Johnny Ludlow, Third Series

Yes, it was a good time. To look at us round that dinner-table, you’d have said there was nothing but pleasure in the world. Not but that ever and anon the poor young gipsy woman’s troubled face and her sad wild eyes, and the warning some subtle instinct seemed to be whispering to her about her husband, would rise between me and the light.

The afternoon was wearing on when I got back to the glade with William Whitney (for we had all gone strolling about after dinner) and found some of the ladies there. Mrs. Todhetley had gone into Rednal’s cottage to talk to his wife, Jessy; Anna was below in the dell; all the rest were in the glade. A clean-looking, stout old lady, in a light cotton gown and white apron, a mob cap with a big border and bow of ribbon in front of it, turned round from talking to them, smiled, and made me a curtsy.

The face seemed familiar to me: but where had I seen it before? Helen Whitney, seeing my puzzled look, spoke up in her free manner.

“Have you no memory, Johnny Ludlow? Don’t you remember Mrs. Ness!—and the fortune she told us on the cards?”

It came upon me with a rush. That drizzling Good Friday afternoon at Miss Deveen’s, long ago, and Helen smuggling up the old lady from downstairs to tell her fortune. But what brought her here? There seemed to be no connection between Miss Deveen’s house in town and Briar Wood in Worcestershire. I could not have been more at sea had I seen a Chinese lady from Pekin. Miss Deveen laughed.

“And yet it is so easy of explanation, Johnny, so simple and straightforward,” she said. “Mrs. Ness chances to be aunt to Rednal’s wife, and she is staying down here with them.”

Simple it was—as are most other puzzles when you have the clue. The old woman was a great protégée of Miss Deveen’s, who had known her through her life of misfortune: but Miss Deveen did not before know of her relationship to Rednal’s wife or that she was staying at their cottage. They had been talking of that past afternoon and the fortune-telling in it, when I and Bill came up.

“And what I told you, miss, came true—now didn’t it?” cried Mrs. Ness to Helen.

“True! Why, you told me nothing!” retorted Helen. “There was nothing in the fortune. You said there was nothing in the cards.”

“I remember it,” said Mother Ness; “remember it well. The cards showed no husband for you then, young lady; they might tell different now. But they showed some trouble about it, I recollect.”

Helen’s face fell. There had indeed been trouble. Trouble again and again. Richard Foliott, the false, had brought trouble to her; and so had Charles Leafchild, now lying in his grave at Worcester: not to speak of poor Slingsby Temple. Helen had got over all those crosses now, and was looking up again. She was of a nature to look up again from any evil that might befall her, short of losing her head off her shoulders. All dinner-time she had been flirting with Featherston’s nephew.

This suggestion of Mrs. Ness, “the cards might tell different now,” caught hold of her mind. Her colour slightly deepened, her eyes sparkled.

“Have you the cards with you now, Mrs. Ness?”

“Ay, to be sure, young lady. I never come away from home without my cards. They be in the cottage yonder.”

“Then I should like my fortune told again.”

“Oh, Helen, how can you be so silly!” cried Lady Whitney.

“Silly! Why, mamma, it is good fun. You go and fetch the cards, Mrs. Ness.”

“I and Johnny nearly had our fortune told to-day,” put in Bill, while Mrs. Ness stood where she was, hardly knowing what to be at. “We came upon a young gipsy woman in the wood, and she wanted to promise us a wife apiece. A little girl was with her that may have been stolen: she was too fair to be that brown woman’s child.”

“It must have been the Norths,” exclaimed Mrs. Ness. “Was there some tinware by ’em, sir; and some rabbit skins?”

“Yes. Both. The rabbit skins were hanging out to dry.”

“Ay, it’s the Norths,” repeated Mrs. Ness. “Rednal said he saw North yesterday; he guessed they’d lighted their campfire not far off.”

“Who are the Norths? Gipsies?”

“The wife is a gipsy, sir; born and bred. He is a native of these parts, and superior; but he took to an idle, wandering life, and married the gipsy girl for her beauty. She was Bertha Lee then.”

“Why, it is quite a romance,” said Miss Deveen, amused.

“And so it is, ma’am. Rednal told me all on’t. They tramp the country, selling their tins, and collecting rabbit skins.”

“And is the child theirs?” asked Bill.

“Ay, sir, it be. But she don’t take after her mother; she’s like him, her skin fair as alabaster. You’d not think, Rednal says, that she’d a drop o’ gipsy blood in her veins. North might ha’ done well had he only turned out steady; been just the odds o’ what he is—a poor tramp.”

“Oh, come, never mind the gipsies,” cried Helen, impatiently. “You go and bring the cards, Mrs. Ness.”

One can’t go in for stilts at a picnic, or for wisdom either; and when Mrs. Ness brought her cards (which might have been cleaner) none of them made any objection. Even Cattledon looked on, grimly tolerant.

“But you can’t think there’s anything in it—that the cards tell true,” cried Lady Whitney to the old woman.

“Ma’am, be sure they do. I believe in ’em from my very heart. And so, I make bold to say, would everybody here believe, if they had read the things upon ’em that I’ve read, and seen how surely they’ve come to pass.”

They would not contradict her openly; only smiled a little among themselves. Mother Ness was busy with the cards, laying them out for Helen’s fortune. I drew near to listen.

“You look just as though you put faith in it,” whispered Bill to me.

“I don’t put faith in it. I should not like to be so foolish. But, William, what she told Helen before did come true.”

Well, Helen’s “fortune” was told again. It sounded just as uneventful as the one told that rainy afternoon long ago—for we were now some years older than we were then. Helen Whitney’s future, according to the cards, or to Dame Ness’s reading of them, would be all plain sailing; smooth and easy, and unmarked alike by events and by care. A most desirable career, some people would think, but Helen looked the picture of desolation.

“And you say I am not to be married!” she exclaimed.

Dame Ness had her head bent over the cards. She shook it without looking up.

“I don’t see a ring nowhere, young lady, and that’s the blessed truth. There ain’t one, that’s more. There ain’t a sign o’ one. Neither was there the other time, I remember: that time in London. And so—I take it that there won’t never be.”

“Then I think you are a very disagreeable story-telling old woman!” flashed Helen, all candour in her mortification. “Not be married, indeed!”

“Why, my dear, I’d be only too glad to promise you a husband if the cards foretelled it,” said Dame Ness, pityingly. “Yours is the best fortune of all, though, if you could but bring your mind to see it. Husbands is more plague nor profit. I’m sure I had cause to say so by the one that fell to my share, as that there dear good lady knows,” pointing to Miss Deveen.

