The Son of His Father; vol. 1/3

CHAPTER IV.

JOHN’S CHOICE.

This conversation was interrupted by a knock at the door, which was evidently a very welcome sound to the old people, who displayed even more than their usual cordiality when the door of the parlour opened and Mr. Cattley was shown in. Mr. Cattley was the curate. He had held that position in the village of Edgeley-on-the-Moor since John’s childhood, having little influence, and no ambition, and finding himself in congenial society, which indisposed him to take any measures for ‘bettering himself’ or moving, as perhaps he would himself have said, to a wider sphere. As a matter of fact, if Mr. Cattley had ever possessed any friends who would have helped him to that wider sphere, they had forgotten him before now; and he had forgotten them, having succeeded in concentrating himself in the little rural parish as few people could have done. Perhaps his pupils had helped to weave that spell which bound him to the little place. He had taken charge of all the young Spencers in their earlier days. He had trained both Dick and Percy for their school, in which they had done him credit, at least, in the beginning of their career: but Elly and John were his favourites: and, as they had remained with him until now, his interest in his work had remained unbroken.

Mr. Cattley was not a very frequent visitor at the house of the Sandfords. He was, to tell the truth, generally so absorbed by another friendship that he had no leisure to pay visits. This was in fact the secret, but it was no secret, of the good curate’s life. The rector, Mr. Spencer, was a widower, having been so for many years, and his house was ruled and presided over by a sister, also a widow, to whom en tout bien et tout honneur, the curate was devoted. It was such a devotion as from time to time arises without any blame on one side or another in the heart of a young man for a woman who is older than himself, and whom there is not the least possibility that he can ever marry. Such attachments are perhaps less uncommon than people think, and they are very warm, constant, and absorbing. Sometimes, as everybody knows, they do end in marriage, but that is a disturbance of the ideal, and brings in elements less delicate and exquisite than the tie which is more than friendship, yet a little less than love, and which by its nature can and ought to come to nothing.

Mrs. Egerton was a woman of forty-five, bright-eyed and comely, and full of interest in everything; but without any pretence at youth: and the curate had ten years less of age and no experience whatever of the world, so that the difference between them was rather emphasised than lessened. There was, however, one thing which reduced this difference, which was that Mr. Cattley had a great air of gravity, and took an elderly kind of view in the simplicity of his heart, whereas she was full of vivacity and spirit, and sided always with the young rather than the old. The curate had for this middle-aged woman a sort of quiet worship which was beyond all reason: all that she said was admirable and excellent to him; what she did was beyond criticism. Whatever she was occupied in he would have had her to do that ever, like the young lover of poetry: yet hailed every new manifestation of the variety of mind which seemed to him inexhaustible, as if it were a new revelation. He was sometimes foolish in his worship, it may be allowed, and the elderly object of that devotion laughed at it not a little. But in her heart she liked it well enough, as what woman would not do? Her heart was soft to the man who adored her. But that she should adore him in turn, or that anything should come of their intercourse save peaceful continuance, was not only out of the question, but was altogether beyond the possibility of being taken into question, which is more conclusive still.

Mrs. Egerton was at this moment absent from the rectory, and Mr. Cattley was like a fish out of water. He spent almost all the time he could spare from his pupils and the parish in writing long letters to her: but all his evenings could not be spent in this way, and now and then, sighing for the difference, he would come out of an evening and visit one of the houses in the village. The Sandfords stood very high in the little aristocracy of Edgeley-on-the-Moor. They were not very old residents, having come here only about ten years before, but they had always been very highly thought of. Mr. Cattley was received by them with all the deference which good Church people, to whom his visit is an honour, show to their clergyman. They thought more of his visit than if it had been a common occurrence. And, though he was only the curate, it was he that was most of a clergyman in the parish, for the rector, though he was much liked, was of the class which used to be called Squarson, and was more of a country gentleman than a parish priest. There was yet another reason for their great pleasure at sight of this visitor, and the warm welcome they gave him. The conversation had come to a point which made a break—a new incident very convenient. They were glad to escape at that moment from John. After a little interval it would be more easy to resume their talk in a cool and matter-of-fact tone.

‘You will have a cup of tea, sir,’ said Mrs. Sandford. ‘Oh! dear, yes, we’ve had our tea a long while ago, but it is just a pleasure and a pride to have some made fresh for you; and though we don’t live in that way ourselves I know many that do. We understand the habits of gentlepeople, even though we may not be gentlefolks ourselves.’

‘That I am sure you are,’ said the curate, ‘in the truest sense of the word.’

‘Oh! well, sir, it’s very good of you to say it, and I hope we’re not rude or rough,’ said the old lady, and she bustled out of the room to look after the tea, which he did not at all care for, with great satisfaction in being able thus to leave the room for a moment. Her husband plunged into parish talk with Mr. Cattley with not less relief.

‘Thank God, that’s got over,’ he said to himself.

As for John, he was very glad to see his tutor also, but without any of their special thankfulness. He did not take much part in the conversation, which was natural. At his age a boy is expected not to put himself forward. He sat and listened, and through it all would now and then feel a bitter throb of wonder and pain go through him. Dead! He might have known it all the time. Papa, so kind as he was, would never have left him so long without finding him out, without coming to see him, even if, as he had sometimes fancied, the grandparents did not approve. And so he was dead! gone, never to be seen more. It was so long, so long since there had been any reality in the relationship that the boy could not grieve as he would have done had he lost anyone he knew and loved. It was only a shadow he had lost, and, indeed, he had not lost that, it was with him just the same as before. And, as a matter of fact, he had never thought of any meeting again. The shock he had received was more a kind of awe of dying, a kind of ache at the thought that his fond recollections had been, as it were, vain all this long time. He listened to the conversation, and even would put in a word or two, and smile at what grandfather or Mr. Cattley said. And then the thought, the throb would again dart through him: dead! It was a strange thing to feel that some one belonging to him had actually gone over that bourne from which no traveller returns. This was so solemn, and John’s recollection was so far from solemn; and he knew that the gayest, the most light-hearted had to die all the same, like the gravest. But to think that some one belonging to him had stepped across that dark line of separation, that some one might be thinking about him upon the other side, beyond the grave. This made John’s nerves tingle, and a shiver passed under his hair. Dead! it is so strange when one is young to realise, though it is, no doubt, common to all, yet that one individual known to one’s self should die.

Mrs. Sandford came up after a little while, followed by the maid with a tray. She had much too good manners to let the guest take this refreshment by himself, accordingly there were two tea-cups with the little teapot. And the old lady’s eyes were a little red, if anyone had remarked it. She had been doing more than making tea. She had run up to her own room and cried a little there in the dark over all the confusing troubles of the past, and over the new chapter which was opening. She said to herself,

‘Oh! I don’t approve it—I don’t approve it!’ But what did it matter what she approved, when it was certain that he (which was the only name she ever gave her husband) and Emily would have it their own way?

