The Earl's promise

Not even at election-time had the streets of Kingslough and the roads leading into it been so thronged as on the day of Lord Glendare’s funeral.

From ten, fifteen, and twenty miles people came to see the sight. From far and near they flocked into the town. Men, old and young; comely women, with babies in their arms; elderly women, so wrinkled and aged that the memory of their childhood must have seemed as a dream to them; girls straight and handsome, with brilliant complexions and, as a rule, light luxuriant hair came crowding in from the east, and north, and west. Some in jaunting-cars, some in farm-carts, some on the national low-backed car—in which the want of springs was frequently counterbalanced by a feather-bed covered with a patchwork counterpane being laid on the body of the conveyance—most, however, on foot.

Not every day does a nobleman go to his rest, not every day was it given to Kingslough to behold the proud spectacle of a hearse drawn by six horses passing through its streets.

Simple enough were the funerals the little town witnessed as a rule. Quietly and unostentatiously the dead were laid in their graves. Little pomp and many followers, such was the primitive fashion at Kingslough. Amongst the poor, neighbour carried neighbour to that resting-place he was helpless to reach for himself. Amongst the rich, if the distance to the churchyard were great, a hearse was procured from Kilcurragh; but there the black business began and ended. Friends and relations followed in their own conveyances; in broughams, chariots, barouches, phaetons, dog-carts, gigs, cars, with an invariable rear of foot-passengers.

At that period of the world’s history a man was not allowed to shirk out of the world unnoticed, as if he had done something to be ashamed of. So to speak, his friends accompanied him to the very portals of earth, before they could prevail on themselves to say farewell. The worst fate which could befall a human being was, when he went to the grave, to do so without a “following;” but it did not matter how unpretentious that following chanced to be. A certain number of persons had shown respect for the dead, that was enough. There had been no apathy, no coldness, no standing aloof. His friends had stuck to him to the last. In driving sleet or blinding snow no one worthy the name of friend shrank from the performance of the final duty. They followed if the roads were a foot deep in mud, they stood beside the grave with the rain beating down on their uncovered heads, with the long, rank, wet grass reaching above their ankles.

No single mourning-coach preceded by a hearse feathered as heavily as it might, would have contented that sympathetic population. Without a hearse at all it was possible for a coffin to be carried to the grave; without a coach it was possible to follow the coffin; but it was a thing not to be thought of that any one should be permitted to walk out of this life as through a back-door, unmourned, unattended.

And when this idea of companionship obtained concerning even the poorest of the community, how should sufficient honour be done to the dead earl?

How? the question was easy enough to answer. It resolved itself into a matter of multiplication. Where a commoner had fifties the peer must have his thousands. In the days to come, when the high-stepping horses, and the sombre velvets, and the waving plumes and all the undertaker’s bravery should be forgotten, feeble old crones should still be able to tell their grandchildren of the “grand burying,” when the road from Rosemont to Kingslough was lined by spectators who, so soon as the carriages and the horsemen, and the tenantry had passed, became “followers” also; when the ladies, dressed all of them in black, sat at the windows where the blinds were drawn half down, to view the sight; when the tenants chosen for that purpose, all furnished by the new earl with white linen hatbands, and white gloves, “kept the curb,” so that the roadway might be clear and unimpeded for the procession; when all the shops were closed, and the town was “like a Sunday;” when the clergy of all denominations—and there were many different sects in Kingslough—had white scarves, ornamented by bows of the best black ribbon, and black kid gloves sent to them; when, for one appearance only, the lion lay down with the lamb, and Father Kelly and Mr. MacRoberts,—who disagreed as heartily as it is possible for two Christians in name to do, and this is saying enough—walked demurely side by side; when happy was he or she whose friends lived on the line of route; when the halt, and the deaf, and the blind reaped a rich harvest, and, their pockets full of halfpence, chanted the praises of the departed, of the last Glendare who shall ever sleep with his ancestors in the old abbey situated so picturesquely on the height overlooking the sea.

It was slow work traversing the weary miles that stretched between Rosemont and Ballyknock Abbey, and the Kingslough gentry had ample time for luncheon before crowding to the windows to look at the show.

