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diff --git a/old/68293-0.txt b/old/68293-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 3d092ef..0000000 --- a/old/68293-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5963 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dulcie Carlyon, Volume I (of 3), by -James Grant - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Dulcie Carlyon, Volume I (of 3) - A novel - -Author: James Grant - -Release Date: June 11, 2022 [eBook #68293] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Al Haines - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DULCIE CARLYON, VOLUME I (OF -3) *** - - - - - - - - DULCIE CARLYON. - - - A Novel. - - - - BY - - JAMES GRANT, - - AUTHOR OF 'THE ROMANCE OF WAR,' ETC. - - - IN THREE VOLUMES. - - VOL. I. - - - - LONDON: - WARD AND DOWNEY, - 12, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. - - 1886. - - [_All Rights Reserved._] - - - - -NEW NOVELS AT EVERY LIBRARY. - - -FROM THE SILENT PAST. By Mrs. HERBERT MARTIN. 2 Vols. - -COWARD AND COQUETTE. By the Author of 'The Parish of Hilby.' 1 vol. - -MIND, BODY, AND ESTATE. By the Author of 'Olive Varcoe.' 3 vols. - -AT THE RED GLOVE. By KATHARINE S. MACQUOID. 3 vols. - -WHERE TEMPESTS BLOW. By the Author of 'Miss Elvester's Girls.' 3 -vols. - -IN SIGHT OF LAND. By Lady DUFFUS HARDY. 3 vols. - -AS IN A LOOKING-GLASS. By F. C. PHILIPS. 1 vol. - -LORD VANECOURT'S DAUGHTER. By MABEL COLLINS. 3 vols. - - -WARD AND DOWNEY, PUBLISHERS, LONDON. - - - - -In Loving Memory - -OF - -MY ELDEST SON, - -JAMES SIMPSON GRANT, - -_Captain Cheshire Regiment,_ - -I INSCRIBE - -THIS MILITARY STORY. - - - - -CONTENTS OF VOL. I. - - -CHAPTER - -I. IN THE HOWE OF THE MEARNS - -II. WEDDED - -III. THE SPURNED OFFER - -IV. REVELSTOKE COTTAGE - -V. DULCIE - -VI. THE SECRET PACKET - -VII. A FAREWELL - -VIII. THE SILVER LOCKET - -IX. MR. KIPPILAW, W.S. - -X. ALONE IN THE WORLD - -XI. SHAFTO IN CLOVER - -XII. VIVIAN HAMMERSLEY - -XIII. AMONG THE GROUSE - -XIV. THE TWO FINELLAS - -XV. AT REVELSTOKE AGAIN - -XVI. ''TIS BUT THE OLD, OLD STORY' - -XVII. AT CRAIGENGOWAN - -XVIII. AT THE BUFFALO RIVER - -XIX. ELANDSBERGEN - -XX. BAFFLED! - - - - -DULCIE CARLYON. - - - -CHAPTER I. - -IN THE HOWE OF THE MEARNS. - -'This will end in a scene, Fettercairn, and you know how I hate -scenes.' - -'So do I, they are such deuced bad form.' - -'I shall need all my self-possession to get over the _esclandre_ this -affair may cause,' exclaimed the lady, fanning herself violently. - -'Well, life is made up of getting over things,' responded her husband. - -'But not things so disgraceful as this, Fettercairn!' - -'Is this son of yours in his senses?' - -'Who is that loves? it has been asked,' said the culprit referred to. - -'A marriage between you and a penniless girl in her rank of life is -not to be thought of, Lennard.' - -'Her rank of life, father?' - -'Yes!' - -'Her father's rank was superior to that of the first of our family, -when life began with him.' - -'What is that to you or to me now?' - -'Much to me.' - -'Too much, it would seem.' - -The excited speakers were a Peer, Cosmo, Lord Fettercairn, his wife, -the Lady thereof, and their youngest son, Lennard Melfort, a captain -of the line, home on leave from India, who had been somewhat timidly -venturing to break--knowing the inordinate family vanity of his -parents--we say to break the news of his love for a girl possessed of -more beauty than this world's goods; and, in his excitement and -indignation, his lordship's usual easy, indolent, and drawling way -was forgotten now when addressing his son. - -Cosmo, Lord Fettercairn of that Ilk (and Strathfinella in the Mearns) -was by nature a proud, cold, selfish, and calculating man, whose -chief passion in life was a combined spirit of enormous vanity and -acquisitiveness, which he inherited from his predecessors, whom he -resembled in political caution and selfishness, and also in personal -appearance, to judge from the portraits of three generations, by Sir -John de Medina, Aikman, and Raeburn, adorning the walls of the -stately room in the house of Craigengowan, where this rather stormy -interview took place. - -Tall and thin in figure, with flat square shoulders and -sandy-coloured hair, cold grey eyes, and irregular features, he was -altogether a contrast to his son Lennard, who inherited his slightly -aquiline nose and perfect face from his mother, but his firm dark -eyes and rich brown hair from a previous generation; and these, -together with an olive complexion, rendered more dusky by five years' -exposure to an Indian sun, made his aspect a very striking one. - -My Lady Fettercairn's birth and breeding were, as Sir Bernard Burke -had recorded, irreproachable, and she certainly seemed a _grande -dame_ to the tips of her long slender fingers. She was about -forty-five years of age, but looked ten younger. The upper part of -her aristocratic face was strikingly handsome; but the lower, with -its proud and firm lips, was less pleasant to look at. Her -complexion was almost colourless, her hair of the lightest brown, -like her eyebrows and lashes; while her eyes were clear and blue as -an Alpine sky, and, as Lennard often thought with a sigh, they seemed -quite as--cold. - -Her manner was always calm, assured, and self-possessed. She would -smile, but that smile never degenerated into honest laughter, while -her pale and impressive face was without a line--especially on her -forehead--that seemed to indicate either thought or reflection, and -certainly she had never known care or sorrow or even annoyance until -now. - -'She is beautiful, mother,' urged the young man, breaking an ominous -silence, with reference to the object of his love. - -'Perhaps; but she is not one of us,' exclaimed Lady Fettercairn, -cresting up her handsome head haughtily, and a whole volume of -intense pride and hauteur was centred in the last word she spoke. - -'Who is this Flora MacIan, as she calls herself?' asked his father in -a similar tone; 'but I need not ask. You have already told us she is -the governess in a house you have been recently visiting--that of -Lady Drumshoddy--a governess, with all her beauty, poor and obscure.' - -'Not so obscure,' said Lennard, a wave of red passing under the tan -of his olive cheek; 'her father was a gallant old officer of the -Ross-shire Buffs, who earned his V.C. at the battle of Khooshab, in -Persia, and her only brother and support fell when leading on his -Grenadiers at the storming of Lucknow. The old captain was, as his -name imports, a cadet of the Macdonalds of Glencoe.' - -'With a pedigree of his family, no doubt, from the grounding of the -Ark to the battle of Culloden,' sneered his father. - -'Then his family would end soon after ours began,' retorted the son, -becoming greatly ruffled now. 'You know, father, we can't count much -beyond three generations ourselves.' - -Lord Fettercairn, wounded thus in his sorest point, grew white with -anger. - -'We always suspected you of having some secret, Lennard,' said his -mother severely. - -'Ah, mother, unfortunately, as some one says, a secret is like a hole -in your coat--the more you try to hide it, the more it is seen.' - -'An aphorism, and consequently vulgar; does _she_ teach you this -style of thing?' asked the haughty lady, while Lennard reddened again -with annoyance, and gave his dark moustache a vicious twist, but -sighed and strove to keep his temper. - -'I have found and felt it very bitter, father, to live under false -colours,' said he gently and appealingly, 'and to keep that a secret -from you both, which should be no secret at all.' - -'We would rather not have heard this secret,' replied Lord -Fettercairn sternly, while tugging at his sandy-coloured mutton-chop -whiskers. - -'Then would you have preferred that I should be deceitful to you, and -false to the dear girl who loves and trusts me?' - -'I do not choose to consider _her_,' was the cold reply. - -'But I do, and must, now!' - -'Why?' - -'Because we are already married--she is my wife,' was the steady -response. - -'Married!' exclaimed his father and mother with one accord, as they -started from their chairs together, and another ominous silence of a -minute ensued. - -'My poor, lost boy--the prey of an artful minx!' said Lady -Fettercairn, looking as if she would like to weep; but tears were -rather strangers to her cold blue eyes. - -'Mother, dear mother, if you only knew her, you would not talk thus -of Flora,' urged Lennard almost piteously. 'If we had it in our -power to give love and to withhold it, easy indeed would our progress -be through life.' - -'Love--nonsense!' - -'Save to the two most interested, who are judges of it,' said -Lennard. 'Surely you loved my father, and he you.' - -'Our case was very different,' replied Lady Fettercairn, in her anger -actually forgetting herself so far as to bite feathers off her fan -with her firm white teeth. - -'How, mother dear?' - -'In rank and wealth we were equal.' - -Lennard sighed, and said: - -'I little thought that you, who loved me so, would prove all but one -of the mothers of Society.' - -'What do you mean, sir?' demanded his father. - -'What a writer says.' - -'And what the devil does he say?' - -'That "love seems such a poor and contemptible thing in their eyes in -comparison with settlements. Perhaps they forget their own youth; -one does, they say, when he outlives romance. And I suppose bread -and butter is better than poetry any day."' - -'I should think so.' - -'We had other and brilliant views for you,' said his mother in a tone -of intense mortification, 'but now----' - -'Leave us and begone, and let us look upon your face no more,' -interrupted his father in a voice of indescribable sternness, almost -hoarse with passion, as he pointed to the door. - -'Mother!' said Lennard appealingly, 'oh, mother!' But she averted -her face, cold as a woman of ice, and said, 'Go!' - -'So be it,' replied Lennard, gravely and sadly, as he drew himself up -to the full height of his five feet ten inches, and a handsome and -comely fellow he looked as he turned away and left the room. - -'Thank God, his elder brother, Cosmo, is yet left to us!' exclaimed -Lady Fettercairn earnestly. - -It was the last time in this life he ever heard his mother's voice, -and he quitted the house. On the terrace without, carefully he -knocked the ashes out of his cherished briar-root, put it with equal -care into its velvet-lined case, put the case into his pocket, and -walked slowly off with a grim and resolute expression in his fine -young face, upon which from that day forth his father and mother -never looked again. - -Then he was thinking chiefly of the sweet face of the young girl who -had united her fortunes with his, and who was anxiously awaiting the -result of the interview we have described. - -Sorrow, mortification, and no small indignation were in the heart of -Lennard Melfort at the result of the late interview. - -'I have been rash,' he thought, 'in marrying poor Flora without their -permission, but that they would never have accorded, even had they -seen her; and none fairer or more beautiful ever came as a bride to -Craigengowan.' - -Pausing, he gave a long and farewell look at the house so named--the -home of his boyhood. - -It stands at some distance from the Valley of the Dee (which forms -the natural communication between the central Highlands and the -fertile Lowlands) in the Hollow or Howe of the Mearns. Situated amid -luxuriant woods, glimpses of Craigengowan obtained from the highway -only excite curiosity without gratifying it, but a nearer approach -reveals its picturesque architectural features. - -These are the elements common to most northern mansions that are -built in the old Scottish style--a multitude of conical turrets, -steep crowstepped gables and dormer gablets, encrusted with the -monograms and armorial bearings of the race who were its lords when -the family of Fettercairn were hewers of wood and drawers of water. - -The turrets rise into kindred forms in the towers and gables, and are -the gradual accumulation of additions made at various times on the -original old square tower, rather than a part of the original design, -but the effect of the whole is extremely rich and picturesque. - -In the old Scottish garden was an ancient sun and moon dial, mossy -and grey, by which many a lover had reckoned the time in the days of -other years. - -Of old, Craigengowan belonged to an exiled and attainted Jacobite -family, from whom it passed readily enough into the hands of the -second Lord Fettercairn, a greedy and unscrupulous Commissioner on -the forfeited estates of the unfortunate loyalists. It had now many -modern comforts and appliances; the entrance-hall was a marble-paved -apartment, off which the principal sitting-rooms opened, and now a -handsome staircase led to the upper chambers, whilom the abode of -barons who ate the beef and mutton their neighbours fed in the valley -of the Dee. - -The grounds were extensive and beautiful, and Lord Fettercairn's -flower gardens and conservatories were renowned throughout Angus and -the Mearns. - -To the bitter storm that existed in his own breast, and that which he -had left in those of his parents, how peaceful by contrast looked the -old house and the summer scenery to Lennard--the place on which he -probably would never gaze again. - -There was a breeze that rustled the green leaves in the thickets, but -no wind. Beautiful and soft white clouds floated lazily in the deep -blue sky, and a recent shower had freshened up every tree, meadow, -and hedgerow. The full-eared wheat grew red or golden by the banks -of the Bervie, and the voice of the cushat dove came from the autumn -woods from time to time as with a sigh Lennard Melfort turned his -back on Craigengowan for ever, cursing, as he went, the pride of his -family, for, though not an old one, by title or territory, they were -as proud as they were unscrupulous in politics. - -The first prominent member of the family, Lennard Melfort, had been a -Commissioner for the Mearns in the Scottish Parliament, and for -political services had been raised to the peerage by Queen Anne as -Lord Fettercairn and Strathfinella, and was famous for nothing but -selling his Union vote for the same sum as my Lord Abercairnie, £500, -and for having afterwards 'a rug at the compensation,' as the English -equivalent money was called. After the battle of Sheriffmuir saw -half the old peerages of Scotland attainted, he obtained -Craigengowan, and was one 'who,' as the minister of Inverbervie said, -'wad sell his soul to the deil for a crackit saxpence.' - -With the ex-Commissioner the talent--such as it was--of the race -ended, and for three generations the Lords of Fettercairn had been -neither better nor worse than peers of Scotland generally; that is, -they were totally oblivious of the political interests of that -country, and of everything but their own self-aggrandisement by -marriage or otherwise. - -Lennard Melfort seemed the first of the family that proved untrue to -its old instincts. - -'And I had made up my mind that he should marry Lady Drumshoddy's -daughter--she has a splendid fortune!' wailed Lady Fettercairn. - -'Married my governess--the girl MacIan!' snorted my Lady Drumshoddy -when she heard of the dreadful mésalliance. 'Why marry the creature? -He might love her, of course--all men are alike weak--but to marry -her--oh, no!' - -And my Lady Drumshoddy was a very moral woman according to her -standard, and carried her head very high. - -When tidings were bruited abroad of what happened, and the split in -the family circle at Craigengowan, there were equal sorrow and -indignation expressed in the servants' hall, the gamekeepers' lodges, -and the home farm, for joyous and boyish Captain Melfort was a -favourite with all on the Fettercairn estates; and Mrs. Prim, his -mother's maid, actually shed many tears over the untoward fate he had -brought upon himself. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -WEDDED. - -'And you will love me still, Flora, in spite of this bitter affront -to which you are subjected for my sake?' said Lennard. - -'Yes,' said the girl passionately, 'I love you, Lennard--love you so -much,' she added, while her soft voice broke and her blossom-like -lips quivered, 'that were I to lose you I would die!' - -'My darling, you cannot lose me now,' he responded, while tenderly -caressing her. - -'Are we foolish to talk in this fashion, Lennard?' - -'Foolish?' - -'Yes--or rash. I have heard that it is not lucky for people to love -each other so much as we do.' - -'Could we love each other less?' - -'I don't think so,' said she simply and sweetly, as he laid her cheek -on his breast with her upturned eyes gazing into his. - -The girl was slight and slender, yet perfect was every curve of her -shapely figure, which was destitute of any straight line; even her -nose was, in the slightest degree, aquiline. Her beautifully arched -mouth, the scarlet line of her upper lip, and the full round of the -nether one were parted in a tender smile, just enough to show her -teeth, defied all criticism; her complexion was pure and soft, and -her eyes were of the most liquid hazel, with almost black lashes. -Her hair was of the same tint, and Flora seemed a lady to perfection, -especially by the whiteness and delicacy of her beautifully shaped -little hands. - -When she walked she did so gracefully, as all Highland women do, and -like them held her head poised on her slender neck so airily and -prettily that her nurse, Madelon, called her 'the swan.' - -'How I trembled, Lennard,' said she, after a pause, 'as I thought of -the _mauvais quart d'heure_ you were undergoing at Craigengowan.' - -'It was a _mauvais_ hour and more, darling.' - -'And ever and anon I felt that strange chill, or shudder, which Nurse -Madelon says people feel when some one crosses the place where their -grave is to be. How can your parents be so cruel to you?' - -'And to you, Flora!' - -'Ah, that is different,' she replied, with her eyes full of unshed -tears, and in a pained voice. 'Doubtless they consider me a very -designing girl; but in spite of that, you will always care for me as -much as you do now?' - -'Why such fears? Ever and always--ever and always, my darling,' said -Lennard Melfort, stopping her questioning lips most effectually for a -time. - -'Oh, if you should ever come to regret, and with regret to love me -less!' said she, in a low voice, with her eyes for a moment fixed on -vacancy. - -'Why that boding thought, Flora?' - -'Because, surely, such great love never lasts.' - -He kissed her again as the readiest response. - -But the sequel proved that his great love outlasted her own life, -poor girl! - -Then they sat long silent, hand locked in hand, while the gloaming -deepened round them, for words seem poor and feeble when the heart is -very full. - -'How long will they continue to despise me?' said Flora suddenly, -while across her soft cheeks there rushed the hot blood of a long and -gallant line of Celtic ancestors. - -An exclamation of bitterness--almost impatience, escaped Lennard. - -'Let us forget them--father, mother, all!' said he. - -The girl looked passionately into the face of her lover-husband--the -husband of a month; and never did her bright hazel eyes seem more -tender and soft than now, with all the fire of love and pride -sparkling in their depths, for her Highland spirit and nature -revolted at the affront to which she was subjected. - -The bearing of Lennard Melfort and the poise of his close-shorn head -told that he was a soldier, and a well-drilled one; and the style of -his light grey suit showed how thoroughly he was a gentleman; and to -Flora's loving and partial eye he was every-way a model man. - -They had been married just a month, we have said, a month that very -day, and Lennard had brought his bride to the little burgh town, -within a short distance of Craigengowan, and left her in their -apartments while he sought with his father and mother the bootless -interview just narrated. - -For three days before he had the courage to bring it about, they had -spent the time together, full of hopeful thoughts, strolling along -the banks of the pretty Bervie, from the blue current of which ever -and anon the bull-trout and the salmon rise to the flies; or in the -deep and leafy recourses of the adjacent woods, and climbing the -rugged coast, against which the waves of the German Sea were rolling -in golden foam; or ascending Craig David, so called from David II. of -Scotland--a landmark from the sea for fifteen leagues--for both had a -true and warm appreciation and artistic love of Nature in all her -moods and aspects. - -The sounds of autumn were about them now; the hum of insects and the -song of the few birds that yet sang; the fragrance of the golden -broom and the sweet briar, with a score of other sweet and -indefinable scents and balmy breaths. All around them was scenic -beauty and peace, and yet with all their great love for each other, -their hearts were heavy at the prospect of their future, which must -be a life of banishment in India, and to the heaviness of Lennard was -added indignation and sorrow. But he could scarcely accuse himself -of having acted rashly in the matter of his marriage, for to that his -family would never have consented; and he often thought could his -mother but see Flora in her beauty and brightness, looking so -charming in her smart sealskin and bewitching cap and feather, and -long skirt of golden-brown silk that matched her hair and eyes--every -way a most piquante-looking girl! - -Young though he was, and though a second son, Lennard Melfort had -been a favourite with more than one Belgravian belle and her mamma, -and there were few who had not something pleasant or complimentary to -say of him since his return from India. At balls, fêtes, garden and -water parties, girls had given him the preference to many who seemed -more eligible, had reserved for him dances on their programmes, sang -for him, made unmistakable _œillades_, and so forth; for his -handsome figure and his position made him very acceptable, though he -had not the prospects of his elder brother, the Hon. Cosmo. - -Lady Fettercairn knew how Lennard was regarded and valued well, and -nourished great hopes therefrom; but this was all over and done with -now. - -To her it seemed as if he had thrown his very life away, and that -when his marriage with a needy governess--however beautiful and well -born she might be--became known, all that charmed and charming circle -in Belgravia and Tyburnia would regard him as a black sheep indeed; -would shake their aristocratic heads, and pity poor Lord and Lady -Fettercairn for having such a renegade son. - -Flora's chief attendant--a Highland woman who had nursed her in -infancy--was comically vituperative and indignant at the affront put -by these titled folks upon 'her child' as she called her. - -Madelon Galbraith was strong, healthy, active, and only in her -fortieth year, with black eyes and hair, a rich ruddy complexion, a -set of magnificent white teeth, and her manner was full of emphatic, -almost violent, gesticulation peculiar to many Highlanders, who seem -to talk with their hands and arms quite as much as the tongue. - -Sometimes Madelon spoke in her native Gaelic, but generally in the -dialect of the Lowlands. - -'Set them up indeed,' she muttered; 'wha are the Melforts o' -Fettercairn, that they should slight you--_laoghe mo chri_?' she -added, softly (calf of my heart). 'What a pity it is ye canna fling -at their heads the gold they love, for even a Lowland dog winna yowl -gin ye pelt him wi' banes. But you've begun wi' love and marriage, -and a gude beginning mak's a gude ending.' - -'But we shall be so poor, Nursie Madelon, and I have ruined my poor -Lennard,' urged Flora, as the kind woman caressed her. - -'They say a kiss and a cup of water mak' but a wersh breakfast,' -laughed Madelon; 'but you're no sae puir as that comes to, my -darling.' - -'Not quite' said Flora, laughing faintly, in turn. 'Yet I have -sorely injured my husband's prospects.' - -'Tut, tut, my bairn. Ony man can woo, but he weds only whar his -weird lies; and so Captain Melfort wedded you, and wha better? Then -what is a Lord that we should _lippen_ to _him_? As long as ye serve -a tod ye maun carry his tail? And your father's daughter may carry -her head wi' the highest.' - -Lennard Melfort now resolved neither verbally nor by letter to have -further intercourse with his family at Craigengowan or elsewhere, but -before he could make up his mind what to do or could betake him -south, as he meant to quit Scotland without delay, on the day -subsequent to the stormy interview Madelon announced a visitor, and -on a salver brought in a card inscribed--'MR. KENNETH KIPPILAW, W.S.' - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -THE SPURNED OFFER. - -'The family agent from Edinburgh, Flora,' said Lennard, in answer to -her inquiring glance. 'Mrs. Melfort,' he added, introducing her to -their visitor, who bowed with a critical glance and appreciative -smile. - -'I have been telegraphed for by your father, Captain Melfort,' said -Mr. Kippilaw, as they shook hands and he was motioned to a chair. - -A hale, hearty, unpretentious, business-like man, about forty years -of age, Mr. Kenneth Kippilaw was too well-bred and too sensible to -begin the matter in hand by any remarks about youthful imprudence, -early marriages, or so forth, as he knew the pride and temperament of -the young man before him, but laid down his hat, and, after some of -that familiar weather talk which is the invariable prelude to any -conversation over all the British Isles, he gently approached the -object of his mission, which Flora, in the simplicity and terror of -her heart, never doubted was a separation of some kind between -herself and Lennard, so with a pallid face she bowed and withdrew. - -'To what am I indebted for the pleasure of this--a--unexpected -interview?' asked Lennard, a little stiffly. - -'Instructions just received from your father, Captain Melfort.' - -'Then you have come from Craigengowan?' - -'Straight.' - -'Has he made up his mind to accept my wife as his daughter-in-law?' - -'Quite the reverse, I regret to say.' - -Lennard's face darkened with indignation, and he gave his moustache -an angry twist. - -'Are my father and mother determined to ignore the fact that she is a -lady by birth?' asked Lennard after a gloomy pause. - -'Yes--they know, of course, that she is a lady,' stammered Mr. -Kippilaw, feeling his mission an ungracious one, 'but poor--one who -has sunk into obscurity and dependence--pardon me, I but use their -own identical words. - -'Well?' - -'What is done in this instance unfortunately cannot be undone, -Captain Melfort; but his lordship, feeling, of course, keenly in the -matter, is willing to continue your allowance, and even to double it, -on one condition. - -'Name it.' - -Mr. Kippilaw sighed, for though, as a lawyer, considerably hardened, -he felt the delicacy of the whole situation, and Lennard's dark eyes -seemed to focus and pierce him. - -'The condition--to the point!' - -'Is--that you will return to India----' - -'I mean to do so forthwith,' interrupted Lennard sharply. - -'Or you may live anywhere out of Britain, but never attempt to -intrude Mrs. Melfort upon your family or their circle, and contrive, -if possible, to let that circle forget your existence.' - -'Insolent--and cruel as insolent!' exclaimed Lennard Melfort as he -started from his chair and paced about the room, with his dark eyes -flashing and the veins in his forehead swollen like whip-cord. - -'The words I speak are not my own,' said Mr. Kippilaw, deprecatingly. - -'Return to Craigengowan, and tell my father that I reject his bribe -to insult my wife--for a bribe it is--with the scorn it merits. Not -a penny of his money will I accept while my sword and pay, or life -itself, are left me. Tell Lord and Lady Fettercairn that I view -myself as their son no more. As they discard me, so do I discard -them; and even their _very name_ I shall not keep--remember that!' - -'Dear me--dear me, all this is very sad!' - -'They have thrust me from them as if I had been guilty of a crime----' - -'Captain Melfort!' - -'A crime I say--yet a day may come when they will repent it; and from -this hour I swear----' - -'Not in anger,' interrupted Mr. Kippilaw, entreatingly; 'take no -hasty vow in your present temper.' - -'I swear that to them and theirs I shall be--from this hour--as one -in the grave!' - -'But,' urged the lawyer, 'but suppose--which God forbid--that aught -happened to your elder brother, Mr. Cosmo Melfort?' - -'I wish Cosmo well; but I care not for my interest in the title--it -may become dormant, extinct, for aught that I care. Neither I nor -any of mine shall ever claim it, nor shall I again set foot in -Craigengowan, or on the lands around it--no, never again, never -again!' - -To every argument of the kind-hearted Mr. Kippilaw, who really loved -the Fettercairn family and esteemed the high-spirited Lennard, the -latter turned a deaf ear. - -He departed in despair of softening matters between the rash son and -indignant parents. To them he greatly modified the nature of the -useless interview, but they heard of Lennard's determination with -perfect unconcern, and even with a grim smile of contempt, never -doubting that when money pressure came upon him they would find him -at their mercy. But that time never came. - -Mr. Kippilaw returned to Edinburgh, and there the affair seemed to -end. - -The parting words of Lord Fettercairn to him were said smilingly and -loftily:-- - -'The French have a little phrase, which in six words expresses all -our experiences in life.' - -'And this phrase, my lord?' - -'Is simply--_tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse_--that we outlive -everything in turn and in time--and so this matter of Lennard's pride -will be a matter of time only. Be assured we shall outlive the -indignation of our misguided son.' - -'But will you outlive your own?' - -'Never!' - -'I can but hope that you will, my lord. Remember the hackneyed -quotation from Pope--"To err is human, to forgive divine." - -'I never forgive!' replied his lordship bitterly. - -The name of Lennard was never uttered again by his parents, nor even -by his brother Cosmo (then reading up at Oxford) till the hour for -forgiveness was past; and even Cosmo they contrived to innoculate -with their own cruel and unchristian sentiment of hostility. -Lennard's portrait was removed from its place of honour in the -dining-hall, and banished to the lumber-attic; the goods, chattels, -and mementoes he left at home were scattered and dispersed; even his -horses were sold, and the saddles he had used; and the Fettercairn -family would--could they have done so--have obliterated his name from -the great double-columned tome of Sir Bernard Burke. - -Heedless of all that, the young husband and his dark-eyed girl-wife -were all the world to each other. - -'After mamma followed papa to the grave, Lennard--for she never held -up her head after she heard of his death at Khooshab,' said Flora, as -she nestled her head in his neck, 'I seemed to be condemned to a life -of hardship, humiliation, and heartlessness, till I met you, dearest. -I felt that even the love of some dumb