‘I suppose,’ said the gentle curate, ‘that it is all settled, and that it is I now that am to have holiday. I shall miss the young ones dreadfully. I don’t know what I shall do without them. It will make all the difference in the world to me.’

‘You see, sir,’ said Grandfather Sandford, who had a faint and uncomfortable feeling that it was the want of those little payments which had been made for John which would make the great difference to the curate, ‘as it doesn’t suit us to carry him on for what you may call a learned education, we think it’s better for the boy not to lose more time.’

‘Not meaning that he ever could be losing time with you, Mr. Cattley!’

‘Mr. Cattley knows I don’t mean that: but only that he has to work and make his own way.’

‘I understand perfectly,’ said the curate, ‘and you are quite right. When a boy has to go into active life it is far better that he should begin early. Don’t think I disapprove. John and I have been great friends, and I shall miss him sadly. But he has really got as much from me as I can give him—unless it were a little more Greek: and I’m afraid there is not much practical advantage in Greek.’

‘Learning anything,’ said old Mr. Sandford, in a respectful sort of apologetic tone, ‘is always a practical advantage. If you know how to learn Greek, you’ll know how to learn anything. So the time can never be said to be lost.’

Mr. Cattley laughed a little quietly, and made a mental note of this as something to tell Mrs. Egerton. It amused him very much that the old man should patronise learning and explain to himself how Greek could do harm: but still there is no doubt that Mr. Sandford was quite right from his point of view.

‘I wish he had taken a little more to figures,’ said the old gentleman; ‘figures are very useful in every way of life. I would teach more sums than anything else if I were one that was engaged in instructing youth.’

Mr. Cattley laughed again and said he would have to learn them first himself.

‘For that was always my weak point: but John has a very pretty notion of mathematics. And have you come to any decision as to what he is going to do?’

‘We were just beginning to talk of it,’ said the old gentleman. ‘We were going over a few family matters, and then we were coming to the great question.’

‘I am afraid then,’ said the curate, ‘that I came in at an unfortunate moment. You should have told me you were occupied, and I should have gone away.’

‘Dear, dear, I hope you don’t think we are capable of such rudeness,’ cried the old lady, ‘and it was just this very reason, Mr. Cattley, to see you come in was what we wished most.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said her husband, ‘nobody can know like you what the boy’s good for. It will help us more than anything. I was just going to ask him—John, my lad, what do you think you’d like to be?’

And John, though he had received that shock, though he was so serious, still, moved by thrills of wondering and confused emotion, laughed. He said, ‘How can I tell, grandfather, all at once?’ with that elasticity of the youthful mind which older people find it so difficult to take into account.

The grandparents looked at each other across John and across Mr. Cattley. What their eyes said was briefly this—‘Thank God that’s over.’ ‘And he hasn’t a doubt,’ said old Sandford’s look, with a little brightness of triumph, to which his wife’s reply was an almost imperceptible shake of her head. This little pantomime was not at all remarked either by Mr. Cattley, who knew nothing about it, or by John, who made no remark at all. The existence of any mystery never occurred to the boy. How should it? He knew nothing about skeletons in cupboards, and was quite ready to have sworn to it that nothing of the kind belonged, or could belong, to his family at least.

‘Well,’ said the curate, ‘if it is making money you are thinking of, we all know what is the best way and the one way—if you have any opening: and that is business—in a London office now, or in Liverpool or Manchester.’

‘Oh, the Lord forbid!’ cried Mrs. Sandford, letting her knitting drop and clasping her hands.

Her husband looked at her severely, and breathed a hasty ‘Hush!’ Then after a little pause,

‘Perhaps we’re prejudiced. We have had to do with some that have done badly in business, and we don’t take a sanguine view. You may make money, I don’t deny, but again you may lose it. You may have to part with every penny you’ve got, and there’s a deal of temptation to speculate and all that. And besides we’ve got no opening that I know,’ he added, almost sharply, ‘which alters the question.’

There had been no argument nor anything to excite him, and yet he ended up in a belligerent manner, as though he had been violently contesting the views of some antagonist, and then looked at Mr. Cattley with a sort of defiance, as if that mild and innocent clergyman had been pressing upon him some undesirable course.

‘Nay, nay, if you don’t like it,’ said the curate, ‘there is nothing more to be said. I am not much moved that way myself. I had a brother once——’

‘Yes?’ cried Mrs. Sandford, putting away her knitting altogether, as if in the importance of this discussion the mere touch of the work irritated her. The old gentleman lifted a finger as if in warning.

‘Don’t you excite yourself, my dear,’ he said.

‘Poor fellow,’ said Mr. Cattley. ‘He was much older than I: but he died young, broken-hearted. He was not the resolute sort of fellow that gets on. He got his accounts into a muddle somehow——’

‘Yes!’ cried Mrs. Sandford again. She was as eager as if this were something pleasant that was being told her; whereas the curate had his eyes fixed, meditatively, on the fire, and spoke slowly and with regret.

‘He was not much more than a boy,’ said Mr. Cattley. ‘It’s a long time ago, when I was a child. I believe it never could be found out how it was—whether he had lost the money or spent it without knowing, or whether some one had taken it. Nobody blamed him, but he never got over it. It broke his heart.’

‘Ah!’ said Mrs. Sandford, with a gasp for breath. But she seemed a little disappointed—as if she were sorry—though that of course must have been impossible—that the curate’s brother was not to blame.

‘Things do happen like that,’ said the old gentleman, breathing what seemed like a sigh of relief. ‘And sometimes it’s partly a young fellow’s fault, and partly it isn’t. But my wife and I, we’ve seen so much of it, living near Liverpool at one time, which is a great business place, that it’s not at all the kind of life we would choose for John.’

‘Oh, John would be all right,’ said Mr. Cattley, ‘but I’m sorry I have been so unfortunate in my first shot. I don’t doubt, however, that he has a very fair guess what he wants to be himself.’

‘I didn’t know,’ said John, ‘you had any objection to business. I should have liked an office as well as anything, for then one could have been upon one’s own hook at once, and got a salary, and not needed to come upon you.’

‘Oh, Johnnie, my boy, did we ever grudge you anything that you say that?’

‘Nothing, grandmamma! and that’s why I should like to do for myself when I begin: but then I’ll do nothing that wouldn’t please you. May I speak out quite what I should like? Well, then, Mr. Cattley knows. I’d like to build bridges and lighthouses, especially lighthouses; that’s to say, I’d like to be an engineer.’

‘An engineer!’ They looked at each other again, but not with any secret communications, in simple surprise and mutual consultation. ‘Nobody belonging to you ever was that before,’ Mrs. Sandford said.

‘Yes, that is something quite new,’ said the grandfather. ‘I thought he’d have favoured farming, or to try for an agency, or, perhaps, the corn-factoring trade. Well, it is none the worse that I know of for being something new.’