All the men, as a matter of course, were either following the cortége in carriages or holding in their horses to a walking pace in the rear of the carriages, but the ladies ate their modest meal at their leisure, and discussed many questions concerning the Glendares over it.

From the windows of Miss Riley’s house a good view was to be obtained of the procession, and from attic to parlour her rooms were crammed by guests possessed of sufficient forethought to take their mid-day repast with them. As for Miss Riley—half blind, half deaf, whole childish—seated close by the window-frame, she kept up an incessant wail for Nettie. She had asked Nettie—why did she not come? it would amuse Lillie to see the show; why, if Nettie did not care for it herself, should she deprive her little girl of the pleasure? she had been a little girl once herself, and a good girl too—before she was naughty and ran away with Mr. Brady.

Poor old lady! who would not rather die in the summer’s prime than live on into the dull December days, to babble idle stories to heedless listeners? Who cared about the tale of Nettie’s marriage now? who cared for Nettie herself, or Mr. Brady, or Miss Riley? The house was central, and commanded a good view of the procession. Her older guests hearkened to her civilly, if secretly impatient of her doting utterances. The younger talked, and whispered, and laughed, charmingly oblivious of the fact that, if they lived long-enough, age must come to them also—age possibly even less attractive than that presented by Miss Riley. But there was no Nettie; at no window in Kingslough did that most lovely face keep watch for the long, and slow, and mournful funeral array.

Contrary to all precedent, Mrs. Brady grew fairer as she grew older.

Possibly had all gone well with her—had she married happily, and led the easy, contented life it were devoutly to be wished all women could lead—she might have grown plump, and so lost her beauty.

But as it was, the delicate carmine of her cheeks had not deepened, the cheeks had grown no rounder, the hair had darkened but little, the figure was lithe and slight as ever. She was the Nettie of old save for this, that across her blue eyes there lay a dreamy shadow which added to their tenderness, and that her mouth, once almost childish in the pliability of its muscles, had acquired an expression which one who knew nothing of her story might have failed to understand aright.

She had suffered cruelly, she had made a mistake, and some of the years during which she must expiate her error were gone and past—a few, only a few—but she was still so young that grief seemed to touch her with a remorseful pencil, and increased her loveliness instead of destroying the one great gift God had bestowed upon her.

Nevertheless, few now looked upon her winsome face. On the rare occasions when she was compelled to enter Kingslough, she walked through it with veil drawn close, with hurried steps, with eyes that looked neither to right nor to left, that recognized and wished to recognize no one who had known her in the old days departed.

Not so, however, Mr. Brady; about Kingslough he swaggered frequently, and time, which works wonders, had brought him nods and “how-d’ye-do’s” and “good mornings” from men too idle, or too busy, or too careless to interest themselves concerning the antecedents of an apparently prosperous man.

While Miss Riley moaned over Nettie’s absence, he was solemnly amongst the other mourners reining in a mare that for blackness and uplifting of all her feet in protest of the pace he forced her to adopt, might have done credit to any undertaker in the United Kingdom.

As it was, the earl’s funeral brought him a good price for ‘Brunette.’ Common decency forbade a deal during the tedious journey to Kingslough, but human nature suggested a series of remarks which led a certain Captain Labucerbe to call next morning at Maryville and offer a given sum for ‘Brunette,’ which, after a becoming hesitation and reluctance, Mr. Brady accepted.

If, however, Nettie were nowhere to be seen, her old companion Miss Moffat sat conspicuous amongst the ladies who crowded the windows of Major Perris’ house. Time had amply fulfilled Mrs. Perris’ predictions concerning her beauty. At four-and-twenty she was the most lovely woman in all that part of the country. The world of Kingslough had settled that she was certain to marry Robert Somerford, as it had settled years before she must marry John Riley; but a girl possessed of her beauty and her money had no lack of suitors, and if she were destined to wed the late earl’s nephew she seemed also destined to refuse before doing so as many would-be husbands as usually offer themselves to the favourable consideration of an heiress.

Had it not indeed been for the fact of Mr. Somerford’s constant visits at Bayview, Kingslough might have decided that Grace bade fair to become an old maid; but as matters stood she was looked upon as almost engaged, and treated by her friends accordingly.

