Half Brothers

CHAPTER LIII.

ANDREW'S HOPE.

A few weeks after Margaret and Dorothy left Brackenburn, a telegram reached Sidney in town from Martin's tutor: "Martin lost since dawn yesterday; searching moors."

The sense of loneliness and separation became intolerable to Martin after Dorothy was gone. The homesickness, if it could be called so in one who had never had a home, made him uncontrollably restless. There was not in all this vast expanse of moorland an object that could distract his brooding memory, and in the old house, with its now empty rooms, there was no one who could speak in his own language except the tutor, a kindly man enough, but with no special interest in his uncouth charge. Martin had borne his exile as long as he could. Now he would make his way down to London where Dorothy and Philip lived. His father also was there, and that beautiful, gracious signora, who called herself his mother, and who always looked at him with wonderful kindness in her eyes. When he saw them he would make them understand that he could not live in England any longer, and they would let him go back to Ampezzo, and buy him a farm there among the old familiar faces. No one would ill treat him any more when they saw how rich he was.

He set off in the clear gray of the dawn, just as the twitter of the birds began in every tree and hedgerow, and the silver drops of dew hung upon every leaf. It was barely a year since he had been taken from his mountain home, and his life of misery and oppression there; but to him it was as long as centuries. He recollected well enough what he had suffered; still he felt vaguely that, though his sufferings were different, they were not less in this strange country. He was like a blind man whose sight is partially restored, and behold! everything is dim, and monstrous, and full of terror; he dare not move lest he should come in contact with these menacing forms. All the new world to which Martin had been brought was out of keeping with him. He had no place in it. If he could only live like the farmers in the Ampezzo Valley, a hardy, sturdy, stalwart life, where his sinewy, clumsy limbs would be of service to him, there would be a chance of his being happy.

These impressions, like all others, were vague, but not on that account less powerful. He could not shape them into language, but he fancied if he could see Philip or Dorothy he could make them understand. But they were gone, these only beloved ones, and he did not know when he should see them again. He must follow them, or he would die. His wanderings took a southerly direction. It was natural to him to avoid passing through the streets of any town, and when he came near to one he turned aside and took a roundabout road. There was no hardship to him in sleeping out of doors at this time of the year, and he felt no inconvenience from the fact that he could not maintain a decent appearance. In the villages he passed through, buying food with the few shillings he possessed, he was taken for a foreign tramp, and well watched. The children sometimes hooted at him, but that was nothing; it was almost welcome, and he paid no attention to it beyond a flickering smile.

Meanwhile, in all the local papers, and very quickly in the London papers also, there appeared sensational paragraphs describing the disappearance of and search made for the son and heir of Sidney Martin. The whole story, with the old scandal, came to the front again. In the course of a few days the fugitive was found, and brought back to Brackenburn, whither his father and brother had hurried upon receiving the news. It was in vain to reproach him. He was a man, with a man's right to freedom, and not even his father was justified in keeping him under restraint as if he was a madman. A man who suffered from no sense of hardship when he was living out of doors, with little food besides wild berries and field vegetables, might spend the greater part of his time in these fitful wanderings, relapsing more and more into his original barbarism.

"Your mother and Dorothy cannot live here altogether to be his keeper," said Sidney to Philip, "yet it is evident his grandfather has no control over him. What more can we do?"

"You have done all you could, father," answered Philip, "and now I say, let him go back to Cortina, if he is so bent upon it; and we should not lose sight of him. It would be nothing to buy him a farm there."

"Impossible!" said Sidney. "If he returns a rich man, some woman there will marry him, and his son will be no more fit to be an English gentleman than he is. If we could make him understand about the entail I could pay him to cut it off; but he could never know what it meant. No; he must not go back to Cortina."

"Let us take him down to Apley," suggested Philip.

"Would he be better off there?" asked his father. "He finds life here too civilized with all the moors to roam over. How would he feel where every acre of land is enclosed, and no trespassing allowed, and where life is so much more cramped by custom and conventionality? Do you think he could bear it? I say nothing about your mother and Dorothy, whose lives must be upset and spoiled by his presence; but would he be happier?"

"Look at him," said Philip, "how he is listening and watching us, as if he would tear the words out of our mouths. Martin," he added in Italian, "we are talking about you."

"Yes, yes!" he answered eagerly.

"What are we to do with you?" asked Philip.

"Send me back to Cortina," he replied.

"But we want you to live here," continued Philip; "we wish you to marry some good English girl, and bring up your sons to be like Hugh and me. This house and these lands will belong to your eldest son when you die; and he must be brought up like us, not like the farmers in Cortina."

"If I die, and if I have no son, who would the house belong to?" asked Martin reflectively.

They did not answer him. Martin's face was thoughtful and anxious, and he was evidently puzzling over this new idea. He looked from one to the other with an expression of wistful entreaty in his deep-set eyes, and a look of stronger intelligence than they had seen before dawned upon his face.

"My brother," he said, "before I came you were in my place. You did not know I lived; you were the eldest son. I take from you this house, these lands. Take them back from me; they make me sad. I will keep none of them. See! I am not even good enough to be thy servant."

"But you cannot give them back," rejoined Philip. "Perhaps I might take them if you could and let you be happy in your own way. But you are my father's eldest son, and you must have them, and your eldest son after you."

"Ah! what a misery!" he cried. "I take all these things from my brother!"

He spoke mournfully and tears glistened in his eyes. He flung himself down on the floor, and hid his face with his hands in an attitude of despondency and wretchedness.

"If I died," he said at last, "all would come right. Why did you not leave me in Ampezzo? I do you harm; I rob you."

"No, you do me no harm," answered Philip; "besides, you are my brother and we care for you. If you are good we shall love you."

To Philip it seemed as if this brother of his was little more than a child, who might be managed as a child. But Martin shook his head and looked up intently into his father's face.

"You will never love me," he said. "My father, it would be a happy thing for you all if I was to die."

The words were so true that neither of them could contradict him. If Martin died how many of the vexatious complications that beset them would cease, and soon be forgotten by the world! Margaret might have said something to console the sorrowful heart just awaking to life and consciousness, but she was not there.

"If I could only die!" he murmured to himself with exceeding sadness.