‘The worst is that it takes a great deal of learning,’ said John, doubtfully. ‘Mr. Cattley knows, grandfather. You have to serve your time, and to work hard: but I don’t mind the work.’

‘Yes,’ said the curate, ‘I know a good deal about it, or at least, I could get you all the information. I have a brother——’

‘Not the one,’ said Mrs. Sandford, with again a little gasp, ‘that broke his heart——’

‘Oh, no,’ said the curate, ‘my father was three times married, and I have a great many brothers. This was one of the first lot. He is quite an old fellow, and he’s done very well for himself; he never had the least idea of breaking his heart. Indeed, I don’t know,’ he added, with a smile—but stopped himself, and left his sentence unfinished, ‘He has a great foundry, and is in a large way of business. By the way, John, I’m afraid he has nothing to do with lighthouses. He is what is called a mechanical engineer.’

‘I suppose they are all connected,’ said Mr. Sandford, as if he knew all about it: and he expressed himself as very grateful to Mr. Cattley, who promised to procure him all necessary information about the further education that John would require to go through: and the evening terminated with a little supper of the simplest kind, which the curate was not too fine to share. It seemed to bring him closer to them, and knit the bond of long association more warmly that he should thus have something to do with John’s future career, and on the other hand it threw a light of respectability upon the profession John had chosen, that Mr. Cattley’s brother should be in it. It was a very dark night, and when the curate left them, John took the lantern to see him home to his own house. When the old people were alone, after accompanying their guest to the door, they came back to the fire, for it was cold; but for a few minutes neither spoke. Then Grandfather Sandford said, with an air of relief,

‘Well, that’s over, thank heaven. It’s been hanging over me, day after day, for years. But I might have saved myself the trouble, for he took it as sweetly as any baby, and never had a doubt.’

‘Oh, John Sandford,’ said the old lady, ‘and doesn’t that make it all the worse to deceive him now? We’ve told him the truth all his days; how could he doubt us? But when he finds it out he will think it’s all a lie everything we’ve ever said.’

To this the old gentleman replied with something like a sob, covering his face with his hand,

‘If you feel you can take it upon you to break that poor lad’s heart, do it; but don’t ask me.’

CHAPTER V.

AN ADVENTURE.

The curate and his pupil trudged along in the dark, guided by the lantern which threw a gleam along the road and showed them the irregularities in it, which indeed they both knew very well, avoiding by instinct the bit of broken causeway before the schoolhouse, and the heap of crates and packages that were always to be found in front of the shop. The darkness of the village was not like the modified darkness to which dwellers in towns are accustomed. It was a blackness which could be felt; without any relief. But then both of these people knew every step of the way. The drawback of the darkness, however, was that one could not see who might be listening, and had, therefore, no guidance to tone one’s voice or change the subject when there were people passing by, to whom one did not care to confess all one’s thoughts. This, however, very little affected John and the curate, who knew everybody, and had nothing in the world to conceal.

‘I’m very glad, John,’ said the curate, as they trudged along, speaking a little louder than usual because of the night; for it was so heavy and depressing that it seemed to require more cheer than usual in the human voices, ‘very glad that your grandfather and grandmother take it so well. It’s a very fine profession, the best you can have.’

‘Yes, that is just what I think,’ said John, ‘it’s not a mere trade to make one’s living by. It means more than that.’

‘Yes, a great deal; but, all the same, a sure trade to make one’s living by is something. You must not be contemptuous——’

‘I, sir!’ said John. ‘I hope I’m not contemptuous of anything; but if you can make your living and do something for your fellow-creatures at the same time—like yourself,’ the boy said, lowering his voice, ‘though not in such a fine way——’

‘Ah, my boy,’ said the curate, in a tone which implied that he was shaking his head ‘when you’re older even you, perhaps, won’t think so much of my way of serving my fellow-creatures. It is not very much one can do. If I were in the East-End of London, perhaps, or on a mission—but never mind about that. You must remember that building lighthouses is the heroic part, but learning to survey and to calculate, or having to work at machinery, as you would do if you went to my brother——’

‘I’d like the one for the sake of the other,’ said John.

‘But you might never, perhaps, get to the other. You may have to grind for years at the mechanical part. You must not form too high expectations. We all have our dreams of lighthouses—and then, perhaps, never get any further than to make a bit of railway or to look after the fall of the water in a lock.’

‘You always say,’ cried the boy, ‘that a firm resolution is half the battle.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said the curate, and once more there was that in his voice which sounded as if he were shaking his head. ‘Ah, yes,’ he went on, with a laugh, ‘that’s the greatest part of the battle. I never said a wiser thing (if I said it) than that. Solomon himself couldn’t teach you anything better. Stick to it with a determination that you are going to succeed, and, unless you are very unfortunate indeed, you will succeed. Ah! what is that! Who is there? The lantern, John.’

They had just passed the village public-house, which was a thorn in the curate’s flesh, and had dimly perceived, by the light of the half-open door, dim figures striding out and flitting into the darkness; for the hour of closing was near. Perhaps one of the times Mr. Cattley shook his head, it was at this headquarters of opposition to all he was trying to do. He was not of different clay from other men, and he hated the place, as those who have had to contend against an evil influence, whose headquarters they cannot reach, are apt to do, with more vehemence than perfect justice demands. Some one had addressed him, as he spoke to John, with a hoarse, ‘I say, master,’ out of the darkness, and there had come along with the voice into the fresh, chill, and wide air round them that overpowering smell of drink which sickens both the senses and the heart. It must have been a very bold parishioner, indeed, who could have addressed the curate at that stage, and it was with a voice much sterner than usual that he said,

‘The lantern, John!’

John raised the lantern quickly, sharing his master’s indignation, and, the light suddenly shifting, fell upon a figure which, happily, was not that of a village toper. It was a tall man, in rough clothes, with a red spotted handkerchief tied round his neck, and a hat slouched over his eyes. If there had been any possibility of violence in Edgeley, the curate, who was a slim man, and, notwithstanding his height, not very strong, might have shrunk from such a meeting in the dark; but he was in his own kingdom, and there was not one even of the worst characters in the village who did not more or less acknowledge his authority. And Mr. Cattley, besides, was not the sort of man to be afraid. He said, with a voice which changed at once from the friendly softness with which he had been talking to the boy,

‘Who are you? and what do you want?’

His tone, John thought, was enough to strike terror to the most obdurate heart.

‘No offence, master,’ said the man. ‘I was only wishful to ask if you know’d of a Missis May, that I’ve been told lived about here.’

‘No. I know no one of that name,’ said the curate. ‘There is no Mrs. May in this village. You seem to be a stranger here. Wherever you’re lodging, I advise you to go home and go to bed. It’s too late to be asking for anyone at this hour of the night.’

‘You think I’m drunk, and so do a many; but I’m not drunk. I’ve only a drop of beer on board,’ said the man. ‘It’s a long time since I’ve had the chance, and I’m a-making up for lost time.’