Her denials of the statement were treated precisely then, as her denials of a similar statement had been treated formerly. Kingslough was convinced in its own mind that whenever Mr. Somerford got “an appointment” the marriage would take place; and Kingslough also felt satisfied she would have become a wife long previously but for her father’s objection to her wedding a man who had no money and no position. That Mr. Moffat had never been asked either to consent or refuse was too absurd an idea to entertain.

Of course she was going to marry Robert Somerford—so said Kingslough, and whatever Kingslough said, it implicitly believed to be true.

Slowly the hours crept by. On the road conversation grew brisker; at the windows of the Kingslough houses it flagged grievously; in the streets people were getting very weary, and not a few very drunk.

The shutters of the public-houses were closed, it is true, but the doors stood hospitably open, and amongst the crowd of friends and neighbours who thronged the streets there were not wanting plenty of persons willing to treat and wishful to be treated.

Nevertheless, even with the charm whisky is capable of exercising, the masses were beginning to get very tired. Everything about the late earl and the new earl, and my lady, and Mr. Robert and Mr. and Mrs. Dillwyn that could be said had been said. Speculation itself could advance nothing further concerning the Glendare future, and the oldest inhabitant could remember nothing about the Glendare past which he had not already communicated.

As for the ladies—the best regulated mind could scarcely have considered the entertainment provided that day particularly exhilarating. Hostesses had committed the great mistake of inviting their guests to come for luncheon, and consequently, when luncheon was over, and no sign of the funeral still appeared, a feeling of boredom crept over even the liveliest of the company.

The occupation of mentally criticizing each her neighbour’s apparel was denied on this occasion. Every one appeared in black, and as of course people could not be expected to purchase a new dress for the occasion, a general effect of second or third best attire prevailed, which at once defied and disarmed comment.

No Mrs. Hartley was there now in Kingslough to excite or amuse the occupants of any drawing-room by her plain speech and sharp retorts. Long previously she had returned to a country where, to quote her own observation, “The poorest children are taught to pronounce the letters in the alphabet properly.”

“How do they pronounce H?” Grace wrote back at once to inquire.

In congenial society she rustled her silks—in a civilized land she recalled the years spent “amongst a warmhearted, barefooted, and prejudiced race,” with something of the same feeling as Dr. Livingstone, say, might evince if he ever returned to converse familiarly concerning the inhabitants of Central Africa. In her descriptions of Irish ways, of Irish notions, of Irish management, of Irish eccentricity, the lady was merciless. The manners and customs of the Isle of Saints were described to attentive listeners with a verve and bitterness for which it seemed difficult to account, except on the ground of intense dislike to the country and the people; and in truth there had been a “difference” between her and those of the Irish over whom she exercised some authority, a difference of so grievous a description, that she sold all the land she owned to Lord Ardmorne, and, shaking the dust of Ireland off her feet, vowed a vow never to enter the country again.

Had she remained in Kingslough, it is possible the lives of Mrs. Brady and Grace might have been different. As matters stood, both her former favourites went on their separate ways without forming a close friendship with any woman, without considering it necessary to establish confidential relations with any adviser. There was no one now to talk reproachfully to Grace about the honest heart she had stabbed by her rejection of his love; no one to show Nettie how to make the best thing of an existence she had marred for herself so young.

The peace of mind of Kingslough, no longer disturbed by the rich dress and bold utterances of that strong-minded Englishwoman, who had been so fond of golden-haired Nettie and dark-haired Grace, of the girl with blue eyes and the girl with grey, had attained a state of tranquillity verging on dulness. But for the sayings and doings of the democratic party, there would literally have been no stock subject of conversation amongst the élite of Kingslough. As it happened, however, just at the time of Lord Glendare’s death, the malcontents and those who, wishing to acquire notoriety, self-elected themselves champions of the people’s rights, had been making an unusual disturbance. Meetings were held and speeches delivered; the beauties of Ireland described, and the soil, “blessed by heaven and cursed by man,” invested with a number of qualities subsequent experience has scarcely evolved from it. Tom Moore was freely quoted, as well as some of the extremely beautiful poetry produced during the time of the Rebellion. History was ransacked to furnish instances of English cruelty and Irish chivalry. After listening to the orations poured forth with all the fervour, and unreason, and discursiveness for which democratic orators have always been noted, an uninformed auditor could only draw one conclusion, namely, that there had never been a great statesman, poet, patriot, soldier, sailor, or writer born out of Ireland.

