Young Musgrave

CHAPTER XXIX.

NELLO’S JOURNEY.

He did not pay very much attention to his small companion. For the moment, Nello, having been thus secured and brought within his power, had no further importance, and Randolph sat with knitted brows pondering all he was to do, without any particular reference to the child. Nello had left the Castle easily enough; he had parted from Mary and from Lilias without any lingering of emotion, getting over it as quickly as possible. When it came to that he was eager to be off, to set out into the world. The little fellow’s veins were full of excitement; he expected to see, he did not know what wonderful things, what objects of entrancing interest, as soon as he got outside the little region where everything was known to him. “Good-bye, Mary—good-bye, Lily,” he said, waving his hand. He had his own little portmanteau with his name on it, a new little silver watch in his pocket—what could child want more? Lily, though she was his sister, was not a sensation like that watch. He took it out, and turned it round and round, and opened the case, and wound it up—he had wound it up twice this morning already, so that one turn of the key was all that was practicable. Nothing at the Castle, nothing in the society of Lily, was equal to this. He compared his watch with the clock at the druggist’s in the village and found it fast: he compared it with the clock at the station and found that slow. He did not take any notice of his uncle, nor his uncle of him; each was indifferent, though partly hostile, to the other. Randolph was at his ease because he had this child, this troublesome atom, who might do harm though he could do no good, in his power; but Nello was at his ease through pure indifference. He was not at the moment frightened of his uncle, and no other sentiment in regard to him had been developed in his mind. As calm as if Randolph had been a cabbage, Nello sat by his side, and looked at his watch. The watch excited him, but his uncle——. Thus they went on, an unsympathetic pair. Nello stood about on the platform and looked at everything, while Randolph took the tickets. He was slightly hurt to hear that a half-ticket was still enough for himself, and moved away at once to the other side of the station, where the locomotive enthralled him. He stood and gazed at it with transport. What he would have given to have travelled there with the man who drove it, and left Uncle Randolph behind! But still Nello took his place in the train with much indifference to Uncle Randolph. He was wholly occupied with what was going on before and about him: the rush across country, trees and fields flying by, and the stations where there was always something new, the groups of people standing about, the rush of some for the train, the late arrival just as the doors were shut of those who were too late. These last made Nello laugh, their blank looks were so funny—and yet he was sorry for them; for what a thing it must be, he thought, to see other people go rushing out over the world to see everything, while you yourself were left dull at home! He remembered once himself being left with Martuccia in the still, deserted house when all the others had gone to the festa; how he thought the day would never end—and Martuccia thought so too. This made him sorry, very sorry, for the people who had lost their train. It did not occur to Nello that it might be no festa he was going to, or they were going to. What could any one want more than the journey itself? If you wearied of seeing the trains rush past, and counting the houses, now on one side, now on another, there was the endless pleasure of dashing up to one station after another, where Nello could look down with fine superiority on the people who were not going, on the children above all, who looked up envious, and envied him, he felt sure.

By and by, however, though he would not confess it to himself, the delights of the journey began to pall: his little eyes grew fatigued with looking, and his little mind with the continuous spectacle of those long, flying breadths of country; and even the stations lost their charm. He would have liked to have somebody to talk to, and cast one or two wistful glances to see whether Uncle Randolph was practicable, but found no encouragement in that countenance, pre-occupied, and somewhat lowering by nature, which appeared now and then in the wavering of the train, over the newspaper his uncle was reading. What a long time it took to read that paper! How it crackled when it was opened out! How tired Nello grew of seeing it opposite to him! And he began to grow cramped with sitting; his limbs wanted stretching, his mind wanted change; and he began to be hungry. Randolph, who scorned the poor refreshments of the railway, and thought it better to wait for his meal till he reached home, did not think of the difference between himself and the child. They travelled on and on through the dulness of the afternoon. Nello, who had been so excited, felt disposed to sleep, but was too proud to yield to it; and then he began to think of his sister and the home he had left. It is natural, it is selfish, to remember home when we miss its comforts: but if that is not of the higher nature of love, it is yet the religion of the weak, and not despised by the great Succourer who bids men call upon Him in time of trouble. Nello’s heart, when he began to feel tired and famished, recurred, with a pathetic trust in the tenderness and in the certainty of the well-being that abode there, to his home.