‘Where are you lodging?’ said the curate, in his stern voice.

‘They said they’d give me a bed there,’ said the stranger, pointing with a hand towards the public-house; ‘but, now they’ve found out about me, they say they won’t. And it’s drefful hard upon a man as has come out of his way for nothing, as ye may say, but to do a good turn. And that’s the reason as I was asking for Missis May; for she’ll put me up if he won’t, a good lady as her husband was my mate, and I’m come to bring her news out of my way.’

‘Sir,’ said Johnson of the public-house, coming up on the other side, ‘he’s a man as has let out as he’s fresh from Portland, just served out his time; and he’s looking for a woman as is the wife of another of ’em. There ain’t no such person here. I’ve told him over and over again. And I’ve told him to move on, and be off to the station afore the last train goes by. But I can’t get him to do neither one thing nor the other. And I can’t be expected to put up a fellow like that in my house.’

‘Was it in your house he got all the drink he has swallowed?’ said the curate. ‘If you will not give him a bed to sleep it off in, why did you give him the drink?’

‘Oh, that’s a different thing. Every man is free to have his glass,’ said Johnson, with a growl of insolence. Then he added, ‘And it only came out in his drink who he was, and all this bother about his Mrs. May. There’s nobody here or hereabout of that name.’

‘It’s none of you or your miserable holes I want. It’s my mate’s wife as I want,’ said the man. ‘You tell me where she lives, or I’ll—I’ll break all your windows and pull your old barracks about your ears.’

He said this with an interlarding of many oaths, and, swaying back and forward, finally lost his balance and dropped upon the roadside, where John, changing the level of the lantern, poured a stream of light upon him, as he sat up with tipsy gravity, leaning against a low wall which bordered the path, and looking up at the group before him with blank, lacklustre eyes.

‘He can’t be left out here in the cold, whatever he is,’ the curate said.

‘That’s all very well for you, Mr. Cattley. Them as hasn’t got to do a thing never see any difficulty in it,’ said the master of the public-house.

‘I can’t stand here bandying words,’ said the curate; ‘if you will not take him in, I must do it. He can’t be left to be frozen to death in the public road. Some of those fellows who are skulking away in the dark not to face me—but I see them well enough.’ Mr. Cattley raised his voice, and terror ran through the loiterers who had been lingering to see what would come of this exciting incident. ‘Some of them can help me along with him to my house. Come along, and lend a hand, before he goes to sleep.’

‘I ain’t a-going to sleep,’ said the stranger, haranguing from what he evidently felt to be a point of ‘vantage. ‘I’m as steady as a church, and a deal soberer nor e’er a one of you. I wants Missis May, as’ll take me in and do for me thankful, along of her husband, as was my mate.’

‘Come along, men,’ said Mr. Cattley, sharply. ‘I’m not strong enough to do it myself, and you won’t leave the boy to drag him, will you, not the boy——’

‘If it’s come to that, sir,’ said the man of the public-house, ‘I’d rather do it nor trouble you. After all, it’s more fit for me to have him than you. Supposing as he can’t pay, I take it you’d rather pay for him than have him in your house. Hey, man, get up and get to bed!’

‘All I’m wishful for,’ said the man, growing more and more solemn, ‘is for some one to direct me where Missis May’s living. It’s she as will be glad to see me wi’ news—news of her man—as was my mate.’

‘Thank you, Johnson,’ said Mr. Cattley, with a reluctance which he felt to be unjust. ‘I will certainly pay, and I’m obliged to you, which is more. Do you want the lantern? Then come along, John, you’ve had enough of this dismal sight.’

He went along the remainder of the way, which was not long, in silence, and it was only at his own door that he spoke.

‘John,’ he said, ‘that’s such a spectacle as the Spartans, don’t you remember, gave to their boys.’

‘It was awfully cruel, sir,’ cried John, ‘they made the Helots drink—and then—it wasn’t the fault of the poor brutes. I would rather go without the lesson than have it like that.’

‘And I’d rather you had gone without this lesson. I’d rather you knew nothing about it. But we can’t abstract ourselves from the world, and we can’t live in the world without seeing many horrible things. I wonder now whether there was a bit of faithfulness and human feeling at the bottom of all that? Heaven knows!—or it might be the reverse—an attempt to get something out of some poor decent woman to cover her shame. Did you ever hear the name of May about here?’

‘No,’ said John, ‘never;’ and then he paused for a moment. ‘I seem to know something about the name; but I’m sure there’s no one called May here.’

‘Not down by Feather Lane?’ said the curate, thoughtfully. ‘I must speak to Miss Summers about it. She will know. Now, here we are at my door, and I shouldn’t have let you come so far. Go quickly home, my dear boy.’

John obeyed, yet did not obey, this injunction. He went home without lingering, but he did not go quickly. Why there should be a particular pleasure in lingering out of doors in the dark in a world unseen, where there is nothing to please either mind or eye, it would be difficult to say. But that there is, every imaginative spirit must have felt. The boy strolled along in a meditative way, dangling his lantern at his cold fingers’ end, throwing stray gleams upon the road, which gave him a fantastic half-conscious amusement but no aid, though, indeed, he did not require that, in seeing his way. The landlord of the ‘Green Man’ was still outside discoursing upon the hardship of being compelled to take a drunken brute fresh out of prison into his respectable house.

‘We’ll maybe wake up in the morning all dead corpses,’ he said, unconscious of the warrant of Scripture for the words, ‘all along of a clergyman as just fancies things.’

‘Put him in the barn,’ said one of the loungers about, slow spirits excited by the stir of something happening, who had returned and hung about the door discussing it after the curate had passed. ‘Put him in the stable, that’s good enough for the likes of him.’

‘I’ll put him in the loft and turn the key upon him, so as he’ll do no harm,’ said the landlord. The man, as John made out with a gleam of his lantern, was still seated on the edge of the pathway, supported against the wall, his red handkerchief showing in the light. He was muttering on in a long hoarse monologue, in which there was still audible from time to time the name of May.

May! John asked himself, as he went on, how was it that he knew that name? It seemed to be so familiar to him, and yet he could not recall distinctly what the association was. Then he pondered on what the curate had said, whether by any chance there might be what he had called ‘a bit of faithfulness and human feeling’ at the bottom of the miserable fellow’s persistence. Nobody but Mr. Cattley would have thought of that, the boy said to himself; and there rose before his half-dreaming eyes a picture of some poor creature waiting for news, blessing even this wretched man for bringing them to her.