With throbs of national pride the people listened and believed, as name after name was recited from what the speakers were pleased to style the “glory-roll of time.” With rejoicing they gathered beside ingle nooks, and around the turf fire of some wayside public-house, to hear the schoolmaster or any other “scholard” read out leaders in which the Whig paper of the county spoke of the “oppressed tenants,” of the “grinding tyranny” of the landlords, of the right of the men who in the “sweat of their brows tilled the soil to reap the fruit of their labours.”

It would have been touching—had it not been almost heart-breaking—to behold the simple faith with which these utterances were received. Now that men had “arisen to speak for them,” the population felt satisfied the future would be bright as the past had been gloomy.

That they were in danger of falling between two stools never occurred to them; that old friends might withdraw helping hands, that new friends might be unable really to benefit was too common sense a view of the matter to present itself; that orators were all unconsciously driving nails into the coffins of one generation in order to benefit generations then unborn, was a truth too self-evident to be acknowledged by anybody. They believed that in gaining fresh advantages, they should lose none of the old; that in being independent of the rich, they stood no danger of losing the help and friendly feeling of the class above them.

It was not much they really wanted, something less than justice would have satisfied every honest, sensible man in the community; but a great deal more than justice would not have contented the new brooms, who believed society only wanted to be swept by them to be made clean, who held the doctrine that the only way to remodel old ways was to destroy them, to encourage affection between all classes in the community was to exterminate class altogether, and to exemplify practically the truth of the Irish theory that “one man is as good as another—and better.”

In no community could social changes such as these indicated, have passed altogether unnoticed; and in a neighbourhood like Kingslough, where the upper ten bore an absurdly small proportion to the lower thousand, much conversation was induced by the evil doings of the new prophets who had arisen to lead the people to destruction.

Even amongst ladies the topic proved one of considerable interest, and much of the talk in many houses on the day of Lord Glendare’s funeral centred in the grievances, real or fancied, of the lower orders.

As for Miss Moffat, her sympathies were with the people, but she had no toleration for the demagogues who were deluding them.

An earnest, quiet, patient friend of the poor, she did not care to listen to foolish talk, either about their wrongs or the way to right them.

With all the strength of her nature she loved the hard-working, devoted, uncomplaining men and women amongst whom she had grown from a child to a woman, but well she knew it was because of their unconsciousness of fortitude, of endurance, of humble heroism, that she had grown so fond of them, and she almost hated the orators who were trying to change the very natures of those they addressed.

At the same time she had seen too much of the bitterness of the poverty against which her humble friends waged incessant war; she understood too well the struggle occupiers of land had to get enough out of the soil to pay their rent and keep soul and body together, to endure with patience senseless remarks concerning the discontent and ingratitude of poor deluded creatures who flocked all too eagerly to hear the tale of their wrongs and their trials recounted with dangerous eloquence, with declamation and exaggeration.

Her heart was sore for the people. Had she sprung from them, had she been of their blood and their bone, her soul could not have gone out to them in their sorrow and their suffering more freely than proved the case. She “spoke up for them,” and did no good either to them or herself by her advocacy.

“When you are older you will know better,” said one antiquated lady, shaking her ancient head with an air of solemn wisdom.

“The whole matter,” broke in a lively little matron, “puts me in mind of that story which tells how a client, who suddenly burst into tears whilst his counsel was speaking, being asked why he cried, answered ‘I never knew how much I had lost until now;’ and in like manner the peasantry never knew they were oppressed and injured till Mr. Hanlon, and men such as he, told them so.”

“Do you mean us to infer from your anecdote that the client had lost nothing?” asked Grace with judicial calmness.

“How can I tell? you have the story as I heard it.”