When they stopped at a lively, bustling junction to change their direction, things mended a little. Nello ventured to buy himself a cake, his uncle not interfering, as they waited. “You will spoil your stomach with that sweet stuff,” Randolph said, but he allowed the child to munch. And they had half-an-hour to wait, which of itself was something. Nello walked about, imitating Randolph’s longer stride, though he did not accompany his uncle; and though he felt forlorn and very small among the crowd, marched about and looked at everything as the gentlemen did, recovering his spirits a little. And suddenly, with a great glow of pleasure all over him, Nello spied, among the strangers who were hurrying to and fro, a face he had seen before; it is true it was only the face of the countryman who had accosted him in the Chase, and with whom he had but a small acquaintance, but even this was something in the waste of the unknown that surrounded him. The boy rushed up to him with a gleam of joy upon his small countenance. “I say, have you come from—home?”

“Yes, my little gentleman,” said Wild Bampfylde. “I’m taking a journey like you, but I like best to tramp on my two legs. I’m going no farther in your carriages, that give you the cramp. I reckon you’re tired too.”

“A little,” said Nello; “but that’s no matter. What have you in your basket?—is it another rabbit? I gave mine to Lily. They would not let me bring it, though I wanted to bring it. School, you know,” said the boy, seriously, “is not like home. You have to be just like as if you were grown up there. Little—you cannot help being little; but you have to be like as if you were grown up there.”

“Ay, ay, that’s the way to take it,” said the countryman, looking down with a twinkle in his eye, half smiling, half sad, at the small creature beside him. “The thing is to be a man, and to mind that you must stand up like a man, whatever happens. If one hits you, you must hit him again, and be sure not to cry.”

“Hit me!” said Nello—“cry? Ah, you do not know the kind of school I am going to—for you are not a gentleman,” he added, looking with superb condescension at his adviser. “I like you just the same,” said Nello, “but you are not a gentleman, are you? and how can you know?”

“The Lord forbid!” said Bampfylde, “one’s enough in a family. It would be ill for us, and maybe for you too, if I were a gentleman. Look you here, my little man. Look at the bonnie bird in this basket—it’s better than your rabbit. A rabbit, though it’s one o’ God’s harmless creatures, has little sense, and cannot learn; but this bonnie thing is of use to God and man, as well as being bonnie to look at. Look at him! what a bonnie head he has, and an eye as meaning as your own.”

“A pigeon!” said Nello, with a cry of delight. “Oh, I wish I might have him! Do you think I might have him? I could put him under the seat, and nobody would see the basket; and then when we got there—— ”

“Ay, that’s the question—when you got there?”

“I would say—it was my—fishing-basket,” said Nello. “He said they went fishing; and nobody would know. I would say Mary had—put things in it: nobody would ever find out, and I would keep it in my room, and buy seed for it and give it water, and it would live quite comfortable. And it would soon come to know me, wouldn’t it? and hop about and sit on my shoulder. Oh, let me have it; won’t you let me have it? Look here, I have a great deal of money,” cried Nello, turning out his pocket; “five shillings to spend, and a sovereign Mary gave me. I will give you money for it, as much money as ever you please—— ”

“Whisht, my little lad; put back your money and keep it safe, for you’ll have need of it. I brought the bird to give you. If they’re kind folks they’ll let you keep him. You must keep him safe, and take care he has his meat every day; and if they’re unkind to you or treat you bad, put you his basket in the window and open the lid, and, puff! he’ll flee away and let your friends know.”

“But I should not like him to flee away. I would like him to stay with me always, and sit on my shoulder, and eat out of my hand.”

“My little gentleman,” said Bampfylde. “I’m afraid your uncle will hear us. Try to understand. If you’re ill-used, if they’re unkind, let the bird fly, and he’ll come and tell us. Mind now, what I’m saying. He’ll come and tell us. Did you never read in your story-books—— ”

“Then it is an enchanted bird,” said Nello, looking down, very gravely, into the basket. Lily had read to him of such things. He was not very much surprised: but a bird that some day would turn into a young prince did not attract him so much as one that would hop on his shoulder without ulterior object. He looked down at it very seriously, with more respect perhaps, but not so warm an interest. His little face had lost its animation. How Lily would have glowed and brightened at the thought! But Nello was no idealist. He preferred a real pigeon to all the enchanted princes in the world.

“Nay,” said Bampfylde, with a gleam of a smile across his dark face, “it’s no fairy, but it’s a carrier. Did you never hear of that? And when you let it fly it will fly to me, and let me know that you are wanting something—that they’re not kind to you, or that you’re wanting to be away.”

“Oh, they’ll be kind,” said Nello, carelessly; “I would rather he would stay with me, and never, never fly away.”

