shall count
+Will and Brune Anneys as your brothers. You shall take me away, in the
+sight of all, to your home. Of all the honour a wife ought to have you
+must give me here, among my own people, a double portion. Will you do
+this in atonement?"
+
+"You are talking folly, Aspatria. I have married you once."
+
+"You have not married me once. You met me at Aspatria Church to shame
+me, to break my heart with love and sorrow, to humble my good
+brothers. No, I am not your wife! I will not go with you!"
+
+"I can make you go, Aspatria. You seem to forget the law--"
+
+"Will says the law will protect me. But if it did not, if you took me
+by force to your house or yacht, you would not have me. You could not
+touch me. Aspatria Anneys is beyond your reach."
+
+"You are Aspatria Fenwick."
+
+"I have never taken your name. Will told me not to do so. Anneys is a
+good name. No Anneys ever wronged me."
+
+"You refused my home, you refused my money, and now you refuse my
+name. You are treating me as badly as possible. The day before our
+marriage I sent to your brother a signed settlement for your support,
+the use of Fenwick Castle as a residence, and two thousand pounds a
+year. Your brother Will, the day after our marriage, took it to my
+agent and tore it to pieces in his presence."
+
+"Will did right. He knew his sister would not have your home and money
+without your love."
+
+She spoke calmly, with a dignity that became well her youth and
+beauty. Ulfar thought her exceedingly lovely. He attempted to woo her
+again with the tender glances and soft tones and caressing touch of
+their early acquaintance. Aspatria sorrowfully withdrew herself; she
+held only repelling palms toward his bending face. She was not coy, he
+could have overcome coyness; she was cold, and calm, and watchful of
+him and of herself. Her face and throat paled and blushed, and blushed
+and paled; her eyes were dilated with feeling; her pretty bow-shaped
+mouth trembled; she radiated a personality sweet, strong, womanly,--a
+piquant, woodland, pastoral delicacy, all her own.
+
+But after many useless efforts to influence her, he began to despair.
+He perceived that she still loved him, perhaps better than she had
+ever done, but that her determination to consider their marriage void
+had its source in a oneness of mind having no second thoughts and no
+doubt behind it. The only hope she gave him was in another marriage
+ceremony which in its splendour and publicity should atone in some
+measure for the first. He could not contemplate such a confession of
+his own fault. He could not give Will and Brune Anneys such a triumph.
+If Aspatria loved him, how could she ask such a humiliating atonement?
+Aspatria saw the shadow of these reflections on his face. Though he
+said nothing, she understood it was this struggle that gave the
+momentary indecision to his pleading.
+
+For herself, she did not desire a present reconciliation. She had
+nursed too long the idea of the Aspatria that was to be, the wise,
+clever, brilliant woman who was to win over again her husband. She did
+not like to relinquish this hope for a present gratification, a
+gratification so much lower in its aim that she now understood that it
+never could long satisfy a nature so complex and so changeable as
+Ulfar's. She therefore refused him his present hope, believing that
+fate had a far better meeting in store for them.
+
+While these thoughts flashed through her mind, she kept her eyes upon
+the horizon. In that wide-open fixed gaze her loving, troubled soul
+revealed itself. Ulfar was wondering whether it was worth while to
+begin his argument all over again, when she said softly: "We must now
+say farewell. I see the vicar's maid coming. In a few hours the
+fell-side will know of our meeting. I must tell Will, myself. I
+entreat you to leave the dales as soon as possible."
+
+"I will not leave them without you."
+
+"Go to-night. I shall not change what I have said. There is nothing to
+be done but to part. We are no longer alone. Good-by, Ulfar!--dear
+Ulfar!"
+
+"I care not who is present. You are my wife." And he clasped her in
+his arms and kissed her.
+
+Perhaps she was not sorry. Perhaps her own glance of love and longing
+had commanded the embrace; for when she released herself she was
+weeping, and Ulfar's tears were on her cheeks. But she called the
+vicar's maid imperatively, and so put an end to the interview.
+
+"That was my husband, Lottie," she said. It was the only explanation
+offered. Aspatria knew it was useless to expect any reticence on the
+subject. In that isolated valley such a piece of news could not be
+kept; the very birds would talk about it in their nests. She must
+herself tell Will, and although she had done nothing wrong, she was
+afraid to tell him.
+
+When she reached home she was glad to hear that Will had been sent for
+to Squire Frostham's. "It was something about a fox," said Brune.
+"They wanted me too, but Alice Frostham is a girl I cannot abide. I
+would not go near her."
+
+"Brune, will you take a long ride for my sake?"
+
+"I will do anything for you I can."
+
+"I met Ulfar Fenwick this morning."
+
+"Then you did a bad thing. I would not have believed it of you. Good
+Lord! there is as much two-facedness in a woman as there is meat in an
+egg."
+
+"Brune, you are thinking wrong. I did not know he was in the country
+till he stood before me; and he did not move me a hair's-breadth any
+way. But Lottie from the vicarage saw us together; and she was going
+to Dalton. You know what she will say; and by and by the Frosthams
+will hear; and then they will feel it to be 'only kind' to talk to
+Will about me and my affairs; and the end of it will be some foolish
+deed or other. If you love me, Brune, go to Redware to-night, and see
+Lady Redware, and tell her there is danger for her brother if he stays
+around here."
+
+"I can say that truly. There is danger for the scoundrel, a good deal
+of it."
+
+"Brune, it would be such a sorrow to me if every one were talking of
+me again. Do what I ask you, Brune. You promised to stand by me
+through thick and thin."
+
+"I did; and I will go to Redware as soon as I have eaten my dinner. If
+Lottie saw him, it will be known all over. And if no one came up here
+on purpose to tell Will, he would hear it at Dalton next week, when
+that lot of bothering old squires sit down to their market dinner. It
+would be a grand bit for them to chew with their victuals."
+
+"I thought they talked about politics."
+
+"They are like other men. If you get more than one man in a place,
+they are talking bad about some woman. They call it politics, but it
+is mostly slander."
+
+"I am going to tell Will myself."
+
+"That is a deal the best plan."
+
+"Be sure to frighten Lady Redware; make her think Ulfar's life is in
+danger,--anything to get him out of the dales."
+
+"She will feel as if the heavens were going to fall, when I get done
+with her. My word! who would have thought of him coming back? Life is
+full of surprises."
+
+"But only think, if there was never anything accidental happened!
+Surprises are just what make life worth having,--eh, Brune?"
+
+"Maybe so, and maybe not. When Will comes home, tell him everything at
+once. I can manage Lady Redware, I'll be bound."
+
+With the promise he went away to perform it, and Aspatria carried her
+trembling heart into solitude. But the lonely place was full of Ulfar.
+A thousand hopes were budding in her heart, growing slowly, strongly,
+sweetly, in that earth which she had made for them out of her love,
+her desires, her hopes, and her faithful aspirations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+BUT THEY WERE YOUNG.
+
+
+Brune arrived at Redware Hall while it was still afternoon, and he
+found no difficulty in obtaining an interview with its mistress. She
+was sitting at a table in a large bay-window, painting the view from
+it. For in those days ladies were not familiar with high art and all
+its nomenclature and accessories; Lady Redware had never thought of an
+easel, or a blouse, or indeed of any of the trappings now considered
+necessary to the making of pictures. She was prettily dressed in silk;
+and a square of bristol-board, a box of Newman's water-colours, and a
+few camel's-hair pencils were neatly arranged before her.
+
+She rose when Brune entered, and met him with a suave courtesy; and
+the unsophisticated young man took it for a genuine pleasure. He felt
+sorry to trouble such a nice-looking gentlewoman, and he said so with
+a sincerity that made her suddenly serious. "Have you brought me bad
+news, Mr. Anneys?" she asked.
+
+"I am afraid you will be put about a bit. Sir Ulfar Fenwick met my
+sister this morning; and they were seen by ill-natured eyes, and I
+came, quiet-like, to let you know that he must leave the dales
+to-night."
+
+"Cannot Sir Ulfar meet his own wife?"
+
+"Lady Redware, that is not the question. Put it, 'Cannot Sir Ulfar
+meet your sister?' and I will answer you quick enough, 'Not while
+there are two honest men in Allerdale to prevent him.'"
+
+"You cannot frighten Sir Ulfar from Allerdale. To threaten him is to
+make him stay."
+
+"Dalesmen are not ones to threaten. I tell you that the vicar's maid
+saw Sir Ulfar and my sister together; and when William Anneys hears of
+it, Sir Ulfar will get such a notice to leave these parts as will
+give him no choice. I came to warn him away before he could not help
+himself. I say freely, I did so to please Aspatria, and out of no
+good-will going his way."
+
+"But if he will not leave Allerdale?"
+
+"But if William Anneys, and the sixty gentlemen who will ride with
+William Anneys, say he must go? What then?"
+
+"Of course Sir Ulfar cannot fight a mob."
+
+"Not one of that mob of gentlemen would fight him; but they all carry
+stout riding-whips." And Brune looked at the lady with a sombre
+intentness which made further speech unnecessary. She had been alarmed
+from the first; she now made no further attempt to disguise her
+terror.
+
+"What must I do, Mr. Anneys?" she asked. "What must I do?"
+
+"Send your brother away from Cumberland to-night. I say he must leave
+to-night. To-morrow morning may be too late to prevent a great
+humiliation. Aspatria begged me to come to you. I do not say I wanted
+to come."