“Because,” proceeded Miss Moffat, “if you wish to make me believe that the tenants even in this neighbourhood have no just cause of complaint—”

“For pity’s sake,” interrupted Mrs. Perris, “do not let us open up that question, Grace! We are none of us landowners. If there is anything wrong, we are utterly powerless to put it right. For my own part, I agree with my husband that nothing could place the present race of tenants in a better position. They ought all to be labourers. They have not money enough to work the land easily or profitably. If they are miserably poor it is not because their rent is too high, but because they have no capital to put into their farms excepting their own and their children’s labour.”

“Yes; and they would shoot anybody with money, who took a farm and offered to give them employment, or else burn his house down about his ears, or set fire to his ricks,” finished a maiden lady, whose brother, having tried the experiment of going afield for his tenants, had been compelled to abandon the attempt. “Take my word for it, Miss Moffat, when you become one of the Glendares, you will see there is another side to the land question than that espoused by Mr. Hanlon and his set.”

“When I become one of the Glendares, it is extremely likely I shall adopt the opinions of the family on all subjects,” said Grace a little bitterly.

“It is supposed,” remarked the lively matron who had previously spoken, “that if Mr. Somerford were in a position to declare his sentiments, he would side with the people.”

“The younger members of great houses are generally in opposition,” said Colonel Perris’ father, who, by reason of an attack of gout had been compelled to forego the pleasure of accompanying Lord Glendare’s remains to the family vault; “just as men who want to rise are Radicals, and men who have risen are Tories. Am I not right, Miss Moffat?”

“Possibly,” she replied. “Your experience of life has been much wider and longer than mine.”

“Ah, Miss Grace!” exclaimed the old man, “how cruel it is of you to remind me how far behind I have left my youth.”

“I do not think youth such a particularly happy season that one ought to regret its departure,” was the answer.

“Wait till you are old before you decide that question,” he retorted.

“And others, you would imply,” she added.

“And others,” he repeated. “Believe me, those who think there can be nothing easier than to put the world right, often find the operation more difficult in practice than in theory. Take for instance Mr. Robert Somerford—”

“Perhaps, Mr. Perris, you will defer pointing a moral by the help of Mr. Somerford till he is present to hear for himself. I beg to state I am not the keeper of his conscience.” And with a heightened colour Miss Moffat walked to the window, whilst the ladies exchanged significant looks, and Mr. Perris chuckled audibly.

“If they do not come soon, it will be quite dark before they get to the abbey,” said Mrs. Mynton, referring to the funeral party, and, true to her instincts, striving to make matters comfortable for Grace. “Hush! is not that the bell?”

It was the bell of St. Martin’s Church tolling slowly, solemnly.

“They have got to the Black River, then,” observed Mr. Perris, that being the point where the parish of Kingslough was supposed to commence.

“As they pass through the town the whole peal is to be clammed—muffled,” said his daughter-in-law.

“I thought it was considered unsafe to ring all the bells,” remarked Grace, not sorry, perhaps, to have an opportunity of speaking on an indifferent subject.

“The risk is to be run to-day, at all events,” was the reply. “If the tower comes down, and the ringers are killed, it will be a graceful opportunity for the new earl to win golden opinions by rebuilding the first, and providing for the families of the second.”

“I wonder if he will remain at Rosemont?” marvelled Mrs. Mynton.

“I should think he would reside with his mother,” observed a widow, who had kept her only son tied to her apron-strings till he was long past forty.

“I should think he would do no such thing,” said Mrs. Perris decidedly. “He ought to travel, and get enlarged ideas, and rid himself of the absurd notion that the earth was created solely and exclusively for the benefit of the Glendares.”

“Who is Radical now?” suggested Grace.

“I am not,” was the reply; “but I would have young men be young men, and learn what is passing in the world, and acquire fresh ideas. How should any one be benefited by living with Lady Glendare—a silly, affected woman?”

“Who must be in grievous trouble,” interposed Miss Moffat softly.

“True, my dear, and I beg her and your pardon for speaking so ill-naturedly. She must be in trouble. The earl’s death will make a great difference to her.”

“She intends to go to her sister, Lady Martinell, for the present,” Grace explained; “and Lord Trevor—the new earl—talks of staying at Rosemont.”

“At Rosemont! what attraction can he find there?” exclaimed the company in chorus.

“Mr. Dillwyn thinks it would be advantageous to the property for him to remain on the spot for a time at least.”