The problem of how to atone for his sin presented itself with augmented force to Sidney. This son of his had none of the distinctive vices of a savage, unless it was a touch of ferocious cruelty, not surprising in one whose whole life had been subject to oppression and persecution. He had inherited from himself certain moral qualities which dominated his lower passions; but from his mother he had derived a self-will and a lack of intelligence which must always make him blind and deaf to reason. As he crouched there on the ground, muttering to himself, a vivid image of Sophy came across Sidney's mind. This poor creature could never make a thorough savage, self-reliant and triumphant in his animal nature; neither could he now be trained into an intelligent and contented member of civilized society. What could be done for him?

Andrew Goldsmith had taken himself off immediately upon Sidney's arrival at Brackenburn, but Mary remained in charge of the household. To Mary, as well as to Rachel, it was a great trial to see Philip's place taken by Martin, though he was their own niece's son. Their old-fashioned loyalty to their superiors made them feel as if he was an interloper, one who was utterly unfit for the position which was Philip's due. If Martin could have been brought to England to inherit their own savings, and perhaps succeed his grandfather as the village saddler, they would have welcomed Sophy's son with all their hearts. But it seemed out of the course of nature that he should succeed Sidney, and take Philip's estate. Mary, too, was additionally troubled just now by a scheme of her brother Andrew's.

"Martin's giving you a deal of trouble, sir," said Mary the evening of the day after Martin had been brought back to the Manor House. "If it wasn't for our Andrew, I should say let him go back where he came from. But Andrew won't hear a word of that sort. He says Martin shall have his rights, and as long as he lives he'll see there's fair play. But if you'll let me tell you a secret, sir, Andrew's bent upon getting him married, because he thinks you'll want to keep him single, so as Mr. Philip may come into the estate some day."

"It would be the best thing that could be done for him," said Sidney, "if Andrew could find anybody who would marry him. I mean any good, reputable girl."

"Well, I don't credit it!" replied Mary, "but I think Mrs. Martin at the Rectory put it into Andrew's head at Christmas, talking to him a lot of nonsense. He says he's sure she'd be willing for Miss Phyllis to marry him when he's renovated and polished up a little. But Rachel and me laughed at him, and said, anyhow, the rector 'ud never think of giving his consent to her marrying a poor, ignorant, dark Roman Catholic, worshiping a crucifix set up for him by Miss Dorothy, to say nothing of his rough ways, and dreadful bad manners. Miss Phyllis would never look at him, I said, and Mrs. Martin has never set eyes on him yet. All the same, it put it into Andrew's head that somebody would marry Martin, if he could not marry as high as Miss Phyllis."

It spite of the heaviness of his heart, Sidney could not repress a grim laugh at the thought of Laura marrying Phyllis to his eldest son, when that son was Martin, not Philip.

"Does Andrew know of anyone else?" he asked.

"Why, yes," said Mary, "if he's not hindered. There's a sort of far-off cousin of ours, a pretty, nice-mannered girl, something like our Sophy, you know; she's a clerk in a post office, getting her fifteen pounds a year. Selina Goldsmith her name is, and Andrew wants me to have her here to keep me company, he says, and wait on him and me. But I'm sure he's got another notion in his head, and Rachel told me to tell you, when I wrote to ask her advice."

"Mary, you and Rachel are faithful old friends," he answered, "but believe me when I assure you Margaret and I would be grateful to any good girl who would become Martin's wife and make him happy. There are many women who would marry him for his future position, if Miss Phyllis would not. You have my full sanction to bringing your young kinswoman here, and, if you succeed in marrying her to Martin, half our difficulties will be overcome."

"Andrew will never believe it," said Mary. "And she may sit at table with us when Martin is there, and go out walks with him and Andrew? I shan't let her go without Andrew."

"You may do all you can to promote such a marriage," he replied; "and if Martin is married before next Christmas, we shall be only too glad."

He returned to Apley the next day with a sense of relief in the hopeful prospect which Mary's words had opened to him. It was not improbable that Martin would marry this girl, and if he did, he might lead a secluded and tolerably happy life in the old house at Brackenburn, and gradually fall into occupying himself on the farm that was attached to it. Once suitably married, Martin would be no longer so great an anxiety to them all, and he himself might live down the aspersions so lavishly cast upon his reputation. Martin's children should be brought to Apley at an early age, and, though he would not separate them too much from their parents, they should grow up under his own and Margaret's care. To them he might make that atonement which he could never make to his son.

Andrew Goldsmith rejoiced greatly in the success of his scheme, to which Mary had withdrawn all her opposition. Selina was brought to live at Brackenburn. She was something like Sophy—pretty, lively, and pettish. To exchange her drudgery at the small post office and shop, where she had been glad to earn fifteen pounds a year, for the grandeur of living at a manor house, with very little to do, seemed at first an immense step in life to her girlish ambition. Andrew had rather plainly hinted at what a height she might climb to if she chose, but to his intense disappointment and dismay, Selina seemed much more shocked at Martin's rough ways and bad manners than Miss Dorothy herself was. He had seen Dorothy carry Martin his food from the dining room to the porch, when he refused to sit down to the table, and many a time had Martin persisted in walking barefoot beside her on the turfy moors. But Selina declared she could not put up with his coarseness and vulgarity, and she seemed more inclined to devote herself to winning the admiration of Martin's tutor.

Andrew insisted upon Selina accompanying them often in their rambles on the moors, rambles irksome and tedious to her beyond measure. There was nothing to be seen there save earth and sky. Martin paid but little heed to her. Like all the rest, she could not talk to him. Those who knew his language were gone away, and how long it would be before they came again he did not know. This girl, whose voice was loud and shrill, and who laughed all the time a little giggling laugh, except when she was sulky, who had strange antics, shaking her head at him, and holding up her finger, and pointing here and there, was altogether unlike his signorina, or the gracious and stately lady who was now his father's wife. He liked his rambles best alone, though he could tolerate the companionship of the old man, his grandfather, who was always silent, but who looked at him often with loving eyes. It did not escape his notice that, since his foiled attempt to find his way to London, he was never left long alone but one or other of his guardians sought him out. The fancy took possession of him that Selina had been added to their number to be another spy upon him.

Andrew Goldsmith's impatience was extreme. He was angry with Selina for failing to win his grandson's love, and angry at the thought of Martin not marrying. That would be a triumph for his enemy. If he could only argue with Martin, he fancied something could be done, but all he had to say must be translated by the tutor, who was in Sidney's pay. This barrier of language between himself and Sophy's son was another of the wrongs Sidney had inflicted on him.