animal--a dog or a horse--was -better than the entire absence of affection in the narrow circle of -my life. I did so long for something or some one to love me -exclusively--I felt so miserably, so utterly alone in the world. Now -I have you--_you_ to love me. But in winning you I have robbed you -of the love of all your people.' - -'Talk not of it, and think not of it, dearest Flora. We are now more -than ever all in all to each other.' - -The money bribe, offered in such a way and for such a purpose, -exasperated Lennard still more against his family, and drew many a -tear of humiliation from Flora in secret. - -She thought that she had wrought Lennard a great wrong by winning his -love for herself, and she was now burning with impatience to turn her -back on the shores of Britain and find a new home in India; and -there, by staff or other employments and allowances, Lennard knew -that he could gain more than the yearly sum his father so -mortifyingly offered him. - -Flora wept much over it all, we say, and her appetite became -impaired; but she did not--like the heroine of a three-volume -novel--starve herself into a fright. - -But a short time before she had been a childish and simple -maiden--one sorely tried, however, and crushed by evil fortune; but -with Lennard Melfort now, 'the prince had come into her existence and -awakened her soul, and she was a woman--innocent still--but yet a -woman.' - -The scenery of the Mearns looked inexpressibly lovely in the purity -and richness of its verdure and varied artistic views, for the woods -were profusely tinted with gold, russet brown, and red, when Lennard -Melfort turned his back upon it and his native home for ever! - -The birds were chirping blithly, and the voice of the corncraik, with - - 'The sweet strain that the corn-reapers sang,' - -came on the evening breeze together. The old kirk bell was tolling -in the distance, and its familiar sound spoke to Lennard's heart of -home like that of an old friend. The river was rolling under its -great arch of some eighty feet in span, the downward reflection of -the latter in the water making a complete circle like a giant O. The -old castle of Halgreen, with its loopholed battlements of the -fourteenth century, stood blackly and boldly upon its wave-beaten -eminence, and the blue smoke of picturesque Gourdon, a fisher -village, curled up on the ambient air, as the scenery faded out in -the distance. - -Flora became marvellously cheerful when their journey fairly began, -and laughingly she sung in Lennard's ear-- - - 'The world goes up and the world goes down, - But _yesterday's_ smile and _yesterday's_ frown - Can never come back again, sweet friend-- - Can never come back again!' - - -Means were not forgotten to support nurse Madelon in her native -place, where we shall leave her till she reappears in our narrative -again. - -So Lennard and his girl-wife sailed for India, full of love for each -other and hope for their own lonely and unaided future, and both -passed for ever out of the lives and apparently out of the memory of -the family at Craigengowan. - -Times there were when he hoped to distinguish himself, so that the -circle there--those who had renounced him--would be proud of him; but -in seeking that distinction rashly, he might throw away his life, and -thus leave his little Flora penniless on the mercy of a cold world -and a proverbially ungrateful Government. - -But they could not forget home, and many a time and oft, where the -sun-baked cantonments of Meerut seemed to vibrate under the fierce -light of the Indian sun, where the temples of Hurdwar from their -steep of marble steps look down upon the Ganges, or where the -bungalows of Cawnpore or Etwah, garlanded with fragrant jasmine, -stand by the rolling Jumna amid glorious oleanders and baubool trees, -with their golden balls loading the air with perfume, while the giant -heron stalked by the river's bed, the alligator basked in the ooze, -and the Brahmin ducks floated overhead, Flora's sweet voice made -Lennard's heart thrill as she sang to him the songs of the land they -had resolved never to look upon again, even when that sound so -stirring to the most sluggish Scottish breast when far away, the -pipes of a Highland regiment, poured their notes on the hot sunny air. - -At home none seemed to care or think of the discarded son but the -worthy lawyer Kenneth Kippilaw, who had loved him as a lad, and could -not get his hard fate out of his mind. - -From time to time, inspired by kindness and curiosity, he watched his -name among the captains in the military lists of that thick -compendium which no Scottish business establishment is ever -without--'Oliver and Boyd's Almanack.' Therein, after a while, the -name of Lennard Melfort _disappeared_, but whether he was dead, had -sold out, or 'gone to the bad,' the worthy Writer to the Signet could -not discover, and he not unnaturally sighed over what he deemed a -lost life. - -And here we end that which is a species of prologue to our story. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -REVELSTOKE COTTAGE. - -More than twenty years had elapsed after the episodes we have -described, and Lennard and Flora had found a new home, and she, her -_last one_, more than four hundred and fifty miles as the crow flies -from where Craigengowan looks down on the German Sea. But none that -looked on Lennard Melfort now would have recognised in the -prematurely aged man the handsome young fellow who in ire and disgust -had quitted his native land. - -In two years after he had gone eastward a dreadful fever, contracted -in a place where he had volunteered on a certain duty to gain money -for the support of his wife and her little Indian establishment--the -Terrai of Nepaul, that miasmatic border of prairie which lies along -the great forest of the Himalayas, and has an evil repute even among -the natives of the country in the wet season when the leaves are -falling. - -This fever broke Lennard's health completely, and so changed him that -his rich brown hair and moustache were grey at six-and-twenty, and -ere long he looked like a man of twice his age. - -'Can that fellow really be Lennard Melfort of the Fusiliers? Why, he -is a veritable Knight of the Rueful Countenance!' exclaimed some old -friends who saw him at 'The Rag,' when he came home to seek a place -of quiet and seclusion in Devonshire, as it subsequently chanced to -be. - -Amid the apple bowers of the land of cider, and near a beautiful -little bay into which the waters of the British Channel rippled, -stood the pretty and secluded cottage he occupied, as 'Major MacIan,' -with his son and a nephew. - -The wooded hills around it were not all covered with orchards, -however, and the little road that wound round the bay ran under -eminences that, from their aspect, might make a tourist think he was -skirting a Swiss lake. Others were heath-clad and fringed at the -base by a margin of grey rocks. - -Into the bay flowed a stream, blue and transparent always. Here -salmon trout were often found, and the young men spent hours at its -estuary angling for rock fish. - -A Devonshire cottage is said by Mrs. Bray to be 'the sweetest object -that the poet, the artist, or the lover of the romantic could desire -to see,' and such a cottage was that of Major MacIan, the name now -adopted by Lennard--that of Flora's father--in fulfilment of the vow -he had made to renounce the name, title, and existence of his family. - -Around it, and in front sloping down to the bay, was a beautiful -garden, teeming with the flowers and fruits of Devonshire. On three -sides was a rustic verandah, the trellis work of which was covered by -a woven clematis, sweetbriar, and Virginia creeper, which, in the -first year of her residence there, Flora's pretty hands, cased in -garden gloves, were never tired of tending; and now the Virginia -creeper, with its luxuriant tendrils, emerald green in summer, russet -and red in autumn, grew in heavy masses over the roof and around the -chimney stalks, making it, as Flora was wont to say exultingly, -'quite a love of a place!' - -On one hand lay the rolling waters of the Channel, foaming about the -Mewstone Rock; on the other, a peep was given amid the coppice of the -ancient church of Revelstoke, and here the married pair lived happily -and alone for a brief time. - -Save for the advent of a ship passing in sight of the little bay, it -was a sleepy place in which Lennard, now retired as a major, had -'pitched his tent,' as he said--the Cottage of Revelstoke. Even in -these railway times people thereabout were content with yesterday's -news. There was no gas to spoil the complexions of the young, and no -water rates to 'worrit' the old; and telegrams never came, in their -orange-tinted envelopes, to startle the hearts of the feeble and the -sickly. - -No monetary transactions having taken place, and no correspondence -being necessary, between Lennard and his family or their legal agent, -Mr. Kippilaw, for more than twenty years now, he had quite passed -away from their knowledge, and almost from their memory; and many who -knew them once cared not, perhaps, whether he or his wife were in the -land of the living. - -A son, we have said, had been born to them, and Lennard named the -child Florian, after his mother (here again ignoring his own family), -whom that event cost dear, for the sweet and loving Flora never -recovered her health or strength--injured, no doubt, in India--but -fell into a decline, and, two years after, passed away in the arms of -Lennard and her old nurse, Madelon. - -Lonely, lonely indeed, did the former feel now, though an orphan -nephew of Flora--the son of her only sister--came to reside with -him--Shafto Gyle by name--one who will figure largely in our story. - -Would Lennard ever forget the day of her departure, when she sank -under that wasting illness with which no doctor could grapple? Ever -and always he could recall the sweet but pallid face, the white, -wasted hands, the fever-lighted dark eyes, which seemed so -unnaturally large when, after one harrowing night of pain and -delirium, she became gentle and quiet, and lovingly told him to take -a little rest--for old-looking he was; old, worn, and wasted far -beyond his years--and he obeyed her, saying he would take a little -turn in the garden among the roses--the roses her hands would tend no -more--sick at heart with the closeness of the sick-chamber and all it -suggested, and maddened by the loud ticking of the watchful doctor's -repeater as it lay on a table littered with useless phials; and how, -ere he had been ten minutes in the sunny morning air, amid the -perfume of the roses, he was wildly summoned by Madelon Galbraith -with white cheeks and affrighted eyes, back to the chamber of death -it proved to be; for it was on the brow of Death he pressed his -passionate kisses, and to ears that could hear no more he uttered his -heartrending entreaties that she would not leave him, or would give -him one farewell word; and ever after would the perfume of roses be -associated in his mind with that morning--the most terrible one of -his life! - -Beside Revelstoke Church--old, picturesque, and rendered comely by a -wealth of luxuriant ivy that Time has wreathed around its hoary walls -to flutter in the sea breeze--she was laid, and the heart of Lennard -seemed to be buried with her. - -It is a lonely old building, spotted with lichens, worn by storms, -and perched upon the verge of a low, rocky cliff, up which the salt -spray comes at times to the burial-ground. It is near the end of -Mothcombe Bay, where the shore makes a turn to the southward. - -Not a house is near it, the solitary hills and waves encompass it, -and it is said that its smouldering tombstones would furnish ample -matter for the 'meditations' of a Hervey. So there Flora was laid, -and there Lennard was to be laid by her side when the time came. - -Her death hardened his heart more than ever against his own family, -and he began almost to forget that he ever bore any other name than -hers--his adopted one. - -In the kindness of his heart the major, as the lads--his son and -nephew--grew up together, introduced both to neighbours and strangers -equally as his sons, but most unwisely, as we shall ere long have to -record. - -Neither to Florian nor to Shafto Gyle did he reveal his real name, or -the story of the quarrel with his family and their work; thus in and -about Revelstoke all three passed under the name of MacIan now. - -Madelon Galbraith, who had attended her mistress on her death-bed, -and nursed her baby into boyhood, had now gone back to her native -glen in the wilds of Ross. She proved, Lennard found, somewhat -unfitted for the locality of Revelstoke, as her ways and ideas were -foreign to those of the folks thereabouts; but she will have a -prominent place in our story in the future. - -But long, long Madelon wept over Florian, and pressed him often to -her breast--'the baby of her bairn,' as she had called him--for as -she had nursed him, so had she nursed his mother before him in the -days when the victorious Ross-shire Buffs set up their tents at -Khooshab, on the plains of Persia. - -'Gude-by, calf of my heart,' were her parting words; 'I'll see ye yet -again, Florian. If it were na for hope, the heart wad break!' - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -DULCIE. - -All trace of Lennard Melfort had been obliterated at Craigengowan, we -have said. He was never mentioned there, and though his family tried -to think of him as dead, they did not quite succeed; but the -disappearance of his name from the Army List first excited a little -speculation, but no inquiry, until a terrible event occurred. - -The eldest son, the Hon. Cosmo, married the daughter of Lady -Drumshoddy, thus securing her thousands, and did his best to console -Lord and Lady Fettercairn for 'the disgrace' brought upon them by -Lennard, and they regarded him quite as a model son. - -He shone as Chairman at all kinds of county meetings; became M.P. for -a cluster of northern burghs, and was a typical Scottish member, -mightily interested when such grand Imperial matters as the -gravelling of Park Lane, the ducks on the Serpentine, and the -improvements at Hyde Park Corner were before the House, but was -oblivious of all Scottish interests, or that such a place as Scotland -existed. When she wanted--like other parts of the empire--but never -got them--grants for necessary purposes, the Hon. Cosmo was mute as a -fish, or if he spoke it was to record his vote against them. - -Lennard saw in a chance newspaper, and with natural grief and dismay, -that Cosmo had come to an untimely end when deer-stalking near -Glentilt. He had wounded a large stag, the captain of its herd, and -approached rashly or incautiously when the infuriated animal was at -bay. It broke its bay, attacked him in turn, and ere the great -shaggy hounds could tear it down, Cosmo was trampled under foot and -gored to death by its horns. - -As Lennard read, his sad mind went to the scene where that death must -have happened, under mighty Ben-y-gloe, where the kestrel builds his -nest and the great mountain eagle has his eyry, and the Tilt comes -thundering down over its precipices of grey rock. Never again would -his eyes rest on such glorious scenes as these. - -Cosmo had left a little daughter, Finella, who took up her abode with -her grandparents at Craigengowan, but no son, and Lennard knew that -by this tragedy he was now the heir to the peerage, but he only gave -a bitter sigh as he thought of Flora in her grave and made no sign. - -'Poor Cosmo,' he muttered, and forgetting for a time much that had -occurred, and how completely Cosmo had leagued with father and mother -against him, his memory went back to the pleasant days of their happy -boyhood, when they rode, fished, and shot together, shared the same -bedroom in Craigengowan, and conned their tasks from the same books. - -'Well, well,' he added, 'all that is over and done with long, long -ago.' - -He made no sign, we say, but let time pass by, not foreseeing the -complications that were eventually to arise by his doing so. - -Florian, born two years after the adoption of Shafto Gyle in his -infancy, always regarded and looked up to the latter as a species of -elder brother and undoubted senior. - -In his twentieth year Florian was really a handsome fellow, and if, -without absurdity, the term 'beautiful' could be applied to a young -man, he was so, in his perfect manliness. Tall in figure, hard and -well developed in muscle, regular in features, he had clear, dark, -honest eyes, with lashes like a girl's, and a dark, silky moustache. - -Shafto's face was in some respects handsome too, but an evil one to -look at, in one way. His fair eyebrows were heavy, and had a way of -meeting in a dark frown when he was thinking. His pale grey eyes -were shifty, and were given him, like his tongue, to conceal rather -than express his thoughts, for they were sharp and cunning. His -nostrils were delicate, and, like his thin lips, suggestive of -cruelty, while his massive jaw and thick neck were equally so--we -must say almost to brutality. - -They were rather a contrast, these two young men--a contrast no less -great in their dispositions and minds than in their outward -appearance. They were so dissimilar--one being dark and the other -fair--that no one would have taken them for brothers, as they were -generally supposed to be, so affectionate was the Major to both, and -both bearing his name in the locality. - -As a schoolboy Shafto had won an unpleasant reputation for jockeying -his companions, 'doing' them out of toys, sweetmeats, marbles, and -money, and for skilfully shifting punishments on the wrong shoulders -when opportunity offered, and not unfrequently on those of the -unsuspecting Florian. - -From some of his proclivities, the Major thought Shafto would make a -good attorney, and so had him duly installed in the office of -Lewellen Carlyon, the nearest village lawyer, while for his own boy, -Florian, he had higher hopes and aspirations, to make him, like -himself, a soldier; but though far from idle, or lacking application, -Florian failed, under the insane high-pressure system of 'cramming,' -to pass, and not a few--Shafto particularly--laid it to the account -of a certain damsel, Dulcie by name, who was supposed, with some -truth, to occupy too much of his thoughts. - -Disgusted by the result of his last 'exam.,' Florian would at once -have enlisted, like so many others, who rush as privates for -commissions nowadays; but his father's fast-failing health, his love -for Dulcie Carlyon, and the desperate but 'Micawber'-like hope that -'something would turn up,' kept him hanging on day by day aimlessly -at Revelstoke, without even the apparent future that had opened to -Shafto when elevated to a high stool in Lawyer Carlyon's office. - -As time went on, Lennard Melfort (or MacIan as he called himself), -though he had a high appreciation of Shafto's sense, turn for -business to all appearance, cleverness, and strength of character, -turned with greater pleasure to his own son Florian, whose clear open -brow and honest manly eyes bore nature's unmistakable impress of a -truer nobility than ever appertained to the truculent and -anti-national lords of Fettercairn. - -Though to all appearance the best of friends before the world, the -cousins were rivals; but as Florian was the successful lover, Shafto -had a good basis for bitterness, if not secret hate. - -In common with the few neighbours who were in that sequestered -quarter, the lawyer liked the Major--he was so gentle, suave, -retiring in manner, and courteously polite. He liked Florian too, -but deemed him idle, and there his liking ended. - -He took Shafto into his office at the Major's urgent request, as a -species of apprentice, but he--after the aphorism of 'Dr. Fell'--did -not much affect the young man, though he found him sharp enough--too -sharp at times; and, like most of the neighbours, he never cared to -inquire into the precise relationship of the Major and the two lads, -both of whom from boyhood had called the latter 'Papa.' - -Dulcie Carlyon was the belle of the limited circle in which she -moved, and a very limited circle it was; but she was pretty enough to -have been the belle of a much larger orbit; for she was the very -ideal of a sweet, bright English girl, now nearly in her eighteenth -year, and the boy and girl romance in the lives of her and Florian -had lasted since they were children and playmates together, and they -seemed now to regard each other with 'the love that is given once in -a lifetime.' - -'Could I but separate these two!' muttered Shafto, as with eyes full -of envy and evil he watched one of their meetings, amid the bushes -that fringed an old quarry not far from Revelstoke Church. - -From the summit where he lurked there was a magnificent view of the -sea and the surrounding country. On one hand lay the lonely old -church and all the solitary hills that overlook its wave-beaten -promontory; on the other were the white-crested waves of the British -Channel, rolling in sunshine; but Shafto saw only the face and figure -of Dulcie Carlyon, who was clad just as he was fond of picturing her, -in a jacket of navy blue, fastened with gilt buttons, and a skirt -with clinging folds of the same--a costume which invests an English -girl with an air equally nautical and coquettish. Dulcie's dresses -always fitted her exquisitely, and her small head, with smart hat and -feather, set gracefully on her shapely shoulders, had just a -_soupçon_ of pride in its contour and bearing. - -Slender in figure, with that lovely flower-like complexion which is -so peculiarly English, Dulcie had regular and delicate features, with -eyes deeply and beautifully blue, reddish-golden hair, a laughing -mouth that some thought too large for perfect beauty, but it was -fully redeemed by its vivid colour and faultless teeth. - -'Could I but separate them!' muttered Shafto, through his clenched -teeth, while their murmured words and mutual caresses maddened him. - -Dulcie was laughingly kissing a likeness in an open locket which -Florian had just given her--a likeness, no doubt, of himself--and she -did so repeatedly, and ever and anon held it admiringly at arm's -length. Then she closed it, and Florian clasped the flat silver -necklet to which it was attached round her slender white throat; and -with a bright fond smile she concealed it among the lace frilling of -her collarette, and let the locket, for security, drop into the cleft -of her bosom, little foreseeing the part it was yet to play in her -life. - -Shafto's face would not have been pleasant to look upon as he saw -this episode, and his shifty grey eyes grew pea-green in hue as he -watched it. - -'Oh, Dulcie!' exclaimed Florian, with a kind of boyish rapture, as he -placed a hand on each of her shoulders and gazed into her eyes, 'I am -most terribly in love with you.' - -'Why should there be any terror in it?' asked Dulcie, with a sweet -silvery laugh. - -'Well, I feel so full of joy in having your love, and being always -with you, that--that a fear comes over me lest we should be some day -parted.' - -'Who can part us but ourselves?' said she with a pretty pout, while -her long lashes drooped. - -'Dulcie,' said he, after a little pause, 'have you ever had an -emotion that comes uncalled for--that which people call a -presentiment?' - -'Yes; often.' - -'Has it ever come true?' - -'Sometimes.' - -'Well--I have a presentiment this evening which tells me that -something is about to happen to me--to us--and very soon too!' - -'What can happen to us--we are so happy?' said Dulcie, her blue eyes -dilating. - -Did the vicinity of Shafto, though unknown to Florian, mysteriously -prompt this thought--this boding fear. Shafto heard the words, and a -strange smile spread over his face as he shook his clenched hand at -the absorbed pair, and stole away from his hiding-place, leaving two -foolish hearts full of a foolish dream from which they might be -roughly awakened--leaving the happy Florian, with that sweet and -winsome Dulcie whom he loved, and with whom he had played even as a -child; with whom he had shared many a pot of clotted cream; with whom -he had fished for trout in the Erme and Yealm; explored with fearful -steps and awe-stricken heart the cavern there, where lie thick the -fossil bones of the elephant, hyæna, and wolf; and wandered for hours -by the moors, among mossy rocks and mossy trees, and in woody -labyrinthine lanes, and many a time and oft by the sea shore, where -the cliffs are upheaved and contorted in a manner beyond description, -but so loosely bound together that waves rend them asunder, and shape -them into forms like ruined castles and stranded ships; till, as -years went on, heart had spoken to heart; boy and girl life had been -left behind; and that dream-time came in which they seemed to live -for years. - -No one could accuse Dulcie Carlyon of coquetry, her nature was too -truthful and open for that; thus she had never for a moment wavered -in her preference between Florian and Shafto, and spent with the -former those bright and hopeful hours that seldom come again with the -same keen intensity in a lifetime, though often clouded by vague -doubts. - -As yet they had led a kind of Paul and Virginia life, without very -defined ideas of their future; in fact, perhaps scarcely considering -what that future might be. - -They only knew, like the impassioned boy and girl in the beautiful -story of Bernardin St. Pierre, that they loved each other very -dearly, and for the sweet present that sufficed; while cunning Shafto -Gyle looked darkly, gloomily, and enviously on them. - -Perhaps it was his fast failing health that prevented Lennard Melfort -from looking more closely into this matter, or it may be that he -remembered the youthful love of his own heart; for he could never -forget her whom he was so soon to join now, and who, 'after life's -fitful fever,' slept by the grey wall of Revelstoke, within sound of -the restless sea. - -Dulcie's father, Lawyer Carlyon, heard rumours of these meetings and -rambles, and probably liked them as little as the Major did; but he -was a busy man absorbed in his work, and had been used to seeing the -pair together since they were toddling children. Lennard, perhaps, -thought it was as well to let them alone, as nothing would come of -it, while the lawyer treated it surlily as a kind of joke. - -'Why, Dulcie, my girl,' said he one day, 'what is to be the end of -all this philandering but spoiling your own market, perhaps? Do you -expect a young fellow to marry you who has no money, no prospects, no -position in the world?' - -'Position he has,' said poor Dulcie, blushing painfully, for though -an only and motherless child she stood in awe of her father. - -'Position--a deuced bad one, I think!' - -'The other two items will come in time, papa,' said Dulcie, laughing -now. - -'When?' - -Dulcie was silent, and--for the first time in her life--thought -sadly, 'Yes, when!' But she pressed a pretty white hand upon the -silver locket in her bosom, as if to draw courage therefrom as from -an amulet. - -'Why, lass, he can't keep even the roof of a _cob_ cottage over your -head.' - -'Well, papa, remember our hopeful Devonshire proverb--a good cob, a -good hat and shoes, and a good heart last for ever.' - -'Right, lass, and a good heart have you, my darling,' said Mr. -Carlyon, kissing her peach-like cheek, for he was a kind and -good-hearted man, though somewhat rough in his exterior, and more -like a grazier than a lawyer. 'You are both too young to know what -you are talking about. He'll be going away, however--can't live -always on his father, and _he_, poor fellow, won't last long. The -fancy of you both will wear itself out, like any other summer -flirtation--I had many such in my time,' he added, with a chuckle, -'and got safely over them all. So will you, lass, and marry into -some good family, getting a husband that will give you a comfortable -home--for instance, Job Holbeton, with his pits of Bovey coal.' - -Poor little Dulcie shivered, and could scarcely restrain her tears at -the hard, practical suggestions of her father. Hard-featured, stout, -and grizzled Joe Holbeton versus her handsome Florian! - -Her father spoke, too, of his probable 'going away.' Was this the -presentiment to which her lover had referred? It almost seemed so. - -In the sunset she went forth into the garden to work with her wools, -and even to have a 'good cry' over what her father had said; but in -this she was prevented by suddenly finding Shafto stretched on the -grass at her feet under a pine chestnut-tree--Shafto, whom she could -only tolerate for Florian's sake. - -'Why do you stare at me so hard, Shafto,' she asked, with unconcealed -annoyance. - -'Staring, was I?' - -'Yes, like an owl.' - -'I always like to see girls working.' - -'Indeed!' - -'And the work, what do you call it?' - -'Crewel work. And you like to see us busy?' - -'Yes, especially when the work is done by hands so pretty and white.' - -'As mine, you mean, of course?' - -'Yes, Dulcie. How you do bewilder a fellow!' - -'Don't begin as usual to pay me clumsy compliments, Shafto, or I -shall quit the garden,' said Dulcie, her blue eyes looking with a -half-frightened, half-defiant expression into the keen, shifty, and -pale grey ones of Shafto, who was somewhat given to persecuting her. - -He could see the outline of the locket with every respiration of her -bosom. Could he but possess himself of it, thought he, as he -proceeded to fill his meerschaum pipe. - -'I thought gentlemen did not smoke in ladies' society unless with -permission,' said Dulcie. - -'Never bother about that, little one, please. But may I smoke?' - -'Yes.' - -'Thanks; this is jolly,' said he, looking up at her with eyes full of -admiration. 'I feel like Hercules at the feet of Omphale.' - -'I don't know who he was, or what you feel, but do you know what you -look like?' - -'No.' - -'Shall I tell you?' asked Dulcie, her eyes sparkling with mischief. - -'Yes.' - -'Well, like the Athenian weaver, Bottom, with his ass's head, at the -feet of Titania. "Dost like the picture?"' - -Shafto eyed her spitefully, all the more so that Dulcie laughed -merrily, showing all her pearly teeth at her reply. - -'Oho, this comes of rambling in quarries,' said he, bluntly and -coarsely; 'doing the Huguenot business, the _pose_ of Millais' -picture. Bosh! What can you and he mean?' - -'Millais and I?' - -'No; you and Florian!' - -'Mean!' exclaimed Dulcie, her sweet face growing very pale in spite -of herself at the bluntness of Shafto, and the unmistakable anger of -his tone and bearing. - -'Yes--with your tomfoolery.' - -'How?--why?' - -'Penniless as you are--he at least.' - -'Good evening, Shafto; you are very unpleasant, to say the least of -it,' said Dulcie, as she gathered up her wools and sailed into the -house, while his eyes followed her with a menacing and very ugly -expression indeed. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -THE SECRET PACKET. - -The broken health brought by Lennard from the miasmatic Terai of -Nepaul was rapidly becoming more broken than ever, and, though not -yet fifty, he was a premature old man, and it seemed as if the first -part of Florian's presentiment or prevision of coming sorrow would -soon be fulfilled. - -His steps became very feeble, and he could only get about, in the -autumn sunshine, with the aid of a stick and Florian's arm; and the -latter watched him with grief and pain, tottering like the aged, -panting and leaning heavily on his cane, as ever and anon he insisted -on being led up a steep slope from which he could clearly see the old -church of Revelstoke on its wave-beaten promontory, overlooked by sad -and solitary hills, and his hollow eyes glistened as he gazed on it, -with a kind of yearning expression, as if he longed to be at peace, -and by the side of her he had laid there, it seemed long years ago--a -lifetime ago. - -Poor Lennard was certainly near his tomb, and all who looked upon him -thought so; yet his calm eye, ever looking upward, betrayed no fear. - -One day when Florian was absent--no doubt sketching, boating with -Dulcie on the Yealm, or idling with her on the moors--Lennard -besought Shafto to stay beside him as he sat feeble and languid in -his easy chair, sinking with the wasting and internal fever, with -which the country practitioners were totally incapable of grappling; -and on this day, for the first time, he began to speak to him of -Scotland and the home he once had there; and he was listened to with -the keenest interest by Shafto, who had ever--even as a child--been -cunning, selfish, and avaricious, yet wonderfully clever and -complaisant in his uncle's prejudiced eyes, as he remembered only -Flora's dead and devoted sister. - -'I have been thinking over old times and other days, Shafto,' said -he, with his attenuated hands crossed on the head of his bamboo cane; -'and, all things considered, it seems an occupation I had better -avoid did the memory concern myself alone: but I must think of others -and their interests--of Florian and of you--so I can't help it, boy, -in my present state of health, or rather want of health,' he added, -as a violent fit of spasmodic coughing came upon him. - -After a pause he spoke again. - -'You, Shafto, are a couple of years older than Florian, and are, in -many ways, several years older in thought and experience by the short -training you have received in Carlyon's office.' - -The Major paused again, leaving Shafto full of wonder and curiosity -as to what this preamble was leading up to. - -The former had begun to see things more clearly and temperately with -regard to the sudden death of Cosmo, and to feel that, though he had -renounced all family ties, name, and wealth, so far as concerned -himself, to die, with the secret of all untold, would be to inflict a -cruel wrong on Florian. At one time Lennard thought of putting his -papers and the whole matter in the hands of Mr. Lewellen Carlyon, and -it was a pity he did not do so instead of choosing to entrust them to -his long-headed nephew. - -'Hand here my desk, and unlock it for me--my hands are so tremulous,' -said he. - -When this was done he selected a packet from a private drawer, and -briefly and rapidly told the story of his life, his proper name, and -rank to Shafto, who listened with open-eyed amazement. - -When the latter had thoroughly digested the whole information, he -said, after a long pause: - -'This must be told to Florian!' - -And with Florian came the thought of Dulcie, and how this sudden -accession of her lover to fortune and position would affect her. - -'Nay, Shafto--not yet--not till I am gone--a short time now. I can -trust you, with your sharpness and legal acumen, with the handling of -this matter entirely. When I am gone, and laid beside your aunt -Flora, by the wall of the old church yonder,' he continued with a -very broken voice--one almost a childish treble, 'you will seek the -person to whom this packet is addressed, Kenneth Kippilaw, a Writer -to the Signet in Edinburgh--he is alive still; place these in his -hands, and he will do all that is required; but treasure them, -Shafto--be careful of them as you would of your soul's salvation--for -my sake, and more than all for the sake of Florian! Now, my good -lad, give me the composing draught--I feel sleepy and so weary with -all this talking, and the thoughts that have come unbidden--unbidden, -sad, bitter, and angry thoughts--to memory.' - -Shafto locked the desk, put it aside, and, giving his uncle the -draught, stole softly away to his own room with the papers, to con -them over and to--think! - -He had not sat at a desk for three years in Lawyer Carlyon's office -without having his wits sharpened. He paused as he put the documents -away. - -'Stop--stop--let me think, let me consider!' he exclaimed to himself, -and he certainly did consider to some purpose. He was cold and -calculating; he was never unusually agitated or flustered, but he -became both with the thoughts that occurred to him now. - -Among the papers and letters entrusted to him were the certificates -of the marriage of Lennard and Flora, and another which ran thus: - -'Certificate of entry of birth, under section 37 of 17 and 18 Vict., -cap. 80.' It authenticated the birth of their child Florian at -Revelstoke, with the date thereof to a minute. - -These documents were enclosed in a letter written in a tremulous and -uncertain hand by Lennard Melfort to Mr. Kenneth Kippilaw, part of -which was in these terms: - -The child was baptized by a neighbouring clergyman--the Rev. Paul -Pentreath--who has faithfully kept the promise of secrecy he gave me, -and, dying as I now feel myself to be, I pray earnestly that my -father and mother will be kind to my orphan son. Let them not--as -they one day hope for mercy at that dread throne before which I am -soon to appear--visit upon his innocent head my supposed and most -heavily punished offence. Let him succeed in poor Cosmo's place to -that which is his due; let him succeed to all I renounced in -anger--an anger that has passed away, for now, my dear old friend, I -am aged beyond my years, and my hair is now white as snow through -ill-health contracted in India, where, to procure money necessary for -my poor Flora, I volunteered on desperate service, and in seasons -destructive to existence. In your hands I leave the matter with -perfect hope and confidence. The bearer will tell you all more that -may be necessary.' - -After having read, reread, and made himself thoroughly master of the -contents of this to him certainly most astounding packet, he -requested the Major to re-address it in his own tremulous and all but -illegible handwriting, and seal it up with his long-disused signet -ring, which bore the arms of Fettercairn. - -Prior to having all this done, Shafto had operated on one of the -documents most dexterously and destructively with his pen-knife! - -'A peerage! a peerage!--rank, wealth, money, mine--all mine!' he -muttered under his breath, as he stored the packet away in a sure and -secret place, and while whistling softly to himself, a way he had -when brooding (as he often did) over mischief, he recalled the lines -of Robert Herrick: - - 'Our life is like a narrow raft, - Afloat upon the hungry sea; - Hereon is but a little space, - And all men, eager for a place, - Do thrust each other in the sea.' - -'So why should I not thrust him into the hungry briny? If life is a -raft--and, by Jove, I find it so!--why should one not grasp at all -one can, and make the best of life for one's self, by making the -worst of it for other folks? Does such a chance of winning rank and -wealth come often to any one's hands? No! and I should be the -biggest of fools--the most enormous of idiots--not to avail myself to -the fullest extent. I see my little game clearly, but must play -warily. "Eat, drink, and be merry," says Isaiah, "for to-morrow we -die." They say the devil can quote Scripture, and so can Shafto -Gyle. But I don't mean to die to-morrow, but to have a jolly good -spell for many a year to come!' - -And in the wild exuberance of his spirits he tossed his hat again and -again to the ceiling. - -From that day forward the health of Lennard Melfort seemed to decline -more rapidly, and erelong he was compelled by the chill winds of the -season to remain in bed, quite unable to take his place at table or -move about, save when wheeled in a chair to the window, where he -loved to watch the setting sun. - -Then came one evening when, for the last time, he begged to be -propped up there in his pillowed chair. The sun was setting over -Revelstoke Church, and throwing its picturesque outline strongly -forward, in a dark indigo tint, against the golden and crimson flush -of the west, and all the waves around the promontory were glittering -in light. - -But Lennard saw nothing of all this, though he felt the feeble warmth -of the wintry sun as he stretched his thin, worn hands towards it; -his eyesight was gone, and would never come again! There was -something very pathetic in the withered face and sightless eyes, and -the drooping white moustache that had once been a rich dark-brown, -and waxed _à l'Empereur_. - -His dream of life was over, and his last mutterings were a prayer for -Florian, on whose breast his head lay as he breathed his last. - -The two lads looked at each other in that supreme moment--but with -very different thoughts in their hearts. Florian felt only -desolation, blank and utter, and even Shafto, in the awful presence -of Death, felt alone in the world. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -A FAREWELL. - -As he lay dead, that old-looking, wasted, and attenuated man, whose -hair was like the thistledown, none would have recognised in him the -dark-haired, bronzed, and joyous young subaltern who only twenty-four -years before had led his company at the storming of the Redan, who -had planted the scaling-ladder against the scarp, and shouted in a -voice heard even amid the roar of the adverse musketry: - -'Come on, men! ladders to the front, eight men per ladder; up and at -them, lads, with the bayonet,' and fought his way into an embrasure, -while round-shot tore up the earth beneath his feet, and men were -swept away in sections of twenty; or the hardy soldier who faced -fever and foes alike in the Terai of Nepaul. - -How still and peaceful he lay now as the coffin-lid was closed over -him. - -Snow-flakes, light and feathery, fell on the hard ground, and the -waves seemed to leap and sob heavily round the old church of -Revelstoke, when Lennard Melfort was laid beside the now old and -flattened grave of Flora, and keen and sharp the frosty wind lifted -the silver hair of the Rev. Paul Pentreath, whistled among the ivy or -on the buttresses, and fluttered the black ribbon of the pall held by -Florian, who felt as one in a dreadful dream--amid a dread and unreal -phantasmagoria; and the same wind seemed to twitch angrily the -pall-ribbon from the hand of Shafto, nor could he by any effort -recover it, as more than one present, with their Devonian -superstition, remarked, and remembered when other things came to pass. - -At last all was over; the mourners departed, and Lennard Melfort was -left alone--alone with the dead of yesterday and of ages; and -Florian, while Dulcie was by his side and pressed his hand, strove to -commit to memory the curate's words from the Book of Revelation, -'There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor sighing; for God -shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.' - -Shafto now let little time pass before he proceeded to inform Florian -of what he called their 'relative position,' and of their journey -into Scotland to search out Mr. Kippilaw. - -It has been said that in life we have sometimes moments so full of -emotion that they seem to mark a turn in it we can never reach again; -and this sharp turn, young and startled Florian seemed to pass, when -he learned that since infancy he had been misled, and that the man, -so tender and so loving, whom he had deemed his father was but his -uncle! - -How came it all to pass now? Yet the old Major had ever been so kind -and affectionate to him--to both, in fact, equally so, treating them -as his sons--that he felt only a stunning surprise, a crushing grief -and bitter mortification, but not a vestige of anger; his love for -the dead was too keen and deep for that. - -The packet, sealed and addressed to Mr. Kippilaw, though its contents -were as yet unknown to him, seemed to corroborate the strange -intelligence of Shafto; but the question naturally occurred to -Florian, 'For what end or purpose had this lifelong mystery and -change in their positions been brought about?' - -He asked this of Shafto again and again. - -'It seems we have been very curiously deluded,' said that personage, -not daring to look the sorrowful Florian straight in the face, and -pretended to be intent on stuffing his pipe. - -'Deluded--how?' - -'How often am I to tell you,' exclaimed Shafto, with petulance and -assumed irritation, 'that the contents of this packet prove that _I_ -am the only son of Major Melfort (not MacIan at all), and that -you--you----' - -'What?' - -'Are Florian Gyle, the nephew--adopted as a son. Mr. Kippilaw will -tell you all about it.' - -'And you, Shafto?' queried Florian, scarcely knowing, in his -bewilderment, what he said. - -'Mean to go in for my proper position--my title, and all that sort of -thing, don't you see?' - -'And act--how!' - -'Not the proverbial beggar on horseback, I hope. I'll do something -handsome for you, of course.' - -'I want nothing done for me while I have two hands, Shafto.' - -'As you please,' replied the latter, puffing vigorously at his pipe. -'I have had enough of hopeless drudgery for a quarterly pittance in -the dingy office of old Carlyon,' said he, after a long pause; 'and, -by all the devils, I'll have no more of it now that I am going to be -rich.' - -Indeed, from the day of Lennard Melfort entrusting him with the -packet, Shafto had done little else at the office but study the laws -of succession in Scotland and England. - -'How much you love money, Shafto!' said Florian, eying him wistfully. - -'Do I? Well, I suppose that comes from having had so precious little -of it in my time. I am a poor devil just now, but,' thought he -exultantly, 'this "plant" achieved successfully, how many matrons -with daughters unmarried will all be anxious to be mother to me! And -Dulcie Carlyon I might have for asking; but I'll fly at higher game -now, by Jove!' - -As further credentials, Shafto now possessed himself of Major -Melfort's sword, commissions, and medals, while Florian looked in -blank dismay and growing mortification--puzzled by the new position -in which he found himself, of being no longer his father's son--a -source of unfathomable mystery. - -Shafto was in great haste to be gone, to leave Revelstoke and its -vicinity behind him. It was too late for regrets or repentance now. -Not that he felt either, we suppose; and what he had done he would do -again if there was no chance of being found out. In the growing -exuberance of his spirits, he could not help, a day or two after, -taunting Florian about Dulcie till they were on the verge of a -quarrel, and wound up by saying, with a scornful laugh: - -'You can't marry her--a fellow without a shilling in the world; and I -wouldn't now, if she would have me, which I don't doubt.' - -Poor Dulcie! She heard with undisguised grief and astonishment of -these events, and of the approaching departure of the cousins. - -The cottage home was being broken up; the dear old Major was in his -grave; and Florian, the playmate of her infancy, the lover of her -girlhood, was going away--she scarcely knew to where. They might be -permitted to correspond by letter, but when, thought Dulcie--oh, when -should they meet again? - -The sun was shedding its light and warmth around her as usual, on -woodland and hill, on wave and rock; but both seemed to fade out, the -perfume to pass from the early spring flowers, the glory from land -and sea, and a dim mist of passionate tears clouded the sweet and -tender blue eyes of the affectionate girl. - -He would return, he said, as he strove to console her; but how and -when, and to what end? thought both so despairingly. Their future -seemed such a vague, a blank one! - -'I am penniless, Dulcie--a beggar on the face of the earth--twice -beggared now, I think!' exclaimed Florian, in sorrowful bitterness. - -'Don't speak thus,' said she imploringly, with piteous lips that were -tremulous as his own, and her eyes drowned in tears. - -They had left the road now, and wandered among the trees in a -thicket, and seated themselves on a fallen trunk, a seat and place -endeared to them and familiar enough in past time. - -He gazed into her eyes of deep pansy-blue, as if his own were -striving to take away a memory of her face--a memory that would last -for eternity. - -'And you really go to-night?' she asked, in piteous and broken -accents. - -'Yes--with Shafto. I am in a fever, darling, to seek out a position -for myself. Surely Shafto may assist me in that--though I shrink -from asking him.' - -'Your own cousin?' - -'Yes--but sometimes he looks like a supplanter now, and his bearing -has been so unpleasant to me, especially of late,' said Florian. -'But you will wait for me, Dulcie, and not be persuaded to marry -anyone else?' he added imploringly, as he clasped each of her hands -in his. - -'I shall wait for you, Florian, if it should be for twenty years!' -exclaimed the girl, in a low and emphatic voice, scarcely considering -the magnitude and peril of such a promise. - -'Thank you, darling Dulcie!' said he bending down and kissing her -lips with ardour, and, though on the eve of parting, they felt almost -happy in the confidence of the blissful present. - -'How often shall I recall this last meeting by the fallen tree, when -you are far, far away from Revelstoke and--me,' said Dulcie. - -'You will often come here to be reminded of me?' - -'Do you think, Florian, I will require to be reminded of you?' asked -the girl, with a little tone of pain in her sweet voice, as she -kissed the silver locket containing his likeness, and all the sweet -iteration of lover-talk, promises, and pledges went on for a time, -and new hopes began to render this last interview more bearable to -the young pair who were on the eve of separation, without any very -distinct arrangement about correspondence in the interval of it. - -The sun was setting now redly, and amid dun winter clouds, beaming on -each chimney-head, on Revelstoke Church, and the leafless tree-tops -his farewell radiance. - -Florian took a long, long kiss from Dulcie, and with the emotion of a -wrench in his heart, was gone, and she was alone. - -A photo and a lock of red-golden hair were all that remained to him -of her--both to be looked upon again and again, till his eyes ached, -but never grew weary. - -Dulcie's were very red with weeping, and the memory of that parting -kiss was still hovering on her quivering lips when, in a lonely lane -not far from her home, she found herself suddenly face to face with -Shafto. - -She had known him from his boyhood, ever since he came an orphan to -Lennard Melfort's cottage; and although she always distrusted and -never liked him, his face was a familiar one she might never see -more; thus she resolved to part with him as with the best of friends, -and to remember that he was the only kinsman of Florian, whose -companion and fellow-traveller he was to be on a journey the end of -which she scarcely understood. So, frankly and sweetly, with a sad -smile in her eyes, she proffered her pretty hand, which Shafto -grasped and retained promptly enough. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - -THE SILVER LOCKET. - -Shafto had just been with her father. How contemptuously he had eyed -the corner and the high old stool on which he had sat in the latter's -legal establishment, and all its surroundings; the fly-blown county -maps of Devon and Cornwall; advertisements of sales--property, -mangold wurzel, oats and hay, Thorley's food for cattle, and so -forth; the tin boxes of most legal aspect; dockets of papers in red -tape; the well-thumbed ledgers; day and letter books, and all the -paraphernalia of a country solicitor's office. - -Ugh! How well he knew and loathed them all. Now it was all over and -done with. - -The three poor lads in the office, whose cheap cigars and beer he had -often shared at the Ashburton Arms, he barely condescended to notice, -while they regarded him with something akin to awe, as he gave Lawyer -Carlyon his final 'instructions' concerning the disposal of the lease -of the Major's pretty cottage, and of all the goods and chattels that -were therein. - -Had Florian been present he would have felt only shame and abasement -at the tone and manner Shafto adopted on this occasion; but worthy -Lawyer Carlyon, who did not believe a bit in the rumoured accession -of Shafto to family rank and wealth, laughed softly to himself, and -thought his 'pride would have a sore fall one of these fine days.' - -And even now, when face to face with Dulcie, his general bearing, his -coolness and insouciance, rendered her, amid all her grief, indignant -and defiant ultimately. - -How piquant, compact, and perfect the girl looked, from the smart -scarlet feather in her little hat to her tiny Balmoral boots. Her -veil was tightly tied across her face, showing only the tip of her -nose, her ripe red lips, and pretty white chin--its point, like her -cheeks, reddened somewhat by the winter breeze from the Channel. Her -gloved hands were in her small muff, and the collar of her sealskin -jacket was encircled by the necklet at which her silver locket -hung--the locket Shafto had seen her kiss when Florian had bestowed -it on her, while he looked close by, with his heart full of envy, -jealousy, and hatred, and now it was the first thing that attracted -his eye. - -'And you actually leave us to-night, Shafto?' she said softly. - -'Yes, Dulcie, by the train for Worcester and the north. My estates, -you know, are in Scotland.' - -'These changes are all strange and most startling,' said she, with a -sob in her slender throat. - -'We live in whirligig times, Dulcie; but I suppose it is the result -of progress,' he added sententiously. 'I wonder how our grandfathers -and grandmothers contrived to mope over and yawn out their dull and -emotionless existence till they reached threescore and ten years.' - -'I shall never see that age, Shafto.' - -'Who knows; though life, however sweet now, won't be worth living for -then, I fancy.' - -Dulcie sighed, and he regarded her in admiring silence, for he had a -high appreciation of her bright and delicate beauty, and loved -her--if we may degrade the phrase--in his own selfish and peculiar -way, though now resolved--as he had often thought vainly--to 'fly at -higher game;' and so, full of ideas, hopes, and ambitions of his own, -if he had ceased to think of Dulcie, he had, at least, ceased for a -space to trouble her. - -'Florian will be writing to you, of course?' said he, after a pause. - -'Alas! no, we have made no arrangement; and then, you know, papa----' - -'Wouldn't approve, of course. My farewell advice to you, Dulcie, -is--Don't put off your time thinking of Florian--his ship will never -come home.' - -'Nor yours either, perhaps,' said Dulcie, angrily. - -'You think so--but you are wrong.' - -'Ah! I know these waited for ships rarely do.' - -'I have read somewhere that ships of the kind rarely do come home in -this prosaic and disappointing world; that some get wrecked almost -within sight of land; others go down without the flapping of a sail, -and sometimes after long and firm battling with adverse winds and -tides; but _my ship_ is a sure craft, Dulcie,' he added, as he -thought of the packet in his possession--that precious packet on -which all his hopes rested and his daring ambition was founded. - -Dulcie looked at him wistfully and distrustfully, and thought-- - -'Why is he so sure? But his ideas were always selfish and evil. -Tide what may,' she added aloud, 'I shall wait twenty years and more -for Florian.' - -'The more fool you, then! And so die an old maid?' - -'I am, perhaps, cut out for an old maid.' - -'And if he never can marry you--or marries some one else when he -can?' asked Shafto viciously. - -'Oh, then I'll take to æstheticism, or women's rights, and all that -sort of thing,' said the poor girl, with a ghastly and defiant -attempt at a jest, which ended in tears, while Shafto eyed her -angrily. - -'How fond you are of that silver locket--you never wear any other!' - -'I have so few ornaments, Shafto.' - -'And none you prize so much?' - -'None!' said Dulcie, with a sweet, sad smile. - -'Is that the reason you wear it with all kinds of dresses? What is -in it--anything?' - -'That is my secret,' replied Dulcie, putting her right hand on it and -instinctively drawing back a pace, for there was a menacing -expression in the cold grey eyes of Shafto. - -'Allow me to open it,' said he, taking her hand in his. - -'No.' - -'You shall!' - -'Never!' exclaimed Dulcie, her eyes sparkling now as his grasp upon -her hand tightened. - -An imprecation escaped Shafto, and with his eyes aflame and his -cheeks pale with jealousy and rage he tore her hand aside and -wrenched by brutal force the locket from her, breaking the silver -necklet as he did so. - -'Coward!' exclaimed Dulcie; 'coward and thief--how dare you? -Surrender that locket instantly!' - -'Not if I know it,' said he, mockingly, holding the prized trinket -before her at arm's length. - -'But for Florian's sake, I would at once apply to the police.' - -'A vulgar resort--no, my pretty Dulcie, you wouldn't.' - -'Why?' - -'Not for Florian's sake?' - -'Whose, then?' - -'Your own, for you wouldn't like to have your old pump of a father -down on you; and so you dare not make a row about it, my pretty -little fury.' - -'Shafto, I entreat you, give me back that photo,' said Dulcie, her -tears welling forth. - -'No; I won't.' - -'Of what interest or use can it be to you?' - -'More than you imagine,' said Shafto, to whom a villainous idea just -then occurred. - -'I entreat you,' said Dulcie, letting her muff drop and clasping her -slim little hands. - -'Entreat away! I feel deucedly inclined to put my heel upon it--but -I won't.' - -'This robbery is cruel and infamous!' exclaimed Dulcie, trembling -with grief and just indignation; but Shafto only laughed in anger and -bitterness--and a very hyena-like laugh it was, and as some one was -coming down the secluded lane, he turned away and left her in the -twilight. - -He felt himself safe from opprobrium and punishment, as he knew well -she was loth to make any complaint to her father on the subject; and -just then she knew not how to communicate with Florian, as the -darkness was falling fast, and the hour of his departure was close at -hand. She thought it not improbable that Shafto would relent and -return the locket to her; but the night was far advanced ere that -hope was dissipated, and she attained some outward appearance of -composure, though her father's sharp and affectionate eyes detected -that she had been suffering. - -He had heard from her some confused and rambling story about the -family secret, the packet, and the peerage, a story of which he could -make nothing, though Shafto's bearing to himself that evening seemed -to confirm the idea that 'there was something in it.' Anyway, Mr. -Carlyon was not indisposed to turn the event to account in one sense. - -'Likely--likely enough, Dulcie lass,' said he; 'and so you'll hear no -more of these two lads, if they are likely to become great folks, and -belong to what is called the upper ten; they'll never think again of -a poor village belle like you, though there is not a prettier face in -all Devonshire than my Dulcie's from Lyme Regis to Cawsand Bay.' - -He meant this kindly, and spoke with a purpose; and his words and the -warning they conveyed sank bitterly into the tender heart of poor -Dulcie. - -By this time the cousins were sweeping through the darkness in the -express train by Exeter, Taunton, and so forth; both were very -silent, and each was full of his own thoughts, and what these were -the reader may very well imagine. - -Heedless of the covert and sneering smiles of Shafto, Florian, from -time to time, drew forth the photo of Dulcie, and her shining lock of -red-golden hair, his sole links between the past and the present; and -already he felt as if a score of years had lapsed since they sat side -by side upon the fallen tree. - -Then, that he might give his whole thoughts to Dulcie, he affected to -sleep; but Shafto did not sleep for hours. He sat quietly enough -with his face in shadow, his travelling-cap of tweed-check pulled -well down over his watchful and shifty grey-green eyes, the lamp -overhead giving a miserable glimmer suited to the concealment of -expression and thought; and as the swift train sped northward, the -cousins addressed not a word to each other concerning those they had -left behind, what was before them, or anything else. - -After a time, Shafto really slept--slept the slumber which is -supposed to be the reward of the just and conscientious, but which is -much more often enjoyed by those who have no conscience at all. - -Dulcie contrived to despatch a letter to Florian detailing the -outrage to which she had been subjected by Shafto; but time passed -on, and, for a reason we shall give in its place, the letter never -reached him. - -Again and again she recalled and rehearsed her farewell with Florian, -and thought regretfully of his passionate pride, and desperate -poverty too probably, if he quarrelled with Shafto; and she still -seemed to see his beautiful dark eyes, dim with unshed tears, while -her own welled freely and bitterly. - -When could they meet again, if ever, and where and how? Her heart -and brain ached with these questions. - -Dulcie did not bemoan her fate, though her cheek paled a little, and -she felt--even at her early years--as if life seemed over and done -with, and in her passionate love for the absent, that existence alone -was left to her, and so forth. - -And as she was her father's housekeeper now, kept the keys and paid -all the servants, paid all accounts and made the preserves, he was in -no way sorry that the young men were gone; that the 'aimless -philandering,' as he deemed it, had come to an end; and that much -would be attended to in his cosy little household which he -suspected--but unjustly--had been neglected hitherto. - -To Dulcie, the whole locality of her native place, the breezy moors, -the solitary hills, the mysterious Druid pillars and logan stones, -the rocky shore, and the pretty estuary of the Yealm, where they had -been wont to boat and fish for pilchards in summer and autumn, were -all full of the haunting presence of the absent--the poor but proud -and handsome lad who from boyhood, yea from infancy, had loved her, -and who now seemed to have slipped out of her existence. - -Spring melted into summer; golden sunshine flooded hill and dale, and -lit up the waters of the Erm, the Yealm, and the far-stretching -Channel, tinting with wondrous gleams and hues the waves that rolled -upon the shore, or boiled about the Mewstorre Rock, and the -sea-beaten promontory of Revelstoke; but to Dulcie the glory was gone -from land and water: she heard no more, by letter or otherwise, of -the love of her youth; he seemed to have dropped utterly out of her -sphere; and though mechanically she gathered the fragrant leaves of -the bursting June roses--the Marshal Neil and Gloire de Dijon--and -treasured them carefully in rare old china jars and vases, a task in -which she had often been assisted by Florian, she felt and -thought--'Ichabod! Ichabod! the glory has departed!' - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - -MR. KIPPILAW, W.S. - -Shafto found himself a little nervous when he and Florian were -actually in Edinburgh, a city in its beauty, boldness and grandeur of -rock and mountain, fortress, terrace, and temple, so foreign-looking -to English eyes, and so utterly unlike everything they had ever seen -or conceived before. - -Florian's thoughts were peculiarly his own. His father's -death--though called an uncle now, but Florian always felt for and -thought of him as a parent--the loss of Dulcie, their abrupt -departure from Devonshire, and rough uprootal of all early -associations, had made a kind of hiatus in the young fellow's life, -and it was only now when he found himself amid the strange streets -and picturesque splendour of Edinburgh that he began--like one -recovering consciousness after a long illness--to gather up again the -ravelled threads of thought, but with curious want of concern and -energy; while Shafto felt that he personally had both, and that now -he required to have all his wits about him. - -Florian stood for a time that night at the door of their hotel in -Princes Street looking at the wonderful lights of the Old Town -sparkling in mid air, and some that were in the Castle must, he -thought, be stars, they were so high above the earth. Scores of cabs -and carriages went by, eastward and westward, but no carts or wains -or lorries, such as one sees in London or Glasgow--vehicles with -bright lamps and well muffled occupants, gentlemen in evening suits, -and ladies in ball or dinner dresses, and crowds of pedestrians, -under the brilliant gas lights and long boulevard-like lines of -trees--the ever-changing human panorama of a great city street before -midnight. - -How odd, how strange and lonely poor Florian felt; he seemed to -belong to no one, and, like the Miller o' Dee, nobody cared for him; -and ever and anon his eyes rested on the mighty castled rock that -towers above streets, monuments, and gardens, with a wonderous -history all its own, 'where treasured lie the monarchy's last gems,' -and with them the only ancient crown in the British Isles. 