“Mr. Dillwyn, oh! Mr. Dillwyn, ah! Mr. Dillwyn has great influence. Mr. Dillwyn knows all the ins and outs of the Glendare estates.”

These and other expressions like them were uttered in different tones by the assembled ladies. In their hearts, perhaps, they had hoped the death of the earl would prove the signal for Mr. Dillwyn’s dismissal. Amongst them there were several who could not have married the agent themselves, but there were few who ever intended to forgive his marrying Mrs. Somerford.

By the window stood Grace Moffat, listening to the storm in a teapot she had brewed so unwittingly. She was sorry now she had come into Kingslough. The whole of the talk about herself and Robert Somerford, the Glendares and their tenantry, seemed to her ill chosen on such an occasion.

She had longed, with a longing the nature of which she could not have explained to herself or any one else, to see the funeral procession—the hearse, the coaches, the carriages, the long, long train of mourners. The whole thing had taken possession of her imagination; she had brooded over the earl’s death; she recalled the stories of the Somerfords’ former greatness; the years when, as legends ran amongst the poor, their doors stood wide to all comers; when the gentry feasted in the hall, and there was plenty and to spare in the kitchen; when no beggar left the gate unrelieved; when, let money be spent in England or abroad, or wherever it might be, with a careless prodigality, there was no stint at home; and she contrasted those years with the later and more evil times upon which the Glendares had fallen.

That was the beginning, this was the end. From Robert Somerford she had heard histories of the shifts to which his uncle was compelled to resort, the anxieties he endured, the small gratification he was ever able to take out of his estates, his title, his wife, his children.

To Grace, who formerly thought the life of an earl must be one of unqualified happiness, these revelations proved a disillusion almost impossible to endure. To be placed so high, and yet have to stoop so low; to have the power, apparently, of achieving so much, and yet to be unable to do anything useful; to hold the happiness of so many in his hand, and still to fail in bettering the condition of those most dependent upon him; to be burdened with debt, not altogether of his own contracting but to a great extent, an ever-increasing legacy handed down from ancestor to ancestor through generations to him, and yet lacking moral courage to retrench and live in honour and comfort, if not luxury,—the whole thing seemed to her so pitiful, that she could neither get the life nor the death of the late earl out of her mind.

What would the new earl, invested so young with such a terrible responsibility, make of his life? On him devolved the debts, the duties, the cares, the upholding of an ancient name. How would he, still almost a boy, support the burden thrust upon him—the legacy of debt, the duty of honour, the commission to put wrong right? How would he act?

And if not he, how would Robert Somerford—supposing—only supposing?

She put the idea swiftly aside. Robert was still only a cadet of a noble house. So far as she was concerned, she had no desire ever to see him otherwise, only—

Round at that moment went the bells, taken from the old abbey, open; round again, muffled; round again open; round muffled, and still once again, then clammed, muffled.

With tongue silenced, with face a little pale, each woman hurried to the window; the procession was at hand—they were about to see the last in this world of Louis Earl of Glendare.

On came the cavalcade—first the undertaker’s men, a strange sight in the little town, then the hearse conveying all that was mortal of the late earl, then the first coach, containing the new earl, the Hon. Cecil Somerford, the late earl’s uncle, a shrivelled, weird old man, my lady’s brother, and Mr. Robert Somerford.

That vehicle held the probable succession in this order,—first, the earl, then Mr. Cecil, then Mr. Robert. It were idle to suppose the two latter were not calculating chances, even on the way to the grave.

It was quite possible Mr. Cecil might be a peer before he died. On the other hand, given some chances in his favour, it was equally possible Mr. Somerford might step into the coveted position.

How they loved each other, those two mourners! how they hated each other were indeed the better phrase; with the low, vulgar hatred wherewith Mrs. Briggs’ laundress regards her relation Mrs. Griggs’ nurse when she imagines Mrs. Wiggs, aunt to both, has left to the latter a snug sum in the savings’ bank and her personal effects as well.

Looking around, and seeing how money and rank are coveted, which amongst us is there that should wish to live?

Reverse the notion, and which is there that should wish to die, and leave such prizes, as most people regard them, behind?

Slowly the procession passed along, the sad, grey waves lapping in upon the shore, wailing out a requiem for the dead.