+
+At this moment the door opened, and Sarah Sandys entered. Brune
+turned, and saw her; and his heart stood still. She came slowly
+forward, her garment of pale-green and white just touching her
+sandalled feet. She had a rush basket full of violets in her hands;
+there were primroses in her breast and belt, and her face was like a
+pink rose. High on her head her fair hair was lifted, and, being
+fastened with a large turquoise comb, it gave the idea of sunshine and
+blue sky.
+
+Brune stood looking at her, as a mortal might look at the divine
+Cytherea made manifest. His handsome, open face, full of candid
+admiration, had almost an august character. He bowed to her, as men
+bow when they bend their heart and give its homage and delight. Sarah
+was much impressed by the young man's beauty, and she felt his swift
+adoration of her own charms. She made Lady Redware introduce her to
+Brune, and she completed her conquest of the youth as she stood a
+moment holding his hand and smiling with captivating grace into his
+eyes.
+
+Then Lady Redware explained Brune's mission, and Sarah grasped the
+situation without any disguises. "It simply means flight, Elizabeth,"
+she said. "What could Ulfar do with fifty or sixty angry Cumberland
+squires? He would have to go. In fact, I know they have a method of
+persuasion no mortal man can resist."
+
+Brune saw that his errand was accomplished. Lady Redware thanked him
+for his consideration, and Sarah rang for the tea-service, and made
+him a cup, and gave it to him with her own lovely hands. Brune saw
+their exquisite form, their translucent glow, the sparkling of
+diamonds and emeralds upon them. The tea was as if brewed in
+Paradise; it tasted of all things delightful; it was a veritable cup
+of enchantments.
+
+Then Brune rode away, and the two women watched him over the hill. He
+sat his great black hunter like a cavalry officer; and the creature
+devoured the distance with strides that made their hearts leap to the
+sense of its power and life.
+
+"He is the very handsomest man I ever saw!" said Sarah.
+
+"What is to be done about Ulfar? Sarah, you must manage this business.
+He will not listen to me."
+
+"Ulfar has five senses. Ulfar is very fond of himself. He will leave
+Redware, of course. How handsome Brune Anneys is!"
+
+"Will you coax him to leave to-night?"
+
+"Ulfar? Yes, I will; for it is the proper thing for him to do. It
+would be a shame to bring his quarrels to your house.--What a splendid
+rider! Look, Elizabeth, he is just topping the hill! I do believe he
+turned his head! Is he not handsome? Apollo! Antinoüs! Pshaw! Brune
+Anneys is a great deal more human, and a great deal more godlike, than
+either."
+
+"Do not be silly, Sarah. And do occupy yourself a little with Ulfar
+now."
+
+"When the hour comes, I will. Ulfar is evidently occupying himself at
+present in watching his wife. There is a decorous naughtiness and a
+stimulating sense of danger about seeing Aspatria, that must be a
+thorough enjoyment to Ulfar."
+
+"Men are always in fusses. Ulfar has kept my heart palpitating ever
+since he could walk alone."
+
+Sarah sighed. "It is very difficult," she said, "to decide whether
+very old men or very young men can be the greater trial. The suffering
+both can cause is immense! Poor Sandys was sixty-six, and Ulfar is
+thirty-six, and--" She shook her head, and sighed again.
+
+"How hateful country-people are!" exclaimed Elizabeth. "They must
+talk, no matter what tragedy they cause with their scandalous words."
+
+"Are they worse than our own set, either in town or country? You know
+what the Countess of Denbigh considered pleasant conversation?--telling
+things that ought not to be told."
+
+"The Countess is a wretch! she would tell the most sacred of
+secrets."
+
+"I tell secrets also. I do not consider it wrong. What business has
+any one to throw the _onus_ of keeping their secret on my shoulders?
+Why should they expect from me more prudence than they themselves have
+shown?"
+
+"That is true. But in these valleys they speak so uncomfortably
+direct; nothing but the strongest, straightest, most definite words
+will be used."
+
+"That is a pity. People ought to send scandal through society in a
+respectable hunt-the-slipper form of circulation. But that is a kind
+of decency to be cultivated. However, I shall tell Ulfar, in the
+plainest words I can find, that there will be about sixty Cumberland
+squires here to-morrow, to ride with him out of the county, and that
+they are looking forward to the fun of it just as much as if it was a
+fox-hunt. Ulfar has imagination. He will be able to conceive such a
+ride,--the flying man, and the roaring, laughing, whip-cracking
+squires after him! He will remember how Tom Appleton the wrestler, who
+did something foul, was escorted across the county line last summer.
+And Ulfar hates a scene. Can you fancy him making himself the centre
+of such an affair?"
+
+So they talked while Brune galloped homeward in a very happy mood. He
+felt as those ancients may have felt when they met the Immortals and
+saluted them. The thought of the beautiful Mrs. Sandys filled his
+imagination; but he talked comfortably to Aspatria, and assured her
+that there was now no fear of a meeting between her husband and Will.
+"Only," he said, "tell Will yourself to-night, and he will never doubt
+you."
+
+Unfortunately, Will did not return that night from the Frosthams'; for
+in the morning the two men were to go together to Dalton very early.
+Will heard nothing there, but Mrs. Frostham was waiting at her garden
+gate to tell him when he returned. He had left Squire Frostham with
+his son-in-law, and was alone. Mrs. Frostham made a great deal of the
+information, and broke it to Will with much consideration. Will heard
+her sullenly. He was getting a few words ready for Aspatria, as Mrs.
+Frostham told her tale, but they were for her alone. To Mrs. Frostham
+he adopted a tone she thought very ungrateful.
+
+For when the whole affair, real and consequential, had been told, he
+answered: "What is there to make a wonder of? Cannot a woman talk and
+walk a bit with her own husband? Maybe he had something very
+particular to say to her. I think it is a shame to bother a little
+lass about a thing like that."
+
+And he folded himself so close that Mrs. Frostham could neither
+question nor sympathize with him longer. "Good-evening to you," he
+said coldly; and then, while visible, he took care to ride as if quite
+at his ease. But the moment the road turned from Frostham he whipped
+his horse to its full speed, and entered the farmyard with it in a
+foam of hurry, and himself in a foam of passion.
+
+Aspatria met him with the confession on her lips. He gave her no time.
+He assailed her with affronting and injurious epithets. He pushed her
+hands and face from him. He vowed her tears were a mockery, and her
+intention of confessing a lie. He met all her efforts at explanation,
+and all her attempts to pacify him, at sword-point.
+
+She bore it patiently for a while; and then Will Anneys saw an
+Aspatria he had never dreamed of. She seemed to grow taller; she did
+really grow taller; her face flamed, her eyes flashed, and, in a voice
+authoritative and irresistible, she commanded him to desist.
+
+"You are my worst enemy," she said. "You are as deaf as the village
+gossips. You will not listen to the truth. Your abuse, heard by every
+servant in the house, certifies all that malice dares to think. And
+in wounding my honour you are a parricide to our mother's good name! I
+am ashamed of you, Will!"
+
+From head to foot she reflected the indignation in her heart, as she
+stood erect with her hands clasped and the palms dropped downward, no
+sign of tears, no quiver of fear or doubt, no retreat, and no
+submission, in her face or attitude.
+
+"Why, whatever is the matter with you, Aspatria?"
+
+At this moment Brune entered, and she went to him, and put her hand
+through his arm, and said: "Brune, speak for me! Will has insulted
+mother and father, through me, in such a way that I can never forgive
+him!"
+
+"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Will Anneys!" And Brune put his
+sister gently behind him, and then marched squarely up to his
+brother's face. "You are as passionate as a brute beast, Will, and
+that, too, with a poor little lass that has her own troubles, and has
+borne them like--like a good woman always does."
+
+"I do not want to hear you speak, Brune."
+
+"Ay, but I will speak, and you shall hear me. I tell you, Aspatria is
+in no kind to blame. The man came on her sudden, out of the
+plantation. She did not take his hand, she did not listen to him. She
+sent him about his business as quick as might be."
+
+"Lottie Patterson saw her," said Will, dourly.
+
+"Because Aspatria called Lottie Patterson to her; and if Lottie
+Patterson says she saw anything more or worse than ought to be, I will
+pretty soon call upon Seth Patterson to make his sister's words good.
+Cush! I will that! And what is more, Will Anneys, if you do not know
+how to take care of your sister's good name, I will teach you,--you
+mouse of a man! You go and side with that Frostham set against
+Aspatria! Chaff on the Frosthams! It is a bad neighbourhood where a
+girl like Aspatria cannot say a word or two on the king's highway at
+broad noonday, without having a _sisserara_ about it."
+
+"I did not side with the Frosthams against Aspatria."
+
+"I'll be bound you did!"
+
+"Let me alone, Brune! Go your ways out of here, both of you!"
+
+"To be sure, we will both go. Come, Aspatria. When you are tired of
+ballooning, William Anneys, and can come down to common justice, maybe
+then I will talk to you,--not till."
+
+Now, good honest anger is one of the sinews of the soul; and he that
+wants it when there is occasion has but a maimed mind. The hot words,
+the passionate atmosphere, the rebellion of Aspatria, the decision of
+Brune, had the same effect upon Will's senseless anger as a
+thunder-storm has upon the hot, heavy, summer air. Will raged his bad
+temper away, and was cool and clear-minded after it.
+
+At the same hour the same kind of mental thunder-storm was prevailing
+over all common-sense at Redware Hall. Ulfar, after a long and vain
+watch for another opportunity to speak to Aspatria, returned there in
+a temper compounded of anger, jealousy, disappointment, and
+unsatisfied affection. He heard Lady Redware's story of his own danger
+and of Brune's consideration with scornful indifference. Brune's
+consideration he laughed at. He knew very well, he answered, that
+Brune Anneys hated him, and would take the greatest delight in such a
+hubbub as he pretended was in project.