'Brave -kings and the fairest of crowned women have slept and been cradled in -that eyrie,' says an enthusiastic English writer; 'heroes have fought -upon its slopes; English armies have stormed it; dukes, earls, and -barons have been immured in its strong dungeons; a sainted Queen -prayed and yielded up her last breath there eight centuries ago. It -is an imperishable relic--a monument that needs no carving to tell -its tale, and it has the nation's worship; and the different church -sects cling round its base as if they would fight again for the -guardianship of a venerable mother..... And if Scotland has no -longer a king and Parliament all to herself, her imperial crown is at -least safely kept up there amid strong iron stanchions, as a sacred -memorial of her inextinguishable independence, and, if need were, for -future use.' - -Florian was a reader and a thinker, and he felt a keen interest in -all that now surrounded him; but Shafto lurked in a corner of the -smoke-room, turning in his mind the task of the morrow, and unwisely -seeking to fortify himself by imbibing more brandy and soda than -Florian had ever seen him take before. - -After a sound night's rest and a substantial Scottish breakfast had -fitted Shafto, as he thought, for facing anything, a cab deposited -him and Florian (who was now beginning to marvel why he had travelled -so far in a matter that concerned him not, in reality) at the -residence of Mr. Kenneth Kippilaw, W.S., in Charlotte Square--a noble -specimen of Adams Street architecture, having four stately -symmetrical corresponding façades, overlooked by the dome of St. -George's Church. - -'Lawyers evidently thrive in Scotland,' said Shafto, as he looked at -the mansion of Mr. Kippilaw, and mentally recalled the modest -establishment of Lawyer Carlyon; 'but foxes will flourish as long as -there are geese to be plucked.' - -Mr. Kippilaw was at home--indeed he was just finishing breakfast, -before going to the Parliament House--as they were informed by the -liveried valet, who led them through a pillared and marble-floored -vestibule, and ushered them into what seemed a library, as the walls -from floor to ceiling were lined with handsome books; but every -professional man's private office has generally this aspect in -Scotland. - -In a few minutes Mr. Kippilaw appeared with a puzzled and perplexed -expression in his face, as he alternatively looked at his two -visitors, and at Shafto's card in his hand. - -Mr. Kippilaw was now in his sixtieth year; his long since grizzled -hair had now become white, and had shrunk to two patches far apart, -one over each ear, and brushed stiffly up. His eyebrows were also -white, shaggy, and under them his keen eyes peered sharply through -the rims of a gold pince-nez balanced on the bridge of his long -aquiline nose. - -Shafto felt just then a strange and unpleasant dryness about his -tongue and lips. - -'_Mr. Shafto Melfort?_' said Mr. Kippilaw inquiringly, and referring -to the card again. 'I was not aware that there was a Mr. Shafto -Melfort--any relation of Lord Fettercairn?' - -'His grandson,' said Shafto unblushingly. - -'This gentleman with the dark eyes?' asked Mr. Kippilaw, turning to -the silent Florian. - -'No--myself,' said Shafto sharply and firmly. - -'You are most unlike the family, who have always been remarkable for -regularity of features. Then you are the son--of--of--' - -'The late Major Lennard Melfort who died a few weeks ago----' - -'Good Heavens, where?' - -'On the west coast of Devonshire, near Revelstoke, where he had long -resided under the assumed name of MacIan.' - -'That of his wife?' - -'Precisely so--my mother.' - -'And this young gentleman, whose face and features seem curiously -familiar to me, though I never saw him before, he is your brother of -course.' - -'No, my cousin, the son of my aunt Mrs. Gyle. I am an only son, but -the Major ever treated us as if he had been the father of both, so -great and good was his kindness of heart.' - -'Be seated, please,' said the lawyer in a breathless voice, as he -seated himself in an ample leathern elbow chair at his writing-table, -which was covered with documents and letters all arranged by his -junior clerk in the most orderly manner. - -'This is very sudden and most unexpected intelligence,' said he, -carefully wiping his glasses, and subjecting Shafto's visage to a -closer scrutiny again. 'Have you known all these years past the real -name and position of your father, and that he left Kincardineshire -more than twenty years ago after a very grave quarrel with his -parents at Craigengowan?' - -'No--I only learned who he was, and who we really were, when he was -almost on his deathbed. He confided it to me alone, as his only son, -and because I had been bred to the law; and on that melancholy -occasion he entrusted me with this important packet addressed to -_you_.' - -With an expression of the deepest interest pervading his well-lined -face, Mr. Kippilaw took the packet and carefully examined the seal -and the superscription, penned in a shaky handwriting, with both of -which he was familiar enough, though he had seen neither for fully -twenty years, and finally he examined the envelope, which looked old -and yellow. - -'If all be true and correct, these tidings will make some stir at -Craigengowan,' he muttered as if to himself, and cut round the seal -with a penknife. - -'You will find ample proofs, sir, of all I have alleged,' said -Shafto, who now felt that the crisis was at hand. - -Mr. Kippilaw, with growing interest and wonder, drew forth the -documents and read and re-read them slowly and carefully, holding the -papers, but not offensively, between him and the light to see if the -dates and water-marks tallied. - -'The slow way this old devil goes on would exasperate an oyster!' -thought Shafto, whose apparently perfect coolness and self-possession -rather surprised and repelled the lawyer. - -There were the certificate of Lennard's marriage with Flora MacIan, -which Mr. Kippilaw could remember he had seen of old; the -'certificate of entry of birth of their son, born at Revelstoke at 6 -h. 50 m. on the 28th October P.M., 18--,' signed by the Registrar, -and the Major's farewell letter to his old friend, entrusting his son -and his son's interests to his care. - -'But, hallo!' exclaimed Mr. Kippilaw, after he had read for the -second time, and saw that the letter of Lennard Melfort was -undoubtedly authentic, 'how comes it that the whole of your Christian -name is _torn out_ of the birth certificate, and the surname -_Melfort_ alone remains?' - -'Torn out!' exclaimed Shafto, apparently startled in turn. - -'There is a rough little hole in the document where the name _should -be_. Do you know the date of your birth?' asked Mr. Kippilaw, partly -covering the document with his hand, unconsciously as it were. - -'Yes--28th October.' - -'And the year?' - -Shafto gave it from memory. - -'Quite correct--as given here,' said Mr. Kippilaw; 'but you look old -for the date of this certificate.' - -'I always looked older than my years,' replied Shafto. - -Florian, who might have claimed the date as that of his own birth, -was--luckily for Shafto--away at a window, gazing intently on a party -of soldiers marching past, with a piper playing before them. - -'Another certificate can be got if necessary,' said Mr. Kippilaw, as -he glanced at the Registrar's signature, a suggestion which made -Shafto's heart quake. 'It must have come from the Major in this -mutilated state,' he added, re-examining with legal care and -suspicion the address on the envelope and the seal, which, as we have -said, he had cut round; 'but it is strange that he has made no -mention of it being so in his letter to me. Poor fellow! he was more -of a soldier than a man of business, however. Allow me to -congratulate you, Mr. Melfort, on your new prospects. Rank and a -very fine estate are before you.' - -He warmly shook the hand of Shafto, who began to be more reassured; -and saying, 'I must carefully preserve the documents for the -inspection of Lord Fettercairn,' he locked them fast in a drawer of -his writing-table, and spreading out his coat-tails before the fire, -while warming his person in the fashion peculiar to the genuine -'Britisher,' he eyed Shafto benignantly, and made a few pleasant -remarks on the Fettercairn family, the fertility and beauty of -Craigengowan, the stables, kennels, the shootings, and so forth, and -the many fine qualities of 'Leonard'--as he called him--and about -whom he asked innumerable questions, all of which Shafto could answer -truly and with a clear conscience enough, as he was master of all -that. - -The latter was asked 'what he thought of Edinburgh--if he had ever -been there before,' and so forth. Shafto remembered a little 'Guide -Book' into which he had certainly dipped, so as to be ready for -anything, and spoke so warmly of the picturesque beauties and -historical associations of the Modern Athens that the worthy lawyer's -heart began to warm to so intelligent a young man, while of the -silent Florian, staring out into the sun-lit square and its beautiful -garden and statues, he took little notice, beyond wondering _where_ -he had seen his eyes and features before! - - - - -CHAPTER X. - -ALONE IN THE WORLD. - -'And you were bred to the law, you say, Mr. Melfort?' remarked the -old Writer to the Signet after a pause. - -'Yes, in Lawyer Carlyon's office.' - -'Very good--very good indeed; that is well! We generally think in -Scotland that a little knowledge of the law is useful, as it teaches -the laird to haud his ain; but I forgot that you are southland bred, -and born too--the more is the pity--and can't understand me.' - -Shafto did not understand him, but thought that his time spent in -Lawyer Carlyon's office had not been thrown away now; experience -there had 'put him up to a trick or two.' - -'I shall write to Craigengowan by the first post,' said Mr. Kippilaw -after another of those thoughtful pauses during which he attentively -eyed his visitor. 'Lord and Lady Fettercairn--like myself now -creeping up the vale of years--(Hope they may soon see the end of it! -thought Shafto) will, I have no doubt, be perfectly satisfied by the -sequence and tenor of the documents you have brought me that you are -their grandson--the son of the expatriated Lennard--and when I hear -from them I shall let you know the result without delay. You are -putting up at--what hotel?' - -'At the Duke of Rothesay, in Princes Street.' - -'Ah! very well.' - -'Thanks; I shall be very impatient to hear.' - -'And your cousin--he will, of course, go with you to Craigengowan?' - -Shafto hesitated, and actually coloured, as Florian could detect. - -'What are your intentions or views?' Mr. Kippilaw asked the latter. - -'He failed to pass for the army,' said Shafto bluntly and glibly, 'so -I don't know what he means to do _now_. I believe that he scarcely -knows himself.' - -'Have you no friends on your mother's side, Mr. Florian?' - -'None!' said Florian, with a sad inflection of voice. - -'Indeed! and what do you mean to do?' - -'Follow the drum, most probably,' replied Florian bitterly and a -little defiantly, as Shafto's coldness, amid his own great and good -fortune, roused his pride and galled his heart, which sank as he -thought of Dulcie Carlyon, sweet, golden-haired English Dulcie, so -far away. - -Mr. Kippilaw shook his bald head at the young man's answer. - -'I have some little influence in many ways, and if I can assist your -future views you may command me, Mr. Florian,' said he with fatherly -kindness, for he had reared--yea and lost--more than one fine lad of -his own. - -It has been said that one must know mankind very well before having -the courage to be solely and simply oneself; thus, as Shafto's -knowledge of mankind was somewhat limited, he felt his eye quail more -than once under the steady gaze of Mr. Kippilaw. - -'It is a very strange thing,' said the latter, 'that after the death -of Mr. Cosmo in Glentilt, when Lord and Lady Fettercairn were so -anxious to discover and recall his younger brother as the next and -only heir to the title and estates, we totally failed to trace him. -We applied to the War Office for the whereabouts of Major Lennard -Melfort, but the authorities there, acting upon a certain principle, -declined to afford any information. Advertisements, some plainly -distinct, others somewhat enigmatical, were often inserted in the -_Scotsman_ and _Times_, but without the least avail. - -'As for the _Scotsman_,' said Shafto, 'the Major----' - -'Your father, you mean?' - -'Yes,' said he, reddening, 'was no more likely to see such a -provincial print in Devonshire than the Roman _Diritto_ or the -Prussian _Kreuz Zeitung_; and the _Times_, if he saw it--which I -doubt--he must have ignored. Till the time of his death drew near, -his feelings were bitter, his hostility to his family great.' - -'I can well understand that, poor fellow!' said Mr. Kippilaw, -glancing at his watch, as he added--'You must excuse me till -to-morrow: I am already overdue at the Parliament House.' - -He bowed his visitors out into the sun-lit square. - -'You seem to have lost your tongue, Florian, and to have a -disappointed look,' said Shafto snappishly, as they walked slowly -towards the hotel together. - -'Disappointed I am in one sense, perhaps, but I have no reason to -repine or complain save at our change of relative positions, but -certainly not at your unexpected good fortune, Shafto. It is only -right and just that your father's only son should inherit all that is -legally and justly his.' - -Even at these words Shafto never winced or wavered in plans or -purpose. - -It was apparent, however, to Florian, that he had for some time past -looked restless and uneasy, that he started and grew pale at any -unusual sound, while a shadow rested on his not usually very open -countenance. - -Betimes next morning a note came to him at the Duke of Rothesay Hotel -from Mr. Kippilaw, requesting a visit as early as possible, and on -this errand he departed alone. - -He found the old lawyer radiant, with a letter in his hand from Lord -Fettercairn (in answer to his own) expressive of astonishment and joy -at the sudden appearance of this hitherto unknown grandson, whom he -was full of ardour and anxiety to see. - -'You will lose no time in starting for Craigengowan,' said Mr. -Kippilaw. 'You take the train at the Waverley Station and go _viâ_ -Burntisland, Arbroath, and Marykirk--or stay, I think we shall -proceed together, taking your papers with us.' - -'Thanks,' said Shafto, feeling somehow that the presence of Mr. -Kippilaw at the coming interview would take some of the -responsibility off his own shoulders. - -'Craigengowan, your grandfather says, will put on its brightest smile -to welcome you.' - -'Very kind of Craigengowan,' said Shafto, who felt but ill at ease in -his new role of adventurer, and unwisely adopted a free-and-easy -audacity of manner. - -'A cheque on the Bank of Scotland for present emergencies,' said Mr. -Kippilaw, opening his cheque-book, 'and in two hours we shall meet at -the station.' - -'Thanks again. How kind you are, my dear sir.' - -'I would do much for your father's son, Mr. Shafto,' said the lawyer, -emphatically. - -'And what about Florian?' - -'The letter ignores him--a curious omission. In their joy, perhaps -Lord and Lady Fettercairn forgot. But, by the way, here is a letter -for him that came by the London mail.' - -'A letter for him!' said Shafto, faintly, while his heart grew sick -with apprehension, he knew not of what. - -'Mr. Florian's face is strangely familiar to me,' said Mr. Kippilaw -aloud; but to himself, 'Dear me, dear me, where can I have seen -features like his before? He reminds me curiously of Lennard -Melfort.' - -Shafto gave a nervous start. - -The letter was a bulky one, and bore the Wembury and other -post-marks, and to Shafto's infinite relief was addressed in the -familiar handwriting of Dulcie Carlyon. - -He chuckled, and a great thought worthy of himself occurred to him. - -In the solitude of his own room at the hotel, he moistened and opened -the gummed envelope, and drew forth four closely written sheets of -paper full of the outpourings of the girl's passionate heart, of her -wrath at the theft of her locket by Shafto, and mentioning that she -had incidentally got the address of Mr. Kippilaw from her father, and -desiring him to write to her, and she would watch for and intercept -the postman by the sea-shore. - -'Bosh,' muttered Shafto, as he tore up and cast into the fire -Dulcie's letter, all save a postscript, written on a separate scrap -of paper, and which ran thus:-- - -'You have all the love of my heart, Florian; but, as I feel and fear -we may never meet again, I send you this, which I have worn next my -heart, to keep.' - -_This_ was a tiny tuft of forget-me-nots. - -'Three stamps on all this raggabash!' exclaimed Shafto, whom the -girl's terms of endearment to Florian filled with a tempest of -jealous rage. He rolled the locket he had wrenched from Dulcie's -neck in soft paper, and placed it with the postscript in the -envelope, which he carefully closed and re-gummed, placed near the -fire, and the moment it was perfectly dry he gave it to Florian. - -If the latter was surprised to see a letter to himself, addressed in -Dulcie's large, clear, and pretty handwriting, to the care of 'Lawyer -Kippilaw,' as she called him, he was also struck dumb when he found -in the envelope the locket, the likeness, and the apparently curt -farewell contained in one brief sentence! - -For a time he stood like one petrified. Could it all be real? Alas! -there was no doubting the postal marks and stamps upon this most -fatal cover; and while he was examining it and passing his hand -wildly more than once across his eyes and forehead, Shafto was -smoking quietly at a window, and to all appearance intent on watching -the towering rock and batteries of the Castle, bathed in morning -sunshine--batteries whereon steel morions and Scottish spears had -often gleamed of old. - -Though his soul shrank from doing so, Florian could not resist taking -Shafto into his confidence about this unexplainable event; and the -latter acted astonishment to the life! - -Was the locket thus returned through the post in obedience to her -father's orders, after he had probably discovered the contents of it? - -But Shafto demolished this hope by drawing his attention to the tenor -of the pithy scrap of paper, which precluded the idea that it had -been done under any other influence than her own change of mind. - -'Poor Florian!' sneered Shafto, as he prepared to take his departure -for Craigengowan; 'now you had better proceed at once to cultivate -the wear-the-willow state of mind.' - -Florian made no reply. His ideas of faith and truth and of true -women were suddenly and cruelly shattered now! - -'She has killed all that was good in me, and the mischief of the -future will be at her door!' he exclaimed, in a low and husky voice. - -'Oh, Florian, don't say that,' said Shafto, who actually did feel a -little for him; and just then, when they were on the eve of -separation, even his false and artful heart did feel a pang, with the -sting of fear, at the career of falsehood to which he had committed -himself; but his ambition, innate greed, selfishness, and pride urged -him on that career steadily and without an idea of flinching. - -After Mr. Kippilaw's remarks concerning how the face of Florian -interested him, and actually that he bore a likeness to the dead -Major--to his own father, in fact--Shafto became more than desirous -to be rid of him in any way. He thought with dread of the discovery -and fate of 'the Claimant,' and of the fierce light thrown by the law -on that gigantic imposture; but genuine compunction he had none! - -'Well,' he muttered, as he drove away from the hotel with his -portmanteau, 'I must keep up this game at all hazards now. I have -stolen--not only Florian's name--but his place, so let him paddle his -own canoe!' - -'I'll write you from Craigengowan,' were his parting words--a promise -which he never fulfilled. Shafto, who generally held their mutual -purse now, might have offered to supply the well-nigh penniless lad -with money, but he did not. He only longed to be rid of him--to hear -of him no more. He had a dread of his presence, of his society, of -his very existence, and now had but one hope, wish, and desire--that -Florian Melfort should cross his path never again. And now that he -had achieved a separation between him and Dulcie, he conceived that -Florian would never again go near Revelstoke, of which -he--Shafto--had for many reasons a nervous dread! - -Full of Dulcie and her apparently cruel desertion of him, which he -considered due to calm consideration of his change of fortune--or -rather total want of it--Florian felt numbly indifferent to the -matter Shafto had in hand and all about himself. - -While very nearly moved to girlish tears at parting from one with -whom he had lived since infancy--with whom he had shared the same -sleeping-room, shared in the same sports and studies--with whom he -had read the same books to some extent, and had ever viewed as a -brother--Florian was rather surprised, even shocked, by the -impatience of that kinsman, the only one he had in all the wide -world, to part from him and begone, and to see he was calm and hard -as flint or steel. - -'Different natures have different ways of showing grief, I suppose,' -thought the simple Florian; 'or can it be that he still has a grudge -at me because of the false but winsome Dulcie? If affection for me -is hidden in his heart, it is hidden most skilfully.' No letter ever -came from Craigengowan. The pride of Florian was justly roused, and -he resolved that he would not take the initiative, and attempt to -open a correspondence with one who seemed to ignore him, and whose -manner at departing he seemed to see more clearly and vividly now. - -The fact soon became grimly apparent. He could not remain idling in -such a fashionable hotel as the Duke of Rothesay, so he settled his -bill there, and took his portmanteau in his hand, and issued into the -streets--into the world, in fact. - - - - -CHAPTER XI. - -SHAFTO IN CLOVER. - -About six months had elapsed since Shafto and Florian parted, as we -have described, at Edinburgh. - -It was June now. The luxurious woods around Craigengowan were in all -their leafy beauty, and under their shadows the dun deer panted in -the heat as they made their lair among the feathery braken; the -emerald green lawn was mowed and rolled till it was smooth as a -billiard-table and soft as three-pile velvet. - -The air was laden with the wafted fragrance of roses and innumerable -other flowers; and the picturesque old house, with its multitude of -conical turrets furnished with glittering vanes, its crow-stepped -gables and massive chimneys, stood boldly up against the deep blue -sky of summer; and how sweetly peaceful looked the pretty village, -seen in middle distance, through a foliated vista in the woodlands, -with the white smoke ascending from its humble hearths, the only -thing that seemed to be stirring there; and how beautiful were the -colours some of its thatched roofs presented--greenest moss, brown -lichen, and stonecrop, now all a blaze of gold, while the murmur of a -rivulet (a tributary of the Esk), that gurgled under its tiny arch, -'the auld brig-stane' of Lennard's boyhood, would be heard at times, -amid the pleasant voices of some merrymakers on the lawn, amid the -glorious shrubberies, and belts of flowers below the stately terrace, -that had long since replaced the moat that encircled the old -fortified mansion, from whence its last Jacobite lord had ridden -forth to fight and die for James VIII., on the field of -Sheriffmuir--King of Scotland, England, France, and Ireland, as the -unflinching Jacobites had it. - -A gay and picturesquely dressed lawn-tennis party was busy tossing -the balls from side to side among several courts; but apart from all, -and almost conspicuously so--a young fellow, in a handsome light -tennis suit of coloured flannels, and a beautiful girl were carrying -on a very palpable flirtation. - -The gentleman was Shafto, and his companion was Finella Melfort, -Cosmo's orphan daughter (an heiress through her mother), who had -returned a month before from a protracted visit in Tyburnia. They -seemed to be on excellent terms with each other, and doubtless the -natural gaiety of the girl's disposition, her vivacity of manner, and -their supposed mutual relationship, had opened the way to speedy -familiarity. - -She was a dark-haired and dark-eyed, but very white-skinned little -beauty, with a perfect _mignonne_ face, a petite but round and -compact figure, gracefully formed, and very coquettish and -_spirituelle_ in all her ways. - -She had received her peculiar Christian name at the special request -of her grandfather, that silly peer being desirous that her name -might go down in the peerage in connection with that of the famous -Finella of Fettercairn. - -'A winsome pair they would make,' was the smiling remark of Mr. -Kenneth Kippilaw, who was of the party (with three romping daughters -from Edinburgh), to Lord Fettercairn, who smirked a grim assent, as -if it was a matter of indifference to him, which it was not, as his -legal adviser very well knew; and my Lady Drumshoddy, who heard the -remark, bestowed upon him a bright and approving smile in return for -a knowing glance through the glasses of his gold _pince-nez_. - -In Craigengowan the adventurous Shafto Gyle had found his veritable -Capua--he was literally 'in clover.' Yet he never heard himself -addressed by his assumed name without experiencing a strange sinking -and fluttering of the heart. - -The once-despised Lennard Melfort's sword, his commission, and his -hard-won medals earned in Central India and the Terai of Nepaul were -now looked upon as precious relics in his mother's luxurious boudoir -at Craigengowan, and reclaimed from the lumber-attic, his portrait, -taken in early life, was again hung in a place of honour in the -dining-hall. - -'What a fool my old uncle was to lose his claim on such a place as -this, and all for the face of a girl!' was the exclamation of Shafto -to himself when first he came to Craigengowan, and then he looked -fearfully around him lest the word _uncle_ might have been overheard -by some one; and he thought--'If rascally the trick I have played my -simple and love-stricken cousin--and rascally it was and is--surely -it was worth while to be the heir of this place, Craigengowan. To -reckon as mine in future all this grand panorama of heath-clad hills, -of green and golden fields, of purple muirland, and stately woods of -oak and pine where the deer rove in herds; as mine the trout-streams -that flow towards the Bervie; the cascades that roar down the cliffs; -the beautiful old house, with its stables, kennels, and terrace; its -cellars, pictures, plate, and jewellery, old china and vases of -marble and jasper, china and Japanese work; and I possess all that -rank and wealth can give!' and so thought this avaricious rascal, -with a capacity for evil actions far beyond his years. - -To the fair inheritance he had come to steal he could not, however, -add as his the blue sky above it, or the waves of the German Sea, -which the North Esk flowed to join; but he was not without sense -appreciative enough to enjoy the fragrance of the teeming earth, of -the pine forests where the brown squirrels leaped from branch to -branch, and on the mountain side the perfume of the golden whin and -gorse. - -Appraising everything, these ideas were ever recurring to his mind, -and it was full of them now as he looked around him, and at times, -like one in a dream, heard the pretty babble of the high-bred, -coquettish girl, who, to amuse herself, made _œillades_ at him; -who called him so sweetly 'Cousin Shafto,' and who, with her splendid -fortune, he was now beginning to include among the many goods and -chattels which must one day accrue to him. - -Lord and Lady Fettercairn were, of course, fully twenty years older -than when we saw them last, full of wrath and indignation at Lennard -for his so-called _mésalliance_. Both were cold in heart and -self-absorbed in nature as ever. The latter was determined to be a -beauty still, though now upon the confines of that decade 'when the -cunning of cosmetics can no longer dissemble the retribution of Time -the avenger.' The former was bald now, and the remains of his once -sandy-coloured hair had become grizzled, and a multitude of puckers -were about his cold, grey eyes, while there was a perceptible stoop -in his whilom flat, square shoulders. - -He was as full of family pride as ever, and the discovery of an -unexpected and authentic heir and grandson to his title, that had -never been won in the