CHAPTER LIV.

FAILURES.

Sidney's disappointment at the failure of this new scheme almost equaled Andrew's. He had built a good many hopes on the chance of Martin's marriage, for Margaret dwelt much on the humanizing influence a wife and children would have upon him. But Rachel secretly rejoiced in her brother's discomfiture; and Mary, who could not be brought to fall into the scheme, watched its failure gladly. Neither of them could believe it would be a good thing for Philip.

Nothing could be more melancholy than Martin's life became. At Cortina he had been miserably oppressed, every man's hand being against him; but he had been so fully occupied by the heavy tasks exacted from him by Chiara that time had never hung heavily on his hands. The very hatred and tyranny he had suffered from, and the deprivations he had to undergo, supplied that spice of excitement without which existence is a tedious monotony. A deep disgust of life took hold of his half awakened mind. In former days the struggle for existence had occupied him. That hunger, which hardened him to a long and patient effort, as he stealthily followed and trapped some wild animal, was no longer felt; his food was brought to him oftener than he needed it, and he ate more than was good for him out of sheer want of employment. The sound, dreamless sleep that came to him on his heap of straw in Chiara's hut did not visit the soft, comfortable bed, which his aunt Mary took care to make herself every morning, that the feathers might be kept downy. Even his outdoor life was no longer a perilous climbing of peaks with deep precipices and abysses, which compelled him to give a strained attention to every step; it was a dull loitering over a safe plain, with an old man always jogging on beside him, and a smooth horizon bounding his view. He was too ignorant to know what was ailing him, body and mind; but nostalgia held him in its dread embrace, and life was becoming an insufferable burden to him.

Now and then the heavy cloud lifted, and a gleam of light reached him. Philip came down as often as he could spare a day or two, and his flying visits were Martin's only sunshine. He was at last beginning to realize that this grand signore was indeed his brother. If he knew when he was to come he watched all day for the moment when he could set out to meet him. If Philip came unawares his transport of gladness more than once brought the tears to Philip's eyes. But his father's visits produced in him a feeling of anxiety, and almost of terror. He was afraid of him, and this fear flung him back into his original moroseness and barbarism in his father's presence.

His longing to see Margaret and Dorothy was intense, but he never gave expression to it. Only when kneeling before the crucifix, near the entrance of his cave, did he utter either of their names. In this place alone did he find any moments of comparative freedom from the mysterious malady which was consuming him. The damp, rocky roof and walls, the hard, rough floor, the utter stillness and wildness of the place were like a bit of his old life when he sought refuge in his cave on the mountains. Sometimes, when he managed to elude the vigilance of his grandfather, he made his way to this spot, and felt, for an hour or two, something of the restful, satisfied feelings we all enjoy when we are at home. When, as he stood at the low mouth of the cave, and lifted up his heavy eyes to the worn, grotesque, pathetic figure of Christ upon the cross, that familiar sight on which his childish gaze had so often rested, then he could almost fancy that a step or two would bring him out upon the sharp, ice-bound peaks, where the biting wind would string up his relaxed frame, and send the blood tingling through his languid veins.

The summer and autumn passed by, but Margaret and Dorothy did not return to Brackenburn. Sidney intended to keep Christmas there again, and their visit was reserved for the winter. Philip and Hugh also, though they spent a week now and then shooting on the moors, did not give up the whole of the long vacation to Martin, as they had done the year before. Some of the time was spent at Apley, where their intercourse with their cousins at the Rectory had returned to its former channel, excepting with Phyllis, whose absence when Philip was staying at the Hall was as regular as his presence there.

Laura was for once perplexed and uncertain. She could not forget that though Philip was at present only a medical student he might some day be a millionaire. She had means of setting an inquiry afloat as to Sidney's position in the city; but the answers she got were contradictory, and in consequence unsatisfactory. Ought she, in Phyllis's interests, to attach him once more to her? or should she see him carry off a rich heiress like Dorothy before her very eyes? She could not forgive herself for having been too precipitate in breaking off his long engagement with Phyllis, but she did not think it would be impossible to renew it.

She summoned Phyllis home early in October, while Philip was still at Apley, in order to see how the young people would conduct themselves toward one another. But fortune did not favor her. Philip and Dorothy met Phyllis unexpectedly in the avenue between the Hall and the Rectory. The color mounted up to Philip's face, and there was a slight embarrassment in his manner; but Phyllis was quite self-possessed, and spoke to him in a cordial and cousinly tone.

"Why! Philip, it is ages since I saw you," she said gayly, "and now you have quite a professional air. Pray do not ask me after my health, dear Dr. Martin. I cannot let you feel my pulse, or look at my tongue."

"I need not," he answered; "you never had anything the matter with you, and you have not now. I wish some of our poor hospital patients had your chances of keeping well."

"He talks of the hospital immediately," she rejoined, tossing her head, "and he smells of his drugs. O Philip! Philip! that you should come to this! You are a lost man."

"I suppose I am," he said, laughing; "I am lost to my old life, but I like the new one as much. Phyllis, it seems like a hundred years since I saw you."

"That is what makes you look so old," she retorted; "a hundred years, added to the twenty-three I know of, must make a tremendous difference. How much more aged you are than me!"

"Do you think he looks older?" asked Dorothy rather anxiously. "Mrs. Martin is afraid he works too hard, and she is troubled a little about it."

"So are you," rejoined Phyllis.

"Yes, I am," she replied steadily, yet a little shyly. She was more disturbed by this unexpected meeting than either of the other two were. It seemed to her that it must be inexpressibly painful to them both, and that it would be better for her to go away.

"Well, good-by," said Phyllis airily; "here is the gate. Open it for me, and shut it behind me, or we shall have your Scotch cattle in our glebe. We shall see you at the Rectory soon, Philip?"

Philip opened the gate, and he and Dorothy stood in silence watching her, until, as she turned a corner that would hide her from their sight, she looked round and kissed her hand to them.