In high dudgeon, Helen pushed the cards together. Mrs. Ness, getting some kind words from the rest of us, curtsied as she went off to the cottage to see about the kettles for our tea.

“You are a nice young lady!” exclaimed Bill. “Showing your temper because the cards don’t give you a sweetheart!”

Helen threw her fan at him. “Mind your own business,” returned she. And he went away laughing.

“And, my dear, I say the same as William,” added Lady Whitney. “One really might think that you were—were anxious to be married.”

“All cock-a-hoop for it,” struck in Cattledon: “as the housemaids are.”

“And no such great crime, either,” returned Helen, defiantly. “Fancy that absurd old thing telling me I never shall be!”

“Helen, my dear, I think the chances are that you will not be married,” quietly spoke Miss Deveen.

“Oh, do you!”

“Don’t be cross, Helen,” said her mother. “Our destinies are not in our own hands.”

Helen bit her lip, laughed, and recovered her temper. She was like her father; apt to flash out a hot word, but never angry long.

“Now—please, Miss Deveen, why do you think I shall not be?” she asked playfully.

“Because, my dear, you have had three chances, so to say, of marriage, and each time it has been frustrated. In two of the instances by—if we may dare to say it—the interposition of Heaven. The young men died beforehand in an unexpected and unforeseen manner: Charles Leafchild and Mr. Temple——”

“I was never engaged to Mr. Temple,” interrupted Helen.

“No; but, by all I hear, you shortly would have been.”

Helen gave no answer. She knew perfectly well that she had expected an offer from Slingsby Temple; that his death, as she believed, alone prevented its being made. She would have said Yes to it, too. Miss Deveen went on.

“We will not give more than an allusion to Captain Foliott; he does not deserve it; but your marriage with him came nearest of all. It may be said, Helen, without exaggeration, that you have been on the point of marriage twice, and very nearly so a third time. Now, what does this prove?”

“That luck was against me,” said Helen, lightly.

“Ay, child: luck, as we call it in this world. I would rather say, Destiny. God knows best. Do you wonder that I have never married?” continued Miss Deveen in a less serious tone.

“I never thought about it,” answered Helen.

“I know that some people have wondered at it; for I was a girl likely to marry—or it may be better to say, likely to be sought in marriage. I had good looks, good temper, good birth, and a good fortune: and I dare say I was just as willing to be chosen as all young girls are. Yes, I say that all girls possess an innate wish to marry; it is implanted in their nature, comes with their mother’s milk. Let their station be high or low, a royal princess, if you will, or the housemaid Jemima Cattledon suggested just now, the same natural instinct lies within each—a wish to be a wife. And no reason, either, why they should not wish it; it’s nothing to be ashamed of; and Helen, my dear, I would rather hear a girl avow it openly, as you do, than pretend to be shocked at its very mention.”

Some gleams of sunlight flickered on Miss Deveen’s white hair and fine features as she sat under the trees, her bronze-coloured silk gown falling around her in rich folds, and a big amethyst brooch fastening her collar. I began to think how good-looking she must have been when young, and where the eyes of the young men of those days could have been. Lady Whitney, looking like a bundle in her light dress that ill became her, sat near, fanning herself.

“Yes, I do wonder, now I think of it, that you never married,” said Helen.

“To tell you the truth, I wonder myself sometimes,” replied Miss Deveen, smiling. “I think—I believe—that, putting other advantages aside, I was well calculated to be a wife, and should have made a good one. Not that that has anything to do with it; for you see the most incapable women marry, and remain incapable to their dying day. I could mention wives at this moment, within the circle of my acquaintance, who are no more fitted to be wives than is that three-legged stool Johnny is balancing himself upon; and who in consequence unwittingly keep their husbands and their homes in a state of perpetual turmoil. I was not one of these, I am sure; but here I am, unmarried still.”

“Would you marry now?” asked Helen briskly: and we all burst into a laugh at the question, Miss Deveen’s the merriest.

“Marry at sixty! Not if I know it. I have at least twenty years too many for that; some might say thirty. But I don’t believe many women give up the idea of marriage before they are forty; and I do not see why they should. No, nor then, either.”

“But—why did you not marry, Miss Deveen?”

“Ah, my dear, if you wish for an answer to that question, you must ask it of Heaven. I cannot give one. All I can tell you is, that I did hope to be married, and expected to be married, waited to be married; but here you see me in my old age—Miss Deveen.”

“Did you—never have a chance of it—an opportunity?” questioned Helen with hesitation.

“I had more than one chance: I had two or three chances, just as you have had. During the time that each ‘chance’ was passing, if we may give it the term, I thought assuredly I should soon be a wife. But each chance melted away from this cause or that cause, ending in nothing. And the conclusion I have come to, Helen, for many a year past, is, that God, for some wise purpose of His own, decreed that I should not marry. What we know not here, we shall know hereafter.”

Her tone had changed to one of deep reverence. She did not say more for a little time.

“When I look around the world,” she at length went on, “and note how many admirable women see their chances of marriage dwindle down one after another, from unexpected and apparently trifling causes, it is impossible not to feel that the finger of God is at work. That——”

“But now, Miss Deveen, we could marry if we would—all of us,” interrupted Helen. “If we did not have to regard suitability and propriety, and all that, there’s not a girl but could go off to church and marry somebody.”

“If it’s only a broomstick,” acquiesced Miss Deveen, “or a man no better than one. Yes, Helen, you are right: and it has occasionally been done. But when we fly wilfully in the teeth of circumstances, bent on following our own resolute path, we take ourselves out of God’s hands—and must reap the consequences.”

“I—do not—quite understand,” slowly spoke Helen.

“Suppose I give you an instance of what I mean, my dear. Some years ago I knew a young lady——”

“Is it true? What was her name?”

“Certainly it is true, every detail of it. As to her name—well, I do not see any reason why I should not tell it: her name was Eliza Lake. I knew her family very well indeed, was intimate with her mother. Eliza was the third daughter, and desperately eager to be married. Her chances came. The first offer was eligible; but the two families could not agree about money matters, and it dropped through. The next offer Eliza would not accept—it was from a widower with children, and she sent him to the right-about. The third went on smoothly nearly to the wedding-day, and a good and suitable match it would have been, but something occurred then very unpleasant though I never knew the precise particulars. The bridegroom-elect fell into some trouble or difficulty, he had to quit his country hastily, and the marriage was broken off—was at an end. That was the last offer she had, so far as I knew; and the years went on, Eliza gadding out to parties, and flirting and coquetting, all in the hope to get a husband. When she was in her thirtieth year, her mother came to me one day in much distress and perplexity. Eliza, she said, was taking the reins into her own hands, purposing to be married in spite of her father, mother, and friends. Mrs. Lake wanted me to talk to Eliza; she thought I might influence her, though they could not; and I took an opportunity of doing so—freely. It is of no use to mince matters when you want to save a girl from ruin. I recalled the past to her memory, saying that I believed, judging by that past, that Heaven did not intend her to marry. I told her all the ill I had heard of the man she was now choosing; also that she had absolutely thrown herself at him, and he had responded for the sake of the little money she possessed; and that if she persisted in marrying him she would assuredly rue it. In language as earnest as I knew how to choose, I laid all this before her.”