+
+"But he came to please Aspatria," continued Lady Redware. "He said he
+came only to please Aspatria."
+
+"So Aspatria wishes me to leave Allerdale? I will not go."
+
+"Sarah, he will not go," cried Lady Redware, as her friend entered
+the room. "He says he will not go."
+
+"That is because you have appealed to Ulfar's feelings instead of to
+his judgment. When Ulfar considers how savagely primitive these
+dalesmen are in their passions, he will understand that discretion is
+the nobler part of valour. In Russia he thought it a very prudent
+thing to get out of the way when a pack of wolves were in the
+neighbourhood."
+
+"The law will protect me in this house. Human beings have to mind the
+law."
+
+"There are times when human beings are a law unto themselves. How
+would you like to see a crowd of angry men shouting around this house
+for you? Think of your sister,--and of me, if I am worth so much
+consideration."
+
+"I am not to be frightened, Sarah."
+
+"Will you consider, then, that as far as Keswick and Kendal on one
+side, and as far as Dalton and Whitehaven on the other side, every
+local newspaper will have, or will make, its own version of the
+affair? The Earl of Lonsdale, with a large party, is now at
+Whitehaven Castle. What a _sauce piquante_ it will be to his dinners!
+How the men will howl over it, and how the women will snicker and
+smile!"
+
+"Sarah! you can think of the hatefullest things."
+
+"And Lonsdale will go up to London purposely to have the delight of
+telling it at the clubs."
+
+"Sarah!"
+
+"And the 'Daily Whisper' will get Lonsdale's most delectable version,
+and blow it with the four winds of heaven to the four corners of the
+civilized world."
+
+"Sarah Sandys, I--"
+
+"Worse still! that poor girl whom you treated so abominably, must
+suffer the whole thing over again. Her name will be put as the head
+and front of your offending. All her sorrows and heartbreak will be
+made a penny mouthful for country bumpkins and scandalous gammers to
+'Oh!' and 'Ah!' over. Ulfar, if you are a man, you will not give her a
+moment's terror of such consequences. You may see that she fears
+them, by her sending her brother to entreat your absence."
+
+"And I must be called coward and runaway!"
+
+"Let them call you anything they like, so that you spare her further
+shame and sorrow."
+
+"Your talking in this fashion to me, Sarah, is very like Satan
+correcting sin. I loved Aspatria when I met you in Rome."
+
+"Of course! Adam always has his Eve ready. 'Not my fault, good people!
+Look at this woman! With her bright smiles and her soft tongue she
+beguiled me; and so I fell!' We can settle that question, you and
+I, again. Now you must ring the bell, and order your horse--say,
+at four o'clock to-morrow morning. You can have nearly six hours'
+sleep,--quite enough for you."
+
+"You have not convinced me, Sarah."
+
+"Then you must ride now, and be convinced afterward. For your sister's
+sake and for Aspatria's sake, you will surely go away."
+
+Lady Redware was crying, and she cried a little harder to emphasize
+Sarah's pleading. Ulfar was in a hard strait. He looked angrily at the
+handsome little woman urging him to do the thing he hated to do, and
+then taking the kerchief from his sister's face, he kissed her, and
+promised to leave Redware at dawn of day.
+
+"But," said he, "if you send me away now, I tell you, our parting is
+likely to be for many years, perhaps for life. I am going beyond
+civilization, and so beyond scandal."
+
+"Do not flatter yourself so extravagantly, Ulfar. There is scandal
+everywhere, and always has been, even from the beginning. I have no
+doubt those nameless little sisters of Cain and Abel were talked about
+unpleasantly by their sisters and brothers-in-law. In fact, wherever
+there are women there are men glad to pull them down to their own
+level."
+
+"Is it not very hard, then, that I am not to be permitted to stay here
+and defend the women I love?"
+
+Sarah shook her head. "It is beyond your power, Ulfar. If Porthos were
+on earth again, or Amadis of Gaul, they might have happy and useful
+careers in handling as they deserve the maligners of good, quiet
+women. But the men of this era!--which of them durst lift the stone
+that the hand without sin is permitted to cast?"
+
+So they talked the night away, drifting gradually from the unpleasant
+initial subject to Ulfar's plan of travel and the far-off prospect of
+his return. And in the gray, cold dawn he bade them farewell, and they
+watched him until he vanished in the mists rolling down the mountain.
+Then they kissed each other,--a little, sad kiss of congratulation,
+wet with tears; they had won their desire, but their victory had left
+them weeping. Alas! it is the very condition of success that every
+triumph must be baptized with somebody's tears.
+
+This event, beginning in such a trifle as an almost accidental visit
+of Aspatria to the vicar, was the line sharply dividing very different
+lives. Nothing in Seat-Ambar was ever quite the same after it. William
+Anneys, indeed, quickly perceived and acknowledged his fault, and the
+reconciliation was kind and complete; but Aspatria had taken a step
+forward, and crossed clearly that bound which divides girlhood from
+womanhood. Unconsciously she assumed a carriage that Will felt
+compelled to respect, and a tone was in her voice he did not care to
+bluff and contradict. He never again ordered her to remain silent or
+to leave his presence. A portion of his household authority had passed
+from him, both as regarded Aspatria and Brune; and he felt himself to
+be less master than he had formerly been.
+
+Perhaps this was one reason of the growing frequency of his visits to
+Frostham. There he was made much of, deferred to, and all his little
+fancies flattered and obeyed. Will knew he was the most important
+person in the world to Alice Frostham; and he knew, also, that he only
+shared Aspatria's heart with Ulfar Fenwick. Men like the whole heart,
+and nothing less than the whole heart; hence Alice's influence grew
+steadily all through the summer days, full to the brim of happy labour
+and reasonable love. As early as the haymaking Will told Aspatria that
+Alice was coming to Seat-Ambar as its mistress; and when the harvest
+was gathered in, the wedding took place. It was as noisily jocund an
+affair as Aspatria's had been silent and sorrowful; and Alice
+Frostham, encircled by Will's protecting arm, was led across the
+threshold of her own new home, to the sound of music and rejoicing.
+
+The home was quickly divided, though without unkind intent. Will and
+Alice had their own talk, their own hopes and plans, and Aspatria and
+Brune generally felt that their entrance interfered with some
+discussion. So Aspatria and Brune began to sit a great deal in
+Aspatria's room, and by and by to discuss, in a confidential way, what
+they were to do with their future. Brune had no definite idea.
+Aspatria's intents were clear and certain. But she knew that she must
+wait until the spring brought her majority and her freedom.
+
+One frosty day, near Christmas, as Brune was returning from Dalton, he
+heard himself called in a loud, cheerful voice. He was passing
+Seat-Ketel, and he soon saw Harry Ketel coming quickly toward him.
+Harry wore a splendid scarlet uniform; and the white snow beneath his
+feet, and the dark green pines between which he walked, made it all
+the more splendid by their contrast. Brune had not seen Harry for
+five years; but they had been companions through their boyhood, and
+their memories were stored with the pleasant hours they had spent
+together.
+
+Brune passed that night, and many subsequent ones, with his old
+friend; and when Harry went back to his regiment he took with him a
+certainty that Brune would soon follow. In fact, Harry had found his
+old companion in that mood which is ready to accept the first opening
+as the gift of fate. Brune found there was a commission to be bought
+in the Household Foot-Guards, and he was well able to pay for it.
+Indeed, Brune was by no means a poor man; his father had left him
+seven thousand pounds, and his share of the farm's proceeds had been
+constantly added to it.
+
+Aspatria was delighted. She might now go to London in Brune's care.
+They discussed the matter constantly, and began to make the
+preparations necessary for the change. But affairs were not then
+arranged by steam and electricity, and the letters relating to the
+purchase and transfer of Brune's commission occupied some months in
+their transit to and fro; although Brune did not rely upon the
+postman's idea of the practicability of the roads.
+
+Aspatria's correspondence was also uncertain and unsatisfactory
+for some time. She had at first no guide to a school but the
+advertisements in the London papers which Harry sent to his friend.
+But one night Brune, without any special intention, named the matter
+to Mrs. Ketel; and that lady was able to direct Aspatria to an
+excellent school in Richmond, near London. And as she was much more
+favourably situated for a quick settlement of the affair, she
+undertook the necessary correspondence.
+
+Will was not ignorant of these movements, but Alice induced him to be
+passive in them. "No one can then blame us, Will, whatever happens."
+And as Will and Alice were extremely sensitive to public opinion, this
+was a good consideration. Besides Alice, not unnaturally, wished to
+have the Seat to herself; so that Aspatria's and Brune's wishes fitted
+admirably into her own desires, and it gave her a kind of selfish
+pleasure to forward them.
+
+The ninth of March was Aspatria's twenty-first birthday; and it was to
+her a very important anniversary, for she received as its gift her
+freedom and her fortune. There was no hitch or trouble in its transfer
+from Will to herself. Honour and integrity were in the life-blood of
+William Anneys, honesty and justice the very breath of his nostrils.
+Aspatria's fortune had been guarded with a super-sensitive care; and
+when years gave her its management, Will surrendered it cheerfully to
+her control.
+
+Fortunately, the school selected by Mrs. Ketel satisfied Will
+thoroughly; and Brune's commission in the Foot-Guards was in
+honourable accord with the highest traditions and spirit of the dales.