field or cabinet, but was simply the reward of -bribery and corruption, and for which not one patriotic act had been -performed by four generations, had given him intense satisfaction, -and caused much blazing of bonfires and consumption of alcohol about -the country-side; and smiles that were bright and genuine frequently -wreathed the usually pale and immobile face of Lady Fettercairn when -they rested on Shafto. - -We all know how the weak and easy adoption of a pretender by a titled -mother in a famous and most protracted case not many years ago caused -the most peculiar complications; thus Lady Fettercairn was more -pardonable, posted up as she was with documentary evidence, in -accepting Shafto Gyle as her grandson. - -We have described her as being singularly, perhaps aristocratically, -cold. As a mother, she had never been given to kissing, caressing, -or fondling her two sons (as she did a succession of odious pugs and -lap-dogs), but, throwing their little hearts back upon themselves, -left nurses and maids to 'do all that sort of tiresome thing.' - -So Finella, though an heiress, came in for very little of it either, -with all her sweetness, beauty, and pretty winning ways, even from -Lord Fettercairn. In truth, the man who cared so little for his own -country and her local and vital interests was little likely to care -much for any flesh and blood that did not stand in his own boots. - -Lady Fettercairn heard from her 'grand-son' from time to time -with--for her--deep apparent sympathy, and much genuine aristocratic -regret and indignation, much of the obscure story of his boyhood and -past life, at least so much as he chose to tell her; and she bitterly -resented that Lennard Melfort should have sought to put the 'nephew -of that woman, Flora MacIan,' into the army, while placing 'his own -son' Shafto into the office of a miserable village lawyer, and so -forth--and so forth! - -Fortunate it was, she thought, that all this happened in an obscure -village in Devonshire, and far away from Craigengowan and all its -aristocratic surroundings. - -She also thought it strange that Shafto--('Whence came that name?' -she would mutter angrily)--should be so unlike her dark and handsome -Lennard. His eyebrows were fair and heavy; his eyes were a pale, -watery grey; his lips were thin, his neck thick, and his hair -somewhat sandy in hue. Thus, she thought, he was not unlike what her -husband, the present Lord Fettercairn, must have been at the same age. - -As for the Peer himself, he was only too thankful that an heir had -turned up for his ill-gotten coronet, and that now--so far as one -life was concerned--Sir Bernard Burke would not rate it among the -dormant and attainted titles--those of the best and bravest men that -Scotland ever knew. - -As for their mutual scheme concerning Shafto and their granddaughter -Finella, with her beauty and many attractive parts, the former was -craftily most desirous of furthering it, knowing well that, _happen -what might_ in the future, she was an heiress; that marriage with her -would give him a firm hold on the Fettercairn family, though the -money of her mother was wisely settled on the young lady herself. - -Indeed, Finella had not been many weeks home from London, at -Craigengowan, before Lady Fettercairn opened the trenches, and spoke -pretty plainly to him on the subject. - -Waving her large fan slowly to and fro, and eyeing Shafto closely -over the top of it, she said: - -'I hope, my dearest boy, that you will find your cousin Finella--the -daughter of my dead darling Cosmo--a lovable kind of girl. But even -were she not so--and all say she is--you must not feel a prejudice -against her, because--because----' - -'What, grandmother?' - -'Because it is our warmest desire that you may marry her.' - -'Why, haven't I money enough?' asked Shafto, with one of his -dissembling smiles. - -'Of course, as the heir of Fettercairn; but one is always the better -to have more, and you must not feel----' - -'What?' asked Shafto, with affected impatience. - -'Please not to interrupt me thus. I mean that you must not be -prejudiced against her as an expected_ parti_.' - -'Why should I?' - -'One hears and reads so much of such things.' - -'In novels, I suppose; but as she is so pretty and eligible, why the -dickens----' - -'Shafto!' - -'What now?' he asked, with some irritability, as she often took him -to task for his solecisms. - -'Dickens is not a phrase to use. Exclamations that were suited to -the atmosphere of Mr. Carlyon's office in Devonshire will not do in -Craigengowan!' - -'Well--she won't look at me with your eyes, grandmother.' - -'How--her eyes----' - -'They will never seem so bright and beautiful.' - -'Oh, you flattering pet!' exclaimed my Lady Fettercairn, with a smile -and pleased flush on her old wrinkled face, for her 'pet' had soon -discovered that she was far from insensible to adulation. - -Shafto certainly availed himself of the opportunities afforded by -'cousinship,' propinquity, and residence together in a country house, -and sought to gain a place in the good graces or heart of Finella; -but with all his cunning and earnest wishes in the matter--apart from -the wonderful beauty of the girl--he feared that he made no more -progress with her than he had done with Dulcie Carlyon. - -She talked, played, danced, and even romped with him; they rambled -and read together, and were as much companions as any two lovers -would be; but he felt nearly certain that though she flirted with -him, because it was partly her habit to appear to do so with most -men, whenever he attempted to become tender she openly laughed at him -or changed the subject skilfully; and also that if he essayed to -touch or take her hand it was very deliberately withdrawn from his -reach, and never did she make him more sensible of all this than when -he contrived to draw her aside to the terrace on the afternoon of the -lawn-tennis party. - -She had long ere this been made perfectly aware that love and -marriage were objects of all his attention, yet she amused herself -with him by her coquettish _œillades_ and waggish speeches. - -'Finella,' said he, in a low and hesitating voice, as he stooped over -her, 'I hope that with all your flouting, and pretty, flippant mode -of treating me, you will see your way to carry out the fondest desire -of my heart and that of our grandparents.' - -'Such a fearfully elaborate speech! And the object to which I am to -see my way is to marry you, cousin Shafto?' - -'Yes,' said he, bending nearer to her half-averted ear. - -'Thanks very much, dear Shafto; but I couldn't think of such a thing.' - -'Why? Am I so distasteful to you?' - -'Not at all; but for cogent reasons of my own.' - -'And these are?' - -'Firstly, people should marry to please themselves, not others. -Grandpapa and grandmamma did, and so shall I; and I am quite -independent enough to do as I please and choose.' - -'In short, you will not or cannot love me?' - -'I have not said so, you tiresome Shafto!' said she, looking upward -at him with one of her sweetest and most bewitching smiles. - -'Then I have some hope, dear Finella?' - -'I have not said that either.' - -'You may yet love me, then?' - -'No; not as you wish it.' - -'But why?' - -'You have no right to ask me.' - -His fair beetling eyebrows knit, and a gleam came into his cold, grey -eyes as he asked, after a pause: - -'Is there anyone else you prefer?' - -'You have no right to inquire,' replied she, and a keener observer -might have detected that his question brought a tiny blush to her -cheek and a fond smile to her curved lips; 'so please to let this -matter drop, once and for ever, dear Shafto, and we can be such -delightful friends--such jolly cousins.' - -And so ended one of many such conversations on this -topic--conversations that developed indifference, if not quite -aversion, on the part of Finella, the clue to which Shafto was fated -to find in a few weeks after. - - - - -CHAPTER XII. - -VIVIAN HAMMERSLEY. - -The persistent attentions of Shafto were alternately a source of -amusement and worry to Finella Melfort; and when she found them -become the latter, she had more than once retreated to the residence -of her maternal grandmother, Lady Drumshoddy, though she infinitely -preferred being at Craigengowan, where the general circle was more -refined and of a much better style; for Lady Drumshoddy--natheless -her title--was not quite one of the 'upper ten,' being only the widow -of an advocate, who, having done without scruple the usual amount of -work to please his party and the Lord Advocate, had been rewarded -therefor by an appointment (and knighthood) in Bengal, where he had -gone, at a lucky time, with the old advice and idea-- - - 'They bade me from the Rupee Tree - Pluck India's endless riches, - And then I swore that time should see - Huge pockets in my breeches.' - -Thus Sir Duncan Drumshoddy's pockets were so well filled that when he -came home to die, his daughter was heiress enough to be deemed a -'great catch' by the Fettercairn family, though her grandfather had -been--no one knew precisely what. - -And now Finella, by education, careful training, and by her own habit -of thought, was naturally so refined that, with all her waggery and -disposition to laughter and merriment, Shafto's clumsy love-speeches -occasionally irritated her. - -'I have somewhere read,' said he, 'that a man may get the love of the -girl he wants, even if she cares little for him, if he only asks her -at the right time; but, so far as you are concerned, Finella, the -right moment has not come for me, I suppose.' - -'Nor ever will come, I fear, cousin Shafto,' she replied, fanning -herself, and eyeing him with mingled fun and defiance sparkling in -her dark eyes. - -Ere Shafto could resume on this occasion Lord Fettercairn came -hurriedly to him, saying, - -'Oh, by-the-bye, young Hammersley, from London, will arrive here -to-morrow for a few weeks' grouse-shooting before he leaves for his -regiment in Africa. You will do your best to be attentive to him, -Shafto.' - -'Of course,' said the latter, rather sulkily, however, all the more -so that he was quick enough to detect that, at the mention of the -visitor's name, a flush like a wave of colour crossed the cheek of -Finella. - -Something in his tone attracted the attention of Lord Fettercairn, -who said, - -'After the 12th I hope you will find a legitimate use for your -gun--you know what I mean.' - -Shafto coloured deeply with annoyance, as his grandfather referred to -a mischievous act of his, which was deemed a kind of outrage in the -neighbourhood. - -In the ruins of Finella's Castle at Fettercairn a pair of majestic -osprey had built their nest, guarded by the morass around them, and -there they bred and reared a pair of beautiful eaglets. No one had -been allowed to approach them, so that nothing should occur to break -the confidence of safety which the pair of osprey acquired in their -lonely summer haunt, till soon after Shafto came to Craigengowan, and -by four rounds from his breech-loader he contrived to shoot them all, -to the indignation of the neighbourhood and even of my Lord -Fettercairn. - -Not that the latter cared a straw about these eagles as objects of -natural history; but the fact of their existence formed the subject -of newspaper paragraphs, and his vanity was wounded on finding that -one of his family had acted thus. - -So on the morrow, at luncheon, the family circle at Craigengowan had -two or three accessions to its number--friends invited for the 12th -of August--among others Mr. Kippilaw the younger, a spruce and dapper -Edinburgh Writer to the Signet, 'who,' Shafto said, 'thought no small -beer of himself;' and Vivian Hammersley, a captain of the -Warwickshire regiment, a very attractive and, to one who was present, -most decided addition to their society. - -His regular features were well tanned by the sun in Natal; his dark -hair was shorn short; his moustaches were pointed well out; and his -dark eyes had a bright and merry yet firm and steady expression, as -those of a man born to command men, who had more than once faced -danger, and was ready to face it again. - -He was in his twenty-seventh year, and was every way a courteous and -finished English gentleman, though Shafto, in his secret heart, and -more than once in the stables, pronounced him to be 'a conceited -beast.' - -Hammersley had fished in Norway, shot big game in Southern Africa, -hunted in the English shires, taking his fences--even double -ones--like a bird; he had lost and won with a good grace at Ascot and -the Clubs, flirted 'all round,' and, though far from rich, was a good -specimen of a handsome, open-handed, and open-hearted young officer, -a favourite with all women, and particularly with his regiment. - -After luncheon he was seated beside Lady Fettercairn; he was too wise -in his generation to have placed himself where he would have wished, -beside Finella, whose little hand, on entering, Shafto thought he -retained in his rather longer than etiquette required; for if -Shafto's eyes were shifty, they were particularly sharp, and he soon -found that though Finella, to a certain extent, had filled up her -time by flirting in a cousinly way with himself, 'now that this -fellow Hammersley had come,' he was 'nowhere' as he thought, with a -very bad word indeed. - -We have said that Finella had paid a protracted and--to her--most -enjoyable visit to Tyburnia. There at balls, garden parties, and in -the Row she had met Vivian Hammersley repeatedly; and these meetings -had not been without a deep and tender interest to them both; and -when they were parted finally by her return to Craigengowan, though -no declaration of regard had escaped him, he had been burning to -speak to her in that sweet and untutored language by which the inmost -secrets of the loving heart can be read; and now that they had met -again, they had a thousand London objects to talk about safely in -common, which made them seem to be what they were, quite old friends -in fact, and erelong Lady Fettercairn began, like Shafto, to listen -and look darkly and doubtfully on. - -But when they were alone, which was seldom, or merely apart from -others, there was between them a new consciousness now--a secret but -sweet understanding, born of eye speaking to eye--all the sweeter for -its secrecy and being all their own, a conscious emotion that -rendered them at times almost afraid to speak or glance lest curious -eyes or ears might discover what that secret was. - -What was to be the sequel to all this? Hammersley was far from rich -according to the standard of wealth formed by Lady Fettercairn, and -the latter had destined her granddaughter with all her accumulated -wealth to be the bride of Shafto. Hammersley knew nothing of this; -he only knew his own shortcoming in the matter of 'pocketability;' -but then youth, we are told, 'is sanguine and full of faith and hope -in an untried future. It looks out over the pathway of life towards -the goal of its ambition, seeing only the end desired, and giving -little or no heed to hills and dales, storms and accidents, that may -be met with on the way.' So, happy in the good fortune that threw -him once more in the sweet society of bright Finella Melfort, Captain -Hammersley gave full swing in secret to the most delightful of -day-dreams. - -In all this, however, we are somewhat anticipating our narrative. - -But, like a wise man, while the luncheon lasted he was most attentive -to his hostess, from whose old but still handsome face, like that of -Tennyson's Maud, 'so faultily faultless, icily regular, and -splendidly null,' he ever and anon turned to that of Finella--that -_mignonne_ face, which was so full of varying expression, warmth, -light, and colour. - -'Try that Madeira, Captain Hammersley,' said Lord Fettercairn. 'You -will scarcely credit how long I have had it in the cellar. I bought -a whole lot of it--when was it, Grapeston?' he asked, turning to the -solemn old butler behind him. - -'The year Mr. Lennard left home, my Lord.' - -'Everything at Craigengowan seems to take date before or after that -event,' said Lord Fettercairn, with knitted brow. 'Do you mean for -India, Grapeston?' - -'Yes, my lord,' replied the butler, who had carried 'Master Lennard' -in his arms as a baby. - -'Such a rich flavour it has, and just glance at the colour.' - -Hammersley affected to do so, but his eyes were bent on the face of -Finella. - -'I hope you won't find Craigengowan dull, but every place is so after -London.' - -'True, we live so fast there that we never seem to have time to do -anything.' - -And now, understanding that Shafto was to be his chief companion at -the covies on the morrow, Hammersley talked to him of hammerless -guns, of central fire, of the mode of breaking in dogs, training -setters, and so forth; and as these subjects had not been included in -Shafto's education at Lawyer Carlyon's office, he almost yawned as he -listened with irritation to what he could not comprehend. - -'If you care for fishing, Hammersley,' said Lord Fettercairn, 'the -Bervie yields capital salmon, sea and yellow trout. Finella has -filled more than one basket with the latter, but Shafto is somewhat -of a duffer with his rod--he breaks many a rod, and has never landed -a salmon yet.' - -'And the shootings?' said Hammersley inquiringly. - -'Well, the best in the county are Drumtochty, Fasque, Hobseat, and my -own, as I hope you will find to-morrow.' - -'Thanks--indeed, I am sure I shall.' - -'I have close on 5,000 acres, and the probable bag of grouse and -black game is from 400 to 500 brace.' - -After dinner that evening Finella was found singing at the -piano--singing, as she always did, without requiring pressure and -apparently for the mere pleasure of it, as a thrush on a rose bush -sings; but now she sang for Vivian Hammersley, Shafto felt -instinctively that she did so, and his bitterness was roused when he -heard her, in a pause, whisper: - -'Please, Captain Hammersley, let Shafto turn the leaves. He likes to -do it, though he can do little else in the way of music.' - -This kind of confidence seemed to imply foregone conclusions and a -mutual understanding, however slight; but, to some extent, Finella -had a kind of dread of Shafto. - -Hammersley smiled and drew back, after placing a piece of music -before her; but not before remarking: - -'This song you are about to sing is not a new one.' - -'No--it is old as the days when George IV. was king--it is one you -gave me some weeks ago in London, you remember?' - -'Am I likely to forget?' - -'Turn the leaves, Shafto, please,' said Finella, adjusting her dress -over the music-stool; 'but don't talk to me.' - -'Why?' - -'It interrupts one so; but turn the leaves at the proper time.' - -'Captain Hammersley will do that better than I,' said Shafto, drawing -almost sulkily away, while the former resumed his place by Finella, -with an unmistakable smile rippling over his face. - -This song, which, it would seem, Hammersley had given her, was an old -one, long since forgotten, named the 'Trysting Place,' and jealous -anger gathered in Shafto's heart as he listened and heard -Hammersley's voice blend with Finella's in the last line of each -verse: - - 'We met not in the sylvan scene - Where lovers wish to meet, - Where skies are bright and woods are green, - And bursting blossoms sweet; - But in the city's busy din, - Where Mammon holds his reign, - Sweet intercourse we sought to win - 'Mid fashion, guile, and gain; - Above us was a murky sky, - Around a crowded space, - Yet dear, my love, to thee and me, - Was this, our _trysting place_.' - - 'They are who say Love only dwells - 'Mid sunshine, light, and flowers; - Alike to him are gloomy cells - Or gay and smiling bowers; - Love works not on insensate things - His sweet and magic art; - No outward shrine arrests his wings, - His home is in the heart; - And dearest hearts like _thine_ and _mine_, - With rapture must retrace-- - How often Love has deigned to shine - On this our _trysting place_.' - - -'Miss Melfort, you have sung it more sweetly than ever!' said -Hammersley in a low voice as he bent over her. - -'Confound him!' muttered Shafto to himself; 'where was this trysting -place? I feel inclined to put a charge of shot into him to-morrow. -I will, too, if the day is foggy!' - -Finella, though pressed, declined to sing more, as the Misses -Kippilaw, who were rather irrepressible young ladies, now proposed a -carpet-dance, and she drew on her gloves; and while she fumbled away, -almost nervously, with the buttoning of one, she knew that -Hammersley's eyes were lovingly and admiringly bent on her, till he -came to the rescue, and did the buttoning required; and to Shafto it -seemed the process was a very protracted one, and was a pretty little -connivance, as in reality it was. - -Miss Prim, Lady Fettercairn's companion, was summoned, and she--poor -creature--had to furnish music for the occasion, till at last Finella -good-naturedly relieved her. - -So a carpet-dance closed the evening, and then Shafto, though an -indifferent waltzer, thought he might excel in a square dance with -Finella; but he seldom shone in conversation at any time, and on this -occasion his attempts at it proved a great failure, and when he -compared this with the animation of Hammersley and Finella in the -Lancers, he was greatly puzzled and secretly annoyed. The former did -not seem to undergo that agony so often felt by Shafto, of having -out-run all the topics of conversation, or to have to rack his brain -for anecdotes or jokes, but to be able to keep up an easy flow of -well-bred talk on persons, places, and things, which seemed to amuse -Finella excessively, as she smiled brightly and laughed merrily while -fanning herself, and looking more sparkling and piquante than ever. - -'What the deuce can he find to say to her?' thought Shafto; but -Hammersley was only finding the links--the threads of a dear old -story begun in London months ago. - -So passed the first day of Hammersley's arrival at Craigengowan, and -Finella laid her head on her pillow full of bright and happy -thoughts, in which 'Cousin Shafto' bore no share. - -But while these emotions and events were in progress, where, in the -meantime, was Florian? Ay, Shafto Gyle, where? - - - - -CHAPTER XIII. - -AMONG THE GROUSE. - -Nathless the vengeful thoughts of the unamiable Shafto and his -threats muttered in secret, the shooting next day passed off without -any peril being encountered by the unconscious -Hammersley--unconscious at least of the enmity his presence was -inspiring. However, it was not so the second; and Finella and her -fair friends agreed that if he looked so well and handsome in his -heather-coloured knickerbocker shooting-dress, with ribbed stockings -of Alloa yarn, his gun under his arm, and shot-belt over his -shoulder, how gallant must he look when in full uniform. - -In the field the vicinity of Shafto was avoided as much as possible, -as he shot wildly indeed. By the gamekeepers, servants, and people -generally on the estate he was simply detested for the severity of -his manner, his tyranny, his disposition to bully, and meanness in -every way; though at first, when he came to Craigengowan, they had -laboured in vain, and vied with each other in their attempts to -initiate him into those field-sports so dear to Britons generally, -and to the Scots in particular; but when shooting grouse especially, -the beaters or 'drivers' had genuine dread of him, and, when fog was -on, sometimes refused to attend him, and he was, as they said among -themselves, 'a new experience i' the Howe o' the Mearns.' - -'I've seen as fu' a haggis toomed on a midden,' said the old -head-gamekeeper wrathfully, as he drew his bonnet over his beetling -brows, 'but I'll keep my mind to mysel', and tell my tale to the wind -that blaws o'er Craigengowan.' - -Though well past sixty now, Lord Fettercairn, hale and hearty, was in -the field with his central-fire gun with fine Damascus barrels. -Shafto, Hammersley, young Kippilaw, and four others made up the party. - -The morning was a lovely one, and lovely too was the scenery, for -August is a month richly tinted with the last touches of summer, -blended with the russet tones of autumn; the pleasant meadows are yet -green, and over the ripened harvest the breeze murmurs like the ocean -when nearly asleep. - -Apart from the joyous exhilaration of shooting, and that out-door -exercise so dear to every English gentleman, Vivian Hammersley felt -all that which comes from the romantic beauty of his -surroundings--the scenery of the Howe of the Mearns, which is a low -champaign and highly cultivated country, studded with handsome -mansions, and ornamented by rich plantations and thriving villages. - -Ere long the open muirs were reached, and the hill-sides, the steep, -purple ridges of which the sportsmen had to breast; and, keen -sportsman though he was, Hammersley had soon to admit that -grouse-shooting was the most fatiguing work he had yet encountered; -but soon came the excitements of the first point, the first brood, -and the first shot or two. - -To the eye chiefly accustomed to brown partridges, grouse look dusky -and even black, and they seem to hug the purple heather, but when one -becomes accustomed to them they are as easy to knock over as the tame -birds; and now the crack of the guns began to ring out along the -hill-slopes. - -Shafto and Hammersley were about twenty yards apart, and twice when a -bird rose before the latter, it was brought down wounded but not -killed by the former. - -Hammersley felt that this was 'bad form,' as Shafto should not have -fired, unless he had missed or passed it; but he only bit his lip and -smiled disdainfully. Lord Fettercairn remarked the discourtesy, and -added, - -'Shafto, I do wish you would take an example from Captain Hammersley.' - -'In what way?' grumbled Shafto. - -'He kills his game clean--few birds run from him with broken wings -and so forth.' - -'I am glad to hit when I can,' said Shafto, whose mode of life in -Devonshire had made him rather soft, and he was beginning to think -that nerves of iron and lungs like a bagpipe were requisite for -breasting up the hill-slopes, and then shoot straight at anything. - -Hammersley worked away silently, neither looking to his right nor -left, feeling that though several elements are requisite for 'sport,' -the chief then was to kill as much grouse as possible in a given -time, but was more than once irritated and discomposed by Shafto, and -even young Kippilaw, shooting in a blundering way along the line even -when the birds were not flying high; and he proceeded in a -workmanlike way to bring down one bird as it approached, the next -when it was past him, and so on. - -The first portion of the day the Fettercairn party shot to points, -and then to drivers, and in their fear of Shafto's wild shooting, the -latter kept shouting while driving, and, as he loathed the whole -thing, and was now 'completely blown--pumped out,' as he phrased it, -he was not sorry when the magic word 'lunch' was uttered; and -Hammersley certainly hailed it, for with the lunch came Finella, and -with her arrival--to him--the most delightful part of the day. - -She came tooling along the sunny pathway that traversed the bottom of -a glen, driving with her tightly gauntleted and deft little hands a -pair of beautiful white ponies, which drew the daintiest of -basket-phaetons, containing also Mr. Grapeston and an ample -luncheon-basket; and the place chosen for halting was a green oasis -amid the dark heather, where a spring of deliciously cool water was -bubbling up, called Finella's Well. - -'Now, gentlemen,' said Lord Fettercairn, 'please to draw your -cartridges. I was once nearly shot in this very place by a stupid -fellow who omitted to do so. So glad you have come, Finella darling, -we are all hungry as hawks, and thirsty too.' - -Lovely indeed did the piquante girl look in her coquettish hat and -well-fitting jacket, while the drive, the occasion, and the touch of -Hammersley's hand as he assisted her to alight gave her cheek an -unwonted colour, and lent fresh lustre to her dark eyes, and the -soldier thought that certainly there was nothing in the world so -pleasant to a man's eye as a young, well-dressed, and beautiful girl. - -'You have had good sport,' said she to the group, while her eye -rested on Hammersley, and then on the rows of grouse laid by braces -on the grass; and she 'brought a breeze with her,' as the gentlemen -thought, and had a pleasant remark for each. Her mode of greeting -the members of the party was different, as to some she gave her hand -like a little queen, while to others she smiled, or simply bowed; but -provoked an angry snort from Shafto by expressing a hope that he 'had -not shot anyone yet.' - -And then he grew white as he recalled his angry thoughts of the -preceding night. - -'Why did you take the trouble to drive here?' he asked her, in a low -voice. - -'Because I chose to come; and I do so love driving these plump -darlings of ponies,' replied the girl, patting the sleek animals with -her tiny, slim hand. - -'Old Grapeston would have done well enough; and why did you not bring -one of the Kippilaw girls?' - -'They are at lawn-tennis. If I thought I could please you--not an -easy task--I should have tried to bring them all, though that is -rather beyond the capacities of my phaeton.' - -Shafto never for a moment doubted that she had come over to -superintend the luncheon because 'that fellow Hammersley' was one of -the party; and in this suspicion perhaps he was right. - -As for Hammersley, being ignorant of Shafto's antecedents, his -present hopes, and those of Lady Fettercairn, he could not comprehend -how the grandson and heir-apparent of a peer came to be 'such bad -form--bad style, and all that sort of thing,' as he thought; and all -that became rather worse when Shafto was under the influence of -sundry bumpers of iced Pommery Greno administered by Mr. Grapeston. - -As the sportsmen lounged on the grass, and the luncheon proceeded -under the superintendence of old Jasper Grapeston, Finella, the -presiding goddess, looked unusually bright and happy--a consummation -which Shafto never doubted, in his rage and jealousy, came of the -presence of Vivian Hammersley, and that her brilliance was all the -result of another man's society--not his certainly, and hence he -would have preferred that she was not light-hearted at all. - -He could see that with all her _espieglerie_ Finella found no -occasion to laugh at Hammersley or tease or snub that gentleman as -she did himself, but the attentions of Hammersley were delicately and -seductively paid. Deferential and gentle at all times, to all women, -he had always been so to Finella Melfort, and she was able to feel -more than his words, looks, or manner suggested to others; and he -imagined--nay, he was becoming certain--and a glow of great joy came -with the certainty--that Finella's sweet dark eyes grew brighter at -his approach; that a rose-leaf tinge crossed her delicate cheek, and -there came a slight quiver into her voice when she replied to him, - -'Was it all really so?' - -Fate was soon to decide that which he had been too slow or timid to -decide for himself. - -As he said one of the merest commonplaces to her, their eyes met. - -It was only one lingering glance! - -But looks can say so much more than the voice, the eyes surpassing -the lips, breaking or revealing what the silence of months, it may be -years, has hidden, and leading heart to heart. - -'Grandpapa,' said Finella, suddenly, and just before driving off, 'do -you shoot over this ground to-morrow?' - -'To a certain extent we shall--but why?' - -'Shall I bring the luncheon here?' - -'Yes, pet, to Finella's Well.' - -'So, then, this shall be our trysting-place!' said she, with a bow to -all, and a merry glance which included most certainly Vivian -Hammersley, to whom the landscape seemed to darken with her departure. - -'Now is the time for shooting to advantage,' said Lord Fettercairn, -who knew by old experience that when the afternoon shadows, and more -especially those of evening, begin to lengthen, the slopes of the -hills are seen better, that the birds, too, lie better, and that as -the air becomes more fresh and cool, men can shoot with greater care -and deliberation than in the heat of noon. But Hammersley, full of -his own thoughts, full of the image of Finella and that tale-telling -glance they had exchanged, missed nearly every bird, to the great -exultation of Shafto, who made an incredible number of bad and clumsy -jokes thereon--jokes which the young Englishman heard with perfect -indifference and equanimity. - -Shafto, however, scarcely foresaw the result of the next day's -expedition, and certainly Hammersley did not do so either. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV. - -THE TWO FINELLAS. - -Next day, when the grouse-shooting had been in progress for an hour -or two, a mishap occurred to Hammersley. He twisted his ankle in a -turnip-field, fell heavily on one side, and staggered up too lame to -take further share in the sport for that day at least. - -'When Finella comes with the lunch in the pony-phaeton, she will -drive you home,' said Lord Fettercairn, who then desired one of the -beaters to give Hammersley the assistance of an arm to the well, -where the repast was to be laid out as before. - -When Shafto saw his rival limping he was delighted, and thought, -'This will mar his waltzing for a time at least;' but he was less -delighted when he heard of Lord Fettercairn's natural suggestion. - -'It is likely a cunning dodge,' was his next thought, 'to get a quiet -drive with her to Craigengowan.' - -And Finella's look and exclamation of alarm and interest were not -lost upon him when she arrived and found Hammersley seated on the -grass by the side of the well, and saw the difficulty with which he -rose to greet her, propping himself upon his unloaded gun as he did -so; and soft, indeed, was the blush of pleasure that crossed her -delicate face when she heard of 'grandpapa's arrangement;' and -certainly it met, secretly, with the entire approbation of -Hammersley, who anticipated with delight the drive home with such a -companion. - -After a time the luncheon--though skilfully protracted by Shafto--was -over, and Finella and her 'patient' were together in the phaeton, and -she, with a smile and farewell bow, whipped up her petted ponies, -Flirt and Fairy, whom every day she fed with apples and carrots. - -Shafto thought jealously and sulkily that she was in great haste to -be gone; but more sulky would he have been had he seen, or known that -when once an angle of the glen was reached where the road dipped out -of sight, the ponies were permitted to go at their own pace, which -ere long dwindled into a walk, till they passed the vast ruined -castle of Fettercairn. Finella and Hammersley were, however, if very -happy, very silent, though both enjoyed the drive in the bright -sunshine amid such beautiful scenery, and he quite forgot his petty -misfortune in contemplating the delicate profile and long drooping -eyelashes of the girl who sat beside him, and who, with a fluttering -heart, was perhaps expecting the avowal that trembled on his lips, -especially when he placed his hand on hers, in pretence of guiding -the ponies, which broke into a rapid trot as the lodge gates were -passed; and glorious as the opportunity accorded him had been, -Hammersley's heart, while burning with passionate ardour, seemed to -have lost all courage, for he had a sincere dread of Lady -Fettercairn, and suspected that her interests were naturally centred -in Shafto. - -At seven-and-twenty a man, who has knocked about the world, with a -regiment especially, for some nine years or so, does not fall over -head and ears in love like a rash boy, or without calculating his -chances of general success; and poor Hammersley, though he did not -doubt achieving it with Finella herself, saw deadly rocks and -breakers ahead with her family, and his spirit was a proud one. To -make a declaration was to ruin or lose everything, for if the family -were averse to his suit he must, he knew, quit their roof for ever, -and Finella would be lost to him, for heiresses seldom elope now, -save in novels; and he knew that in her circle the motives for -marriage are more various and questionable than with other and -untitled ranks of life. Rank and money were the chief incentives of -such people as the Melforts of Fettercairn. 'Venal unions,' says an -essayist, 'no doubt occur in the humbler classes, but love is more -frequently the incentive, while with princes and patricians the -conjugal alliance is, in nine instances out of ten, a mere matter of -_expedience_.' - -Craigengowan was reached, and not a word of the great secret that -filled his heart had escaped him, for which he cursed his own folly -and timidity when the drive ended, and a groom took the ponies' heads. - -Yet the day was not over, nor was a fresh opportunity wanting. Lady -Fettercairn and all her female quests had driven to a flower-show at -the nearest town--even Mrs. Prim was gone, and the house was empty! - -Everything in and about Craigengowan seemed conducive to love-talk -and confidences. The great and picturesque house itself was -charming. The old orchards would ere long be heavy with fruit, and -were then a sight to see; on the terrace the peacocks were strutting -to and fro; there were fancy arbours admirably adapted for -flirtation, and a quaint old Scottish garden (with a sun and moon -dial) now gay with all the flowers of August. - -On a lounge near an open window facing the latter Hammersley was -reclining, when Finella, after changing her driving dress, came into -the drawing-room, and finely her costume suited her dark and piquante -style of beauty. She wore a cream-coloured silk, profusely trimmed -with filmy lace, and a cluster of scarlet flowers on the left -shoulder among the lace of the collarette that encircled her slender -neck; and Hammersley, as he looked at her, thought that 'beauty -unadorned' was rather a fallacy. - -His undisguised expression of admiration as he partly rose to receive -her caused her to colour a little, as she inquired if his hurt was -easier now; but, instead of replying, he said, while venturing -slightly to touch her hand: - -'Tell me, Miss Melfort, how you came by your dear pretty name of -Finella? Not from Finella in "Peveril of the Peak"?' - -'Ah, I am very unlike her!' - -'You are certainly quite as charming!' - -'But neither dumb nor pretending to be so,' said the girl, with one -of her silvery little laughs. - -'Finella!' said Hammersley, as if to himself, in a low and -unconsciously loving tone; 'whence the name? Is it a family one?' - -'Don't you know?' she asked. - -'How could I know? I know only that I will never forget it.' - -'Of course you could not know. The origin of my name is one of the -oldest legends of the Howe of the Mearns.' - -'Howe--that is Scotch for "hollow," I believe.' - -'No; "hollow" is the English for _howe_,' replied Finella, laughing, -as she recalled a quip of Boucicault's to the same purpose. 'You saw -the great old castle we passed in our drive home?' - -'Yes.' - -'Well, I am called Finella from a lady who lived there.' - -'After it fell into ruin?' - -'No; before it.' - -'Then she must have lived a precious long time ago.' - -'She certainly did--some--nearly a thousand years ago.' - -'What a little quiz you are! Now, Miss Melfort, what joke is this?' - -'No joke at all,' said she, quite seriously; 'you can read about it -in our family history--or I shall read it to you in the "Book of -Fettercairn."' - -She took from a table near a handsome volume, which her -grandfather--to please whom she was named Finella--had in a spirit of -family vanity prepared for private circulation, and as if to connect -his title with antiquity, prefaced by a story well known in ancient -Scottish history, though little known to the Scots of the present day. - -We give it from his Lordship's book verbatim as she read it to Vivian -Hammersley, who--cunning rogue--was not indisposed with such a -charming and sympathetic companion as Finella to make the most of his -fall, and reclined rather luxuriously on the velvet lounge, while -she, seated in a dainty little chair, read on; but he scarcely -listened, so intent was he on watching her sweet face, her white and -perfect ears, her downcast eyelids with their long lashes--her whole -self! - -The Melforts, Lords Fettercairn (Strathfinella) and of that Ilk, take -their hereditary title from the old castle of that name, which stands -in the Howe of the Mearns, and is sometimes called the Castle of -Finella. It is situated on an eminence, and is now surrounded on -three sides by a morass. It is enclosed within an inner and an outer -wall of oblong form, and occupying half an acre of ground. The inner -is composed of vitrified matter, but no lime has been used in its -construction. The walls are a congeries of small stones cemented -together by some molten matter, now harder than the stones -themselves; and the remarkable event for which this castle is -celebrated in history is the following: - -When Kenneth III., a wise and valiant king (who defeated the Danes at -the battle of Luncarty, and created on that field the Hays, Earls of -Errol, Hereditary Constables of Scotland, and leaders of the Feudal -cavalry, thus originating also the noble families of Tweeddale and -Kinnoull), was on the throne, his favourite residence was the castle -of Kincardine, the ruins of which still remain about a mile eastward -of the village of Fettercairn, and from thence he went periodically -to pay his devotions at the shrine of St. Palladius, Apostle of the -Scots, to whom the latter had been sent by Pope Celestine in the -sixth century to oppose the Pelagian heresy, and whose bones at -Fordoun were enclosed in a shrine of gold and precious stones in 1409 -by the Bishop of St. Andrews. - -The king had excited the deadly hatred of Finella, the Lady of -Fettercairn, daughter of the Earl of Angus, by having justly put to -death her son, who was a traitor and had rebelled against him in -Lochaber; and, with the intention of being revenged, she prepared at -Fettercairn a singular engine or 'infernal machine,' with which to -slay the king. - -This engine consisted of a brass statue, which shot out arrows when a -golden apple was taken from its hand. - -Kenneth was at Kincardine, engaged in hunting the deer, wolf, the -badger and the boar, when she treacherously invited him to her castle -of Fettercairn, which was then, as Buchanan records, 'pleasant with -shady groves and piles of curious buildings,' of which there remained -no vestiges when he wrote in the days of James VI.; and thither the -king rode, clad in a rich scarlet mantle, white tunic, an eagle's -wing in his helmet, and on its crest a glittering _clach-bhuai_, or -stone of power, one of the three now in the Scottish regalia. - -Dissembling her hate, she entertained the king very splendidly, and -after dinner conducted him out to view the beauties of the place and -the structure of her castle; and Kenneth, pleased with her beauty -(which her raiment enhanced), for she wore a dress of blue silk, -without sleeves, a mantle of fine linen, fastened by a brooch of -silver, and all her golden hair floating on her shoulders, -accompanied her into a tower, where, in an upper apartment, and amid -rich festooned arras and 'curious sculptures' stood the infernal -machine. - -She courteously and smilingly requested the king to take the golden -apple from the right hand of the statue; and he, amazed by the -strange conceit, did so; on this a rushing sound was heard within it -as a string or cord gave way, and from its mouth there came forth two -barbed arrows which mortally wounded him, and he fell at her feet. - -Finella fled to Den Finella, and Kenneth was found by his retinue -'_bullerand in his blude_.' - -Den Finella, says a writer, is said, in the genuine spirit of -legendary lore, to have obtained its name from this princess, who, -the more readily to evade her pursuers, stepped from the branches of -one tree to those of another the whole way from her castle to this -den, which is near the sea, in the parish of St. Cyres, as all the -country then was a wild forest. - -Buchanan deems all this story a fable, though asserted by John Major -and Hector Boece, and thinks it more probable that the king was slain -near Fettercairn in an ambush prepared by Finella. - -So ended the legend. - -As the girl read on, Vivian Hammersley had bent lower and lower over -her, till the tip of his moustache nearly touched her rich dark hair, -and his arm all but stole round her. Finella Melfort was quite -conscious of this close proximity, and though she did not shrink from -it, that consciousness made her colour deepen and her sweet voice -become unsteady. - -'That is the story of Finella of Fettercairn,' said she, closing the -book. - -'And to this awful legend of the dark ages, which only wants -blue-fire, lime-light, and a musical accompaniment to set it off, you -owe your name?' said he, laughingly. - -'Yes--it was grandfather's whim.' - -'It is odd that you--the belle of the last London season, should be -named after such a grotesque old termagant!' - -She looked up at him smilingly, and then, as their eyes met, the -expression of that glance exchanged beside the well on the hills came -into them again; heart spoke to heart; he bent his face nearer hers, -and his arm went round her in earnest. - -'Finella, my darling!' escaped him, and as he kissed her unresisting -lips, her blushing face was hidden on his shoulder. - -And _this_ tableau was the result of the two days' shooting--a sudden -result which neither Shafto nor Hammersley had quite foreseen. - -Of how long they remained thus neither had any idea. Time seemed to -stand still with them. Finella was only conscious of his hand -caressing hers, which lay so willingly in his tender, yet firm, clasp. - -Hammersley in the gush of his joy felt oblivious of all the world. -He could think of nothing but Finella, while the latter seemed -scarcely capable of reflection at all beyond the existing thought -that he loved her, and though the avowal was a silent and unuttered -one, the new sense of all it admitted and involved, seemed to -overwhelm the girl; her brightest day-dreams had come, and she -nestled, trembling and silent, by his side. - -The unwelcome sound of voices and also of carriage-wheels on the -terrace roused them. He released her hand, stole one more clinging -kiss, and forgetful of his fall and all about it started with -impatience to his feet. - -Lady Fettercairn and her lady guests had returned from the -flower-show, and to avoid them and all the world, for a little time -yet, the lovers, with their hearts still beating too wildly to come -down to commonplace, tacitly wandered hand in hand into the recesses -of a conservatory, and lingered there amid the warm, flower-scented -atmosphere and shaded aisles, in what seemed a delicious dream. - -Finella was conscious that Vivian Hammersley was talking to her -lovingly and caressingly, in a low and tender voice as he had never -talked before, and she felt that she was 'Finella'--the dearest and -sweetest name in the world to him--and no more Miss Melfort. - -* * * * - -It would be difficult, and superfluous perhaps, to describe the -emotions of these two during the next few days. - -Though now quite aware that Finella and Hammersley had met each other -frequently before, Shafto's surprise at their intimacy, though -apparently undemonstrative, grew speedily into suspicious anger. He -felt intuitively that _his_ presence made not the slightest -difference to them, though he did not forget it; and he failed to -understand how 'this fellow' had so quickly gained his subtle and -familiar position with Finella.' - -It galled him to the quick to see and feel all this, and know that he -could never please her as she seemed to be pleased with Hammersley; -for her colour heightened, her eyes brightened, and her eyelashes -drooped and flickered whenever he approached or addressed her. - -Shafto thought of his hopes of gaining Finella and her fortune -against any discovery that might be made of the falsehood of his -position, and so wrath and hatred gathered in his heart together. - -He was baffled at times by her bright smiles and pretty, irresistible -manner, but nevertheless he 'put his brains in steep' to scheme again. - - - - -CHAPTER XV. - -AT REVELSTOKE AGAIN. - -Meanwhile sore trouble had come upon Dulcie Carlyon in her Devonshire -home. - -Her father had been dull and gloomy of late, and had more than once -laid his hand affectionately on her ruddy golden hair, and said in a -prayerful way that 'he hoped he might soon see her well married, and -that she might never be left friendless!' - -'Why such thoughts, dear papa?' she would reply. - -Dulcie had felt a sense of apprehension for some time past. Was it -born of her father's forebodings, or of the presentiment about which -she had conversed with Florian? A depression hung over her--an -undefinable dread of some great calamity about to happen. At night -her sleep was restless and broken, and by day a vague fear haunted -her. - -The evil boded was to happen soon now. - -With these oppressive thoughts mingled the memory of the tall and -handsome dark-eyed lad she loved--it seemed so long ago, and she -longed to hear his voice again, and for his breast to lay her head -upon. But where was Florian now? Months had passed without her -hearing of him, and she might never hear again! - -Little could she have conceived the foul trick that Shafto had played -them both in the matter of the locket; but, unfortunately for -herself, she had not seen the last of that enterprising young -gentleman. - -She felt miserably that her heart was lonely and heavy, and that, -young as she was, light and joy, with the absence and ruin of -Florian, had gone out of her life. She was alone always with her -great sorrow, and longed much for tears; but as her past life had -been a happy and joyous one, Dulcie Carlyon had been little--if at -all--given to them. - -One morning her father did not appear at breakfast as usual. As yet -undressed her red-golden hair, that the old man loved to stroke and -caress, was floating in a great loose mass on her back and shoulders, -and her blue eyes looked bright and clear, if thoughtful. - -She had, as was her daily wont, arranged his letters, cut and aired -the morning papers for him, adjusted a vase of fresh flowers on the -table, with a basket of delicate peaches, which she knew he liked, -from the famous south wall of the garden, with green fig leaves round -them, for Dulcie did everything prettily and tastefully, however -trivial. Then she cut and buttered his bread, poured out his tea, -and waited. - -Still he did not appear. She knocked on his bedroom door, but -received no answer, and saw, with surprise, that his boots were still -on the mat outside. - -She peeped in and called on him--'Papa, papa!' but there was no -response. - -The room was empty, and the morning sun streamed through the -uncurtained window. The bed had not been slept in! Again she called -his name, and rushed downstairs in alarm and affright. - -The gas was burning in his writing-room; the window was still closed -as it had been overnight; and there, in his easy chair, with his -hands and arms stretched out on the table, sat Llewellen Carlyon, -with his head bent forward, asleep as Dulcie thought when she saw him. - -'Poor papa,' she murmured; 'he has actually gone to sleep over his -horrid weary work.' - -She leaned over his chair; wound her soft arms round his neck and -bowed grey head--her lovely blue eyes melting with tenderness, her -sweet face radiant with filial love, till, as she laid her cheek upon -it, a mortal chill struck her, and a low cry of awful dismay escaped -her. - -'What is this--papa?' - -She failed to rouse him, for his sleep was the sleep of death! - -It was disease of the heart, the doctors said, and he had thus passed -away--died in harness; a pen was yet clutched in his right hand, and -an unfinished legal document lay beneath it. - -Dulcie fainted, and was borne away by the servants to her own -room--they were old and affectionate country folks, who had been long -with Llewellen Carlyon, and loved him and his daughter well. - -Poor Dulcie remained long unconscious, the sudden shock was so -dreadful to her, and when she woke from it, the old curate, Mr. -Pentreath, who had baptized Florian and herself, was standing near -her bed. - -'My poor bruised lamb,' said he, kindly and tenderly, as he passed -his wrinkled hand over her rich and now dishevelled tresses. - -'What has happened?' she asked wildly. - -'You fainted, Dulcie.' - -'Why--I never fainted before.' - -'She don't seem to remember, sir,' whispered an old servant, who saw -the vague and wild inquiring expression of her eyes. - -'Drink this, child, and try to eat a morsel,' said the curate, -putting a cup of coffee and piece of toast before her. - -'Something happened--something dreadful--what was it--oh, what was -it?' asked Dulcie, putting her hands to her throbbing temples. - -'Drink, dear,' said the curate again. - -She drank of the coffee thirstily; but declined the bread. - -'I beat up an egg in the coffee,' said he; 'I feared you might be -unable to eat yet.' - -Her blue eyes began to lose their wandering and troubled look, and to -become less wild and wistful; then suddenly a shrill cry escaped her, -and she said, with a calmness more terrible and painful than fainting -or hysterics: - -'Oh, I remember now--papa--poor papa--dead! Found dead! Oh, my God! -help me to bear it, or take me too--take me too!' - -'Do not speak thus, child,' said Mr. Pentreath gently. - -'How long ago was it--yesterday--a month ago, or when? I seem--I -feel as if I had grown quite old, yet you all look just the -same--just the same; how is this?' - -'My child,' said the curate, with dim eyes, 'your dire calamity -happened but a short time ago--little more than an hour since.' - -Her response was a deep and heavy sob, that seemed to come from her -overcharged heart rather than her slender throat, and which was the -result of the unnatural tension of her mind. - -'Come to my house with me,' said the kind old curate; but Dulcie -shook her head. - -'I cannot leave papa, dead or alive. I wish to be with him, and -alone.' - -'I shall not leave you so; it is a mistake in grief to avoid contact -with the world. The mind only gets sadder and deeper into its gloom -of melancholy. If you could but sleep, child, a little.' - -'Sleep--I feel as if I had been asleep for years; and it was this -morning, you tell me--only this morning I had my arms round his -neck--dead--my darling papa dead!' - -She started to her feet as if to go where the body lay under the now -useless hands of the doctor, but would have fallen had she not -clutched for support at Mr. Pentreath, who upheld and restrained her. - -The awful thought of her future loneliness now that she had thus -suddenly lost her father, as she had not another relation in the -world, haunted the unhappy Dulcie, and deprived her of the power of -taking food or obtaining sleep. - -In vain her old servants, who had known her from infancy, coaxed her -to attempt both, but sleep would not come, and the food remained -untasted before her. - -'A little water,' she would say; 'give me a little water, for thirst -parches me.' - -All that passed subsequently seemed like one long and terrible dream -to Dulcie. She was alone in the world, and when her father was laid -in his last home at Revelstoke, within sound of the tumbling waves, -in addition to being alone she found herself well-nigh penniless, for -her father had nothing to leave her but the old furniture of the -house they had inhabited. - -That was sold, and she was to remain with the family of the curate -till some situation could be procured for her. - -She had long since ceased to expect any letter from or tidings of -Florian. She began to think that perhaps, amid the splendour of his -new relations, he had forgotten her. Well, it was the way of the -world. - -Never would she forget the day she quitted her old home. Her -father's hat, his coat and cane were in the hall; all that he had -used and that belonged to him were still there, to bring his presence -before her with fresh poignancy, and to impress upon her that she was -fatherless, all but friendless, and an orphan. - -The superstitious people about Revelstoke now remembered that in -Lawyer Carlyon's garden, blossom and fruit had at the same time -appeared on more than one of his apple-trees, a certain sign of -coming death to one of his household. But who can tell in this -ever-shifting world what a day may bring forth! - -One evening--she never forgot it--she had been visiting her father's -grave, and was slowly quitting the secluded burial-ground, when a man -like a soldier approached her in haste. - -'Florian!' She attempted to utter his name, but it died away on her -bloodless lips. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI. - -''TIS BUT THE OLD, OLD STORY.' - -A poet says: - - 'Not by appointment do we meet delight - And joy: they need not our expectancy. - But round some corner in the streets of life, - They on a sudden clasp us with a smile.' - - -Florian it was who stood before her, but though he gazed at her -earnestly, wistfully, and with great pity in his tender eyes as he -surveyed her pale face and deep mourning, he made no attempt to take -the hands she yearningly extended towards him. She saw that he was -in the uniform of a private soldier, over which he wore a light -dust-coat as a sort of disguise, but there was no mistaking his -glengarry--that head-dress which is odious and absurd for English and -Irish regiments, and which in his instance bore a brass badge--the -sphinx, for Egypt. - -He looked thin, gaunt, and pale, and anon the expression of his eye -grew doubtful and cloudy. - -'Florian!' exclaimed Dulcie in a piercing voice, in which something -of upbraiding blended with tones of surprise and grief; and yet the -fact of his presence seemed so unreal that she lingered for a moment -before she flung herself into his arms, and was clasped to his -breast. 'Oh, what is the meaning of this dress?' she asked, lifting -her face and surveying him again. - -'It means that I am a soldier--like him whose son I thought myself--a -soldier of the Warwickshire Regiment,' replied Florian with some -bitterness of tone. - -'Oh, my God, and has it come to this!' said Dulcie wringing her -interlaced fingers. 'Could not Shafto--your cousin----' - -'Shafto cast me off--seemed as if he could not get rid of me too -soon.' - -'How cruel, when he might have done so much for you, to use you so!' - -'I had no other resort, Dulcie; I would not stoop to seek favours -even from him, and our paths in life will never cross each other -again; but a time may come--I know not when--in which I may seek -forgiveness of enemies as well as friends--the bad and the good -together--for a soldier's life is one of peril.' - -'Of horror--to me!' wailed Dulcie, weeping freely on his breast. - -'This tenderness is strange, Dulcie! Why did you cast me off in my -utter adversity and return to me my locket?' - -Dulcie looked up in astonishment. - -'What _do_ you mean, Florian--have you lost your senses?' she asked -in sore perplexity. 'Where have you come from last?' - -'Plymouth; in a paper there I saw a notice of your terrible loss, and -resolved to see, even if I could not speak with you.' - -'And you came----' - -'To see you, my lost darling, once again. Oh, Dulcie, I thought I -should die if I left England and sailed for Africa without doing so. -I got a day's leave and am here.' - -'But why have you done this?' - -'This--what?' - -'Soldiering!' - -'Penniless, hopeless, what else could I do?--besides, I thought you -had cast me off when you sent me back this locket,' he added, -producing the gift referred to. - -'That locket was stolen from me on the night you left -Revelstoke--literally wrenched from my neck, as I told you in my -letter--the letter you never answered.' - -'I received no letter, Dulcie--but your locket was taken from you by -whom?' - -'Shafto.' - -'The double villain! He must have intercepted that letter, and -utilised the envelope with its postmarks and stamps to deceive me, -and effect a breach between us.' - -'Thank God you came, dearest Florian!' - -'I thought you had renounced me, Dulcie, and now I almost wish you -had.' - -'Why?' - -'It is little use to remember me now--I am so poor and hopeless.' - -'After all,' said she, taking his face between her hands caressingly, -'what does poverty matter if we love each other still?' - -'And you love me, Dulcie--love me yet!' exclaimed Florian -passionately. - -'And shall never, never cease to do so.' - -'But I am so much beneath you now in position, Dulcie--and--and----' -his voice broke. - -'What, darling?' - -'May never rise.' - -'Would I be a true woman if I forsook you because you were -unfortunate?' - -'No; but you are more than a woman, Dulcie--you are a golden-haired -angel!' - -'My poor Florian, how gaunt and hollow your cheeks are! You have -suffered----' - -'Much since last we parted here in dear old Devonshire. But Shafto's -villainy surpasses all I could have imagined!' - -'And where is Shafto now?' - -'With his grand relations, I suppose. I am glad that we have -unravelled that which was to me a source of sorrow and dismay--the -returned locket. So you cannot take back your heart, Dulcie, nor -give me mine?' said Florian. - -'Nor would I wish to do so,' she replied, sweetly and simply. -'Though poor, we are all the world to each other now.' - -'Hard and matter-of-fact as our every-day existence is, there -is--even in these railway times--much of strange and painful romance -woven up with many a life; and so it seems to be with mine--with -ours, Dulcie.' - -'Oh that I were rich, Florian, or that you were so!' exclaimed the -girl, as a great pity filled her heart, when she thought of her -lover's blighted life, their own baffled hopes, and the humble and -most perilous course that was before him in South Africa, where the -clouds of war were gathering fast. 'I, too, am poor, Florian--very -poor; dear papa died involved, leaving me penniless, and I must cast -about to earn my own bread.' - -'This is horrible--how shall I endure it?' said he fiercely, while -regarding her with a loving but haggard expression in his dark eyes. - -'What would you have done if you had not met me by chance here?' - -'Loafed about till the last moment, and then done something -desperate. I _would_ have seen you, and after that--the Deluge! In -two days we embark at Plymouth,' he added, casting a glance at the -old church of Revelstoke and its burying-ground. 