John had read ‘Les Miserables’ (in the original; for Mr. Cattley knew so much! and had taught him French as well as Latin), and a comparison between the incidents rose in his mind. He felt, as one feels at that age, that it was rather grand to be going along in the dark, thinking of Victor Hugo’s great book and comparing French and English sentiment, he who was only a country boy; and this feeling mingled with the comparison he was making. Mr. Cattley was not an ideal saint like Monseigneur Bienvenu, but neither were the English village-folks so hard-hearted as the French ones. They would not have left even a returned convict to perish in the cold. This suggestion of perishing in the cold, which made him shiver, sent John’s imagination all abroad upon shipwrecks at sea, and tales of desolate places, the martyrs of the Arctic regions and those in the burning deserts; his fancy flitting from one to another without coherence or any close connection as thoughts do. And then, with a sudden pang, as if an arrow had gone into his heart, he remembered what had been told him only this evening, that his own father, papa, who had been a sort of god to his infancy, was dead. How was it possible that he could forget it as he had done, letting any trifling incident take possession of his mind and banish that great fact from the foreground? He felt more guilty than could be said, and yet, while feeling so, his mind flitted off again in spite of him to a hundred other subjects. The recollection returned with a fluctuating thrill, at intervals, but it would not remain. It linked itself even with this question about Mrs. May. May! what had that to do with the revelation which had been made to him?—that, a mere vulgar incident seen on the roadside—the other an event which ought to make everything sad to him.

He went on a little quicker, spurred by the thought. His father’s death had not made everything sad to him. It was but one incident among many which came back from time to time; but the other incidents—he felt ashamed to think they had interested him quite as much. It had been altogether an exciting evening. First that intimation, and then the talk about what he was going to be, and the consent of his grandparents to his plan. Either of these facts had been quite enough to fill up an evening, or, indeed, many evenings, and now they all came together; and then, as if that were not enough, the startling scene in the darkness of the night, the returned convict just like ‘Les Miserables,’ but so different, the ‘bit of faithfulness,’ perhaps, and ‘human feeling.’ John said to himself that this was a poor little outside affair, not worth to be mentioned beside the others, but yet he could not help wondering whether the poor fellow, though he was so little worthy of interest, would ever find his Mrs. May.

He got home before he expected, in the multiplicity of these thoughts; and when the door was opened to him noiselessly, without anyone appearing, he knew it was grandmamma, who was always on the watch for him. She said, in a whisper,

‘You’ve been a long time, dear. Hush, don’t make any noise, grandfather has gone up to bed.’

‘I was kept by a strange thing,’ said John. ‘Come into the parlour, and I’ll tell you, grandmamma. Why, the fire is nearly out, though it’s so cold!’

‘There’s a fire in your room, my dear. You forget how late it is—near eleven o’clock. And what was the strange thing, Johnnie? There are not many strange things in our village at this hour of the night.’

She was wrapped up in a great white shawl, and the pretty old face smiled over this, her complexion relieved and brightened by it, a picture of an old lady, beaming with tender love and cheerful calm.

‘It was very strange,’ said John, ‘though it seemed at first only a drunken fellow at the door of the “Green Man.”’

‘Mr. Cattley shouldn’t have taken you that way. I don’t like to have you mixed up with drunken men.’

‘How could I be mixed up?’ said John, with a laugh. ‘But the strange thing is that he says he’s a returned convict, and that he was calling out and asking everyone for some woman, a Mrs. May.’

Mrs. Sandford clutched at John with her hand. Her lips fell apart with horror, the colour fled from her face.

‘Oh, good Lord! What is it you are saying?’ she gasped, scarcely able to speak.

‘You don’t mean to say you are frightened, with the doors locked and all the windows fastened! Why, grandmamma,’ said John, laughing, ‘you are as bad as the people in “Les Miserables,” that I read to you, you know—— ’

‘Oh, yes, I’m frightened!’ she said, leaning upon him, and putting her hand to her heart, as if she had received a blow.

He felt the throbbing which went all through the slight frame as if it had been a machine vibrating with the quickened movement.

‘Why, grandmamma,’ he said again. ‘You to be frightened! He can’t, if he were a demon, do any harm to you. And shall I tell you what Mr. Cattley said? He said it might be a bit of faithfulness and human feeling, his coming to look for this poor woman, to bring her news of her husband.’

‘What had he to do with her husband?’ said the old lady, almost in a whisper, turning away from him her scared and panic-stricken face.

‘Oh, he had been in the same prison with him,’ said John. ‘He said her husband was his mate—that means, you know—but of course you know what it means. And, by-the-by,’ said the boy, ‘can you tell me, grandmamma, how it is that I seem to have some association or other—I can’t tell what it is—with the name of May?’

CHAPTER VI.

GRANDMAMMA.

Mrs. Sandford got up very early next morning, some time before it was daylight. She had scarcely slept all night. As quiet as a little ghost, not to wake her husband, she had stolen upstairs after dismissing John to bed: and she stole out of her room as softly in the morning, her heart rent with trouble and fear. It was her habit to go out early in the summer mornings to look after the garden, to collect the eggs from the poultry-yard, to gather her posies with the dew upon them, which was an old-fashioned way she had. But in winter the old lady was not so brave, and feared the cold as the least courageous will do. Notwithstanding, it was still dark when she stole out, unseen as she fondly hoped, by Sarah in the kitchen. The darkness of the night was just beginning to yield to the grey unwilling daylight. The milkman was going his rounds. Some late people, not the labourers, who were off to their work long ago in the darkness, were coming out very cold to their occupations: the shop had still a smoky paraffin-lamp lighted, and there was one of the same description shining through the open door of the ‘Green Man.’ Except for these points of light, all was grim and grey in the village. The sky widened and cleared minute by minute. It did not grow bright, but slowly cleared. Mrs. Sandford had a thick veil over her face, but everybody knew her. To attempt to hide herself was vain. She had taken a basket in her hand to give herself a countenance. It was a basket which was well known. It carried many a little comfort to sick people and those who were very poor. The sight of the little slim old lady with her fair, fresh face and white hair, her trim black-silk gown, and warm wadded cloak, and the basket in her hand, was very familiar to the people in Edgeley. But she was seldom out so early, and her steps were a little uncertain, not quick and light as usual. You could generally see, to look at her, that she was very sure where she was going and knew every step of the way. This morning she went up past the ‘Green Man,’ so that the milkman, who was a great gossip, said to himself,

‘I know! She’s going to that tramp as was took bad last night in Feather Lane.’

But when he had gone on his round a little further and saw her coming back again, his confidence was shaken.

‘It must be old Molly Pidgeon she’s looking for—and most like don’t know as she’s moved.’

But, when Mrs. Sandford crossed the street, this observer was altogether at fault.

‘There’s nobody as is ill that a-way,’ he said to the customer whom he was serving. ‘Whatever is Mrs. Sandford doing out with her basket at this time in the morning, and no sickness to speak of about?’

The woman standing at her door with the jug in her hand for the milk leaned out too, and stared.

‘There’s a deal of children with colds, and old folks,’ she said.