+For the gigantic and physically handsome men of these mountain
+valleys have been for centuries considered the finest material for
+those regiments whose duty it is to guard the persons and the homes of
+royalty. Brune had only followed in the steps of a great number of his
+ancestors.
+
+In the beginning of April, Aspatria left Seat-Ambar for London,--left
+forever all the pettiness of her house life, chairs and tables, sewing
+and meals, and the useless daily labour that has to be continually
+done over again. And at the last Will was very tender with her, and
+even Alice did her best to make the parting days full of hope and
+kindness. As for the journey, there was no anxiety; Brune was to
+travel with his sister, and see her safely within her new home.
+
+Yet neither of them left the old home without some tears. Would they
+ever see again those great, steadfast hills, that purify those who
+walk upon them; ever dwell again within the dear old house, that had
+not been builded, but had grown with the family it had sheltered,
+through a thousand years? They hardly spoke to each other, as they
+drove through the sweet valleys, where the sunshine laid a gold on the
+green, and the warm south-wind gently rocked the daisies, and the
+lark's song was like a silvery water-fall up in the sky.
+
+But they were young; and, oh, the rich significance of the word
+"young" when the heart is young as well as the body, when the thoughts
+are not doubts, and when the eyes look not backward, but only forward,
+into a bright future!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+"LOVE SHALL BE LORD OF SANDY-SIDE."
+
+
+During thirty years of the first half of this century Mrs. St. Alban's
+finishing school for young gentlewomen was a famous institution of its
+kind. For she had been born to the manner of courts and of people of
+high degree; and when evil fortune met her, she very wisely turned her
+inherited social advantages into a means of honest livelihood.
+Aspatria was much impressed by her noble bearing and fine manners, and
+by the elaborate state in which the twelve pupils, of whom she was
+one, lived.
+
+Each had her own suite of apartments; each was expected to keep a
+maid, and to dress with the utmost care and propriety. There were
+fine horses in the stables for their equestrian exercise, there
+were grooms to attend them during it, and there were regular
+reception-days, which afforded tyros in social accomplishments
+practical opportunities for cultivating the graceful and gracious
+urbanity which evidences really fine breeding.
+
+Many of Aspatria's companions were of high rank,--Lady Julias and Lady
+Augustas, who were destined to wear ducal coronets and to stand around
+the throne of their young queen. But they were always charmingly
+pleasant and polite, and Aspatria soon acquired their outward form of
+calm deliberation and their mode of low, soft speech. For the rest,
+she decided, with singular prudence, to cultivate only those talents
+which nature had obviously granted her.
+
+A few efforts proved that she had no taste for art. Indeed, the
+attempt to portray the majesty of the mountains or the immensity of
+the ocean seemed to her childishly petty and futile. She had dwelt
+among the high places and been familiar with the great sea, and to
+make images of them appeared a kind of sacrilege. But she liked the
+study of languages, and she had a rich contralto voice capable of
+expressing all the emotions of the heart. At the piano she hesitated;
+its music, under her unskilled fingers, sounded mechanical; she
+doubted her ability to put a soul into that instrument. But the harp
+was different; its strings held sympathetic tones she felt competent
+to master. To these studies she added a course of English literature
+and dancing. She was already a fine rider, and her information
+obtained from the vicar's library and the Encyclopædia covered an
+enormous variety of subjects, though it was desultory, and in many
+respects imperfect.
+
+Her new life was delightful to her. She had an innate love for study,
+for quiet, and for elegant surroundings. These tastes were fully
+gratified. The large house stood in a fair garden, surrounded by very
+high walls, with entrance-gates of handsomely wrought iron. Perfect
+quiet reigned within this flowery enclosure. She could study without
+the constant interruptions which had annoyed her at home; and she was
+wisely aided in her studies by masters whose low voices and gliding
+steps seemed only to accentuate the peace of the wide schoolroom, with
+its perfect appointments and its placid group of beautiful students.
+
+On Saturdays Brune generally spent several hours with her; and if the
+weather were fine, they rode or walked in the Park. Brune was a
+constant wonder to Aspatria. Certainly his handsome uniform had done
+much for him, but there was a greater change than could be effected
+by mere clothes. Without losing that freshness and singleness of mind
+he owed to his country training, he had become a man of fashion, a
+little of a dandy, a very innocent sort of a lady-killer. His arrival
+caused always a faint flutter in Mrs. St. Alban's dove-cot, and the
+noble damosels found many little womanly devices to excuse their
+passing through the parlour while Brune was present. They liked to see
+him bend his beautiful head to them; and Lady Mary Boleyn, who was
+Aspatria's friend and companion, was mildly envied the privileges this
+relation gave her.
+
+During the vacations Aspatria was always the guest of one or other of
+her mates, though generally she spent them at the splendid seat of the
+Boleyns in Hampshire, and the unconscious education thus received was
+of the greatest value to her. It gave the ease of nature to acquired
+accomplishments, and, above all, that air which we call distinction,
+which is rarely natural, and is attained only by frequent association
+with those who dwell on the highest social peaks.
+
+Much might be said of this phase of Aspatria's life which may be left
+to the reader's imagination. For three years it saw only such changes
+as advancing intelligence and growing friendships made. The real
+change was in Aspatria personally. No one could have traced without
+constant doubt the slim, virginal, unfinished-looking girl that left
+Seat-Ambar, in the womanly perfection of Aspatria aged twenty-four
+years. She had grown several inches taller; her angles had all
+disappeared; every joint was softly rounded. Her hands and arms were
+exquisite; her throat and the poise of her head like those of a Greek
+goddess. Her hair was darker and more abundant, and her eyes retained
+all their old charm, with some rarer and nobler addition.
+
+To be sure, she had not the perfect regularity of feature that
+distinguished some of her associates, that exact beauty which Titian's
+Venus possesses, and which makes no man's heart beat a throb the
+faster. Her face had rather the mobile irregularity of Leonardo's Mona
+Lisa, the charming face that men love passionately, the face that men
+can die for.
+
+At the close of the third year she refused all invitations for the
+summer holidays, and went back to Seat-Ambar. There had not been much
+communication between Will and herself. He was occupied with his land
+and his sheep, his wife and his two babies. People then took each
+other's affection as a matter of course, without the daily assurance
+of it. About twice a year Will had sent her a few strong words of
+love, and a bare description of any change about the home, or else
+Alice had covered a sheet with pretty nothings, written in the small,
+pointed, flowing characters then fashionable.
+
+But the love of Aspatria for her home depended on no such trivial,
+accidental tokens. It was in her blood; her personality was knotted to
+Seat-Ambar by centuries of inherited affection; she could test it by
+the fact that it would have killed her to see it pass into a
+stranger's hands. When once she had turned her face northward, it
+seemed impossible to travel quickly enough. Hundreds of miles away she
+felt the cool wind blowing through the garden, and the scent of the
+damask rose was on it. She heard the gurgling of the becks and the
+wayside streams, and the whistling of the boys in the barn, and the
+tinkling of the sheep-bells on the highest fells. The raspberries were
+ripe in their sunny corner; she tasted them afar off. The dark oak
+rooms, their perfume of ancient things, their air of homelike
+comfort,--it was all so vivid, so present to her memory, that her
+heart beat and thrilled, as the breast of a nursing mother thrills and
+beats for her longing babe.
+
+She had told no one she was coming; for, the determination made, she
+knew that she would reach home before the Dalton postman got the
+letter to Seat-Ambar. The gig she had hired she left at the lower
+garden gate; and then she walked quickly through the rose-alley up to
+the front door. It stood open, and she heard a baby crying. How
+strange the wailing notes sounded! She went forward, and opened the
+parlour door; Alice was washing the child, and she turned with an
+annoyed look to see the intruder.
+
+Of course the expression changed, but not quickly enough to prevent
+Aspatria seeing that her visit was inopportune. Alice said afterward
+that she did not recognize her sister-in-law, and, as Will met her
+precisely as he would have met an entire stranger, Alice's excuse was
+doubtless a valid one. There were abundant exclamations and rejoicings
+when her identity was established, but Will could do nothing all the
+evening but wonder over the changes that had taken place in his
+sister.
+
+However, when the first joy of reunion is over, it is a prudent thing
+not to try too far the welcome that is given to the home-comer who has
+once left home. Will and Alice had grown to the idea that Aspatria
+would never return to claim the room in Seat-Ambar which was hers
+legally so long as she lived. It had been refurnished and was used as
+a guest-room. Aspatria looked with dismay on the changes made. Her
+very sampler had been sent away,--the bit of canvas made sacred by her
+mother's fingers holding her own over it. She could remember the
+instances connected with the formation of almost every letter of its
+simple prayer,--
+
+  Jesus, permit thy gracious name to stand
+  As the first effort of my infant hand;
+  And, as my fingers on the sampler move,
+  Engage my tender heart to seek thy love.
+  With thy dear children may I have a part,
+  And write thy Name, thyself, upon my heart.
+
+And it was gone! She went into the lumber-room, and picked it out from
+under a pile of old prints and shabbily framed certificates for prize
+cattle.
+
+With a sad heart Aspatria regarded the other changes. Her little
+tent-bed, with its white dimity curtains, had been given to baby's
+nurse. The vase her father had bought her at Kendal fair was broken.
+Her small mirror and dressing-table had been removed for a fine Psyche
+in a gilded frame. Nothing, nothing was untouched, but the big
+dower-chest into which she had flung her wretched wedding-clothes. She
+stood silently before it, reflecting, with excusable ill-nature, that
+neither Will nor Alice knew the secret of its spring. Her mother had
+taught it to her, and that bit of knowledge she determined to keep to
+herself.