“And what was her answer to you?” Helen spoke as if her breath was short.

“Just like the reckless answer that a blinded, foolish girl would make. ’Though Heaven and earth were against me, I should marry him, Miss Deveen. I am beyond the control of parents, brothers, sisters, friends; and I will not die an old maid to please any of you.’ Those were the wilful words she used; I have never forgotten them; and the next week she betook herself to church.”

“Did the marriage turn out badly?”

“Ay, it did. Could you expect anything else? Poor Eliza supped the cup of sorrow to its dregs: and she brought bitter sorrow and trouble also on her family. That, Helen, is what I call taking one’s self out of God’s hands, and flying determinedly in the face of what is right and seemly, and evidently appointed.”

“You say yourself it is hard not to be married,” quoth Helen.

“No, I do not,” laughed Miss Deveen. “I say that it appears hard to us when our days of youth are passing, and when we see our companions chosen and ourselves left: but, rely upon it, Helen, as we advance in years, we acquiesce in the decree; many of us learning to be thankful for it.”

“And you young people little think what great cause you have to be thankful for it,” cried Lady Whitney, all in a heat. “Marriage brings a bushel of cares: and no one knows what anxiety boys and girls entail until they come.”

Miss Deveen nodded emphatically. “It is very true. I would not exchange my present lot with that of the best wife in England; believe that, or not, as you will, Helen. Of all the different states this busy earth can produce, a lot such as mine is assuredly the most exempt from trouble. And, my dear, if you are destined never to marry, you have a great deal more cause to be thankful than rebellious.”

“The other day, when you were preaching to us, you told us that trouble came for our benefit,” grumbled Helen, passing into rebellion forthwith.

“I remember it,” assented Miss Deveen, “and very true it is. My heart has sickened before now at witnessing the troubles, apparently unmerited, that some people, whether married or single, have to undergo; and I might have been almost tempted to question the loving-kindness of Heaven, but for remembering that we must through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom.”

Anna interrupted the silence that ensued. She came running up with a handful of wild roses and sweetbriar, gathered in the hedge below. Miss Deveen took them when offered to her, saying she thought of all flowers the wild rose was the sweetest.

“How solemn you all look!” cried Anna.

“Don’t we!” said Helen. “I have been having a lecture read to me.”

“By whom?”

“Every one here—except Johnny Ludlow. And I am sure I hope he was edified. I wonder when tea is going to be ready!”

“Directly, I should say,” said Anna: “for here comes Mrs. Ness with the cups and saucers.”

I ran forward to help her bring the things. Rednal’s trim wife, a neat, active woman with green eyes and a baby in her arms, was following with plates of bread-and-butter and cake, and the news that the kettle was “on the boil.” Presently the table was spread; and William, who had come back to us, took up the baby’s whistle and blew a blast, prolonged and shrill.

The stragglers heard it, understood it was the signal for their return, and came flocking in. The Squire and Sir John said they had been sitting under the trees and talking: our impression was, they had been sleeping. The young Whitneys appeared in various stages of heat; Tod and Featherston’s nephew smelt of smoke. The first cups of tea had gone round, and Tod was making for Rednal’s cottage with a notice that the bread-and-butter had come to an end, when I saw a delicate little fair-haired face peering at us from amid the trees.

“Halloa!” cried the Squire, catching sight of the face at the same moment. “Who on earth’s that?”

“It’s the child we saw this morning—the gipsy’s child,” exclaimed William Whitney. “Here, you little one! Stop! Come here.”

He only meant to give her a piece of cake: but the child ran off with a scared look and fleet step, and was lost in the trees.

“Senseless little thing!” cried Bill: and sat down to his tea again.

“But what a pretty child it was!” observed the mater. “She put me in mind of Lena.”

“Why, Lena’s oceans of years older,” said Helen, free with her remarks as usual. “That child, from the glimpse I caught of her, can’t be more than five or six.”

“She is about seven, miss,” struck in Rednal’s wife, who had just come up with a fresh supply of tea. “It is nigh upon eight years since young Walter North went off and got married.”

“Walter North!” repeated Sir John. “Who’s Walter North? Let me see? The name seems familiar to me.”

“Old Walter North was the parish schoolmaster over at Easton, sir. The son turned out wild and unsteady; and at the time his father died he went off and joined the gipsies. They had used to encamp about here more than they do now, as Rednal could tell you, Sir John; and it was said young North was in love with a girl belonging to the tribe—Bertha Lee. Any way, they got married. Right-down beautiful she was—for a gipsy; and so young.”

“Then I suppose North and his wife are here now—if that’s their child?” remarked Sir John.

“They are here sure enough, sir; somewhere in the wood. Rednal has seen him about this day or two past. Two or three times they’ll be here, pestering, during the summer, and stop ten or twelve days. Maybe young North has a hankering after the old spots he was brought up in, and comes to see ’em,” suggestively added Rednal’s wife; whose tongue ran faster than any other two women’s put together. And that’s saying something.

“And how does this young North get a living?” asked Sir John. “By poaching?—and rifling the poultry-yards?”

“Like enough he do, Sir John. Them tramps have mostly light fingers.”

“They sell tins—and collect rabbit skins,” struck in William. “Johnny Ludlow and I charged the encampment this morning, and nearly got our fortunes told.”

Jessy Rednal’s chin went up. “They’d better let Rednal catch ’em at their fortune-telling!—it was the wife, I know, sir, did that. When she was but a slip of a girl she’d go up as bold as brass to any gentleman or lady passing, and ask them to cross her hand with silver.”

With this parting fling at the gipsies, Rednal’s wife ran off to the cottage for another basin of sugar. The heat made us thirsty, and we wanted about a dozen cups of tea apiece.

But now, I don’t know why it was, I had rather taken a fancy to this young woman, Bertha North, and did not believe the words “as bold as brass” could be properly applied to her. Gipsy though she was, her face, for good feeling and refinement, was worth ten of Jessy Rednal’s. It’s true she had followed us, wanting to tell our fortunes, but she might have been hard up for money.