And they both stopped to look at the uncertain movements of the little figure. Even curiosity in the country is slow in its operations. They stood half turned away from the milk-pails, which were their real point of meeting, and stared slowly, while the unwonted passenger in still more unwonted uncertainty flickered along. In the meantime there had been a little commotion at the ‘Green Man,’ such as was very unusual too: for in the morning all was decorous and quiet there, if not always so at night. There was a loud sound of voices, which, though beyond the range of the milkman and his customer, attracted the attention of other people who were about their morning’s business. The postman paused while feeling for his letters, and turned his head that way, and the people in the shop came running out to the door.

‘It’ll be him as made the row last night,’ they said, in fond expectation of a second chapter. Their hopes were so far realized that at this moment the folding swinging-doors flew open, and a man burst out more quickly than is the usual custom of retiring guests. And he stopped to shake his fist at the door, where Johnson appeared after him watching his departure.

‘I promise you I’ll keep an eye on you,’ Johnson cried after him, and the stranger sent back a volley of curses fortunately too hoarse to be very articulate.

Mrs. Sandford crossed the road again just at that moment, and she heard better than the observers far off. A look of horror came over her face.

‘Oh! my good man,’ she cried, lifting up her hand, ‘I am sure you don’t wish all those horrible things. What good can it do you to swear!’

The man looked at her for a moment. Her little dainty figure, her careful dress, her spotless looks made such a contrast to this big ruffian, all disordered, squalid, and foul, with every appearance of having lain among the straw all night, and the traces of last night’s debauch still hanging about him, as no words could express. He stood a moment taken aback by her address; probably he would have shrunk even from appealing to the charity of a being so entirely different and out of his sphere; but to have her stop there and speak to him took away his breath. His hand stole up to his cap involuntarily.

‘It do a man a deal of good, lady,’ he said; ‘it relieves your mind; but I didn’t ought to,’ he added, beginning to calculate, ‘I know.’

‘You should not, indeed,’ she said; and then added, ‘You seem a stranger. Are you looking for work? or have you any friends about here?’

The postman, the woman at the shop, and everybody within sight admired and wondered to see Mrs. Sandford talking to ‘the man.’ This was the name he had already acquired in Edgeley. They wondered if she could know that he was a man out of prison. But she was known to be very kind.

‘I shouldn’t wonder if that was just why she’s doing of it, because nobody else would touch him with a pair of tongs,’ an acute person said.

He seemed, it must be added, much surprised himself; but he was a man who had been used to prison chaplains and other charitable persons, and he thought he knew how to get over every authority of the kind.

‘Lady,’ he said, ‘that’s just what I want. It’s work, to earn an honest living; but, ’cause I’m a poor fellow as has been in trouble, nobody won’t have me or hear speak of me; but to have been in trouble oncet, that’s not to say ye don’t want to do no better. It’s only when ye gets there as ye know how bad it is.’

‘That may be very true,’ said Mrs. Sandford; ‘but a little village like this is not the place to get work, I’m afraid; for there is nothing to do here.’

‘No, lady,’ said the man; ‘and it wasn’t so much work I was looking for this morning, as to do a good turn to a mate o’ mine, as was with me, I needn’t say where. Maybe ye may know, lady, as it can be seen you’re a charitable lady. Maybe you can tell where I’ll find a Missis May——’

Mrs. Sandford’s little outline quivered for a moment, but her face did not change. She shook her head.

‘There is nobody,’ she said, ‘of that name in this village. I know all the people, as you say. I think there was a woman called May about here a number of years ago, but she has removed, and where she has gone I can’t say.’

‘Ah, that’s like enough,’ said the man; ‘it’s a long time, and maybe she might not want the folks belonging to her to know.’

‘Was it news you were bringing her?’ Mrs. Sandford said. ‘That was very kind of you—but perhaps she would rather you didn’t tell her affairs to everybody, and that her husband was——’

‘I didn’t say nothing about her ’usband,’ said the man, quickly.

‘Oh! was it her son then, poor creature? for that is still worse,’ the old lady said.

He looked at her keenly with the instinct of one who, deceiving himself, has a constant fear of being deceived; but to see the little Lady Bountiful of the village standing there with her basket, her fresh face as fresh as a child’s, her limpid eyes looking at him with an air of pity yet disapproval, and to imagine that she was taking him in was impossible even to a soul accustomed to consider falsehood the common-place of existence.

‘It was her ’usband,’ he said, sullenly, ‘and I don’t care much if she liked it or not. She oughter like it if she didn’t, for it was news of him I was bringing, and I could tell her all about him—being mates for a matter of seven years, him and me.’

‘Poor woman!’ Mrs. Sandford said. ‘But I can’t tell you where she has gone, only that she’s not here.’

‘You wouldn’t deceive a poor fellow, lady? I’ve ’ad a long tramp, and that beggar there, though it’s nothing but a public he keeps,—— him——’

‘Oh,’ said Mrs. Sandford, ‘don’t swear! What good can that do you? Indeed, I am not deceiving you. I’m very sorry for you. I will give you something to pay your fare to the town. You will be better off there than here.’

‘It’s not much of a town as far as I’ve heard,’ he said, ‘and I ain’t ’ad no breakfast. And my ’eart’s set on doing my duty by my mate. I’ll go from door to door but I’ll find that woman, blast her. She’s a proud ’un, I know, and thinks herself a lady. I’ll have it out with her, I will, afore I go.’

‘In that case,’ said Mrs. Sandford, ‘I can’t give you the money which I offered you: and I meant to give you something for your breakfast too—and I must speak to the constable, for we cannot have you about the village, Mr.—— I don’t know what your name is. To have you here frightening all the poor people would never do.’

She gave him a lofty nod of her little head, and turned away: but the man, after all, was not willing to relinquish present advantage for problematical good. He made a stride after her, which frightened her very much, and took away all her pretty colour, but not the courage in her heart.

‘Lady,’ he said, ‘if you tell me on your honour that woman ain’t here—them folks all said so, but I didn’t believe ’em: and if you’ll give me—say ten shillin’—over and above the fare, as you promised—— ’

A gleam of eagerness came into Mrs. Sandford’s eyes; but she controlled herself.

‘I can assure you,’ she said, ‘the woman is not here.’

She had grown quite pale, and, though she smiled still, her countenance was drawn with terror, perhaps, or some other feeling.

‘You’re frightened of me, lady,’ the man said, ‘but you hain’t got no cause. I’m rough enough, but a lady as speaks kind and don’t try to bully a poor fellow—or go talking about the police—and besides I couldn’t do nothin’ to you. The men would be on me afore we could say Jack—— And I’m pretty sure as it’s the truth, and May’s wife ain’t here. She’s a proud one, she is. She’s maybe gone out of the country, or changed her name, or summat. Gi’ me ten shillin’ and I’ll go away.’

‘You had better go to the clergyman,’ said Mrs. Sandford.

‘Gi’ me ten shillin’,’ said the man.

‘Oh, perhaps I am doing what is wrong; perhaps I ought to speak to the constable. I’m not a person with any authority, and why should I interfere?’