"How pretty she is!" exclaimed Philip. It astonished him that he felt so little agitation upon seeing her for the first time. She was very pretty; very fair. "But if she be not fair for me, what care I how fair she be?" he said to himself, feeling the very spirit of Wither's old poem. The face beside him, not so faultless as Phyllis's, was more beautiful to him for its expression of almost timid sympathy with his supposed grief. Dorothy's eyes looked wistfully into his.

"I cannot understand how or why I loved her," he went on in a low tone. "I suppose it was because I grew up with the idea that she was to be my wife. Not at home, but at the Rectory she was always called my little wife. So it grew with my growth."

"It must have been a great sorrow to you," murmured Dorothy.

"It was the uprooting of a fancy, not a sorrow," he said; "I am thankful it was torn up like the weed it was. A weed! Yes; and it would have been a noxious weed, poisoning my whole life. It is compensation enough for losing the position for which Phyllis would have married me."

They walked on under the overarching trees, with the setting sun throwing long shadows before them as they moved side by side. A few fallen leaves lay upon the road, or whirled merrily around them in the evening wind.

"There is only one girl who is like my mother," he said suddenly, "and if I could hope to win her—if it was in years to come—if she would wait for me——"

"Who is it?" asked Dorothy tremulously, as he paused; and she looked up into his face with a pained expression. So soon to have forgotten his love to Phyllis—and to love again!

"Why, Dorothy!" he exclaimed, "there is nobody in the world like my mother but you! Don't you feel it? My father is always pointing it out. Will you not some day forget my foolish fancy for Phyllis, and believe that I love you, and only you, with all my heart? I have loved you ever since we were at Cortina and found out poor Martin."

Dorothy made no answer. Her heart beat so quickly that she knew she could not control her voice or her tears if she attempted to speak. Her love for him dated farther back than his for her.

"You think me fickle, and that I fall in love too easily," he said in tones of deprecating earnestness, "but set me a time, let me prove myself in earnest. I had not seen you when I was inextricably bound to Phyllis. Oh! I love you quite differently; I think of you as if you were my conscience. I try to see myself as you see me; and when I do I feel how unworthy I am of you."

"No, no," she answered, between laughing and sobbing; "unworthy of me!"

"Then you will give me time to prove that I love you," he said, "and to give me a chance of winning your love."

"There is no need of that," she whispered.

"Is that true?" he cried, seizing her hands, and gazing eagerly into her face. "Do you mean that you have loved me, blind idiot that I was? Do you mean that you were not disgusted by me when I was playing the forlorn lover, and must needs be sent abroad to cure me of my folly? O Dorothy! if I could only make you forget what a fool I made of myself!"

"I was so sorry for you," she said pityingly, "and I would have done all I could to save you from your sorrow. But it is best as it is, perhaps."

"A thousand times best!" he exclaimed. "Ever since we were at Cortina you have been in my heart of hearts; and I understand a little now the sacred mystery that a true marriage must be."

CHAPTER LV.

A NEW PLAN.

There were more persons than Laura Martin who felt bitter and disappointed when the announcement was made that Sidney Martin's second son was about to marry his rich ward. Dorothy, with her large fortune, had been the subject of much speculation and many schemes among Sidney's circle, and he did not escape further odium.

His career stood in this light in the eyes of most who knew him. In his early manhood he contracted a low marriage, which he kept a profound secret for fear of losing the favor of his rich uncle, whose next heir he was. When tired and disgusted with his unsuitable wife, he deserted her and his infant son in a remote and almost unvisited spot in the Austrian Tyrol, thus dooming his firstborn child to a life of misery and degradation many degrees worse than that of the lowest laborer in England. After his succession to the estates of his uncle he assumed the character of an ardent philanthropist and Christian, by which he gained the affection of the only daughter and heiress of Colonel Cleveland of Apley. His eldest son by this marriage was brought up as his heir, and would have succeeded him but for the accidental discovery of his first-born son, a man of thirty, densely ignorant, and as uncivilized as a savage. The right of this man having been established by his mother's father, Sidney was compelled to acknowledge him and place him in the house which would belong to him upon his father's death. But to compensate the second son, thus dispossessed and disinherited, he handed over to him the wealthy ward, who had been entrusted to his care by a man who knew him only under his assumed character. This young girl had been kept secluded from all chances of making another choice. Sidney Martin was a clever man, said the world, a clever Christian.

No man knew the depth of his repentance. Even Margaret but dimly guessed it. If he could have made a sacrifice of all his life, and gone back to the hour when he fled from Sophy's shrill peevishness, he would have done it, and taken up his life afresh, burdened with her as his wife and the mother of his children. But the past could not be undone. There was a closer union now between him and Margaret than there ever had been, though it had struck its roots in his sin and sorrow. It might have been a higher union, lifted up into pure regions of holiness and gladness, but he had dragged her down to him in the valley instead of rising with her to fairer heights.

Another scheme presented itself to his brain, always busily planning how to retrieve the past. Why should not Philip and Dorothy marry at once, and go to live at Brackenburn? Philip had been brought up to fulfill the duties of an English country gentleman, a post Martin could never fill. He might still take that position, and look after the Yorkshire estate as long as Sidney himself lived. Then the progress which Martin had been making under Dorothy's influence, and which had been arrested by her departure, would go on again. Martin was sinking back mentally, and was failing physically. Philip and Dorothy would save him body and soul.

Margaret approved cordially of this idea. Her heart was full of pity for the desolate man, living his lonely life among people who must utterly fail to understand him. There was no reason why Philip and Dorothy should not marry soon and take up their charge. They could make a home for Martin, who loved them both so ardently; and if it came to pass in the future that he should marry, they would give up the place to him. As Dorothy loved her birthplace so much, she and Philip might choose to build themselves a house in the neighborhood of Brackenburn.

There was one person only who might raise an objection to this plan; and Philip went down to Brackenburn to consult Andrew Goldsmith, and convince him of its desirability. It was a November night when he reached the manor house, and scarcely a light shone in any of its windows, and not a sound was to be heard until Philip rang the great hall door bell. It was opened by Selina, with a candle in her hand; and by its dim light she led him along the many passages until they reached the door of the housekeeper's room near the kitchen. Both Andrew and Mary Goldsmith were dozing in the flickering firelight, and Selina giggled audibly at their bewildered efforts to appear awake and lively.