'There our parents -lie, Dulcie--yours at least, and those that I, till lately, thought -were mine. There is something very strange and mysterious in this -change of relationship and position between Shafto and myself. I -cannot understand it. Why was I misled all my life by one who loved -me so well? How often have I stood with the Major by a gravestone -yonder inscribed with the name of Flora MacIan and heard him repeat -while looking at it-- - - 'A thousand would call the spot dreary - Where thou takest thy long repose; - But a rude couch is sweet to the weary, - And the frame that suffering knows. - I never rejoiced more sincerely - Than at thy funeral hour, - Assured that the one I loved dearly - Was beyond affliction's power! - -Why did he quote all this to me, and tell me never to forget that -spot, or who was buried there, if she was only Shafto's aunt, and not -my mother?' - -Florian felt keenly for the position of Dulcie Carlyon, and the -perils and mortifications that might beset her path now; but he was -too young, too healthy and full of animal life and spirits, to be -altogether weighed down by the thought of his humble position and all -that was before him; and now that he had seen her again, restored to -her bosom the locket, and that he knew she was true to him, and had -never for a moment wavered in her girlish love, life seemed to become -suddenly full of new impulses and hopes for him, and he thought -prayerfully that all might yet be well for them both. - -But when? - -To Dulcie there seemed something noble in the hopeful spirit that, -under her influence, animated her grave lover now. He seemed to -become calm, cool, steadfast, and, hap what might, she felt he would -ever be true to her. - -He seemed brave and tender and true--'tender and true' as a Douglas -of old, and Dulcie thought how pleasant and glorious it would be to -have such a handsome young husband as he to take care of her always, -and see that all she did was right and proper and wise. - -A long embrace, and he was gone to catch the inexorable train. She -was again alone, and for the first time she perceived that the sun -had set, that the waves looked black as they rounded Revelstoke -promontory, and that all the landscape had grown dark, desolate, and -dreary. - -What a hopeless future seemed to stretch before these two creatures, -so young and so loving! - -Florian was gone--gone to serve as a private soldier on the burning -coast of Africa. It seemed all too terrible, too dreadful to think -of. - -'Every morning and evening I shall pray for you, Florian,' wailed the -girl in her heart; 'pray that you may be happy, good, and rich, -and--and that we shall yet meet in heaven if we never meet on earth.' - -On the second morning after this separation, when Dulcie was pillowed -in sleep, and the rising sun was shining brightly on the waves that -rolled in Cawsand Bay and danced over the Mewstone, a great white -'trooper' came out of Plymouth Sound under sail and steam, with the -blue-peter flying at its foremasthead, her starboard side crowded -with red coats, all waving their caps and taking a farewell look at -Old England--the last look it proved to many--and, led by Bob -Edgehill, a joyous, rackety, young private of the Warwickshire, -hundreds of voices joined chorusing: - - 'Merrily, my lads, so ho! - They may talk of a life at sea, - But a life on the land - With sword in hand - Is the life, my lads, for me!' - - -But there was one young soldier whose voice failed him in the chorus, -and whose eyes rested on Stoke Point and the mouth of the Yealm till -these and other familiar features of the coast melted into the -widening Channel. - -Dulcie was roused to exertion from the stupor of grief that had come -upon her by tidings that a situation had been found for her as -companion--one in which she would have to make herself useful, -amiable, and agreeable in the family of a lady of rank and wealth, to -whom she would be sent by influential friends of Mr. Pentreath in -London. - -The poor girl thought tearfully how desolate was her lot now, cast to -seek her bread among utter strangers; and if she became ill, -delicate, or unable to work, what would become of her? - -Her separation from Florian seemed now greater than ever; but, as -Heine has it: - - 'Tis but the old, old story, - Yet it ever abideth new; - And to whomsoever it cometh - The heart it breaks in two.' - - -To leave Revelstoke seemed another wrench. - -Dulcie had been born and bred there, and all the villagers in -Revelstoke loved and knew Lawyer Carlyon well, and were deeply -interested in the future of his daughter; thus, on the day of her -departure no one made any pretence of work or working. Heads were -popping out and in of the windows of the village street all morning, -and a cluster--a veritable crowd--of kindly folks accompanied Mr. -Pentreath and the weeping girl to the railway station, for she wept -freely at all this display of regard and sympathy, especially from -the old, whom she might never see again. - -When the train swept her away, and she lost sight of the last -familiar feature of her native place, a strange and heavy sense of -utter desolation came over poor Dulcie, and but for the presence of -other passengers she would have stooped her head upon her hot hands -and sobbed aloud, for she thought of her dead parents--when did she -not think of them now? - -'Oh!' exclaims a writer, 'if those who have loved and gone before us -can see afar off those they have left, surely the mother who had -passed from earth might tremble now for her child, standing so -terribly alone in the midst of a seething sea of danger and -temptations?' - - - - -CHAPTER XVII. - -AT CRAIGENGOWAN. - -With the new understanding--the tacit engagement that existed between -herself and Vivian Hammersley--Finella writhed with annoyance when -privately and pointedly spoken to on the subject of her 'cousin' -Shafto's attentions and hopes. - -'Grandmamma,' said she to Lady Fettercairn, 'I don't see why I may -not marry whom I please. I am not like a poor girl who has nothing -in the world. Indeed, in that case I am pretty sure that neither you -nor cousin Shafto would want me.' - -'She must settle soon,' said Lady Fettercairn, when reporting this -plain reply to Lady Drumshoddy. 'I certainly shall not take her to -London again, yet awhile.' - -'You are right,' replied that somewhat grim matron; 'and when once -this Captain Hammersley, who, to my idea, is somewhat too _èpris_ -with her, is gone, you can easily find some pretext for remaining at -Craigengowan; or shall I have her with me?' - -'As you please,' replied Lady Fettercairn, who knew that the -Drumshoddy _mènage_ did not always suit the taste of Finella; 'but I -think she is better here--propinquity and all that sort of thing may -be productive of good. I know that poor Shafto's mind is quite made -up, and, as I said before, she must settle soon. We can't have -twenty thousand a year slipping out of the family.' - -Finella thought little of their wishes or those of Shafto. She -thought only of that passionate hour in the lonely drawing-room, -where she was alone with Vivian, and his lips were pressed to hers; -of the close throb of heart to heart, and that the great secret of -her young girl's life was his now and hers no longer, but aware of -the opposition and antagonism he would be sure to encounter just -then, she urged upon him a caution and a secrecy of the engagement -which his proud spirit somewhat resented. - -He thought it scarcely honourable to take advantage of Lord -Fettercairn's hospitality, and gain the love of Finella without his -permission; but as both knew that would never be accorded--that to -ask for it would cut short his visit, and as he was so soon going on -distant service, with Finella he agreed that their engagement should -be kept a secret till his return. - -And to blind the eyes of the watchful or suspicious he actually found -himself flirting with one of the Miss Kippilaws, three young ladies -who thought they spoke the purest English, though it was with that -accent which Basil Hall calls 'the hideous patois of Edinburgh;' and, -perceiving this, Lady Fettercairn became somewhat contented, and -Finella was excessively amused. - -Not so the astute Shafto. - -'It is all a d----d game!' muttered that young gentleman; 'a red -herring drawn across the scent.' - -'Why do you look so unhappy, dearest?' asked Finella one evening, -when she and her lover found themselves alone for a few minutes, -during which she had been contemplating his dark face in silence. - -'My leave of absence is running out so fast--by Jove, faster than -ever apparently now!' - -'Is that the sole reason?' asked the girl softly and after a pause, -her dark eyes darkening and seeming to become more intense. - -'No,' he replied, with hesitation. - -'Tell me, then--what is the other?' - -'You know how I love you----' - -'And I--you.' - -'But in one sense my love is so liable to misconstruction--so -hopeless of proof.' - -'Hopeless, Vivian--after all I have admitted?' she asked -reproachfully. - -'I mean because I am almost penniless as compared to you.' - -'What does that matter? Surely I have enough for two,' said she, -laughing. - -'And I fear the bitter opposition of your family.' - -'So do I; but don't mind it,' said the independent little beauty. - -'I have heard a rumour that one of the Melforts who made a pure -love-marriage was cut off root and branch.' - -'That was poor Uncle Lennard, before I was born. Well--they can't -cut _me_ off.' - -'They will never consent; and when I am far away, as I soon shall be, -if their evil influence----' - -'Should prevail with me? Oh, Vivian!' exclaimed the girl, her dark -eyes sparkling through their unshed tears. 'Think not of their -influencing me, for a moment.' - -'Thank you a thousand times for the assurance, my love. It was vile -of me to think of such things. I have a sure conviction that your -cousin Shafto dislikes me most certainly,' said Hammersley, after a -pause. - -'I don't doubt it,' said she. - -'They mean you for him.' - -'They--who?' - -'Your grandparents.' - -'I know they do--but don't tease me by speaking of a subject so -distasteful,' exclaimed Finella, making a pretty moue expression of -disdain. - -He pressed a kiss on her brow, another on her hair, and his lips -quickly found their way to hers, after they had been pressed on her -snow-white eyelids. - -'I love you with my whole heart, Finella,' he exclaimed passionately. - -'And I you,' said the artless girl again, in that style of iteration -of which lovers never grow weary, with an adoring upward glance, -which it was a pity the gathering gloom prevented him from seeing. - -As they walked slowly towards the house, she quickly withdrew her -hands, which were clasped clingingly to his arm, as Shafto approached -them suddenly. He saw the abrupt act, and drew his own conclusions -therefrom, and, somewhat to Finella's annoyance, turned abruptly away. - -'So that is the amiable youth for whom they design you,' said he in a -whisper. - -'Did I not say you were not to speak of him? To tell you the truth, -I am at times somewhat afraid of him.' - -'My darling--I must give you an amulet--a charm against his evil -influence,' said Hammersley, laughing, as he slipped a ring on her -wedding-finger, adding, 'I hope it fits.' - -'What is this--oh, Vivian! actually a wedding-ring--but I cannot -wear, though I may keep it.' - -'Then wear this until you can, when I return, darling,' said he, as -he slipped a gemmed ring on the tiny finger, and stooping, kissed it. - -'My heart's dearest!' cooed the girl happily. 'Well, Vivian, none -other than the hoop you have now given me shall be my wedding-ring!' - -Had Lady Fettercairn overheard all this she would have had good -reason to fear that Finella's twenty thousand a year was slipping -away from the Craigengowan family, all the more so that the scene of -this tender interview was a spot below the mansion-house, said to be -traditionally fatal to the Melforts of Fettercairn, the Howe of -Craigengowan--for there a terrible adventure occurred to the first -Lord, he who sold his Union vote, and of whom the men of the Mearns -were wont to say he had not only sold his country to her enemies, but -that he had also sold his soul to the evil one. - -It chanced that in the gloaming of the 28th of April, 1708, the first -anniversary of that day on which the Scottish Parliament dissolved to -meet no more, he was walking in a place which he had bought with his -Union bribe--the Howe of Craigengowan, then a secluded dell, -overshadowed by great alders and whin bushes--when he saw at the -opposite end the figure of a man approaching pace for pace with -himself, and his outline was distinctly seen against the red flush of -the western sky. - -As they neared each other slowly, a strange emotion of superstitious -awe stole into the hard heart of Lord Fettercairn. So strong was -this that he paused for a minute, and rested on his cane. The -stranger did precisely the same. - -The peer--the ex-Commissioner on Forfeited Estates--'pulled himself -together,' and put his left hand jauntily into the silver hilt of his -sword--a motion imitated exactly, and to all appearance mockingly, by -the other, whose gait, bearing, and costume--a square-skirted crimson -coat, a long-flapped white vest, black breeches and stockings rolled -over the knee, and a Ramillie wig--were all the same in cut and -colour as his own! - -Lord Fettercairn afterwards used to assert that he would never be -able to describe the undefinable, the strange and awful sensation -that crept over him when, as they neared each other, pace by pace, he -saw in the other's visage the features of himself reproduced, as if -he had been looking into a mirror. - -A cold horror ran through every vein. He knew and felt that his own -features were pallid and convulsed with mortal terror and dismay, -while he could see that those of his dreadful counterpart were -radiant with spite and triumphant malice. - -Himself seemed to look upon himself--the same in face, figure, dress; -every detail was the same, save that the other clutched a canvas bag, -inscribed '£500' the price of the Union vote (or, as some said, the -price of his soul)--on seeing which my Lord Fettercairn shrieked in -an agony of terror, and fell prone on his face--a fiendish yell and -laugh from the other making all the lonely Howe re-echo as he did so. - -How long he lay there he knew not precisely; but when he opened his -eyes the pale April moon was shining down the Howe, producing weird -and eerie shadows, the alder and whin bushes looked black and gloomy, -and the window lights were shining redly in the tall and sombre mass -of Craigengowan, the gables, turrets, and vanes of which stood up -against the starry sky. - -He never quite recovered the shock, but died some years after; and -even now on dark nights, when owls hoot, ravens croak, toads crawl, -and the clock at Craigengowan strikes twelve, something strange--no -one can exactly say what--is to be seen in the Howe, even within -sound of the railway engine. - -But to resume our own story: - -Though a day for parting--for a separation involving distance, time, -and no small danger to one--was inexorably approaching, Finella was -very happy just then, with a happiness she had never known before, -and with a completeness that made life--even to her who had known -London for a brilliant season--seem radiant. She had been joyous -like a beautiful bird, and content, too, before the renewal and -fuller development of her intimacy with Vivian Hammersley; but she -was infinitely more joyous and content now. ''Twas but the old, old -story' of a girl's love, and in all her sentiments and all her hopes -for the future Vivian shared. - -The beautiful dreams of a dual life had been partly--if not -fully--realised through him, who seemed to her a perfect being, a -perfect hero: though he was only a smart linesman, a handsome young -fellow like a thousand others, yet he possessed every quality to -render a girl happy. - -Shafto felt that Hammersley had quite 'cut the ground from under his -feet' with Finella, as he phrased it; and hating him in consequence, -and being a master in cunning and finesse, wonderfully so for his -years, he resolved to get 'the interloper's' visit to Craigengowan -cut short at all hazards, and he was not long in putting his scheme -in operation. - -The lovers thus were not quite unconscious of being watched by eyes -that were quickened by avarice, passion, and jealousy; yet, withal, -they were very, very happy--in Elysium, in fact. - -Finding that Hammersley had suddenly become averse to gambling, after -a long day among the grouse, Shafto strove hard to lure him into play -one evening in the smoke-room. - -Hammersley declined, aware that Shafto was remarkably sharp at cards, -having become somewhat efficient after years of almost nightly play -in the bar-room of the Torrington Arms at Revelstoke. - -Shafto's manner on this evening became almost insulting, and he -taunted him with 'taking deuced good care of such money as he had.' - -''Pon my soul, young fellow, do you know that you are -rather--well--ah--rude?' said Hammersley, removing his cigar for a -moment and staring at the speaker. - -'Sorry, but it's my way,' replied Shafto. - -'Perhaps you had better make that your way,' said Hammersley, his -brown cheek reddening as he indicated the room-door with his cigar. -Then suddenly remembering that he must preserve certain amenities, -and as guest--especially one circumstanced as he was secretly--he -pushed his cigar-case towards Shafto, saying--'Try one of these--they -are Rio Hondos, and are of the best kind.' - -'Thanks, I prefer my own,' said Shafto, sulkily. - -At last, piqued by the manner of the latter, and having been lured -into drinking a little more brandy and soda than was good for him -after dinner, the unsuspecting Englishman sat down to play, and -though he did so carelessly, his success was wonderful, for, while -not caring to win, he won greatly. - -Higher and higher rose the stakes, till a very considerable sum had -passed into his hands, and, handsome though Shafto's quarterly -allowance from his 'grandfather,' paid duly by Mr. Kippilaw, he could -not help the lengthening of his visage, and the growing pallor of it, -while his shifty eyes rolled about in his anxiety and anger; and Lord -Fettercairn and young Kippilaw, who were present, looked on--the -former with some annoyance, and the latter with amused interest. - -Quite suddenly, Kippilaw exclaimed: - -'Hey--what the deuce is this? Captain Hammersley, you have dropped a -card.' - -And he picked one up from that officer's side, and laid it on the -table. - -'The ace of spades! By heaven, you have _already_ played that card!' -exclaimed Shafto, with fierce triumph. - -'It is not mine!' said Hammersley, hotly. - -'Whose, then?' - -'How the devil should I know?' asked Hammersley, eyeing him firmly. - -'Your luck has been marvellous, but not so much so when we know that -you play with double aces,' said Shafto, throwing down his cards and -starting from the table, as the other did, now pallid with just rage. - -'Would you dare to insinuate?' began the officer, in a hoarse tone. - -'I insinuate nothing; but the disgraceful fact speaks for itself; and -I think you have been quite long enough among us in Craigengowan,' he -added, coarsely. - -Vivian Hammersley was pale as death, and speechless with rage. He -thought first of Finella and then of his own injured honour; and we -know not what turn this episode might have taken had not Lord -Fettercairn, who, we have said, had been quietly looking on from a -corner, said gravely, sharply, and even with pain, as he started -forward: - -'Shafto! I saw you drop _that card_, where Mr. Kippilaw picked it -up--drop it, whether purposely or not I do not say--but drop it you -did.' - -'Impossible, sir!' - -'It is _not_ impossible,' said the peer, irately; 'and I am not blind -or liable to make mistakes; and you too manifestly did so; whence -this foul accusation of a guest in my own house--a gentleman to whom -you owe a humble and most complete apology.' - -Shafto was speechless with rage and baffled spite at the new and -sudden turn his scheme had taken, and at being circumvented in his -own villainy. - -'My Lord Fettercairn, from my soul I thank you!' said Hammersley, -drawing himself up proudly, looking greatly relieved in mind, and, -turning next to Shafto, evidently waited for the suggested apology. - -But in that he was disappointed, as the 'heir' of Fettercairn turned -abruptly on his heel and left the room, leaving his lordship to make -the _amende_, which he did in very graceful terms. - -As it was impossible now for both to remain longer under the same -roof after a fracas of this kind, Hammersley proposed at once to take -his departure for the south by a morning train; but Lord Fettercairn, -who, with all his selfish shortcomings, had been shocked by the -episode, and by several other ugly matters connected with his newly -found 'grandson,' would by no means permit of that movement; and in -this spirit of hospitality even Lady Fettercairn joined, pressing him -to remain and finish his visit, as first intended, while Shafto, in a -gust of baffled rage and resentment, greatly to the relief of Finella -and of the domestics, betook himself to Edinburgh, thus for a time -leaving his rival more than ever in full possession of the field. - -'Whether she is influenced by Captain Hammersley I cannot say,' were -the parting words of Lady Fettercairn to this young hopeful; 'but you -seem by this last untoward affair to have lost even her friendship, -and it will be a dreadful pity, Shafto, if all her money should be -lost to you too.' - -And Shafto fully agreed with his 'dear grandmother' that it would be -a pity indeed. - -As a gentleman and man with a keen sense of honour, Hammersley -disliked exceedingly the secrecy of the engagement he had made with -Finella, and felt himself actually colour more than once when Lord -Fettercairn addressed him; but his compunctions about it grew less -when he thought of the awful escape he had made from a perilous -accusation, that might have 'smashed' him in the Service, and of the -trickery of which Shafto was capable--a trickery of which he had not -yet seen the end. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII. - -AT THE BUFFALO RIVER. - -The evening of the 10th January was closing in, and the blood-red -African sun, through a blended haze of gold and pale green, red and -fiery, seemed to linger like a monstrous crimson globe at the -horizon, tinging with the same hues the Buffalo River as its broad -waters flowed past the Itelizi Hill towards Rorke's Drift. - -There a picquet of the Centre or Second column of infantry (of the -army then advancing into Zululand), under Colonel Richard Glyn of the -24th Regiment, was posted for the night. The main body of the -picquet, under Lieutenant Vincent Sheldrake, a smart young officer, -was bivouacked among some mealies at a little distance from the bank -of the river, along the margin of which his advanced sentinels were -posted at proper distances apart, and there each man stood motionless -as a statue, in his red tunic and white tropical helmet, with his -rifle at the 'order,' and his eyes steadily fixed on that quarter in -which the Zulu army was supposed to be hovering. - -To reach the Buffalo River the various columns of Lord Chelmsford's -army could not march by regular roads, as no such thing exists in -Zululand, and the sole guides of our officers in selecting the line -of advance through these savage regions were the grass-covered ruts -left by the waggon-wheels of some occasional trader or sportsman in -past times. - -As the column had been halted for the night, at a considerable -distance in rear of the outlying picquet, the men of the latter had -their provisions with them ready cooked, and were now having their -supper in a grassy donga or hollow. The earthen floor was their -table, and Lieutenant Sheldrake, being more luxurious than the rest, -had spread thereon as a cloth an old sheet of the _Times_; but the -appetites of all were good, and their temperament cheery and hearty. -Their rifles were piled, and they brewed their coffee over a blazing -fire, the flame of which glowed on their sun-burned and beardless -young faces, and a few Kaffirs squatted round their own fire, -jabbered, gesticulated, and swallowed great mouthfuls of their -favourite liquor 'scoff.' - -Sheldrake was too ill or weary to attend closely to his own duties, -and the moment the evening meal was over, he desired the sergeant of -the picquet to 'go round the advanced sentries.' - -The sergeant, a young and slender man, and who was no other than -Florian, touched the barrel of his rifle and departed on his -mission--to visit the sentinels in rotation by the river bank, and -see that they were in communication with those of the picquets on the -right and left. - -The scenery around was savage and desolate; long feathery grass -covered the veldt for miles upon miles. The chief features in it -were some blue gum trees, and on a koppie, or little eminence, the -deserted ruins of a Boer farm under the shadow of a clump of -eucalyptus trees; and in the foreground were some bustards and blue -Kaffir cranes by the river bank. - -Short service and disease had given Florian rapid promotion; for our -soldiers, if brave, had no longer the power of manly endurance of -their predecessors under the old system. According to General -Crealock, the extreme youth of our soldiers in South Africa rendered -their powers for toil very small; while the Naval Brigade, composed -of older men, had scarcely ever a man in hospital. The Zulu campaign -was a very trying one; there were the nightly entrenchments, the -picquet duty amid high grass, and the absence of all confidence that -discipline and that long mutual knowledge of each other give in the -ranks. He added most emphatically that our younger soldiers were -unfit for European campaigning; that half the First Division were -'sick;' there were always some 200 weak lads in hospital, 'crawling -about like sick flies,' and, like him, every officer was dead against -the short-service system. - -The face of our young sergeant was handsome as ever; but it was -strangely altered since late events had come to pass. There was a -haggard and worn look in the features, particularly in the eyes. The -latter looked feverish and dim--their brightness less at times, while -a shadow seemed below them. - -Florian having, as he now deemed, no right to the name of Melfort, or -even that of MacIan, had enlisted under the latter name, as that by -which he had been known from infancy, lest he might make a false -attestation. The name of Gyle he shrank from, even if it was -his--which at times he doubted! His regiment was the brave old 24th, -or Second Warwickshire, which had been raised in the eventful year -1689 by Sir Edward Dering, Bart, of Surrenden-Dering, head of one of -the few undoubted Saxon families in England, and it was afterwards -commanded in 1695 by Louis, Marquis de Puizar. - -Second to none in the annals of war during the reigns of Anne and the -early Georges, the 24th in later times served with valour at the -first capture of the Cape of Good Hope, in the old Egyptian campaign, -in the wars of Spain and India, and now they were once again to cover -themselves with a somewhat clouded and desperate glory in conflict -with the gallant Zulus. - -Florian in his new career found himself occasionally among a somewhat -mixed and rough lot--the raw, weedy soldiers of the new disastrous -system--but there were many who were of a better type; and the -thought of Dulcie Carlyon--the only friend he had in the world, the -only human creature who loved him--kept him free from the temptations -and evil habits of the former; and he strove to live a steady, pure, -and brave life, that he might yet be worthy of her, and give her no -cause to blush for him. - -He got through his drilling as quickly as he could, and soon -discovered that the sooner a soldier takes his place in the ranks the -better for himself. He found that though many of his comrades were -noisy, talkative, and quarrelsome, that the English soldier quicker -than any other discovers and appreciates a gentleman. His officers -soon learned to appreciate him too, and hence the rapidity with which -he won his three chevrons, and Mr. Sheldrake felt that, young though -he was, he could trust Florian to go round the sentinels. - -Each was at his post, and the attention of each increased as the -gloom after sunset deepened, for none knew who or what might be -approaching stealthily and unseen among the long wavy grass and mossy -dongas that yawned amid the country in front. - -'Hush, Bob!' said he to his comrade, Edgehill, whom he heard singing -merrily to himself, 'you should be mute as a fish on outpost duty, -and keep your ears open as well as your eyes. What have you got in -your head, Bob, that makes you so silly? But, as the author of the -"Red Rag" says, we soldiers have not much in our heads at any time, -or we wouldn't go trying to stop cannon balls or bullets with them.' - -'Right you are, Sergeant,' replied Bob, 'but I can't think what made -you--a gentleman--enlist.' - -'Because I was bound to be a soldier, I suppose. And you?' - -'Through one I wish I never had seen?' - -'Who was that?' - - 'The handsome young girl, - With her fringe in curl, - That worked a sewing-machine,' - ---sung the irrepressible Bob; and Florian returned to report 'all -right' to Mr. Sheldrake. - -Though the actual cause of the Zulu war lies a little apart from our -story, it may be necessary to mention that we invaded the country of -Cetewayo after giving him a certain time, up to the 11th of January, -to accept our ultimatum; to adopt an alternative for war, by -delivering up certain of his subjects who had violated British -territory, attacked a police-station, and committed many -outrages,--among others, carrying off two women, one of whom they put -to a barbarous death near the Buffalo River. - -But instead of making any apology, or giving an indemnity, Cetewayo -prepared to defend himself at the head of an enormous army of hardy -Zulu warriors, all trained in a fashion of their own, divided into -strong regiments, furnished with powerful shields of ox-hide, and -armed with rifles, war clubs, and assegais--a name with which we are -now so familiar. The shaft of this weapon averages five feet in -length, with the diameter of an ordinary walking-stick, cut from the -assegai tree, which is not unlike mahogany in its fibre, and -furnished with a spear-head. Some are barbed, some double-barbed, -and the tang of the blade is fitted--when red-hot--into the wood, not -the latter into the blade, which is then secured by a thong of wet -hide, and is so sharp that the Zulu can shave his head with it; and -it is a weapon which they can launch with deadly and unerring skill. - -The Zulu king, says Captain Lucas, was