+
+After some hesitation she tried the spring: it answered her pressure
+at once; the lid flew back, and there lay the unhappy white satin
+dress, the wreath, and veil, and slippers, just as she had tumbled
+them in. The bitter hour came sharply back to her; she thought and
+gazed, and thought and gazed, until she felt herself to be weeping.
+Then she softly closed the lid, and, as she did so, a smile parted
+her lips,--a smile that denied all that her tears said; a smile of
+hope, of good presage, of coming happiness.
+
+She stayed only a week at Seat-Ambar, though she had originally
+intended to remain until the harvest was over. The time was spent in
+public festivity; every one in Allerdale was invited to give her a
+fitting welcome. But the very formality of all this entertainment
+pained her. It was, after all, only a cruel evidence that Will and
+Alice did not care to take her into their real home-life. She would
+rather have sat alone with them, and talked of their hopes and plans,
+and been permitted to make friends of the babies.
+
+So far away, so far away as she had drifted in three years from the
+absent living! Would the dead be kinder? She went to Aspatria Church
+and sat down in her mother's seat, and let the strange spiritual
+atmosphere which hovers in old churches fill her heart with its
+supernatural influence. All around her were the graves of her
+fore-elders, strong elemental men, simple God-loving women. Did they
+know her? Did they care for her? Her soul looked with piteous entreaty
+into the void behind it, but there was no answer; only that dreadful
+silence of the dead, which presses upon the drum of the ear like
+thunder.
+
+She went into the quiet yard around the church. The ancient, ancient
+sun shone on the young grass. Over her mother's grave the sweet thyme
+had grown luxuriantly. She rubbed her hands in it, and spread them
+toward heaven with a prayer. Then peace came into her heart, and she
+felt as if eyes, unseen heavenly eyes, rained happy influence upon
+her. Thus it is that death imparts to life its most intense interest;
+for, kneeling in his very presence, Aspatria forgot the mortality of
+her parents, and did reverence to that within them which was eternal.
+
+She returned to London, and was a little disappointed there also. Mrs.
+St. Alban had promised herself an absolute release from any outside
+element. She felt Aspatria a trifle in the way, and, though far too
+polite to show her annoyance, Aspatria by some similar instinct
+divined it. That is the way always. When we plan for ourselves, all
+our plans fail. Happy are they who learn early to let fate alone, and
+never interfere with the Powers who hold the thread of their destiny!
+
+It was not until she had reached this mood, a kind of content
+indifference, that her good genius could work for her. She then sent
+Brune as her messenger, and Brune took his sister to meet her on
+Richmond Hill. On their way thither they talked about Seat-Ambar, and
+Will and Alice, until Aspatria suddenly noticed that Brune was not
+listening to her. His eyes were fixed upon a lovely woman approaching
+them. It was Sarah Sandys. Brune stood bareheaded to receive her
+salutation.
+
+"I never should have known you, Lieutenant Anneys," she said,
+extending her hand, and beaming like sunshine on the handsome officer,
+"had not your colonel Jardine been in Richmond to-day. He is very
+proud of you, sir, and said so many fine things of you that I am
+ambitious to show him that we are old acquaintances. May I know,
+through you, Mrs. Anneys also?"
+
+"This is my sister, Mrs. Sandys,--my sister--" Brune hesitated a
+moment, and then said firmly, "Miss Anneys."
+
+Then Sarah insisted on taking them to her house to lunch; and there
+she soon had them under her influence. She waited on them with
+ravishing smiles and all sorts of pretty offices. She took them in her
+handsome carriage to drive, she insisted on their remaining to dinner.
+And before the drive was over, she had induced Aspatria to extend her
+visit until the opening of Mrs. St. Alban's school.
+
+"We three are from the north country," she said, with an air of
+relationship; "and how absurd for Miss Anneys to be alone at Mrs. St.
+Alban's, where she is not wanted, and for me to be alone here, when I
+desire her society so much!"
+
+Aspatria was much pleased to receive such a delightful invitation, and
+a messenger was sent at once for her maid. Mrs. St. Alban was quite
+ready to resign Aspatria, and the maid was as glad as her mistress to
+leave the lonely mansion. In an hour or two she had removed Aspatria's
+wardrobe, and was arranging the pleasant rooms Mrs. Sandys had placed
+at her guest's disposal.
+
+Sarah was evidently bent on conquest. Her toilet was a marvellous
+combination of some shining blue and white texture, mingled with pink
+roses and gold ornaments. Her soft fair hair was loosened and curled,
+and she had a childlike manner of being carelessly happy. Brune sat at
+her right hand; she talked to him in smiles and glances, and gave her
+words to Aspatria. She was determined to please both sister and
+brother, and she succeeded. Aspatria thought she had never in all her
+life seen a woman so lovable, so amusing, so individual.
+
+Brune was naturally shy and silent among women. Sarah made him
+eloquent, because she had the tact to discover the subject on which
+he could talk,--his regiment, and its sayings and doings. So Brune was
+delighted with himself; he had never before suspected how clever he
+was. Stimulated by Sarah's and Aspatria's laughter and curiosity, he
+found it easy to retail funny little bits of palace and mess gossip,
+and to describe the queer men and the vain men and the fine fellows
+that were his familiars.
+
+"And pray how do you amuse yourself, Lieutenant? Do you drink wine,
+and gamble, and go to the races, and bet your purse empty?"
+
+"I was never brought up in such ways," Brune answered, "and, I can
+tell you, I wouldn't make believe to like them. There are a good many
+dalesmen in my company, and none of us enjoy anything more than a fair
+throw or an in-lock."
+
+"A throw or an in-lock! What do you mean, Lieutenant? You must explain
+yourself to Miss Anneys and myself."
+
+"Aspatria knows well enough. Did you ever see north-country lads
+wrestling, madam? No? Then you have as fine a thing in keeping for
+your eyes as human creatures can show you. I'll warrant that! Why-a!
+wrestling brings all men to their level. When Colonel Jardine is
+ugly-tempered, and top-heavy with his authority, a few sound throws
+over Timothy Sutcliffe's head does bring him to level very well. I had
+a little in-play with him yesterday; for in the wrestling-ring we be
+all equals, though out of it he is my colonel."
+
+"Now for the in-play. Tell me about it, for I see Miss Anneys is not
+at all interested."
+
+"Colonel Jardine is a fine wrestler; a fair match he would be even for
+brother Will. Yesterday he said he could throw me; and I took the
+challenge willingly. So we shook hands, and went squarely for the
+throw. I was in good luck, and soon got my head under his right arm,
+and his head close down to my left side. Then it was only to get my
+right arm up to his shoulder, and lift him as high as my head, and,
+when so, lean backward and throw him over my head: we call it the
+Flying Horse."
+
+"Oh, I can see it very well. No wonder Rosalind fell in love with
+Orlando when he threw the wrestler Charles."
+
+"Were they north-country or Cornish men?"
+
+She was far too kindly and polite to smile; indeed, she gave Aspatria
+a pretty, imperative glance, and answered, in the most natural manner,
+"I think they were Italians."
+
+"Oh!" said Brune, with some contempt. "Chaff on their ways! The
+Devonshire wrestlers are brutal; the Cornish are too slow; but the
+Cumberland men wrestle like gentlemen. They meet square and level in
+the ring, and the one who could carry ill-will for a fair throw would
+very soon find himself out of all rings and all good fellowship."
+
+"You said 'even brother Will.' Is your brother a better wrestler than
+you?"
+
+"My song! he is that! Will has his match, though. We had a ploughman
+once,--Aspatria remembers him,--Robert Steadman, an upright, muscular
+young fellow, civil and respectful as could be in everything about his
+work and place; but on wet days when we were all, masters and
+servants, in the barn together, it was a sight to see Robert wrestling
+with Will for the mastery, and Will never so ready to say, 'Well
+done!' nor the rest of us so happy, as when we saw Will's two brawny
+legs going handsomely over Robert's head."
+
+"If I were a man, I should try to be a fine wrestler."
+
+"It is a great comfort," said Brune. "If you have a quarrel of any
+kind, it is a deal more satisfactory to meet your man, and throw him a
+few times over your head, than to go to law with him. It puts a stop
+to unpleasantness very quickly and very good-naturedly."
+
+Then Sarah rose and opened the piano, and from its keys dashed out a
+lilting, hurrying melody, like the galloping of horses and shaking of
+bridles; and in a few moments she began to sing, and Brune went to
+her side, and, because she looked so steadily into his eyes, he could
+remember nothing at all of the song but its dashing refrain,--
+
+      "For he whom I wed
+      Must be north country bred,
+  And must carry me back to the North Countrie."
+
+Then Aspatria played some wonderful music on her harp, and Sarah and
+Brune sat still and listened to their own hearts, and sent out shy
+glances, and caught each other in the act, and Brune was made nervous,
+and Sarah gay, by the circumstance.
+
+By and by they began to talk of schools, and of how much Aspatria had
+learned; and so Brune regretted his own ignorance, and wished he had
+been more attentive to his schoolmaster.
+
+Sarah laughed at the wish. "A knowledge of Shakspeare and the musical
+glasses and the Della Cruscans," she said, "is for foolish,
+sentimental women. You can wrestle, and you can fight, and I suppose
+you can make money, and perhaps even make love. Is there anything else
+a soldier needs?"
+
+"Colonel Jardine is very clever," continued Brune, regretfully; "and I
+had a good schoolmaster--"
+
+"Nonsense, Lieutenant!" said Sarah. "None of them are good. They all
+spoil your eyes, and seek to lay a curse on you; that is the confusion
+of languages."