“I’ll put him in the carriage for you,” said Bampfylde, hurriedly, “for here’s somebody coming. And don’t you let any one know that you were speaking to me, or ever saw me before. And God bless you, my little gentleman!” said the vagrant, suddenly disappearing among the crowd.

While Nello stood staring after him, Randolph came up, and tapped him sharply on the shoulder.

“What are you staring at? Have you seen any one you know?”

It was Nello’s first lesson in deceiving.

“I—I was looking at a man—with wild beasts,” he said.

“With wild beasts!—in the station?—here?”

“Yes, white rabbits and pigeons—and things; at least,” said Nello to himself, “he once had a white rabbit, if he hasn’t got one now.”

“Rabbits!” said Randolph. “Come along, here is our train. It is late; and before I have got you settled, and got back here again, and am able to think of myself, it will be midnight, I believe. You children don’t know what a trouble you are. I shall have lost my day looking after you. I should have been at home now but for you; and little gratitude I am likely to get, when all is done.”

This moved Nello’s spirit, for of all things in the world there is nothing that so excites opposition among great and little, as a claim upon our gratitude. Anything and everything else the mind may concede, but even a child kicks against this demand. Nello’s feelings towards his uncle were not unkind; but, little as he was, instinct woke in him an immediate resistance.

“It was not me that did it,” he said; “it was you. I should have stayed at home, and when the old gentleman is better he would have come out and played with me. And Mary would have let me stay. I like home,” said Nello, “and perhaps I shall not like school; but if I don’t like it,” he added, brightening and forgetting the secret he had been so sworn to keep, “I know how to get away.”

“How shall you get away?” said Randolph. But he was so sure of this matter, which was in his own hands, that he did not wait for any answer. “They will take care of that at school,” he said; “and it will be the worse for you, my boy, if you make yourself disagreeable. Come along, or we shall miss the train.”

Nello saw that the basket had been placed under his seat as he got in; and as the train swept away from the station, he caught a glimpse of the lonely figure of his new friend, standing among the little crowd that watched the departure. Bampfylde made a warning gesture to the child, who, forgetful of precaution, nodded and waved his hand in reply.

“Who is that?” cried Randolph, suspiciously, getting up to cast a searching look behind.

“Oh, it is the man with the wild beasts,” Nello said.

And then came another silent sweep through the green smooth country, which was not like the hilly north. It was all Nello could do to keep himself from pulling his basket from beneath the seat, and examining his new treasure. He could hear it rustling and fluttering its wings against the wickerwork. Oh, to be able to take it out, to give it some crumbs of biscuit which were still in his pocket, to begin to train it to know him! Nello only restrained himself painfully, by the thought that if he betrayed his own secret thus, his pigeon might be taken from him. How eager he was now to be there! “Are there many more stations?” he asked, anxiously; then counted them on his fingers—one, two, three. And how delighted he was when they came at last to the little place, standing alone in a plain, with no other house visible that Nello could see (but he did not look; he was so anxious about his pigeon), which was their journey’s end. A kind of farmer’s shandry, half cart, half gig, with a rough horse, and a rougher driver, was in waiting. Nello got his basket out with his own hands, and put his little great-coat over it, so that no one could see. His heart beat loudly with fright, lest his uncle should hear the sounds beneath the cover—the rustle and flutter. But Randolph’s mind was otherwise engaged. As for the boy, he thought of nothing but this treasure, which he was so happy to feel in his arms. He could carry it so, quite comfortably, with the little great-coat over it; he neither remarked the rudeness of the jolting vehicle, nor the bare country, with here and there a flat line of road running between turnip and potato fields. When they came to the house—a new, square house, in the middle of the fields—Nello thought nothing about it one way or another. He thought, “I wonder which will be my window; I wonder where I can keep the bird.” That was all. His little soul, all eagerness after his new delight, had room for nothing more.

Randolph and his charge were taken into a plain room, very simply furnished and not over-dainty in point of cleanness, where the principal of the school, a man in rusty black, came to receive them. There was nothing repulsive in his looks, nothing more in any way than the same plain unvarnished rusticity and homeliness which showed in his house. The school was intended for farmers’ sons, and the education was partly industrial—honest, simple training, without either deceit or villany involved, though not at all suitable for Nello. It was with reluctance even that so young a boy had been accepted at all; and the schoolmaster looked at him with doubtfulness, as the slim little curled darling, so different from his other pupils, came in, hugging his basket.

“He’s young, and he’s small,” said Mr. Swan.