When we had swallowed as much tea as the kettles would produce, and cleared the plates of the eatables, Sir John suggested that it would soon be time to move homewards, as the evening would be coming on. This had the effect of scattering some of us at once. If they did not get us, they could not take us. “Home, indeed! as early as this!” cried Helen, wrathfully—and rushed off with her brother Harry and Featherston’s nephew.

I was ever so far down one of the wood paths, looking about, for somehow I had missed them all, when sounds of wailing and crying from a young voice struck my ear. In a minute, that same fair little child came running into view, as if she were flying for her life from some pursuing foe, her sobs wild with terror, her face white as death.

What she said I could not make out, though she made straight up to me and caught my arm; the language seemed strange, the breath gone. But there was no mistaking the motions: she pulled me along with her across the wood, her little arms and eyes frantically imploring.

Something must be amiss, I thought. What was it? “Is there a mad bull in the way, little one? And are you making off with me to do battle with him?”

No elucidation from the child: only the sobs, and the words I did not catch. But we were close to the outskirts of the wood now (it was but narrow), and there, beyond the hedge that bordered it, crouched down against the bank, was a man. A fair-faced, good-looking young man, small and slight, and groaning with pain.

No need to wonder who he was: the likeness between him and the child betrayed it. How like they were! even to the expression in the large blue eyes, and the colour of the soft fair hair. The child’s face was his own in miniature.

“You are Walter North,” I said. “And what’s to do?”

His imploring eyes in their pitiful pain looked up to mine, as if he would question how I needed to ask it. Then he pulled his fustian coat aside and pointed to his side. It made me start a step back. The side was steeped in blood.

“Oh dear, what is it?—what has caused it? An accident?”

“I have been shot,” he answered—and I thought his voice sounded ominously weak. “Shot from over yonder.”

Looking across the field in front of us, towards which he pointed, I could see nothing. I mean, nothing likely to have shot him. No men, no guns. Off to the left, partly buried amidst its grounds, lay the old house called the Granary; to the right in the distance, Vale Farm. The little child was stretched on the ground, quiet now, her head resting on his right shoulder; it was the left side that was injured. Suddenly he whispered a few words to her; she sprang up with a sob and darted into the wood. The child, as we heard later, had been sent out by her mother to look for her father: it was in seeking for him that she had come upon our tea-party and peeped at us. Later, she found him, fallen where he was now, just after the shot which struck him was fired. In her terror she was flying off for assistance, and met me. The man’s hat lay near him, also an old drab-coloured bag, some tin basins, and a Dutch-oven.

“Can I move you, to put you easier?” I asked between his groans. “Can I do anything in the world to help you?”

“No, no, don’t touch me,” he said, in a hopeless tone. “I am bleeding to death.”

And I thought he was. His cheeks and lips were growing paler with every minute. The man’s diction was as good as mine; and, tramp though he was, many a gentleman has not half as nice a face as his.

“If you don’t mind being left, I will run for a doctor—old Featherston.”

Before he could answer yes or no, Harry Vale, who must have espied us from their land, came running up.

“Why—what in the world——” he began. “Is it you, North? What? Shot, you say?”

“From over yonder, sir; and I’ve got my death-blow: I think I have. Perhaps if Featherston——”

“I’ll fetch him,” cried Harry Vale. “You stay here with him, Johnny.” And he darted away like a lamplighter, his long legs skimming the grass.

I am nothing but a muff; you know that of old. And never did I feel my own deficiencies come home to me as they did then. Any one else might have known how to stop the bleeding—for of course it ought to be stopped—if only by stuffing a handkerchief into the wound. I did not dare attempt it; I was worse at any kind of surgery than a born imbecile. All in a moment, as I stood there, the young gipsy-woman’s words of the morning flashed into my mind. She had foreseen some ill for him, she said; had scented it in the air. How strange it seemed!

The next to come upon the scene was the Squire, crushing through the brambles when he heard our voices. He and Sir John, in dire wrath at our flight, had come out to look for us and to marshal us back for the start home. I gave him a few whispered words of explanation.

“What!” cried he. “Dying?” and his face went as pale as the man’s. “Oh, my poor fellow, I am sorry for this!”

Stooping over him, the Squire pulled the coat aside. The stains were larger now, the flow was greater. North bent his head forward to look, and somehow got his hand wet in the process. Wet and red. He snatched it away with a kind of horror. The sight seemed to bring upon him the conviction that his minutes were numbered. His minutes. Which is the last and greatest terror that can seize upon man.

“I’m going before God now, and I’m not fit for it,” he cried, a shrieking note, born of emotion, in his weakening voice. “Can there be any mercy for me?”

The Squire seemed to feel it—he has said so since—as one of the most solemn moments of his life. He took off his spectacles—a habit of his when much excited—dropped them into his pocket, and clasped his hands together.

“There’s mercy with God through the Lord Jesus always,” he said, bending over the troubled face. “He pardoned the thief on the Cross. He pardoned all who came to Him. If you are Walter North, as they tell me, you must know all this as well as I do. Lord God have mercy upon this poor dying man, for Christ’s sake!”

And perhaps the good lessons that North had learnt in childhood from his mother, for she was a good woman, came back to him then to comfort him. He lifted his own hands towards the skies, and half the terror went out of his face.

Some one once said, I believe, that by standing stock still in the Strand, and staring at any given point, he could collect a crowd about him in no time. In the thronged thoroughfares of London that’s not to be surprised at; but what I should like to know is this—how is it that people collect in deserts? They do, and you must have seen it often. Before many minutes were over we had quite a levee: Sir John Whitney, William, and Featherston’s nephew; three or four labourers from Vale Farm; Harry Vale, who had met Featherston, and outrun him; and one of the tall sons of Colonel Leonard. The latter, a young fellow with lazy limbs, a lazy voice, and supercilious manner, strolled up, smacking a dog-whip.

“What’s the row here?” cried he: and William Whitney told him. The man had been shot: by whom or by what means, whether wilfully or accidentally, remained to be discovered.

“Did you do it—or your brothers?” asked Harry Vale of him in a low tone. And Herbert Leonard whirled round to face Vale with a haughty stare.

“What the devil do you mean? What should we want to shoot a tramp for?”

“Any way, you were practising with pistols at your target over yonder this afternoon.”

Leonard did not condescend to reply. The words had angered him. By no possibility could a shot, aimed at their target, come in this direction. The dog-whip shook, as if he felt inclined to use it on Harry Vale for his insolent suggestion.

“Such a fuss over a tramp!” cried Leonard to Sir John, not caring who heard him. “I dare say the fellow was caught thieving, and got served out for his pains.”

But he did not well know Sir John—who turned upon him like lightning.

“How dare you say that, young man! Are you not ashamed to give utterance to such sentiments?”