+
+"Still, I might have learned Latin."
+
+"It was the speech of pagans and infidels."
+
+"Or logic."
+
+"Logic hath nothing to say in a good cause."
+
+"Or philosophy."
+
+"Philosophy is curiosity. Socrates was very properly put to death for
+it."
+
+They were all laughing together, when Sarah condemned Socrates, and
+the evening passed like a happy dream away.
+
+It was succeeded by weeks of the same delight. Aspatria soon learned
+to love Sarah. She had never before had a woman friend on whom she
+could rely and to whom she could open her heart. Sarah induced her to
+speak of Ulfar, to tell her all her suffering and her plans and hopes,
+and she gave her in return a true affection and a most sincere
+sympathy. Nothing of the past that referred to Ulfar was left untold;
+and as the two women sat together during the long summer days, they
+grew very near to each other, and there was but one mind and one
+desire between them.
+
+So that when the time came for Aspatria to go back to Mrs. St.
+Alban's, Sarah would not hear of their separation. "You have had
+enough of book-learning," she said. "Remain with me. We will go to
+Paris, to Rome, to Vienna. We will study through travel and society.
+It is by rubbing yourself against all kinds of men and women that you
+acquire the finest polish of life; and then when Ulfar comes back you
+will be able to meet him upon all civilized grounds. And as for the
+South Americans, we will buy all the books about them we can find.
+Are they red or white or black, I wonder? Are they pagans or
+Christians? I seem to remember that when I was at school I learned
+that the Peruvians worshipped the sun."
+
+"I think, Sarah, that they are all descendants of Spaniards; so they
+must be Roman Catholics. And I have read that their women are
+beautiful and witty."
+
+"My dear Aspatria, nothing goes with Spaniards but gravity and green
+olives."
+
+Aspatria was easily persuaded to accept Sarah's offer; she was indeed
+very happy in the prospect before her. But Brune was miserable. He had
+spent a rapturous summer, and it was to end without harvest, or the
+promise thereof. He could not endure the prospect, and one night he
+made a movement so decided that Sarah was compelled to set him back a
+little.
+
+"Were you ever in love, Mrs. Sandys?" poor Brune asked, with his heart
+filling his mouth.
+
+She looked thoughtfully at him a moment, and then slowly answered: "I
+once felt myself in danger, and I fled to France. I consider it the
+finest action of my life."
+
+Aspatria felt sorry for her brother, and she said warmly: "I think no
+one falls in love now. Love is out of date."
+
+Sarah enjoyed her temper. "You are right, dear," she answered.
+"Culture makes love a conscious operation. When women are all feeling,
+they fall in love; when they have intellect and will, they attach
+themselves only after a critical examination of the object."
+
+Later, when they were alone, Aspatria took her friend to task for her
+cruelty: "You know Brune loves you, Sarah; and you do love him. Why
+make him miserable? Has he presumed too far?"
+
+"No, indeed! He is as adoring and humble as one could wish a future
+lord and master to be."
+
+"Well, then?"
+
+"I will give our love time to grow. When we come back, if Brune has
+been true to me in every way, he may fall to blessing himself with
+both hands;" and then she began to sing,--
+
+  "Betide, betide, whatever betide,
+  Love shall be Lord of Sandy-Side!"
+
+"Love is a burden two hearts carry very easily together, but, oh,
+Sarah! I know how hard it is to bear it alone. Therefore I say, be
+kind to Brune while you can."
+
+"My dear, your idea is a very pretty one. I read the other day a Hindu
+version of it that smelled charmingly of the soil,--
+
+  'A clapping is not made with one hand alone:
+  Your love, my beloved, must answer my own.'"
+
+But in spite of such reflections, Sarah's will and intellect were
+predominant, and she left poor Brune with only such hope as he could
+glean from the lingering pressure of her hand and the tears in her
+eyes. Aspatria's pleading had done no good. Perhaps it had done harm;
+for the very nature of love is that it should be spontaneous.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+"A ROSE OF A HUNDRED LEAVES."
+
+
+One morning in spring Aspatria stood in a balcony overlooking the
+principal thoroughfare of Rome,--the Rome of papal government,
+mythical, mystical, mediæval in its character. A procession of friars
+had just passed; a handsome boy was crying violets; some musical
+puppets were performing in the shadow of the opposite palace; a
+party of brigands were going to the Angelo prison; the spirit of Cæsar
+was still abroad in the black-browed men and women, lounging and
+laughing in their gaudy, picturesque costumes; and the spirit of
+ecclesiasticism lifted itself above every earthly object, and
+touched proudly the bells of a thousand churches. Aspatria was
+weary of all.
+
+She had that morning an imperative nostalgia. She could see nothing
+but the mountains of Cumberland, and the white sheep wandering about
+their green sides. Through the church-bells she heard the sheep-bells.
+Above the boy crying violets she heard the boy whistling in the
+fresh-ploughed furrow. As for the violets, she knew how the wild ones
+were blowing in Ambar wood, and how in the garden the daffodil-beds
+were aglow, and the sweet thyme humbling itself at their feet, because
+each bore a chalice. Oh for a breath from the mountains and the sea!
+The hot Roman streets, with their ever-changing human elements of
+sorrow and mirth, sin and prayer, riches and poverty, made her sad
+and weary.
+
+Sarah came toward her with a letter in her hand. "Ria," she said,
+"this is from Lady Redware. Your husband will be in England very
+shortly."
+
+It was the first time Sarah had ever called Ulfar Aspatria's husband.
+In conversation the two women had always spoken of him as "Ulfar." The
+change was significant. It implied that Sarah thought the time had
+come for Aspatria to act decisively.
+
+"I shall be delighted to go back to England. We have been twenty
+months away, Sarah. I was just feeling as if it were twenty years."
+
+Sarah looked critically at the woman who was going to cast her last
+die for love. She was so entirely different from the girl who had
+first won that love, how was it possible for her to recapture the
+same sweet, faithless emotion? She had a swift memory of the slim
+girl in the plain black frock whom she had seen sitting under the
+whin-bushes. And then she glanced at Aspatria standing under the
+blue-and-red awning of the Roman palace. She was now twenty-six
+years old, and in the very glory of her womanhood, tall, superbly
+formed, graceful, calm, and benignant. Her face was luminous with
+intellect and feeling, her manner that of a woman high-bred and
+familiar with the world. Culture had done all for her that the
+lapidary does for the diamond; travel and social advantages had
+added to the gem a golden setting. She was so little like the
+sorrowful child whom Ulfar had last seen in the vicar's meadow that
+Sarah felt instantaneous recognition to be almost impossible.
+
+After some hesitation, Aspatria agreed to accept Sarah's plan and wait
+in Richmond the development of events. At first she had been strongly
+in favour of a return to Seat-Ambar. "If Ulfar really wants to see
+me," she said, "he will be most likely to seek me there."
+
+"But then, Ria, he may think he does not want to see you. Men never
+know what they really do want. You have to give them 'leadings.' If
+Ulfar can look on you now and have no curiosity about your identity, I
+should say the man was not worth a speculation from any point. See if
+you have hold sufficient on his memory to pique his curiosity. If you
+have, lead him wherever you wish."
+
+"But how? And where?"
+
+"Do I carry a divining-cup, Ria? Can I foresee the probabilities of a
+man so impossible as Ulfar Fenwick? I only know that Richmond is a
+good place to watch events from."
+
+And of course the Richmond house suited Brune. His love had grown to
+the utmost of Sarah's expectations, and he was no longer to be put off
+with smiles and pleasant words. Sarah had promised him an answer when
+she returned, and he claimed it with a passionate persistence that had
+finally something imperative in it. To this mood Sarah succumbed;
+though she declared that Brune had chosen the morning of all others
+most inconvenient for her. She was just leaving the house. She was
+going to London about her jewels. Brune had arrested the coachman by a
+peremptory movement, and he looked as if he were quite prepared to
+lift Sarah out of the carriage.
+
+So Aspatria went alone. She was glad of the swift movement in the
+fresh air, she was glad that she could be quiet and let it blow
+passively upon her. The restlessness of watching had made her
+feverish. She had the "strait" of a strong mind which longs to meet
+her destiny. For her love for her husband had grown steadily with her
+efforts to be worthy of that love, and she longed to meet him face to
+face and try the power of her personality over him. The trial did not
+frighten her; she felt within her the ability to accomplish it; her
+feet were on a level with her task; she was the height of a woman
+above it.
+
+Musing on this subject, letting her mind shoot to and fro like a
+shuttle between the past and the present, she reached Piccadilly, and
+entered a large jeweller's shop. The proprietor was talking to a
+gentleman who was exhibiting a number of uncut gems. Aspatria knew him
+instantly. It was Ulfar Fenwick,--the same Ulfar, older, and yet
+distinctly handsomer. For the dark hair slightly whitened, and the
+thin, worn cheeks, had an intensely human aspect. She saw that he had
+suffered; that the sum of life was on his face,--toil, difficulty,
+endurance, mind, and also that pathetic sadness which tells of
+endurance without avail.
+
+She went to the extreme end of the counter, and began to examine the
+jewels which Sarah had sent to be reset. Some were finished; others
+were waiting for the selection of a particular style, and Aspatria
+looked critically at the models shown her. The occupation gave her an
+opportunity to calm and consider herself; she could look at the jewels
+a few moments without expressing an opinion.