"A poor home for Martin," thought Philip, as he shook hands with the old people. Martin was stretched upon the hearthrug, and did not stir. He was lying in a languid posture, as if his strength was quite worn out. His hair, no longer left to grow in a tangled mass, lay in thin, straight lines on his forehead and his hollow temples, which had almost the color of old ivory. His cheeks, too, were sunken, and as he slept there was a tremulous movement about his lips, which gave to him an air of childish weakness. He looked like a strong man whose strength was slowly ebbing away.

"Martin, old man," said Philip, laying a cold hand on his burning forehead, "wake up and give me a welcome."

Martin awoke with a violent start, and looked up vacantly, like a dog just roused from his sleep, but when he saw who was bending over him he burst into a passion of tears.

"It is time Dorothy and I came to take care of him," thought Philip.

He would have no other fire kindled, and as supper was just ready, he sat down with them. When this meal was over, and Mary and Selina had gone to see after his room for the night, Philip found an opportunity of at once telling his business. Andrew was fond of him, but in his obstinate old heart there was a lurking jealousy of this fine young fellow who had so long usurped the place of his grandson. It vexed him to see Martin stretch himself on the ground at Philip's feet, and gaze up into his face in humble admiration.

"Mr. Goldsmith," began Philip. In old times he had called him Andrew, but since he knew him to be his father's father-in-law he had adopted a more formal mode of address, which Andrew always acknowledged by a slow and somewhat dignified motion of his head. "Mr. Goldsmith, I came to tell you and Mary, who are among my earliest friends, that I am going to marry Miss Dorothy. Soon, too, for my father and mother wish it, as well as myself."

Andrew took his pipe out of his mouth as if to speak, but put it back again till he should hear more, for he was sure there was more to come.

"We are to be married almost immediately," continued Philip, "partly on Martin's account. You know how he misses my mother and Dorothy, and you know how quickly he learns from Dorothy. He has fallen back ever since she went away. So we intend to make a home for Martin. We are going to take him under our charge, and see how much we can do for him. My mother says this life is only a moment in our endless life, and Dorothy and I are going to spend our moment in taking care of my brother."

"How are you going to do it?" asked Andrew suspiciously.

"And as soon as we are married, we are coming here to live with Martin——"

"That shall never be," interrupted Andrew, bringing his clenched fist down on the table with a blow that made Martin start, and cower like a frightened hound. "I'll see that my grandson is not turned out of his own house. No, no. Marry as soon as you please; but you shan't come to live in Martin's place."

Andrew's folly and vehemence were so unexpected by Philip, that for a minute or two he sat silently staring at the old man's infuriated face. Martin, who had been roused by his angry tones, sat up on his heels and gazed from one to the other in bewildered attention.

"Mr. Goldsmith," said Philip, after his pause of amazement, "we are making this arrangement chiefly on Martin's account. It is true Miss Dorothy loves this house, where she was born, and would rather live here than anywhere else; but she knows it can never be ours. We think of building another house in this neighborhood."

"Ay!" interrupted Andrew again, "with the money left by Sir John Martin to build a place suitable for his heir. But Martin is his heir. I am not too old to see that he has his rights. What you say sounds all very well; but there's nobody but me to see the poor lad gets his own. I'm sorry to gainsay you, Mr. Philip, but you cannot come to live here in my grandson's house. He must be master, and nobody else."

"Not for his own good?" asked Philip. "He cannot be master, for he does not know how to give an order to any servant. He will learn in time, if we take him in hand. We thought you and Mary would be glad to return to Apley, for you are among total strangers here; and Rachel is going to live with us as housekeeper."

"Ah!" cried Andrew, with a long-drawn accent of suspicion and contempt, "Rachel would do anything to serve you. I should soon hear that Martin had signed his rights away. I couldn't trust Sophy's son with Rachel when it was you he had to be unsaddled for. No; it shall never be. I'll stay by Martin as long as I live; and nobody else shall be master or mistress in his house."

"Martin," said Philip, stooping down to his brother again, and speaking in the simple Italian words he understood, "I am going to marry the signorina. Would you like us to come here, and live with you always?"

Martin repeated the words slowly to himself in a whisper; and slowly the expression of his heavy face turned into a smile so wistful and pathetic that it made Philip's heart ache. It was the smile of a soul that sees afar off the glory and blissful ness of a life from which it is shut out, but which it gazes at with distant and ignorant sympathy.

"Yes, yes, my brother!" he answered.

"I don't know what you say to him," said Andrew jealously; "but he's more simple than a child; you may do what you like with him. But you won't take me in; neither you nor your father. Here Martin is, and here he stays."

"We wish him to stay here," replied Philip. "We are coming chiefly for his sake."

"But I say you shall not come," persisted Andrew. "I'm his only guardian, and I'll defend his rights. Come in Philip—turn out Martin. That's how it will be; and I put down my foot against it. Here Martin stops, and here I stop; and nobody else comes in as master."

"You compel me to remind you that Martin has no right to this house," said Philip, "as long as my father lives. This place belongs to my father, and to no one else."

"I'll take lawyer's opinion on that," he answered doggedly. "I've given up putting my trust in any man, especially Mr. Martin. And if it's true, as sure as you bring Miss Dorothy here as your wife I'll take my grandson away, down to Apley, and all the country-side shall see Mr. Martin's son and heir sitting at work in a saddler's shop. He is fitter for that, perhaps, than to be a squire; but whose fault is it? Who deserted him and his mother? Oh! Sophy, Sophy! my poor lost little girl!"

He dropped his white head upon his hands, and his sobs sounded through the little room. Philip rose silently, and went away; and Martin, with his bare feet, followed him noiselessly. The old man was left alone with his impotent rage and grief.

CHAPTER LVI.

ON THE MOORS.

Andrew Goldsmith went, as he had threatened, to consult lawyers, one after another, and learned, to his vexation, that, so long as the father lived, the son had no legal claim to the estate. There could be no disputing Sidney's right to dispose of Brackenburn as he pleased during his lifetime. The next course to take would be to follow out his other threat of having his grandson at Apley, and setting him to learn his trade in the village shop, in the sight of all the passers-by. But here again he found himself baffled. He had no authority over Martin; no power save that of persuasion. And how could he persuade one with whom he could exchange no conversation, except by signs? Martin was free to choose for himself; and none but his enemies had access by language to his mind. They might tell him exactly what they pleased; and there was no doubt they would prevail upon him to welcome Philip and Dorothy to Brackenburn. Andrew found himself defeated on all points.