“Look here!” coolly retorted Leonard.

Catching hold of the bag to shake it, out tumbled a dead hen with ruffled feathers. Sir John looked grave. Leonard held it up.

“I thought so. It is still warm. He has stolen it from some poultry-yard.”

I chanced to be standing close to North as Leonard said it, and felt a feeble twitch at my trousers. Poor North was trying to attract my attention; gazing up at me with the most anxious face.

“No,” said he, but he was almost too faint to speak now. “No. Tell them, sir, No.”

But Harry Vale was already taking up the defence. “You are wrong, Mr. Herbert Leonard. I gave that hen myself to North half-an-hour ago. Some little lads, my cousins, are at the farm to-day, and one of them accidentally killed the hen. Knowing our people would not care to use it, I called to North, who chanced to be passing at the time, and told him he might take it if he liked.”

A gleam of a smile, checked by a sob, passed over the poor man’s face. Things wear a different aspect to us in the hour of death from what they do in lusty life. It may be that North saw then that theft, even of a fowl, was theft, and felt glad to be released from the suspicion. Sir John looked as pleased as Punch: one does not like to hear wrong brought home to a dying man.

Herbert Leonard turned off indifferently, strolling back across the field and cracking his whip; and Featherston came pelting up.

The first thing the doctor did, when he had seen North’s face, was to take a phial and small glass out of his pocket, and give him something to drink. Next, he made a clear sweep of us all round, and knelt down to examine the wound, just as the poor gipsy wife, fetched by the child, appeared in sight.

“Is there any hope?” whispered the Squire.

“Hope!” whispered back Featherston. “In half-an-hour it will be over.”

“God help him!” prayed the Squire. “God pardon and take him!”

Well, well—that is about all there is to tell. Poor North died, there as he lay, in the twilight; his wife’s arm round his neck, and his little girl feebly clasped to him.

What an end to the bright and pleasant day! Sir John thanked Heaven openly that it was not we who had caused the calamity.

“For somebody must have shot him, lads,” he observed, “though I dare say it was accidental. And it might have chanced to be one of you—there’s no telling: you are not too cautious with your guns.”

The “somebody” turned out to be George Leonard. Harry Vale (who had strong suspicions) was right. When they dispersed after their target practising, one of them, George, went towards Briar Wood, his pistol loaded. The thick trees afforded a promising mark, he thought, and he carelessly let off the pistol at them. Whether he saw that he had shot a man was never known; he denied it out and out: didn’t know one was there, he protested. A waggoner, passing homewards with his team, had seen him fire the pistol, and came forward to say so; or it might have been a mystery to the end. “Accidental Death,” decided the jury at the inquest; but they recommended the supercilious young man (just as indifferent as his brothers) to take care what he fired at for the future. Mr. George did not take the rebuke kindly.

For these sons had hard, bad natures; and were doing their best to bring down their father’s grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.

But how strange it seemed altogether! The poor young gipsy-wife’s subtle instinct that evil was near!—and that the shot should just have struck him instead of spending itself harmlessly upon one of the hundreds of trees! Verily there are things in this world not to be grasped by our limited understandings.

THE STORY OF DOROTHY GRAPE.

DISAPPEARANCE.

I.

According to Mrs. Todhetley’s belief, some people are born to be unlucky. Not only individuals, but whole families. “I have noticed it times and again, Johnny, in going through life,” she has said to me: “ill-luck in some way lies upon them, and upon all they do; they cannot prosper, from their cradle to their grave.” That there will be some compensating happiness for these people hereafter—for they do exist—is a belief we all like to cherish.

I am now going to tell of people in rather humble life whom this ill-luck seemed to attend. That might never have brought the family into notice, ups and downs being so common in the world: but two mysterious disappearances occurred in it, which caused them to be talked about; and those occurrences I must relate before coming to Dorothy’s proper history. They took place before my time; in fact when Squire Todhetley was a young man, and it is from him that I repeat it.

At this end of the village of Islip, going into it from Crabb, there stood on the right-hand side of the road a superior cottage residence, with lovely yellow roses intertwining themselves about its porch. Robert Grape and his wife lived in it, and were well enough to do. He was in the “post-horse duty,” the Squire said—whatever that might mean; and she had money on her own account. The cottage was hers absolutely, and nearly one hundred pounds a-year income. The latter, however, was only an annuity, and would die with her.

There were two children living: Dorothy, softened by her friends into Dolly; and Thomas. Two others, who came between them, went off in what Mrs. Grape used to call a “galloping consumption.” Dolly’s cheeks were bright and her eyes were blue, and her soft brown hair fell back in curls from her dimpled face. All the young men about, including the Squire, admired the little girl; more than their mothers did, who said she was growing up vain and light-headed. Perhaps she might be; but she was a modest, well-behaved little maiden. She went to school by day, as did her brother.

Mr. Grape’s occupation, connected with the “post-horse duty,” appeared to consist in driving about the country in a gig. The length of these journeys varied, but he would generally be absent about three weeks. Then he would come home for a short interval, and go off again. He was a well-conducted man and was respected.

One Monday morning in summer, when the sun was shining on the yellow roses and the dew glittered on the grass, Robert Grape was about to start on one of these journeys. Passing out to his gig, which waited at the gate, after kissing his wife and daughter, he stopped to pluck a rose. Dolly followed him out. She was sixteen now and had left school.

“Take care your old horse does not fall this time, father,” said she, gaily and lightly.

“I’ll take care, lass, if I can,” he answered.

“The truth is, Robert, you want a new horse,” said Mrs. Grape, speaking from the open door.

“I know I do, Mary Ann. Old Jack’s no longer to be trusted.”

“Shall you be at Bridgenorth to-morrow?”

“No; on Wednesday evening. Good-bye once more. You may expect me home at the time I’ve said.” And, with those last words he mounted his gig and drove away.

From that day, from that hour, Robert Grape was never more seen by his family. Neither did they hear from him: but he did not, as a rule, write to them when on his journeys. They said to one another what delightful weather he was having this time, and the days passed pleasantly until the Saturday of his expected return.

But he did not come. Mrs. Grape had prepared a favourite dinner of his for the Sunday, lamb and peas, and a lemon cheese-cake. They had to take it without him. Three or four more days passed, and still they saw nothing of him. Mrs. Grape was not at all uneasy.

“I think, children, he must have been mistaken in a week,” she said to Dolly and Tom. “It must be next Saturday that he meant. I shall expect him then.”

He did not come. The Saturday came, but he did not. And the following week Mrs. Grape wrote a letter to the inn at Bridgenorth, where he was in the habit of putting-up, asking when he had left it, and for what town.