+
+Then she gave, in a clear, distinct voice, some order regarding a
+pearl necklace; and Ulfar turned like a flash, and looked at the
+woman who had spoken. She had the pearls in one hand; the other
+touched a satin cushion on which lay many ornaments of diamonds,
+sapphires, and rubies. The moonlight iridescence of the pearls, the
+sparkling glory of the gems, seemed to be a part of her noble beauty.
+He forgot his own treasures, and stood looking at the woman whose
+voice had called to him out of the past, had penetrated his heart like
+a bell struck sharply in its innermost room. Who was it? Where had
+they met before? He knew the face. He knew, and yet he did not know,
+the whole charming personality. As she turned, his eyes met her eyes,
+and the pure pallor of her cheeks was flooded with crimson.
+
+She passed him within touch; the rustle of her garments, their faint
+perfume, the simple sense of her nearness, thrilled his being
+wondrously. And, above all, that sense of familiarity! What could it
+mean? He gave the stones into the jeweller's care, and hurriedly
+followed her steps.
+
+"That is Sarah Sandys's carriage, my barony for it!" he exclaimed;
+"and the men are in the Sandys livery. Sarah, then, is in Richmond;
+and the woman who rides in her carriage is very likely in her house;
+but who can it be?"
+
+The face haunted him, the voice tormented him like a melody that we
+continually try to catch. He endeavoured to place both as he rode out
+to Richmond. More than once the thought of Aspatria came to him, but
+he could not make any memory of her fit that splendid vision of the
+woman with uplifted hand and the string of pearls dropping from it.
+Her exquisite face, between the beauty of their reflection and the
+flashing of the gems beneath, retained in his memory a kind of glory.
+"Such loveliness is the proper setting for pearls and diamonds," he
+said. "Many a beauty I have seen, but none that can touch the heel of
+her shoe."
+
+For he really thought that it was her personal charms which had so
+moved him. It was the sense of familiarity; it was in a far deeper
+and dimmer way a presentiment of right, of possession, a feeling of
+personal touch in the emotion, which perplexed and stimulated him as
+the mere mystery and beauty of the flesh could never have done.
+
+As soon as he reached the top of Richmond Hill he saw Sarah. She was
+sauntering along that loveliest of cliffs, with Brune. An orderly was
+leading Brune's horse; he himself was in the first ecstasy of Sarah's
+acknowledged love. Ulfar went into the Star and Garter Inn and watched
+Sarah. He had no claim upon her, and yet he felt as if she had been
+false to him. "And for a mere soldier!" Then he looked critically at
+the soldier, and said, with some contempt: "I am sorry for him! Sarah
+Sandys will have her pastime, and then say, 'Farewell, good sir!'" As
+for the mere soldier being Brune Anneys, that was a thought out of
+Ulfar's horizon.
+
+In a couple of hours he went to Sarah's. She met him with real
+delight.
+
+"You are just five years lovelier, Sarah," he said.
+
+"Admiration from Sir Ulfar Fenwick is admiration indeed!"
+
+"Yes; I say you are beautiful, though I have just seen the most
+bewitching woman that ever blessed my eyes,--in your carriage too."
+And then, swift as light or thought, there flashed across his mind a
+conviction that the Beauty and Aspatria were identical. It was a
+momentary intelligence; he grasped it merely as a clew that might lead
+him somewhere.
+
+"In my carriage? I dare say it was Ria. She went to Piccadilly this
+morning about some jewels."
+
+"She reminded me of Aspatria."
+
+"Have you brought back with you that old trouble? I have no mind to
+hear more of it."
+
+"Who is the lady I saw this morning?"
+
+"She is the sister of the man I am going to marry. In four months she
+will be my sister."
+
+"What is her name?"
+
+"That is to tell you my secret, sir."
+
+"I saw you throwing your enchantments over some soldier. I knew just
+how the poor fellow felt."
+
+"Then you also have been in Arcadia. Be thankful for your past
+blessings. I do not expect you to rejoice with me; none of the
+apostolic precepts are so hard as that which bids us rejoice with
+those who do rejoice."
+
+"Neither Elizabeth nor you have ever named Aspatria in your letters."
+
+"Did you expect us to change guard over Ambar-Side? I dare say
+Aspatria has grown into a buxom, rosy-cheeked woman and quite
+forgotten you."
+
+"I must go and see her."
+
+"I think you ought. Also, you should give her her freedom. I consider
+your behaviour a dog-in-the-manger atrocity."
+
+"Can you not pick nicer words, Sarah?"
+
+"I would not if I could."
+
+"Sarah, tell me truly, have I lost my good looks?"
+
+She regarded him attentively a moment, and answered: "Not quite. You
+have some good points yet. You have grown thin and gray, and lost
+something, and perhaps gained something; but you are not very old, and
+then, you know, you have your title, and your castle, and your very
+old, old family, and I suppose a good deal of money." In reality, she
+was sure that he had never before been so attractive; for he had now
+the magic of a countenance informed by intellect and experience, eyes
+brimming with light, lips neither loose nor coarse, yet full of
+passion and the faculty of enjoyment.
+
+He smiled grimly at Sarah's list of his charms, and said, "When will
+you introduce me to your future sister?"
+
+"This evening. Come about nine. I have a few sober people who will be
+delighted to hear your South American adventures. Ria goes to Lady
+Chester's ball soon after nine. Do not miss your chance."
+
+"Could I see her now?"
+
+"You could not."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Do you suppose she would leave a _modiste_ for--you?"
+
+"I wonder where Aspatria is!"
+
+"Go and find out."
+
+"Sarah, who is the young lady I saw in your carriage?"
+
+"She is the sister of the officer you saw me with, the man I am going
+to marry."
+
+"Where did you meet him?"
+
+"At a friend's house."
+
+"Where did you meet her?"
+
+"Her brother brought her to my house. I asked her to stay with me, and
+finally we went to Italy together."
+
+"She has a very aristocratic manner."
+
+"She ought to have. She was educated at Mrs. St. Alban's, and she
+visits at the Earl of Arundel's, the Duke of Norfolk's, and the very
+exclusive Boleyns',--Lady Mary Boleyn is her friend, and she has also
+had the great advantage of my society for nearly two years."
+
+"Then of course she is not Aspatria, and my heart is a liar, and my
+memory is a traitor, and my eyes do not see correctly. I will call
+about nine. I am at the Star and Garter. If she should name me at
+all--"
+
+"Do you imagine she noticed you? and in such a public place as
+Howell's?"
+
+"I really do imagine she noticed me. Ask her."
+
+"I see you are in love again. After all that experience has done for
+you! It is a Nemesis, Ulfar. I have often noticed that, however
+faithless a man may be, there comes at last one woman who avenges all
+the rest. Enter Nemesis at nine to-night!"
+
+"Sarah, you are an angel."
+
+"Thank you, Ulfar. I thought you classed me with the other side."
+
+"As for Aspatria--"
+
+"Life is too short to discuss Aspatria. I remember one day at Redware
+being sharply requested to keep silence on that subject. The wheel of
+retribution has made a perfect circle as regards Aspatria! I shall
+certainly tell Ria that you have made her the heroine of your
+disagreeable matrimonial romance."
+
+"No, no, Sarah! Do not say a word to her. I must wait until nine, I
+suppose? And I am so anxious and so fearful, Sarah."
+
+"You must wait until nine. And as for the rest, I know very well that
+in the present age a lover's cares and fears have
+
+  Dwindled to the smallest span.
+
+Do go to your hotel, and get clothed and in your right mind. You are
+most unbecomingly dressed. Good-by, old friend, good-by!" And she left
+him with an elaborate courtesy.
+
+Ulfar was now in a vortex. Things went around and around in his
+consciousness; and whenever he endeavoured to examine events with his
+reason, then feeling advanced some unsupported conviction, and threw
+him back into the same senseless whirl of emotion.
+
+He had failed to catch the point which would have given him the clew
+to the whole mystery,--the identity of Brune with the splendidly
+accoutred officer Sarah avowed to be her intended husband. Without
+taking special note of him, Ulfar had seen certain signs of
+birth, breeding, and assured position. In his mind there was a
+great gulf between the haughty-looking soldier and the simple,
+handsome, but rather boorish-looking young Squire of Ambar-Side.
+The two individualities were as far apart in social claims as
+the north and south poles are apart physically.
+
+And if this beautiful woman were indeed Aspatria, how could he
+reconcile the fact with her education at St. Alban's, her friendship
+with such exalted families, her relationship to an officer of evident
+birth and position? When he thought thus, he acknowledged the
+impossibility; but then no sooner had he acknowledged it than his
+heart passionately denied the deduction, with the simple iteration,
+"It is Aspatria! It is Aspatria!"
+
+Aspatria or not, he told himself that he was at last genuinely in
+love. Every affair before was tame, pale, uninteresting. If it was not
+Aspatria, then the first Aspatria was the shadow of the second and
+real one; the preface to love's glorious tale; the prelude to his
+song; the gray, sweet dawn to his perfect day. He could not eat, nor
+sit still, nor think reasonably, nor yet stop thinking. The sun stood
+still; the minutes were hours; at four o'clock he wished to fling the
+timepiece out of the window.
+
+Aspatria had the immense strength of certainty. She knew. Also, she
+had Sarah to advise with. Still better, she had the conviction that
+Ulfar loved her. Perhaps Sarah had exaggerated Ulfar's desperate
+condition; if so, she had done it consciously, for she knew that as
+soon as a woman is sure of her power she puts on an authority which
+commands it. She was now only afraid that Ulfar would not be kept in
+suspense long enough, that Aspatria would forgive him too easily.