‘Gi’ me ten shillin’,’ he repeated, coming close to her, holding out his hand.

‘Will you go away if I do? Perhaps you had better see the clergyman. I’ve no right to interpose to send you away. Will you go if I do?’

He nodded, watching her trembling hands as she took out her purse and felt in it, pressing very close to her, rubbing against her silk gown with his rough dress; and, as it happened by ill-luck, Mrs. Sandford had but a sovereign in her purse. When he saw it he put his hand upon hers suddenly, and crushed the little fingers together which held the golden coin.

‘Gi’ me that,’ he said, with his hot breath in her face, ‘gi’ me that, or afore any o’ them can get to ye I’ll knock you down; and they can’t do anything as bad to me.’

The little old lady stood enveloped in his big shadow, with his hairy, villainous face close by hers. She did not shrink, nor scream, nor faint, but stood up, deadly pale, with her limpid eyes fixed upon him.

‘I am not afraid of you,’ she said, with a little gasp. ‘Will you keep your word and go away?’

Some sentiment, unknown and inexplainable, came into the ruffian’s heart. He loosed his grip of the delicate little hand that felt like nothing in his grasp, which he could have crushed to a jelly: and indeed he had nearly done so. He said, ‘I will; I’ll keep my word,’ in a deep growling bass voice.

It was all that Mrs. Sandford could do to unclasp the fingers he had gripped, and to keep from crying with the pain. She dropped the sovereign into his hand.

‘Now go,’ she said.

‘You are game,’ he cried, with a sort of admiration, looking at her rather than the sovereign, though his hand closed upon that with the eagerness of a famished beast upon a bone. ‘I never saw one as was more game.’

She made a gesture of dismissal with her cramped fingers.

‘Oh, go, go—and God forgive you. And oh! try to get honest work, and live decent—and not fall into trouble again.’

‘Good-bye, lady,’ he said; then coming back a step—‘I’m sorry I hurt you.’

She waved to him to go away. The man still lingered a moment, putting up his hand to his cap, then turned, and, slouching, with his shoulders up to his ears, took the way across the corner of the moor to the railway-station, which was a mile off or more.

Mrs. Sandford turned to go back to her house. She was so pale that when she came near the door of the shop Mrs. Box came running out to her in alarm.

‘Oh, Mrs. Sandford, come in, ma’am; come in and rest a bit. You’ve not a bit of colour on your cheeks—you that have such a fine complexion. You’re just dead with fright, and I don’t wonder at it. How did he dare to speak to you, the villain? and shook your nerves, poor dear, so that I see you can’t speak.’

‘Oh! yes, I can speak,’ said the old lady. Her knees were knocking under her, her whole little person in a tremble. ‘I was glad to speak to him, poor creature. He wanted some one that used to live here by. Perhaps a person like that, who does really wicked things, may not be worse, in the sight of God, than many a man who makes a fair show to the world.’

She said this with many a catch of her breath and pause between the words. She was very much overdone, as anyone could see, but she would not sit down.

‘If you’ll give me a little milk, or some water, to revive me, I’ll be quite right in a minute,’ she said.

‘That may be true,’ said Mrs. Box, ‘for goodness knows the best of folks you can’t see into their heart; but a man as has been in prison ain’t like any other man. They learn such a deal of harm, even if it’s not in them to begin with. I’ve just made the tea for breakfast, and here’s a nice cup—that’ll do you more good than anything else—and sit down a moment and get your breath. I said to William, “There’s Mrs. Sandford a-talking to that brute; you go and see that she’s all right.” But William, he said to me, “If anyone can bring him to his senses it’s just Mrs. Sandford will do it.” So we stood and we watched. And what did he say to you, ma’am?—and dear, dear, how it’s taken all the nice colour out of your cheeks.’

‘Thank you for the tea. It has done me a great deal of good,’ said the old lady; ‘and now I must go home, for Mr. Sandford will be wondering what has become of me. Poor man, he was very amenable, after all, when one comes to think of it. I told him Edgeley was no place for the like of him, and that perhaps he might get work in the town: and you see he has gone away. Oh, poor soul! He was some poor woman’s boy once, that perhaps has broken her heart for him, Mrs. Box, and never thought to see him come to that, any more than you or me.’

‘Well, that’s true, ma’am,’ said Mrs. Box. ‘We don’t know what they’ll come to, as we’re so proud of when they’re children. Hold up your head, Willie, do! and ask Mrs. Sandford to let you carry her basket, as is always heavy with things for the poor.’

‘Not this morning, Mrs. Box. I had but an egg or two in it,’ said Mrs. Sandford, opening the lid to show that it was empty. There was a certain suspicion, she thought, in this speech. ‘There is no need for troubling Willie; but he is a fine, good-natured boy, and always willing to carry a parcel or run an errand. Good-morning to you all; you are kind folks.’

She thought the tea had saved her as she set out again down the village street. But her limbs still tottered, and she walked slowly, thinking the way twice as long as usual. They all called out how pale she was when she got in.

‘It is going out,’ she said, ‘without a cup of tea or anything, which was all my own fault.’

‘And why did you go out so early, without saying a word,’ said her husband. ‘Charity, my dear, is a fine thing; but you should not carry it too far. Neither that nor anything else is good when it’s carried too far.’

Mrs. Sandford only smiled and said it would be difficult to go too far when there were so many poor people, and pretended to make a very good breakfast behind the tea-urn. After breakfast she lay down a little on the sofa, saying that it was the most ridiculous thing in the world to be so tired for nothing, and that she must have taken something that disagreed with her, for the stomach was at the bottom of everything when one grew old. It was still holiday time with John, and he insisted upon staying with her when grandfather went out for that daily walk which nothing short of death in the house would have made him leave off. John was unusually grave. He came and sat beside the sofa with a very perplexed countenance.

‘Grandmamma,’ he said, ‘I feel all mixed. I am so puzzled with remembering something. Remembering and forgetting. Wasn’t I somehow mixed up when I was a little chap with the name of May?’

CHAPTER VII.

COMRADES.

This was what Elly Spencer said as she put her books together in Mr. Cattley’s study on a day in January not long before that on which the holidays, if they had been only holidays, would have come to an end. She was sixteen—a little younger than John Sandford, hitherto her constant companion and class-fellow. The relations between them were even more close than this, as the class consisted but of these two. Occasionally there had been a little emulation between them, even by times a keen prick of rivalry, but Mr. Cattley had made it very distinctly understood that, while John was more accurate in point of grammar and all the scaffolding of study, Elly was the one who caught the poetry or the meaning most quickly, and jumped at the signification of a sentence even when she did not know all the words of which it was composed. This was true to a certain extent, but not perhaps to the full length to which the curate carried it; but it had a very agreeable effect as between the two students, and carried off everything that might have been too sharp in their rivalry.

Thus Elly’s part was clearly defined, and so was John’s. If by chance the girl remembered a rule of construction before the boy on some exceptional occasion, or the boy perceived the sense of a passage before the girl, it made a laugh instead of any conflict of mutual jealousy.