Startling tidings came back in answer. Mr. Grape had quitted the place nearly four weeks ago, leaving his horse and gig at the inn. He had not yet returned for them. Mrs. Grape could not make it out; she went off to Worcester to take the stage-coach for Bridgenorth, and there made inquiries. The following was the substance of what she learned:—

On Wednesday evening, the next day but one after leaving his home, Mr. Grape approached Bridgenorth. Upon entering the town, the horse started and fell: his master was thrown out of the gig, but not hurt; the shafts were broken and the horse lamed. “A pretty kettle of fish, this is,” cried Mr. Grape in his good-humoured way to the ostler, when the damaged cavalcade reached the inn: “I shall have to take a week’s holiday now, I suppose.” The man’s answer was to the effect that the old horse was no longer of much good; Mr. Grape nodded assent, and remarked that he must be upon the look-out for another.

In the morning, he quitted the inn on foot, leaving the horse to the care of the veterinary surgeon, who said it would be four or five days before he would be fit to travel, and the gig to have its shafts repaired. Mr. Grape observed to the landlord that he should use the opportunity to go on a little expedition which otherwise he could not have found time for, and should be back before the horse was well. But he never had come back. This was recounted to Mrs. Grape.

“He did not give any clue as to where he was going,” added the landlord; “he started away with nothing but his umbrella and what he might have put in his pockets, saying he should walk the first stage of his journey. His portmanteau is up in his bedroom now.”

All this sounded very curious to Mrs. Grape. It was unlike her open, out-speaking husband. She inquired whether it was likely that he had been injured in the fall from the gig and could be lying ill somewhere.

The landlord shook his head in dissent. “He said he was not hurt a bit,” replied he, “and he did not seem to be. He ate a good supper that night and made a famous breakfast in the morning.”

An idea flashed across Mrs. Grape’s mind as she listened. “I think he must have gone off for a ramble about the Welsh mountains,” spoke she. “He was there once when a boy, and often said how much he should like to go there again. In fact he said he should go when he could spare the time.”

“May be so,” assented the landlord. “Them Welsh mountains be pleasant to look upon; but if a mist comes on, or one meets with an awkward pass, or anything of that sort—well, ma’am, let’s hope we shall see him back yet.”

After bringing all the inquiries to an end that she was able to make, Mrs. Grape went home in miserable uncertainty. She did not give up hope; she thought he must be lying ill amongst the Welsh hills, perhaps had caught a fever and lost his senses. As the days and the weeks passed on, a sort of nervous expectancy set in. Tidings of him might come to her any day, living or dead. A sudden knock at the door made her jump; if the postman by some rare chance paid them a visit—for letters were not written in those days by the bushel—it set her trembling. More than once she had hastily risen in the middle of the night, believing she heard a voice calling to her outside the cottage. But tidings of Robert Grape never came.

That was disappearance the first.

In the spring of the following year Mrs. Grape sold her pretty homestead and removed to Worcester. Circumstances had changed with her. Beyond what little means had been, or could be, saved, the children would have nothing to help them on in the world. Tom, thirteen years old now, must have a twelvemonth’s good schooling before being placed at some business. Dolly must learn a trade by which to get her living. In past times, young people who were not specially educated for it, or were of humble birth, did not dream of making themselves into governesses.

“You had better go to the mantua-making, Dolly,” said Mrs. Grape. “It’s nice genteel work.”

Dolly drew a wry face. “I should not make much hand at that, mother.”

“But what else is there? You wouldn’t like the stay-making——”

“Oh dear, no.”

“Or to serve in a pastry-cook’s shop, or anything of that sort. I should not like to see you in a shop, myself; you are too—too giddy,” added Mrs. Grape, pulling herself up from saying too pretty. “I think it must be the mantua-making, Dolly: you’ll make a good enough hand at it, once you’ve learnt it. Why not?”

II.

The house rented by Mrs. Grape at Worcester was near the London Road. It was semi-detached, and built, like its fellow in rather a peculiar way, as though the architect had found himself cramped for space in width but had plenty of it in depth. It was close to the road, about a yard only of garden ground lying between. The front-door opened into the sitting-room; not a very uncommon case then with houses of its class. It was a fair-sized room, light and pretty, the window being beside the door. Another door, opposite the window, led to the rest of the house: a small back-parlour, a kitchen, three rooms above, with a yard and a strip of garden at the back. It was a comfortable house, at a small rent; and, once Mrs. Grape had disposed her tasty furniture about it to advantage, she tried to feel at home and to put aside her longing to be back under the old roof at Islip.

In the adjoining house dwelt two Quaker ladies named Deavor, an aunt and niece, the latter a year or two older than Dolly. They showed themselves very friendly to the new-comers, as did their respectable old servant-maid, and the two families became intimate neighbours.

Dolly, seventeen now, was placed with Miss Pedley, one of the first dressmakers in the city, as out-door apprentice. She was bound to her for three years, and went to and fro daily. Tom was day-scholar at a gentleman’s school in the neighbourhood.

One Saturday evening in summer, when they had been about three months in their new abode, Mrs. Grape was sitting at the table in the front-room, making up a smart cap for herself. She had never put on mourning for her husband, always cherishing the delusive hope that he would some day return. Tom sat by her, doing his lessons; Dolly was near the open window, nursing a grey kitten. Tom looked as hot as the evening, as he turned over the books before him with a puzzled face. He was a good-looking boy, with soft brown eyes, and a complexion as brilliant as his sister’s.

“I say, mother,” cried he, “I don’t think this Latin will be of much good to me. I shan’t make any hand at it.”

“You will be like me then, Tom, for I’m sure I shall never make much of a hand at dressmaking,” spoke up Dolly. “Miss Pedley sees it too.”

“Be quiet, Dolly; don’t talk nonsense,” said Mrs. Grape. “Let Tom finish his tasks.”

Thus reprimanded, silence ensued again. It grew dusk; candles were lighted and the window was shut down, as the breeze blew them about; but the bright moonlight still streamed in. Presently Dolly left the room to give the kitten its supper. Suddenly, Tom shut up his books with a bang.

“Finished, Tom?”

“Yes, mother.”

He was putting them away when a knock came to the front-door. Tom opened it.

“Halloa, Bill!” said he.

“Halloa, Tom!” responded a boy’s voice. “I’ve come up to ask if you’ll go fishing with me to-morrow.”

“To-morrow!” echoed Tom in surprise. “Why, to-morrow’s Sunday!”

“Bother! I mean Monday. I’m going up to the Weir at Powick: there’s first-rate fishing there. Will you come, Tom?”

Mrs. Grape wondered who the boy was; she knew the voices of some of Tom’s schoolfellows, but did not recognize this one. Tom, standing on the low step outside, had partly closed the door behind him, and she could not see out; but she heard every word as plainly as though the speakers had been in the room.