One thing he resolved upon in this defeat—he would not leave Brackenburn unless he was forcibly ejected. He would remain beside Martin, jealously guarding him against signing away his rights. If they ejected him he would find quarters near at hand; and all the country should hear of his apprehensions. The thing should not be done in a corner. If it was done it should be proclaimed far and wide. He was Martin's sole protector as long as he lived; and his resolution and resentment made him feel strong enough to live through many long years yet.

Since old Andrew was so determined in his opposition to Sidney's scheme, there was no longer a great haste in pushing forward the marriage of Philip and Dorothy. But the old purpose of keeping Christmas at Brackenburn was taken up again. Margaret hoped that she and Rachel could make Andrew believe that there was no antagonism felt by any one of them against Martin, but that their great desire was to arrange everything for his welfare. They were glad to hear that he did not intend to quit Brackenburn on their arrival, although he had taken lodgings in the bailiff's house, resolved not to sleep under the same roof as Sidney.

The weather during December was unusually severe. For several days a bitter northeast wind, rising almost to a gale, swept across England, and there was a leaden hue in the gloomy sky, as of low clouds charged with snow, which needed a little rise in the temperature before it could fall. Even at Apley, black frosts, changing into dense fogs, prevailed. But in Yorkshire, though the fogs were lighter, the frost was keener. Every pool and tarn on the moors were ice-bound, and the noisy burn running down the valley at Brackenburn was silenced, only a sluggish thread of water trickling under the sheet of ice which spread from side to side. The coarse grass upon the moors was fringed with ice; and the low trees, now bare of leaves, showed like masses of white coral against the leaden sky. The farmers brought their flocks of sheep to pastures near home, and only the wild ponies were left to brave the inclemency of the threatened storm. But it was slow in coming. Now and then the clouds broke, and gleams of wintry sunshine, or a brilliant vision of stars, appeared through the opening.

The winter once again made Martin feel more at home. This snow-charged sky was familiar to him, more familiar than the soft, hazy, blue sky, or the drifting clouds of summer. The moorlands, too, were less strange to him in their frost-bound grayness than in the gorgeous purple and gold of autumn. He felt less homesick than usual; yet he was no happier. There was a lurking dread in his heart, so vague that he was only dimly conscious of it—the dread of having Philip and Dorothy in their great happiness always in sight.

For he loved Dorothy with a passion that was none the less because he could not express it in words, even to himself. He felt himself unfit for her—far beneath her. He could see how Philip stood beside her, her equal, each suited to the other. But this did not make his inferiority less painful to him. He knew enough of his present position to be aware that what Philip was he might have been. They had brought this foolish girl, Selina, to be his wife, but how could he love her when he had seen Dorothy?

The day was come when all these great and fine people were expected to arrive—to find him in their way—always in their way, like a dog who has no right to a place on the hearth, but is not driven away out of pity. This kindness of theirs was only a little less oppressive than Chiara's tyranny. Never could he become what they wished him to be, yet he would have to be always striving to become it. It was as if they stood on a sunlit peak far above him, beckoning and calling to him to come up to them, while he was chained at the foot, and could climb but a very little way toward them. Forever climbing and forever falling, with soreness of heart and sickness of soul. This was what his future life would be.

Early in the short day he started off for the moors, followed at a little distance by Andrew, who was as miserable as himself. Martin strode on across the trackless uplands, scarcely heeding where he went, though he kept his purpose vaguely in his mind. He was going toward his cave, three miles away; but, at present, trivial objects were sufficient to divert him from his path. The wild creatures, so numerous on the moors, were become almost tame by the severity of the cold, and many of them were lying dead on the frozen ground. Martin stood at times for some minutes gazing down with a sort of pity on these victims of the cold. In former days he would have rejoiced over them as so much prey; but he was never hungry now, and he had seen Dorothy look sad over the dead body of a bird. So with this dim sense of compassion in his heart he stood and gazed at them. Then Andrew, who kept him in sight as far as his old limbs permitted, had time to overtake him, and lay his hand upon Martin's arm, and point toward home, only to start him on again in his devious course.

Ever since he understood that his death would reinstate Philip in his old position, he had thought wistfully of death. There was no escape out of the evil about him except by dying. He was too much of a savage yet to think of suicide: that is a crime of a certain degree of civilization. To put himself to death would have been to him almost as impossible as for a beast to do so. But as he came again and again across these creatures who had perished by the cold, the idea of death was kept all day before his mind.

There was a brief spell of sunshine, but it soon came to an end, and the wintry beauty of the moors was over. They lay sullen and gloomy under the sullen and gloomy sky. The frost-bound pools lurked in the hollows like black gulfs. A sudden blast of freezing wind blew across the wide expanse with a shriek, beneath which was a moan. Then there followed a silence; and the crackling of the frozen twigs and sedges under his feet sounded with strange loudness.

He went on more languidly, for with the hiding of the sun the glow passed out of his veins. The sky in the north, toward which his face was turned, grew denser and darker; and he wondered why he saw no snowy peaks rising against it. For he was at home again, in Ampezzo, and more than once he fancied he heard Chiara's shrill, threatening voice calling to him. Was he come out to seek anything that was lost? Were all the sheep safe? and the goats? He could hear no bleating. The wolves would be dangerous in such weather as this. And now the snow was falling thickly, driven by the wind in giddy circles, and swirling around him bewilderingly. He laughed aloud as he stood still to watch them. But he had lost his way, and there was nothing to guide him; no light in the sky except from these white, fluttering snowflakes. In which direction did his cave lie? Once there he would be under shelter from the storm.

All at once he heard the frenzied shouting of old Andrew's voice, calling, "Martin! Martin!" and he came back with a start to the present time. He was not on the mountains above Cortina, but in England, on the wild moors, and the voice calling to him was not Chiara's, but the old man's, who was said to be his mother's father. He shouted back again, and the call drew nearer. He went a few steps toward the sound; and the tall, stooping figure of Andrew loomed through the driving storm. As Martin drew near him, he uttered a cry of joy, and fell senseless and benumbed into his arms, which he stretched out to catch him.

"I will save you, old man," cried Martin; "I will save you."

CHAPTER LVII.

EXPIATION.