unable to sign his own name, -'and was as ignorant and as savage as our Norman kings,' and he -thought no more of putting women, 'especially young girls, to death, -than Bluff King Hal' himself; yet a little time after all this was to -see him presented at Osborne, and to become the petted and fêted -exile of Melbury Road, Kensington. - -This night by the Buffalo River was Florian's first experience of -outpost duty, and he felt--though not the responsible party--anxious, -wakeful, and weary after a long and toilsome day's march. - -He knew enough of military matters to be well aware that the -importance of outposts, especially when dealing with a wily and -savage enemy, could scarcely be exaggerated, for no force, when -encamped in the field, can be deemed for a moment safe without them. -Thus it was a maxim of Frederick the Great that it was pardonable to -be defeated, but never to be surprised. - -'I don't understand all this change that has come over my life,' -thought he, as he stretched himself on the bare earth near the -picquet fire; 'but I wonder if my father and mother can see and think -of me where they are. Yet I sometimes feel,' he added, with a kind -of boyish gush in his heart, 'as if they were near me and watching -over me, so they must see and think too.' - -Where was Dulcie, then, and what was she doing? How supporting -herself, as she said she would have to do? Had she found friends, -or, months ago, been trodden, with all her tender beauty, down in the -mire of misfortune and adversity? - -These were maddening thoughts for one so far away and so utterly -powerless to help her as Florian felt himself, and rendered him at -times more reckless of his own existence because it was useless to -her. - -The air around was heavy with the dewy fragrance of strange and -tropical plants, and vast, spiky, and fan-shaped leaves cast their -shadows over him as he strove to snatch the proverbial 'forty winks' -before again going 'the rounds,' or posting the hourly reliefs, for -they are always hourly when before an enemy. - -And when our weary young soldier did sleep, he dreamt, not of the -quick-coming strife, nor even of blue-eyed Dulcie, with her wealth of -red golden hair, but, as the tender smile on his lips might have -showed, of the time when his mother watched him in his little cot, -with idolizing gaze, and when he, the now bronzed and moustached -soldier, was a little child, with rings of soft dusky hair curling -over his white forehead; when his cheeks had a rosy flush, and his -tiny mouth a smile, and she fondly kissed the little hands that lay -outside the snow-white coverlet her own deft fingers had made--the -two wee hands that held his mother's heart between them--the heart -that had long since mouldered by Revelstoke Church. - -And so he slept and dreamed till roused by the inevitable cry of -'Sentry, go!' and, that duty over, as he composed himself to sleep -again, with his knapsack under his head for a pillow, he thought as a -soldier-- - - 'To-day is ours. To-morrow never yet - On any human being rose or set!' - - - - -CHAPTER XIX. - -ELANDSBERGEN. - -Next morning when the picquet was relieved young Sheldrake, who paid -Hammersley's company in absence of the latter, who was soon expected -with a strong draft from England, said to Florian-- - -'Look here, MacIan, I've made a stupid mistake. The company's money -I have left among my heavier baggage in the fort beyond Elandsbergen, -and I have got the Colonel's permission to send you back for it. -This is just like me--I've a head, and so has a pin! The -Quartermaster will lend you his horse, and you can have my spare -revolver and ammunition. Have a cigar before you go,' he added, -proffering his case, 'and look sharp after yourself and the money. -There is a deuced unchancy lot in the quarter you are going back to. -We don't advance from this till to-morrow, so you have plenty of time -to be with us ere we cross the river, if you start at once.' - -'Very good, sir,' replied Florian, as he saluted and went away to -obtain the horse, the revolver, and to prepare for a duty which he -intensely disliked, and almost doubted his power to carry out, as it -took him rearward through a country of which he was ignorant, which -was almost without roads, and where he would be single-handed, if not -among savages, among those who were quite as bad, for in some of -these districts, as in the Orange Free State and Boerland, there -swarmed broken ruffians of every kind, many of them deserters; and, -says an officer, 'so great, in fact, was the number of these -undesirable specimens of our countrymen assembled in Harrysmith alone -that night was truly made hideous with their howlings, respectable -persons were afraid to leave their houses after nightfall, and the -report of revolvers ceased to elicit surprise or curiosity. I have -been in some of the most notorious camps and towns in the territories -and mining districts of the United States, but can safely assert that -I never felt more thankful than when I found my horse sufficiently -rested here to continue my journey.' There were lions, too, in the -wild plains, for some of our cavalry horses were devoured by them; -the tiger-cat and the aarde-wolf also. - -With a knowledge of all this Florian loaded his revolver, looked -carefully to the bridle and stirrup leathers of his horse, received a -note from Mr. Sheldrake to the officer commanding the little fort -near the foot of the Drakensberg, and left the camp of No. 2 column -on his solitary journey, steering his way by the natural features of -the country so far as he could recall them after the advance of the -10th January, and watching carefully for the wheel tracks or other -indications of a roadway leading in a westerly direction; and many of -his comrades, including Bob Edgehill, watched him with interest and -kindly anxiety till his white helmet disappeared as he descended into -a long grassy donga, about a mile from Rorke's Drift. - -The evening passed and the following day dawned--the important -12th--when Zululand was to be invaded at three points by the three -columns of Lord Chelmsford; the advance party detailed from Colonel -Glyn's brigade to reconnoitre the ground in front got under arms and -began to move off, and Sheldrake and others began to feel somewhat -uneasy, for there was still no appearance of the absent one. - -* * * * - -The country through which Florian rode was lonely, and farmhouses -were few and many miles apart. Its natural features were undulating -downs covered with tall waving grass, furrowed by deep, reedy -water-courses; here and there were abrupt rocky eminences, and dense -brushwood grew in the rugged kloofs and ravines. - -The air was delightful, and in spite of his thoughts the blood -coursed freely through his veins; his spirits rose, and, exhilarated -by the pace at which his horse went, he could not help giving a loud -'Whoop!' now and then when a gnu, with its curved horns and white -mane, or a hartebeest appeared on the upland slopes, or a baboon -grinned at him from amid the bushes of a kloof. - -Before him stretched miles of open and grassy veldt, and the -flat-topped hills of the Drakensberg range closed the horizon. The -vast stretch of plain, across which ever and anon swept herds of -beautiful little antelopes, was covered with luxuriant grass, which -seemed smooth as a billiard-table, and over it went the track, which -he was always afraid of losing. But, if pleasant to look upon, the -veldt was treacherous ground, for hidden by the grass were everywhere -deep holes burrowed by the ant-bears, and into these his horse's -forelegs sank ever and anon, to the peril of the animal and his rider -too. Thus Florian was compelled to proceed at a canter with his -reins loose, while he sat tight and prepared for swerving when his -nag, which was a native horse, prepared to dodge an apparent hole, -which they can do with wonderful sagacity. - -So Florian was not sorry when he left the veldt behind him, and after -a ride of about thirty miles saw the earthworks of the small fort at -the foot of Drakensberg appear in front with a little Union Jack -fluttering on a flagstaff. - -This was about mid-day. - -Anxious to return as soon as he could rest his horse, he lost no time -in delivering Sheldrake's note to the officer in command, and with -the key of a trunk indicated therein among his best uniform, and amid -girls' photos, bundles of letters, old button bouquets, rare pipes, -and an omnium-gatherum of various things, the bag was found, with the -company's money, and delivered to Florian, who, after a two hours' -halt, set out on his return journey; but he had not proceeded many -miles when he found that his horse was utterly failing him, and, -regretting that he had not remained at the post for the night, he -resolved to spend it in the little town of Elandsbergen, towards -which he bent his way, leading the now halting nag by the bridle. - -Elandsbergen consisted of a few widely detached cottages studding -both sides of a broad pathway, amid a vast expanse of veldt or -prairie, with fragmentary attempts at cultivation here and there; and -how the people lived seemed somewhat of a mystery. Rows of stunted -oaks lined the street, if such it could be called, and through it -flowed a rill of pure water, at which the poor nag drank thirstily. - -Elandsbergen boasted of one hostelry, dignified by the title of the -Royal Hotel, where 'civil entertainment for man and beast' was -promised by the landlord, 'Josh Jarrett.' It was a somewhat -substantial edifice of two storeys, built of baked brick, square in -form, with a flat roof composed of strong lattice-work, covered with -half-bricks and with clayey mortar to render it impervious to the -torrents of the South African rainy season. - -In some of the windows were glass panes; in others sheepskin with the -wool off, which, in consequence of extreme tension, attains a certain -transparency. Giving his horse to a Kaffir ostler, whose sole -raiment was a waistcoat made of a sleeveless regimental tunic, -Florian somewhat wearily entered the 'hotel,' the proprietor of which -started and changed colour at the sight of his red coat, as well he -might, for, though disguised by a bushy beard, sedulously cultivated, -and a shock head of hair under his broad-leaved hat, he was one of -the many deserters from our troops, already referred to, and, though -apparently anxious to appear civil, was secretly a ruffian of the -worst kind. - -The room into which he ushered Florian was bare-walled, the furniture -was of the plainest and rudest kind, and the floor was formed of -cow-dung over wet clay, all kneaded, trodden, and hardened till it -could be polished, a process learned from the Zulus in the -construction of their kraals. - -A fly-blown map of Cape Colony, a cheap portrait of Sir Bartle Frere, -and the skull of an eland with its spiral horns were the only -decorations of the apartment, and the literature of 'the day' was -represented by three tattered copies of the _Cape Argus_, _Natal -Mercury_, and the _Boer Volksteem_. - -Josh Jarrett was dressed like a Boer, and in person was quite as -dirty as a Boer; his loose cracker-trousers were girt by a broad belt -with a square buckle, whereat hung a leopard-skin pouch and an ugly -hunting-knife with a cross hilt. In the band of his broad hat were -stuck a large meerschaum pipe and the tattered remnant of an ostrich -feather. - -The Kaffir ostler now came hurriedly in, and announced something in -his own language to the landlord, who, turning abruptly to Florian, -said-- - -'You are in something of a fix, Sergeant!' - -'How--what do you mean?' demanded Florian. - -'That your horse is dying.' - -'Dying!' - -'Yes, of the regular horse-sickness.' - -Florian in no small anxiety and excitement hurried out to the stable, -in which two other nags were stalled, and there he saw the poor -animal he had ridden lying among the straw in strong convulsions, -labouring under that curse of South Africa, the horse-sickness, a -most mysterious disorder, which had suddenly attacked it. - -The animal had looked sullen and dull all morning, and in the stable -had been assailed by the distemper and its usual symptoms, heaving -flanks, disturbed breathing, glassy eyes, and a projecting tongue -tightly clenched between the teeth. Then came the convulsions, and -he was dead in half an hour, and Florian found that he would probably -have to travel afoot for more than twenty miles before he could -rejoin the column on the morrow. - -'Where have you come from, Sergeant?' asked Josh Jarrett, when they -returned to the public room. - -'The fort at the Drakensberg, last.' - -'Taking French leave, eh?' said Jarrett, with a portentous wink and a -brightening eye. - -'Not at all!' replied Florian, indignantly. - -'Fellows do so every day now in these short-service times.' - -'I was going to the front, when my horse fell lame.' - -'Belong to the Mounted Infantry?' - -'The dismounted now, I think,' replied Florian. 'I should like to -rest here for the night, and push on as best I can to-morrow; so what -can I have for supper?' - -Josh Jarrett paused a moment, as if he thought a sergeant's purse -would not go far in the way of luxuries, and then replied: - -'Rasher of bacon and eggs, or dried beef and a good glass of -squareface or Cape smoke, which you please.' - -'The first will do, and a glass of the squareface, which means -Hollands, I suppose. Cape smoke is a disagreeable spirit,' replied -Florian wearily, as he took off his helmet and seated himself in a -large cane-bottomed chair. - -'Won't you lay aside your revolver?' asked Jarrett. - -'Thanks--well, no--I am used to it.' - -'As you please,' said the other surlily, and summoning in a loud -voice a female named 'Nan,' left the room. - -The latter laid the table, brought in the frugal supper, with a case -bottle of squareface, and, instead of leaving the room, seated -herself near a window and entered into conversation, with what object -Florian scarcely knew, but he disliked the circumstance, till he -began to remember that she probably considered herself his equal. - -When his hasty repast was over, taking a hint from a remark that he -was weary, she withdrew, and then Florian began to consider the -situation. - -He was fully twenty miles from the regiment; a rough country, not to -be traversed even by daylight, infested with wild animals, and many -obnoxious things, such as puff-adders, perhaps Zulus, lay between; -and unless Jarrett would accommodate him with a horse, which was very -unlikely (he seemed such a sullen and forbidding fellow), he would -have to travel the journey on foot, and begin betimes on the morrow -as soon as dawn would enable him to see the track eastward. - -He examined Sheldrake's handsome revolver and its ammunition, -reloading the six chambers carefully. Then he thought of the -company's money; and tempted, he knew not by what rash impulse unless -it was mere boyish curiosity, he untied the red tape by which the -paymaster had secured the mouth of the bag to have a peep at the gold. - -He had never seen a hundred sovereigns before, and never before had -so much money in his possession. Some of the glittering coins fell -out on the clay floor; and as he gathered them up a sound made him -look round, and from the window he saw a human face suddenly vanish -outside, thus showing that some one had, hitherto unnoticed, been -furtively watching him, and he strongly suspected it to be the woman -Nan, prompted, perhaps, by idle curiosity, and in haste he concealed -the gold. - -He was the more convinced of the lurker being she when, soon after, -she entered, retook her seat by the window, through which the evening -sun was streaming now, and began to address him in a light and -flippant manner, as if to get up a flirtation with him for ulterior -purposes; but his suspicions were awakened now, and Florian was on -his guard. - -He perceived that she had made some alterations and improvements in -her tawdry dress, and had hung in her ears a pair of large -old-fashioned Dutch ear-rings shaped like small rams' horns of real -gold. - -She seemed to be about thirty years of age, and was not without -personal attractions, though all bloom was past, and the expression -of her face was marred by its being alternately leering, mocking, -and--even in spite of herself--cruel. Yet her eyes were dark and -sparkling. She wore a fringe of thick brown hair close down to them, -concealing nearly all her forehead. Her mouth, if large, was -handsome, but lascivious-looking, and Florian, whose barrack-room -experience had somewhat 'opened his eyes,' thought--though he was not -ungallant enough to say so--that her absence would be preferable to -her company, which she seemed resolved to thrust upon him. But -guests were doubtless scarce in these parts, and the 'Royal Hotel,' -Elandsbergen, had probably not many visitors. - -She asked him innumerable questions--his age, country, regiment, and -so forth--and all in a wheedling coaxing way, toyed with his hair, -and once attempted to seat herself on his knee; but he rose and -repelled her, and then it was that the unmistakably cruel expression -came flashing into her eyes. - -'You are too young and too handsome to be killed and disembowelled by -the big Zulus,' said she after a pause; 'they could eat a boy like -you. Why don't you desert and go to the Diamond Fields?' - -'Thank you; I would die rather than do that!' - -'And so you serve the Queen, my dear?' she said sneeringly. - -'Yes.' - -'For what reason do you fight the poor Zulus?' - -'Honour,' replied Florian curtly. - -'I have read--I have some book-knowledge, you see--that when a Swiss -officer was reproached by a French one that he fought for pay, and -not like himself for honour, "So be it," replied the Swiss, "we each -of us fight for that which he is most in need of."' - -'I don't see the allusion in this instance: a soldier, I do my duty -and obey orders.' - -'Have a drop more of the squareface--you can't be so rude as to -refuse a lady,' she continued, filling up a long glass, which she put -to her lips, and then to those of Florian, who pretended to sip and -then put the glass down. - -He was at a loss to understand her and her advances. Vanity quite -apart, he knew that he was a good-looking young fellow, and that his -uniform 'set him off;' but he remembered the face at the window, and -was on his guard against her in every way. Would she have acted thus -with an officer? he thought; and in what relation did she stand to -the truculent-looking landlord--wife, daughter, or sister? Probably -none of them at all. - -Suddenly her mood changed, or appeared to do so, and seating herself -at a rickety old piano, which Florian had not noticed before, she, -while eyeing him waggishly, proceeded to sing a once-popular flash -song, long since forgotten in England, and probably taken out by some -ancient settler, generations ago, to the Cape Colony: - - 'If I was a wife, and my dearest life - Took it into his noddle to die, - Ere I took the whim to be buried with him, - I think I'd know very well _why_. - - 'If poignant my grief, I'd search for relief-- - Not sink with the weight of my care: - A salve might be found, no doubt, above ground, - And I think I know very well _where_. - - 'Another kind mate should give me what fate - Would not from the former allow; - With him I'd amuse the hours you abuse, - And I think I'd know very well _how_. - - ''Tis true I'm a maid, and so't may be said - No judge of the conjugal lot; - Yet marriage, I ween, has a cure for the spleen, - And I think I know very well _what_.' - - -This she sang with a skill and power that savoured of the music hall, -and then tried her blandishments again to induce Florian to drink of -the fiery squareface; but he resisted all her inducement to take -'just one little glass more.' - -Why was she so anxious that he should imbibe that treacherous spirit, -which he would have to pay for? And why did the landlord, who -certainly seemed full of curiosity about him, leave him so entirely -in her society? - -Suddenly the voice of the latter was heard shouting, 'Nan, Nan!' - -'That is Josh,' said she impatiently; 'bother him, what does he want -now? Josh is getting old, and nothing improves by age.' - -'Except brandy,' said Florian smiling, as he now hoped to be rid of -her. - -'Right; and squareface, perhaps. Have one glass more, dear, before I -leave you.' - -But he turned impatiently away, and she withdrew, closing a scene -which caused Florian much suspicion and perplexity. He remembered to -have read, that 'man destroys with the horns of a bull, or with paws -like a bear; woman by nibbling like a mouse, or by embracing like a -serpent.' And he was in toils here unseen as yet! - -The light faded out beyond the dark ridges of the Drakensberg, and -Florian requested to be shown to his sleeping-apartment, which was on -the upper storey. - -'You may hear a roaring lot here by-and-by,' said his host; 'but you -are a soldier, and I dare say will sleep sound enough. You will be -tired, too, after your ride.' - -The man had now a sneaking and wicked look in his eyes, which avoided -meeting those of Florian, and which the latter did not like, but -there was no help for it then. - -'You will call me early if I sleep too long,' said Florian, as -Jarrett gave him a candle. - -The hand of the latter shook as he did so--he had evidently been -drinking heavily, and his yellow-balled eyes were bloodshot, and his -voice thick, as he said: - -'Good-night, Sergeant; you'll sleep sound enough,' and closed the -door. - -With a sigh almost of relief Florian found himself alone. He set -down the sputtering candle, and turned to fasten the door. It was -without a lock, and secured only by a latch, by which it could be -opened from the outside as well as within. - -On making this startling discovery, Florian's heart glowed with -indignation and growing alarm! He felt himself trapped! - - - - -CHAPTER XX. - -BAFFLED! - -The room was small, low-ceiled, and its only furniture was a table, -chair, and truckle-bed--all obviously of Dutch construction--and, -unless he could find some means to secure his door, he resolved to -remain awake till dawn. The only window in the room overlooked the -roof of the stable where the dead horse lay. The sash was loose, and -shook in the night wind, and he could see the bright and, to him, new -constellations glittering in the southern sky. - -Florian contrived to secure the door by placing the chair on the -floor as a wedge or barrier between it and the bedstead, on the -mattress of which--though not very savoury in appearance--he cast -himself, for he was weary, worn, and felt that there was an absolute -necessity for husbanding his strength, as he knew not what might be -before him, so he extinguished the candle. - -Something in the general aspect and bearing of the man Josh Jarrett, -and in those of the woman, with her efforts to intoxicate him, and -something, too, in his general surroundings and isolated -situation--for the few scattered houses of Elandsbergen were all far -apart--together with the memory of the prying face he had seen at the -window, at the very moment he was picking up the gold, all served to -put Florian on his guard; thus he lay down without undressing, and, -longing only for daylight, grasped ever and anon the butt of his -pistol. - -For some time past he had been unused to the luxury of even a -truckle-bed or other arrangements for repose than his grey greatcoat -and ammunition blanket, with a knapsack for a pillow; hence, despite -his keen anxiety, he must have dropped asleep, for how long he knew -not; but he suddenly started up as the sound of voices below came to -his ear, and the full sense of his peculiar whereabouts rushed on him. - -Voices! They were coarse and deep, but not loud--voices of persons -talking in low and concentrated tones in the room beneath, separated -from him only by the ill-fitting boarding of the floor, between the -joints of which lines of light were visible, and one bright upward -flake, through a hole from which a knot had dropped out. - -'Curse him, he's but a boy; I could smash the life out of him by one -blow of my fist!' he heard his host, Josh Jarrett, say. - -Others responded to this, but in low, stealthy, and husky tones. -Certain that some mischief with regard to himself was on the _tapis_. -Florian crept softly to the orifice in the floor, and looked down. -Round a dirty and sloppy table, covered with drinking-vessels, pipes -and tobacco-pouches, bottles of squareface and Cape smoke, were Josh -Jarrett and three other ruffians, digger-like fellows, with Nan among -them, all drinking; and a vile-looking quintette they were, -especially the woman, with her hair all dishevelled now, and her face -inflamed by that maddening compound known as Cape smoke. - -'When I was ass enough to be in the Queen's service,' said Jarrett -with a horrible imprecation, 'these 'ere blooming officers and -non-comms. led me a devil of a life; they said it was my own fault -that I was always drunk and in the mill. Be that as it may, I've one -of the cursed lot upstairs, and I'll sarve him out for what they made -me undergo, cuss 'em. One will answer my purpose as well as another. -Nan, you did your best to screw him, but he was wary--infernally -wary. Blest if I don't think the fellow is a Scotsman after all, for -all his English lingo.' - -'Yes, he did shirk his liquor,' hiccupped the amiable Nan; 'you -should have drugged it, Josh.' - -'But then we didn't know that he had all this chink about him.' - -'That must be ours,' growled a fellow who had not yet spoken, but was -prodding the table with a knife he had drawn from his belt; 'we'll -give him a through ticket to the other world--one with the down -train.' - -'And no return,' added Nan, laughing. - -Florian felt beads of perspiration on his brow; he was one against -five--entrapped, baited, done to death--and if he did not appear at -headquarters with the fatal money, what would be thought of him but -that he had deserted with it, and his name would be branded as that -of a coward and robber. - -Dulcie! The thought of Dulcie choked him, but it nerved him too. - -Another truculent-looking fellow now came in, making five men in all. - -'He has money galore on him--Nan saw the gold--money in a canvas bag. -How comes he, a sergeant, to have all this in his grab, unless he -stole it?' said Jarrett, in explanation to the new-comer. - -'Of course he stole it--it's regimental money, and evidently he is -deserting with it,' said the other, who was no doubt, like Jarrett, a -Queen's bad bargain also; for he added, 'What the devil do Cardwell's -short-service soldiers care about their chances of pension or -promotion--that's the reason he has the bag of gold; so why shouldn't -we make it ours? It is only dolloping a knife into him, and then -burying him out in the veldt before daylight. Even if he was traced -here, who is to be accountable for a deserter?' - -And this practical ruffian proceeded at once to put a finer edge and -point upon his long bowie knife. - -'You forget that he has a revolver,' said Nan. - -'I don't,' said Jarrett; 'but he ain't likely to use it in his sleep, -especially when we pin him by the throat.' - -He was but one against five armed and reckless desperadoes; and there -was the woman, too, whose hands were ready for evil work. The stair -that led to his room was narrow--so much so that there was but space -for one on a step. The lower or outer door he knew to be securely -locked and bolted. The window of his room, we have said, overlooked -the lean-to roof of the stable, where he knew that two horses were in -stall--a sure means of escape could he reach one; but the door, he -was aware, was locked, and the key in possession of the Kaffir groom. - -He was maddened by the thought that his barbarous and obscure death -would brand him with a double disgrace; and death is more than ever -hard when suffered at the hands of cowards. - -'What is the use of all this blooming talk?' said one, starting from -the table; 'let us set about the job at once!' - -'Look you,' said Jarrett, 'if roused he'll perhaps try to escape by -the stable-roof, so while you fellows go up the stair, I go round to -the back of the house and cut off his retreat.' - -'The stable-roof,' thought Florian, 'my only chance lies that way.' - -He opened the window at the very moment that stealthy steps sounded -on the wooden stair, and a red light streamed under the door, which -their felon hands failed to force, so firmly was the chair wedged -between it and the bed. He slid down the stable-roof, and dropped -safely on the ground, to be faced by Josh Jarrett, who came rushing -on, knife in hand, but Florian shot him down, firing two chambers -into his very teeth, and then he sprang away like a hare out into the -open veldt, leaving the ruffian wallowing in his blood. - -He knew not and cared not in what direction he ran at first, as he -could hear the oaths and imprecations of his pursuers, over whom his -youth, lightness, and activity gave him an advantage; but after a -time red-dawn began to streak the eastern sky, and he knew that was -the direction which, if he was spared, would take him to the bank of -the Buffalo River. - -He continued to run at a good steady double, saving his wind as he -did so, and his courage and confidence rose when he found that he was -distancing his pursuers so much that he could neither see nor hear -anything of them. - -As he ran on he thought for a moment or two of the fierce gleaming -eyes and glistening teeth of Jarrett--of the blood he had shed, and -the life he had perhaps taken for the first time, remorsefully; but -had he not acted thus, what would he have been? A gashed corpse! - -'Bah!' he said aloud, 'I am a soldier--why such thoughts at all? Why -should I have mercy when these wretches would have had none?' and he -began to regret that he had not fired a random shot or two through -the room-door and knocked over some of them on the staircase. - -A sound now struck his ear; it was the thud of galloping hoofs upon -the veldt, and his heart sank as he remembered the two horses in the -stable, where his dead nag was lying. - -He looked back, and there, sure enough, in the grey dawn were two -mounted men riding in scouting fashion, far apart, and he could not -for a moment doubt they were two of Jarrett's companions in pursuit, -thirsting with avarice and for revenge. - -He made his way, stumbling wildly and breathlessly down a wooded -ravine to elude their sight; on and on he strove till a vine root -caught his foot: his hands outstretched beat the air for a moment, -and then he fell headlong forward and downward into a donga full of -brushwood. - -For a moment he had a sense of strange palms, and giant cacti, and of -great plants with long spiky leaves being about him, and then he -became unconscious as he lay there stunned and bleeding profusely -from a wound in his forehead, which had come in contact with a stone. - - - -END OF VOL. I. - - - -BILLING & SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD. - - - - - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DULCIE CARLYON, VOLUME I (OF -3) *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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