“I should like to go, but I’m sure I could never get leave from school,” said Tom. “Why, the Midsummer examination comes on the end of next week; our masters just do keep us to it!”

“Stingy old misers! You might take French leave, Tom.”

“Mother would never let me do that,” returned Tom; and he probably made a sign to indicate that his mother was within hearing, as both voices dropped to a lower key; but Mrs. Grape still heard distinctly. “Are you going to take French leave yourself, Bill?” added young Grape. “How else shall you manage to get off?”

“Oh, Monday will be holiday with us; it’s a Saint’s Day. Look here, Tom; you may as well come. Fishing, up at Powick, is rare fun; and I’ve some prime bait.”

“I can’t,” pleaded Tom: “no good thinking about it. You must get one of your own fellows instead.”

“Suppose I must. Well, good-night.”

“Good-night, Bill.”

“I touched you last,” added the strange voice. There was a shout of laughter, the door flew back, Tom’s hand came in to snatch up his cap, which lay on a table near, and he went flying after the other boy.

They had entered upon the fascinating game of “Titch-touch-last.” Mrs. Grape got up, laid her finished cap upon the table, shook the odds and ends of threads from her black gown, and began to put her needles and cotton in the little work-box. While she was doing this, Dolly came in from the kitchen. She looked round the room.

“Why, where’s Tom, mother?”

“Some boy called to speak to him, and they are running about the road at Titch-touch-last. The cap looks nice, does it not, Dolly?”

“Oh, very,” assented Dolly. It was one she had netted for her mother; and the border was spread out in the shape of a fan—the fashion then—and trimmed with yellow gauze ribbon.

The voices of the boys were still heard, but at a distance. Dolly went to the door, and looked out.

“Yes, there the two are,” she cried. “What boy is it, mother?”

“I don’t know,” replied Mrs. Grape. “I did not see him, or recognize his voice. Tom called him ‘Bill.’”

She went also to the door as she spoke, and stood by her daughter on the low broad step. The voices were fainter now, for the lads, in their play, were drawing further off and nearer to the town. Mrs. Grape could see them dodging around each other, now on this side the road, now on that. It was a remarkably light night, the moon, in the cloudless sky, almost dazzlingly bright.

“They’ll make themselves very hot,” she remarked, as she and Dolly withdrew indoors. “What silly things boys are!”

Carrying her cap upstairs, Mrs. Grape then attended to two or three household matters. Half-an-hour had elapsed when she returned to the parlour. Tom had not come in. “How very thoughtless of him!” she cried; “he must know it is his bed-time.”

But neither she nor Dolly felt any uneasiness until the clock struck ten. A shade of it crept over Mrs. Grape then. What could have become of the boy?

Standing once more upon the door-step, they gazed up and down the road. A few stragglers were passing up from the town: more people would be out on a Saturday night than on any other.

“How dost thee this evening, friend Grape?” called out Rachel Deavor, now sitting with her niece at their open parlour window in the moonlight. Mrs. Grape turned to them, and told of Tom’s delinquency. Elizabeth Deavor, a merry girl, came out laughing, and linked her arm within Dolly’s.

“He has run away from thee to take a moonlight ramble,” she said jestingly. “Thee had been treating him to a scolding, maybe.”

“No, I had not,” replied Dolly. “I have such a pretty grey kitten, Elizabeth. One of the girls at Miss Pedley’s gave it to me.”

They stood on, talking in the warm summer night, Mrs. Grape at the window with the elder Quakeress, Dolly at the gate, with the younger, and the time went on. The retiring hour of the two ladies had long passed, but they did not like to leave Mrs. Grape to her uncertainty: she was growing more anxious with every minute. At length the clocks struck half-past eleven, and Mrs. Grape, to the general surprise, burst into tears.

“Nay, nay, now, do not give way,” said Rachel Deavor kindly. “Doubtless he has but gone to the other lad’s home, and is letting the time pass unthinkingly. Boys will be boys.”

“That unaccountable disappearance of my husband makes me more nervous than I should otherwise be,” spoke Mrs. Grape in apology. “It is just a year ago. Am I going to have a second edition of that, in the person of my son?”

“Hush thee now, thee art fanciful; thee should not anticipate evil. It is a pity but thee had recognized the boy who came for thy son; some of us might go to the lad’s house.”

“I wish I had,” sighed Mrs. Grape. “I meant to ask Tom who it was when he came in. Tom called him ‘Bill;’ that is all I know.”

“Here he comes!” exclaimed Dolly, who was now standing outside the gate with Elizabeth Deavor. “He is rushing round the corner, at full speed, mother.”

“Won’t I punish him!” cried Mrs. Grape, in her relieved feelings: and she too went to the gate.

Dolly’s hopeful eagerness had misled her. It was not Tom. But it was one of Tom’s schoolfellows, young Thorn, whom they all knew. He halted to explain that he had been to a boys’ party in the Bath Road, and expected to “catch it” at home for staying so late. Dolly interrupted him to speak of Tom.

“What an odd thing!” cried the lad. “Oh, he’ll come home presently, safe enough. Which of our fellows are named Bill, you ask, Miss Grape? Let’s see. There’s Bill Stroud; and Bill Hardwick—that is, William——”

“It was neither Stroud nor Hardwick; I should have known the voices of both,” interrupted Mrs. Grape. “This lad cannot, I think, be in your school at all, Thorn: he said his school was to have holiday on Monday because it would be a Saint’s Day.”

“Holiday, because it was a Saint’s Day!” echoed Thorn. “Oh then, he must have been one of the college boys. No other school goes in for holidays on the Saints’ Days but that. The boys have to attend service at college, morning and afternoon, so it’s not a complete holiday: they can get it easily, though, by asking leave.”

“I don’t think Tom knows any of the college boys,” debated Dolly.

“Yes, he does; our school knows some of them,” replied Thorn. “Good-night: I can’t stay. He is sure to turn up presently.”

But Tom Grape did not turn up. At midnight his mother put on her bonnet and shawl and started out to look for him in the now deserted streets of the town. Now and again she would inquire of some late wayfarer whether he had met a boy that night, or perhaps two boys, and described Tom’s appearance; but she could learn nothing. The most feasible idea she could call up, and the most hopeful, was that Tom had really gone home with the other lad and that something must have happened to keep him there; perhaps an accident. Dolly felt sure it must be so. Elizabeth Deavor, running in at breakfast-time next morning to ask for news, laughingly said Tom deserved to be shaken.