Important business had taken Sidney to Liverpool, and it had been arranged that instead of returning to Apley, he should go across to Brackenburn and meet the rest of the Christmas party there. Traveling was a good deal impeded by a severe snowstorm, and he was disappointed, though not surprised, to find that the London train was very much behind time, when he reached the country station nearest to Brackenburn. Leaving the carriage and brake to bring the large party coming up from the south, Sidney hired a light spring cart, which would make its way more quickly and easily along the encumbered roads. The early night had already fallen; and a few breaks in the drifting clouds, through which the stars shone by twos and threes, seemed to foretell a cessation in the storm.

The full moon was shining through one of these rifts when he reached the forecourt of the old house, and its silvery light fell on all the gables, and touched every tossing spray of ivy glistering with the freshly fallen snow. But instead of the cheerful lights shining in every window, all the front of the house was in darkness. Within the wide porch a deep drift almost barred the approach to the door. There was something ominous in the deathlike silence and darkness of this place, to which he had been traveling with the expectation of entering it surrounded by all whom he loved most. There stole over him a sense of loneliness, such as all of us feel at times, when the utter solitude of the life within us, the isolation of each one's spirit, presses consciously and with deep awe upon us. No words could say how precious Margaret was to him; but even she could never enter into the secret and mysterious house of his soul.

A glimmer in a distant window at last answered to the driver's noisy and repeated ringing of the great bell; and the door was opened, Mary Goldsmith appearing with a face of terror.

"Oh, Mr. Martin!" she cried in a tremulous voice, "they're lost in the snow. They've never come back. Andrew and Martin are lost in the snow!"

For a moment it seemed as if her words forbade his entrance; and he stood motionless on the threshold looking from her to the whiteness of the scene behind him.

"Come in, come in," she said impatiently, "and tells us what we must do. All the men are gone to the station, and only the old gardener's left. They went out hours ago, Andrew and Martin, and never came back. They'd have been home before nightfall if they hadn't lost themselves."

Sidney entered the hall, leaving the heavy door ajar, and in a minute or two a long drift of snow stretched across the polished floor, blown in by the rising wind.

"Has nobody gone in search of them?" asked Sidney.

"Nay!" said Mary, crying, "there's only me, and Selina, and the maids; and it's such a dizzy storm. We lost our way only going along the garden walks. We couldn't see a yard before us. But we've lighted up all the windows at the back, looking over the moor. Only I'm afraid they can't be seen far off through the driving snow."

The wind had risen again almost to a gale, and roared round the solitary house, shaking every door and casement, and beating the long ivy tendrils against the windowpanes. Sidney could see nothing even of the storm for the sheet of ice and snow covering the outside of the windows. Andrew old, and Martin ailing in health, out on the moors, in this tempest! He looked into Mary's terror-stricken face with an expression of intense anxiety.

"They will be dead before morning!" cried Mary.

She put his own half formed thought into blunt words. Dead! Sophy's father and Sophy's son! The old, long gone by days when he was a boy and madly in love with Sophy came back to him vividly, as if the effacing touch of many years had not blotted out the recollection of them. The girl's pretty, saucy face, her high spirits and merry moods, her unrestrained love for him and his brief frenzied passion for her, all the long forgotten memories, sprang into bitter and stinging life. His conscience told him he had been glad when he knew she was dead, leaving his way to happiness and prosperity clear before him. But there was a great horror to him in a thought which was lurking somewhere in an obscure corner of his brain, a murderous thought, that he would rejoice in the death of Sophy's son. What would he do if Philip, his beloved son, were lost on the moors? That must he do for Martin.

He forgot Margaret for the time, as if to him she had no existence. He thought only of his sons—Philip, whom he would give his life to save, and Martin, to whom he owed a deeper debt than to any other human being; and flinging open the hall door he precipitated himself into the storm. There was a sudden lull as he did so; the gusts of wind ceased, and the dizzy snowflakes no longer hid the way. Bidding Mary send all the aid she could, as soon as the men arrived from the station, Sidney started across the moors.

He was fairly well acquainted with their general aspect, and felt no misgiving as to keeping within the range of the points most familiar to him. The light was clear enough to enable him to avoid the greater drifts, and the hollows, lying like great basins of snow. Besides, at any moment he might come upon the weary men, exhausted, perhaps, with exposure and fatigue, but stumbling homeward. From time to time he shouted, and waited, listening painfully for some answer. But no answer came, and still he went on, busy with the multiplicity of thoughts that crowded through his brain, and taking little heed of time or distance.

It seemed almost as if Martin and Philip were walking beside him. The fatherhood that was in him—the most godlike of all human emotions—was stirred to its very depths. He knew what it was; he had felt it in all its fullness toward Philip. But Martin also was his son! What an infinite love and pathos there were in the words "my son"! It seemed incredible, impossible, that he could have so sinned against that divine fatherhood in himself as to forsake the mother of his firstborn child. He had given life to Martin, but alas! what a life! Could he never set that wrong right through even the countless ages of eternity? Had not Martin lost forever the birthright that ought to have been his in this world?

No love either of father or mother; no symbol by which he could learn the love of God himself. Martin had never known what it was to be a son. All the innocent blisses, the passing gladness, the deep, unutterable joys of a happy childhood had been stolen from him. That which Philip had possessed in the richest measure Martin had had no least taste of. His childhood had been desolate and oppressed as childhood ought never to to be; his manhood had been given over to destitution and slavery. The father had sown in a small seed-plot, the son had reaped in a wide harvest-field.

The chief bitterness of it all, the very sting of death, was that no atonement was possible. As Sidney struggled onward through the clogging snowdrifts, he felt that he could give up even Margaret if he could recall the past. What was wealth, or influence, or the love of wife and child, or the choicest of all earth's many gifts, compared with the joy of having been true to that which was most akin to God in his own nature? That joy could never be his; but he would be a true father to Martin now, though he could not hope to find in him the sonship which is the crown of fatherhood.

The lull in the storm was over. The snowflakes began to whirl around him giddily, driven and tossed hither and thither by the bitter wind, and falling so thickly that they formed a dense veil of fluttering atoms, as impervious to the sight as a stone wall. The familiar landmarks were utterly lost were they ever so near to him. He fought his way through the wind and the snow as best he could, calling from time to time. The thick air was soundless; he could hear only his own heavy sighs and labored breath. The biting cold was making him feel dull and torpid; a lethargy crept over his busy brain.