‘Why, here’s Jack and Elly changing places,’ the curate would say, and no harm was done. The link between the two was, however, a very unusual one to exist between a boy and girl. They were like brother and sister, they were two comrades in the completest sense of the words, and yet they were something more. They were like each other’s second self in different conditions. Elly could not very well imagine what she would do were she Percy or Dick—who had strayed away from the habits of their home, into those of public schoolboys, members of a great corporation bound by other laws; but she thought she could quite imagine what she would do were she John, or Jack, as the young ones called him.

It did not indeed enter into Jack’s mind to realise what he should do were he Elly; for that is one inalienable peculiarity of the human constitution that no male creature can put himself in the place of a woman, as almost all female creatures imaginatively place themselves in that of some man. It is the one intimate mark of constitutional superiority which makes the meanest man more self-important than the noblest woman. Elly knew exactly what she would do if she were John. It was like herself going out into the world, planning the future, foreseeing all that was to happen. If it had been possible for her to go out into the world too, and have a profession, which with a sigh of regret she acknowledged was not possible, she would have done it just as he was going to do it. His enthusiasm about lighthouses had indeed been struck out by Elly, who had read all about the Eddystone ‘in a book,’ as she said, and who thenceforward had done nothing but talk about it till she became a bore to her brothers, and set John’s congenial soul aflame.

John and she talked between themselves about ‘the boys’ with a great deal of honest kindness, but perhaps just a little contempt—contempt is too hard, too unpleasant a word; but then toleration always implies this more or less. The boys got into scrapes: they thought of nothing but their shooting or their fishing: they were dreadfully bored on wet days, or when, as they said, there was ‘nothing to do.’

‘Jack and I can always find something to do,’ Elly said.

Perhaps it was after hearing one of these speeches that Mrs. Egerton, called at the rectory Aunt Mary, decided that Elly had carried her studies far enough, and had better now devote herself to feminine accomplishments, and carry on the lighter part of her education at home. This decision coincided in point of time with the resolution of Mr. and Mrs. Sandford to withdraw John from the curate’s charge; so that, though it had a certain dolorous character as a break-up, there was none of the painful feeling on either part of being sent away from those studies which another more fortunate was still carrying on.

John and Elly had come together by one impulse to remove their books. The room in which they had worked was Mr. Cattley’s study, the front parlour of the house in which he lodged; for the curate being only, as it were, in the position of a temporary inhabitant (notwithstanding that no known inducement would have been enough to carry him away from Edgeley) had no house of his own, but lodged where all the curates had lodged within the memory of man, in Mrs. Sibley’s, whose house stood obliquely at the end of the village street, commanding a beautiful view of the street itself, and everything that went on there. The street was broad, and almost all the houses had little gardens, which made it a very pretty view in summer. Within a stone’s throw, at the right hand, was the ‘Green Man,’ which was a drawback, especially on Saturday nights, when the guests were a little noisy, and when Mr. Cattley was busy with his sermon. But it had this advantage, that the curate secured from his window a great deal of information as to the habits of the more careless portion of his parishioners, and now and then was able to come down upon them accordingly, with very crushing effect. Beyond the ‘Green Man,’ at a little distance, was the shop, and then the row of houses ran on, sloping a little to the right hand, so that the gable of Mr. Sandford’s house in the distance, which was old, and of a fine, mellow, red brick, closed up the view. The church and rectory were withdrawn among trees to the left hand, behind the line of the village street, which had nothing at all remarkable about it, but was homely, and pleasant to the eyes which had known it all their lives and knew everybody in it. To be sure, John Sandford was seven when he came to Edgeley—but that at seventeen does not tell for much. Feather Lane, the low part of Edgeley, was quite unseen from Mr. Cattley’s, being a narrow street which sloped down to the river, well hidden by intervening houses. Mrs. Sibley’s was rather a modern house—at least, it had additions which were of very recent date. The window was a wide, bow-window, roomy enough to hold the curate’s writing-table, and seat his two pupils, one at each side. The other part of the room was quite square, and not very lovely. It had a table in the centre—a black horse-hair sofa and chairs, and a red and green carpet with a very bold pattern. The want of beauty in these articles, however, had not struck anyone. The furniture was all so familiar, associated with so many tranquil, pleasant days, so many little jokes and youthful laughter. It was ‘a dear old room,’ Elly said. She looked round, as she gathered up her books, with affectionate regard. ‘Dear old place! To think one will never come here again, except to ask for Mr. Cattley, or bring him a message from Aunt Mary!’ The regret was quite genuine, but there was a little laugh in it too.

‘I sha’n’t be able even to do that,’ said John. ‘I shall be away.’

‘Ah, but then you’ll write,’ said Elly. ‘Writing brings you back to a place more than merely coming with a message. If you don’t write regularly to me, I shall come to Mr. Cattley, and ask him, “Mr. Cattley, have you heard from Jack?” And then he’ll take it out, and read it to me; and so we’ll all three be together again.’

‘Oh, I’ll write fast enough,’ said John, lightly, without any sense of the privilege it was to be permitted to write as often as he liked to Elly. ‘I shall have nothing else to do.’

Elly was not at all offended by this easy statement. She said,

‘Not at first; but after, when you come to know people, then you’ll drop off, I’m sure. Everybody does. I have heard Aunt Mary say so often, “Oh, wait till they get among their own friends.” But keep it up as long as you can be troubled, Jack; for I am not going among new friends, you know. Look here, Mr. Cattley has papa and Aunt Mary on his mantelpiece. He has hung papa only to keep Aunt Mary company, I’m sure. Now, let you and me leave him our photographs, one on each side. He’ll like it, and it will be a little surprise for him when he comes in.’

‘He will like yours, I daresay,’ said Jack, ‘but mine? I am sure he can’t want mine: and I’ve not got one, that I know of.’

‘Yes, you have,’ said Elly. ‘This is my own: I brought it with me on purpose; and, of course, Mrs. Sandford must have another copy, and she’ll give it me. Look here,’ said the girl, taking out two photographs, which she had placed together in an envelope. They were not very noble works of art. They were the production of a travelling photographer who had been in the village for a week, and in that time had ‘done’ everybody, both gentle and simple, in Edgeley. They represented two young, round faces, very staring as to likeness, but without other advantage: however, neither Elly nor John knew any better. And there was enough in that juxtaposition to have made the heart of a youth beat; but John’s heart remained perfectly at ease. It seemed to him, as to Elly, the most natural thing in the world that they should balance each other. Nor was he at all offended that she should give ‘my one,’ as she called it, to the curate, with the intention of getting another from his grandmother to fill the vacant place in her room when he was aware he had been placed beside ‘the other boys.’ There was no feeling about the matter that was not quite simple and straightforward. Elly took them out of their envelope, and attached them over the curate’s mantelpiece with two big pins.