But when the morning hours passed and did not bring the truant or any tidings of him, this hope died away. The first thing to be done was to find out who the other boy was, and to question him. Perhaps he had also disappeared!

Getting from young Thorn the address of those of the college boys—three—who, as he chanced to know, bore the Christian name of William, Mrs. Grape went to make inquiries at their houses. She could learn nothing. Each of the three boys disclaimed all knowledge of the affair; their friends corroborating their assertion that they had not been out on the Saturday night. Four more of the King’s scholars were named William, they told her; two of them boarding in the house of the head-master, the Reverend Allen Wheeler.

To this gentleman’s residence, in the College Green, Mrs. Grape next proceeded. It was then evening. The head-master listened courteously to her tale, and became, in his awakened interest, as anxious as she was to find the right boy. Mrs. Grape said she should not know him, but should know his voice. Not one of the three boys, already seen, possessed the voice she had heard.

The two boarders were called into the room, as a mere matter of form; for the master was able to state positively that they were in bed at the hour in question. Neither of them had the voice of the boy who had called for Tom. It was a very clear voice, Mrs. Grape said; she should recognize it instantly.

“Let me see,” said the master, going over mentally the list of the forty King’s scholars: “how many more of you boys are named William, beyond those this lady has seen?”

The boys considered, and said there were two others; William Smith and William Singleton; both called familiarly “Bill” in the school. Each of these boys had a clear, pleasant voice, the master observed; but neither of them had applied for leave for Monday, nor had he heard of any projected fishing expedition to Powick.

To the house of the Singletons next went Mrs. Grape: but the boy’s voice there did not answer to the one she had heard. The Smith family she could not see; they had gone out for the evening: and she dragged herself home, utterly beaten down both in body and spirit.

Another night of anxiety was passed, and then Mrs. Grape returned to Mr. Smith’s and saw “Bill.” But Bill was hoarse as a raven; it was not at all the clear voice she had heard; though he looked desperately frightened at being questioned.

So there it was. Tom Grape was lost. Lost! and no clue remained as to the why and wherefore. He must have gone after his father, said the sympathizing townspeople, full of wonder; and a superstitious feeling crept over Mrs. Grape.

But ere the week was quite over, news came to the desolate home: not of Tom himself; not of the manner of his disappearance; only of the night it happened. On the Friday evening Mrs. Grape and Dolly were sitting together, when a big boy of sixteen appeared at their door, Master Fred Smith, lugging in his brother Bill.

“He is come to confess, ma’am,” said the elder. “He blurted it all out to me just now, too miserable to keep it in any longer, and I’ve brought him off to you.”

“Oh, tell me, tell me where he is!” implored Mrs. Grape from her fevered lips; as she rose and clasped the boy, Bill, by the arm.

“I don’t know where he is,” answered the boy in trembling earnestness. “I can’t think where; I wish I could. I know no more than the dead.”

“For what have you come here then?”

“To confess that it was I who was with him. You didn’t know my voice on the Monday because I had such a cold,” continued he, laying hold of a chair-back to steady his shaking hands. “I must have caught it playing with Tom that night; we got so hot, both of us. When I heard he had never been home since, couldn’t be found anywhere, I felt frightened to death and didn’t like to say it was me who had been with him.”

“Where did you leave him? Where did you miss him?” questioned the mother, her heart sinking with despair.

“We kept on playing at titch-touch-last; neither of us would give in, each wanted to have the last touch; and we got down past the Bath Road, and on up Sidbury near to the canal bridge. Tom gave me a touch; it was the last; and he rushed through the Commandery gates. I was getting tired then, and a thought came to me that instead of going after him I’d play him a trick and make off home; and I did so, tearing over the bridge as hard as I could tear. And that’s all the truth,” concluded the boy, bursting into tears, “and I never saw Tom again, and have no more to tell though the head-master hoists me for it to-morrow.”

“It is just what he said to me, Mrs. Grape,” put in the brother quietly, “and I am sure it is the truth.”

“Through the Commandery gates,” repeated Mrs. Grape, pressing her aching brow. “And you did not see him come out again?”

“No, ma’am, I made off as hard as I could go. While he was rushing down there—I heard his boots clattering on the flags—I rushed over the bridge homewards.”

The boy had told all he knew. Now that the confession was made, he would be too glad to add more had he been able. It left the mystery just as it was before; no better and no worse. There was no outlet to the Commandery, except these iron gates, and nothing within it that could have swallowed up Tom. It was a cul-de-sac, and he must have come out again by these self-same gates. Whither had he then gone?

It was proved that he did come out. When Mr. Bill Smith’s confession was made public, an assistant to a doctor in the town remembered to have seen Tom Grape, whom he knew by sight, as he was passing the Commandery about that same time to visit a patient in Wyld’s Lane. Tom came flying out of the gates, laughing, and looking up and down the street. “Where are you, Bill?” he called out. The young doctor, whose name was Seton, looked back at Tom, as he went on his way.

But the young man added something more, which nobody else had thought to speak of, and which afforded a small loop-hole of conjecture as to what poor Tom’s fate might have been. Just about that hour a small barge on the canal, after passing under Sidbury bridge, came in contact with another barge. Very little damage was done, but there was a great deal of shouting and confusion. As Mr. Seton walked over the bridge, not a second before he saw Tom, he heard the noise and saw people making for the spot. Had Tom Grape made for it? He could easily have reached it. And if so, had he, amidst the general pushing and confusion on the canal bank, fallen into the canal? It was hardly to be imagined that any accident of this kind could happen to him unseen; though it might be just possible, for the scene for some minutes was one of tumult; but nothing transpired to confirm it. The missing lad did not reappear, either dead or alive.

And so poor Tom Grape had passed out of life mysteriously as his father had done. Many months elapsed before his mother gave up her search for him; she was always thinking he would come home again, always hoping it. The loss affected her more than her husband’s had, for Tom vanished under her very eye, so to say; all the terror of it was palpably enacted before her, all the suspense had to be borne and lived through; whereas the other loss took place at a distance and she only grew to realize it by degrees; which of course softened the blow. And the time went on by years, but nothing was seen of Tom Grape.

That was disappearance the second.

Dolly left her place of business at the end of the three years for which she had been apprenticed, and set up for herself; a brass plate on her mothers door—“Miss Grape, Mantua-maker”—proclaiming the fact to the world. She was only twenty then, with as sweet a face, the Squire says, as Worcester, renowned though it is for its pretty faces, ever saw. She had never in her heart taken kindly to her business, so would not be likely to set the world on fire with her skill; but she had tried to do her best and would continue to do it. A little work began to come in now and then; a gown to be turned or a spencer to be made, though not so many of them as Dolly hoped for: but, as her mother said, Rome was not built in a day.