Suddenly, as if a white curtain had been drawn aside for a moment, he saw on the other side of a slight ravine the cave which had been Martin's chosen retreat, and in the safe shelter of it sat Andrew and Martin, with a fire burning brightly in the entrance of the cave. Yonder there were warmth and safety; and in Sidney's clouded brain there sprang a great gladness at having found his son. He cried "Martin!" and it seemed to him as if he turned his ear toward him and listened to his call.

But the vision was hidden again from his sight before he could take a step forward; and still groping his way, though feebly and with exhausted limbs, he struggled on through the bewildering snowflakes to reach the haven of his son's shelter.

CHAPTER LVIII.

NIGHT AND MORNING.

Scarcely an hour later than Sidney's arrival Margaret came to Brackenburn, with the large party of her companions and servants. It did not strike her or Philip that there could be much danger in a storm such as they had passed through coming from the south. But Dorothy and the servants belonging to Brackenburn looked grave. The men, huddled in the porch, held a consultation. It was impossible to do anything until the downfall abated. The giddy maze of snowflakes was more bewildering than the darkest night, for lanterns could be of no use in such a storm, as they would have been in utter darkness.

"Oh! Miss Dorothy," cried Mary, "you know this country's ways better than us from the south. Is there nothing we can do?"

"Nothing," she answered; "we must wait till the snow abates. Nobody could go out in a storm like this."

"Would not your St. Bernard track them?" asked Philip.

"No," she said, "none of the men could venture out now. Oh! you don't know what it is. You cannot go, Philip; you could not find your way for five minutes."

"They'll be frozen to death before morning," wailed Mary.

"No," answered Dorothy in a faltering voice; "Martin would get to his cave, and they are safe there. But there is your father, Philip."

"He hasn't been gone an hour," said Mary, "and the others have been out six hours or more."

They gathered round the fire, which had smoldered down upon the neglected hearth; but it was soon in a blaze again, and the cheerful light fell upon Margaret's pale and thoughtful face. Philip and Dorothy looked at her, and then glanced apprehensively at each other. For the moment Margaret, with her steadfast and simple air of tranquillity, seemed to belong to another world than theirs.

"God is also in the storm," she said softly, as if to herself. She drew Dorothy close to her, and laid her other hand on Philip's arm.

"Children," she said, "we are no safer than they are, for we are all alike in the hands of God. You must go and take food and rest, that you may be strong to help as soon as the storm is over. Philip must go to seek them as soon as it is possible to find them."

But Margaret herself could not take either rest or food. Under her habitual tranquillity, which had become almost a second nature to her, there was to-night a strange agitation, such as she had felt but once before. This breaking up of the deep spring of feeling differed from the storm that had shaken her soul to the center when she discovered Sidney's treachery; but it was not less intense. She had never known before how much she loved him as her husband, with what a passionate force her heart clung to him. It seemed to her as if she was actually out with him, out in the bewildering snow, weary, aching, stumbling from drift to drift, growing numb and torpid. Oh! if she were really by his side, speaking to him, and hearing his dear voice! It was right that he should go to seek Martin; she did not grudge the peril. She was glad that he should risk his life for the son whose life he had ruined. But if he should perish, her husband, just now, when he had attained a higher level, when the love of God had conquered his love of the world!

From time to time Margaret opened her casement and looked out on the baffling snow-fall, which filled all the contracted field of vision. Nothing else could she see, not even the sky; only the dancing motes against a background of dense gloom.

Soon after dawn the downfall ceased, and Dorothy led Philip up to an attic window from which there was the widest view of the moorland. Stretching before their dazzled eyes was an undulating plain of the purest white, with not a track or mark upon it. Here and there a line of the faintest primrose shining in the pale daylight showed the crest of a hillock or the margin of a hollow. But all landmarks were blotted out. The sky was still of a leaden hue, and there was a threatening of more snow on the northern horizon.

"We must find them before another night comes on," exclaimed Philip.

"I could find my way to Martin's cave with a compass," said Dorothy hesitatingly. "If the sun comes out I am sure I could find it."

"But you must not go, my darling," he answered. "I cannot let you go with us men."

"My dogs would be very little use without me," she said; "they will not follow anyone else so well. I don't think the dogs can track them, but Martin might hear their baying, and would make an effort to come to us, or let us know where they are."

"Let us start at once then," exclaimed Philip.

The men were scanning the threatened storm in the north, but Dorothy's appearance, ready to go with them, silenced all objections. The snow was too soft to walk on easily, and the dogs whined as she bade them follow her, but they obeyed.

"Only pray 'at the storm 'ill keep off till we are home again," said the old shepherd, who could estimate the danger of their undertaking better than anyone else. Margaret watched them from her window with a wistful tenderness in her eyes, which were heavy and dim with her sleepless night. It was not possible for her to go.

The sun shone faintly, and Dorothy, by its aid and that of her compass, could direct the course of the little troop of men and dogs to the point where the cave was. She fancied she could recognize, under the softly undulating surface, the outlines of one ridge after another, and the hollows where frozen tarns were lying. The men shouted, and the dogs bayed with their deep voices, filling the moorland with their cry, but there was no sign as yet that any of the lost men heard them. How swiftly the precious moments were passing by! and how slow was the progress which they made! The leaden snowclouds were slowly climbing up the sky, and had already covered the dim disk of the low lying sun.

"I feel sure the cave is over there," said Dorothy.

They had reached a more rugged part of the upland, strewn with masses of rock, which stood half buried in heather in the summer. Deep snowdrifts had gathered on the side of each of them. The cave lay under a rock at the head of a long, narrow dell, scarcely more than a cleft in the earth, down which a burn ran in summer; and above the margin of this cleft stood a shape which, as they drew near to it, took the form of a cross.

They hastened to the ravine, and looked down into it. It was half filled with a deep drift, which almost hid the mouth of the cave, but the wind had blown away most of the snow from the old Calvary, which had weathered so many wintry tempests in the Ampezzo Valley. The arms of the cross were pure white, and the crucified form upon it was swathed in a white shroud. But the foot of it was buried in the snow, and a human form lay there almost hidden by it, with arms outstretched, as if to clasp the cross. Who could it be?