+
+"Do make yourself as puzzling as you can, for this one night,
+Aspatria," she urged. "Try to outvie and outdo and even affront that
+dove-like simplicity he used to adore in you, and into which you are
+still apt to relapse. He told me once that you looked like a Quakeress
+when he first saw you."
+
+"I was just home from Miss Gilpin's school in Kendal. It was a Quaker
+school. I have always kept a black gown ready, like the one he saw me
+first in."
+
+"No black gown to-night. I have a mind to stay here and see that you
+turn the Quakeress into a princess."
+
+"I will do all you wish. To-night you shall have your way; but poor
+Ulfar must have suffered, and--"
+
+"Poor Ulfar, indeed! Be merry; that is the best armour against love.
+What ruins women? Revery and sentimentality. A woman who does not
+laugh ought to be watched."
+
+But though she lectured and advised Aspatria as to the ways of men and
+the ways of love, Sarah had not much faith in her own counsels. "No
+one can draw out a programme for a woman's happiness," she mused; "she
+will not keep to its lines. Now, I do wonder whether she will dress
+gorgeously or not? What did Solomon in all his glory wear? If Aspatria
+only knew how dress catches a man's eye, and then touches his vanity,
+and then sets fire to his imagination, and finally, somehow, someway,
+gets to his heart! If she only knew,--
+
+  'All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
+    Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
+  Are but the ministers of Love,
+    And feed his sacred flame!'"
+
+A little before nine, Ulfar entered Sarah's drawing-room. It was
+lighted with wax candles. It was sweet with fresh violets, and at the
+farther end Aspatria stood by her harp. She was dressed for Lady
+Chester's ball, and was waiting her chaperon; but there had been a
+little rebellion against her leaving without giving her admirers one
+song. Every person was suggesting his or her favourite; and she stood
+smiling, uncertain, listening, watching, for one voice and face.
+
+Her dazzling bodice was clasped with emeralds; her draperies were of
+damasked gauze, shot with gold and silver, and abloom with flowers.
+Her fair neck sparkled with diamonds; and the long white fingers which
+touched the strings so firmly glinted with flashing gems. The moment
+Ulfar entered, she saw him. His eyes, full of fiery prescience, forced
+her to meet their inquiry; and then it was that she sat down and
+filled the room with tinkling notes, that made every one remember the
+mountains, and the merry racing of the spring winds, and the trickling
+of half-hidden fountains.
+
+Sarah advanced with him. She touched Aspatria slightly, and said:
+"Hush! a moment. This is my friend Sir Ulfar Fenwick, Ria."
+
+Ria lifted her eyes sweetly to his eyes; she bowed with the grace and
+benignity of a queen, and adroitly avoided speech by turning the
+melody into song:--
+
+  "I never shall forget
+  The mountain maid that once I met
+  By the cold river's side.
+  I met her on the mountain-side;
+  She watched her herds unnoticed there:
+  'Trim-bodiced maiden, hail!' I cried.
+  She answered, 'Whither, Wanderer?
+  For thou hast lost thy way.'"
+
+Every word went to Ulfar's heart, and amid all the soft cries of
+delight he alone was silent. She was beaming with smiles; she was
+radiant as a goddess; the light seemed to vanish from the room when
+she went away. Her adieu was a general one, excepting to Ulfar. On
+him she turned her bright eyes, and courtesied low with one upward
+glance. It set his heart on fire. He knew that glance. They might say
+this or that, they might lie to him neck-deep, he knew it was
+Aspatria! He was cross with Sarah. He accused her of downright
+deception. He told her frankly that he believed nothing about the
+soldier and his sister.
+
+She bade him come in the morning and talk to Ria; and he asked
+impetuously: "How soon? Twelve, I suppose? How am I to pass the time
+until twelve to-morrow?"
+
+"Why this haste?"
+
+"Why this deception?"
+
+"After seven years' indifference, are you suddenly gone mad?"
+
+"I feel as if I was being very badly used."
+
+"How does the real Aspatria feel? Go at once to Ambar-Side."
+
+"The real Aspatria is here. I know it! I feel it!"
+
+"In a court of law, what evidence would feeling be?"
+
+"In a court of love--"
+
+"Try it."
+
+"I will, to-morrow, at ten o'clock."
+
+His impetuosity pleased her. She was disposed to leave him to Aspatria
+now. And Aspatria was disposed on the following morning to make his
+confession very easy to him. She dressed herself in the simple black
+gown she had kept ready for this event. It had the short elbow
+sleeves, and the ruffle round the open throat, and the daffodil
+against her snowy breast, that distinguished the first costume he had
+ever seen her in. She loosened her hair and let it fall in two long
+braids behind her ears. She was, as far as dress could make her so,
+the Aspatria who had held the light to welcome him to Ambar-Side that
+stormy night ten years ago.
+
+He was standing in the middle of the room, restless and expectant,
+when she opened the door. He called her by name, and went to meet her.
+She trembled and was silent.
+
+"Aspatria, it is you! My Life! My Soul! It is you!"
+
+He took her hands; they were as cold as ice. He drew her close to his
+side; he stooped to see her eyes; he whispered word upon word of
+affection,--sweet-meaning nouns and adjectives that caught a real
+physical heat from the impatient heart and tongue that forged and
+uttered them.
+
+"Forgive me, my dearest! Forgive me fully! Forgive me at once and
+altogether! Aspatria, I love you! I love none but you! I will adore
+you all my life! Speak one word to me, one word, my love, one word:
+say only 'Ulfar!'"
+
+She forgot in a moment all that she had suffered. She forgot all she
+had promised Sarah, all her intents of coldness, all reproaches; she
+forgot even to forgive him. She just put her arms around his neck and
+kissed him. She blotted out the past forever in that one whispered
+word, "Ulfar."
+
+And then he took her to his heart; he kissed her for very wonder; he
+kissed her for very joy; but most of all he kissed her for fervent
+love. Then once more life was an "Interlude in Heaven." Every hour
+held some sweet surprise, some accidental joy. It was Brune, it was
+Sarah, it was some eulogium of Ulfar in the great London weeklies. He
+had fought in the good fight for freedom; he had done great deeds of
+mercy as well as of valour; he had crossed primeval forests, and
+brought back wonderful medicines, and dyes, and many new specimens for
+the botanist and the naturalist. The papers were never weary in
+praising his pluck, his bravery, his generosity, and his endurance;
+the Geographical Society sent him its coveted blue ribbon. In his own
+way Ulfar had made himself a fit mate for the new Aspatria.
+
+And she was a constant wonder to him. Nothing in all his strange
+experience touched his heart like the thought of his simple, patient
+wife, studying to please him, to be worthy of his love. Every day
+revealed her in some new and charming light. She was one hundred
+Aspatrias in a single, lovable, lovely woman. On what ever subject
+Ulfar spoke, she understood, supplemented, sympathized with, or
+assisted him. She could talk in French and Italian; she was not
+ignorant of botany and natural science, and she was delighted to be
+his pupil.
+
+In a single month they became all the world to each other; and then
+they began to long for the lonely old castle fronting the wild North
+Sea, to plan for its restoration, and for a sweet home-life, which
+alone could satisfy the thirst of their hearts for each other's
+presence. At the end of June they went northward.
+
+It was the month of the rose, and the hedges were pink, and the garden
+was a garden of roses. There were banks of roses, mazes of roses,
+walks and standards of roses, masses of glorious colour, and breezes
+scented with roses. Butterflies were chasing one another among the
+flowers; nightingales, languid with love, were singing softly above
+them. And in the midst was a gray old castle, flying its old border
+flags, and looking as happy as if it were at a festival.
+
+Aspatria was enraptured, spellbound with delight. With Ulfar she
+wandered from one beauty to another, until they finally reached a
+great standard of pale-pink roses. Their loveliness was beyond
+compare; their scent went to the brain like some divine essence. It
+was a glory,--a prayer,--a song of joy! Aspatria stood beside it, and
+seemed to Ulfar but its mortal manifestation. She was clothed in a
+gown of pale-pink brocade, with a little mantle of the same, trimmed
+with white lace, and a bonnet of white lace and pink roses. She was a
+perfect rose of womanhood. She was the glory of his life, his prayer,
+his song of joy!
+
+"It is the loveliest place in the world!" he said, "and you! you are
+the loveliest woman! My sweet Aspatria!"
+
+She smiled divinely. "And yet," she answered, "I remember, Ulfar, a
+song of yours that said something very different. Listen:--
+
+  'There is a rose of a hundred leaves,
+  _But the wild rose is the sweetest_!'"
+
+And as she sang the words, Ulfar had a vision of a young girl, fresh
+and pure as a mountain bluebell, in her scrimp black frock. He saw the
+wind blowing it tight over her virgin form; he saw her fair, childish,
+troubled face as she kissed him farewell in the vicar's meadows; and
+then he saw the glorious woman, nobly planned, perfect on every side,
+that the child wife had grown to.
+
+So, when she ceased, he pulled the fairest rose on the tree; he took
+from it every thorn, he put it in her breast, he kissed the rose, and
+he kissed her rose-like face. Then he took up the song where she
+dropped it; and hand in hand, keeping time to its melody, they crossed
+the threshold of their blessed home.
+
+  "The robin sang beneath the eaves:
+    'There is a rose of a hundred leaves,
+    _But the wild rose is the sweetest_!'
+
+  "The nightingale made answer clear:
+    '_O darling rose! more fair, more dear!
+    O rose of a hundred leaves_!'"
+
+
+THE END.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber Notes
+
+Archaic spelling preserved, including pottle and alterative.
+
+Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Rose of a Hundred Leaves, by 
+Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
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