Dark and sullen looked the sea under the leaden sky—like a vast desert the waters stretched away to the horizon, where clouds and waves seemed to touch each other.

It was a sight to make one shiver, that mournful pageant—that sorrowful sea, and all the time the bells rang out open, muffled, clammed.

Next behind the coach containing the new earl followed one in which were seated other relatives of the deceased nobleman, then came my lady’s brother, then Lord Ardmorne’s carriage, occupied by himself and two of his sister’s sons; to that succeeded a long line of carriages belonging to the gentry for twenty miles round, then more humble vehicles, covered and jaunting-cars, phaetons and dog-carts, all conveying self-constituted mourners to Ballyknock Abbey, while beside the carriages and cars rode gentlemen and officers who had come from far and near to pay the last token of respect to the late earl.

As the procession moved on, the tenants closed in behind the conveyances.

Many of them had walked all the way from Rosemont; but those selected to keep the line, so soon as the carriages had passed by, fell into position as part of the funeral train.

Altogether an impressive pageant, not by reason of any great pomp or grandeur in the arrangement, but rather by the mere force and accumulation of numbers.

Along the Parade, past Glendare Terrace, then making a slight sweep inland, it began to ascend the steep hill it was needful to climb before the abbey could be reached.

It was late in the afternoon, and the evening shadows were already to the east darkening down over the sea, when the hearse stopped at the rusty gate of the burying-ground, through which no conveyance could pass.

With many pauses, with many relays of bearers, the heavy coffin was borne into the abbey, where, in the roofless chancel, with the heavy branches of the ivy falling across crumbling walls, the clergyman read the first part of the funeral service over the remains of him who had so lately been Earl of Glendare.

Borne through the stillness came the cry of the sea-birds hurrying homeward to their rocky haunts. The tide, which had turned some hours previously, was rapidly covering the shingle, and the waves broke with a monotonous plash on the beach below Ballyknock head; whilst seaward, a little between the town, nestling under its hills, and the extreme east, over which night seemed to be settling down, a line of white foam marked the spot where sunken rocks lay concealed.

A dreary landscape to contemplate, a dreary time and place for such a ceremony.

Black yawned the vault where so many a Glendare slept dreamlessly, and when the coffin had been lowered and the handful of earth was flung upon it, the sound echoed back upon the ears of the bystanders with a hollow reverberation which had in it something awful to the imagination.

It was all over, and the multitude dispersed, tenants, friends, relatives, they had done everything they could for the dead, and the time had come to leave him till eternity. Already the great funeral was a thing of the past, the late earl a memory. From the east darkness crept up swiftly, night was coming on apace; the sheep that, frightened by such a concourse of people, had stood huddled together on the hillside, now came timidly back and made their way over the low broken wall into the old graveyard; the men whose business it was to close the vault stood waiting with their lanterns and tools to begin their work; but still Mr. Dillwyn could not prevail on the earl to leave the coffin. Through the whole of the time occupied in traversing the long road that stretched between Rosemont and Ballyknock he never spoke a word, he never evinced a sign of emotion. During the burial service it was noticed by several persons that he seemed as collected as though the dead had been neither kith nor kin to him; and the calmness with which he informed Mr. Dillwyn that he wished to go down into the vault alone, for a moment deceived even that astute gentleman as to his real feelings.

Five, ten minutes passed, then Mr. Dillwyn followed into the charnel-house, where, by the light of two candles that were flickering in the draught, he saw the new earl kneeling on the ground, his arms stretched across the coffin and his head laid upon them, crying like a child.

He took no notice either of entreaty or remonstrance. It was all in vain that the agent tried first to soothe and then to rouse him. He might have been deaf for any heed he paid to comfort or expostulation, and when at length he was almost dragged into the open air, he continued sobbing as though his heart were breaking.

Then the damp night wind, laden with sea mist, brought on a violent fit of coughing, which lasted till they had descended the hill and entered their carriage.

“We had better have the windows up,” said Mr. Dillwyn, the moment they were in motion, anxiously suiting his actions to his words.

For he saw, and so did Robert Somerford, that the handkerchief the young man held to his mouth was stained with blood!