“Very young, and small for his age,” Randolph echoed. “All the more reason why he should lead an out-of-door life, and learn that he is a boy, and will one day be a man.”

Then Nello was put into the hands of the principal’s wife, while Randolph gave further directions.

“His case is quite peculiar,” the uncle said. “He is an orphan, or as good as an orphan, and I took him from the hands of ladies who were making a fool of the boy. What he wants is hardening. You must not be led away by his delicate looks; he is a strong boy, and he wants hardening. Send him out to the fields, let him learn to work like the rest, and don’t listen to any complaints. Above all, don’t let him send complaints home.”

“I never interfere with what they write home,” said honest Mr. Swan.

“But you must in this case. If he sends home a complaining letter, his aunt will rush here next morning and take him away. I am his uncle, and I won’t permit that—and a family quarrel is what will follow, unless you will exercise your discretion. Keep him from writing, or keep him from grumbling. You will be the saving of the boy.”

“It is a great responsibility to undertake. I should not have undertaken it, had I known—— ”

“I am sure you have too serious a sense of the good that can be done, to shrink from responsibility,” said Randolph; “but, indeed, are we not all responsible for everything we touch? If you find him too much for you, write to me. Don’t write to what he calls ‘home.’ And do not let him be taken away without my authority. I have to protect him from injudicious kindness. A parcel of women—you know what harm they can do to a boy, petting and spoiling him. He will never be a man at all, if you don’t take him in hand.”

With these arguments, Randolph overcame the resistance of the schoolmaster, and with redoubled injunctions that it was himself that was to be communicated with, in case of anything happening to Nello, went away. He was in haste to get back for his train; and “No, no,” he said, “you need not call the boy—the fewer partings the better. I don’t want to upset him. Tell him I was obliged to hurry away.”

And it would be impossible to describe with what relief Randolph threw himself into the clumsy shandry, to go away. He had got the boy disposed of—for the moment at least—where no harm could happen to him, but also where he could do no harm. If his grandfather regained his consciousness, and, remembering that freak of his dotage, called again for the boy, it would be out of Mary’s power to spoil everything by humouring the old man, and reviving all those images which it would be much better to make an end of. And when the Squire’s life was over, how much easier to take all those measures which it was so advisable to take, without the little interloper about, whom foolish people would no doubt insist on calling the heir. The heir! Let him stay here, and get a little strength and manhood, to struggle for his rights, if he had any rights. More must be known of him than any one knew as yet, Randolph said to himself, before he, for one, would acknowledge him as the heir.

Nello was taken into Mrs. Swan’s parlour, and there had some bread and butter offered to him, which he accepted with great satisfaction. The bread was dry and the butter salt, but he was hungry, which made it very agreeable.

“You’ll have your tea with the rest at six,” said Mrs. Swan; “and now come I’ll show you where you are to sleep. What is that you’re carrying?”

“A basket,” said Nello, in the mildest tone; and she asked no further questions, but led him upstairs, not however to the little bedroom of which the child had been dreaming, where he could keep his new pet in safety, but to a long dormitory, containing about a dozen beds.

“This is yours, my little man, and you must be tidy and keep your things in order. There are no nurses here, and the boys are a bit rough; but you will soon get used to them. Put down your things here; this chair is yours, and that washing-stand, and—— ”

“Must I sleep there?” cried Nello. It was not so much the little bed—the close neighbourhood of the other boys—that appalled him; but where was there a window for his bird? “Mayn’t I have that bed?” he said, pointing to one which stood near the window at the end of the room.

“I daresay,” said Mrs. Swan; “why that is for the head boy, and you are the least, and the last. It is only by a chance that there is room for you at all here.”

“But I don’t want to be here,” said Nello. “Oh, mayn’t I be by the window? The head boy hasn’t got a——. What would it matter to him? but I want to be there. I want to be at the window.”

“My little master, you’ll be where I choose to place you,” said Mrs. Swan, becoming irritated. “We allow no self-will, and no rebellion here.”

“But what shall I do with my——.” Nello did not venture to name the name of the bird. He crept up to the head of the little bed which was to be allotted to him, and surveyed the blank wall tearfully. There was but a very little space between him and the next bed, and he was in the middle of the room, the darkest part of it. Nello began to cry. He called upon Mary, and upon Martuccia, in his heart. Neither of them would suffer him to be treated so. “Oh, mayn’t I go to another room where there is a window?” he cried, through his tears.

“My word, that one is a stubborn one; you will have your hands full with him,” said Mrs. Swan, leaving Nello to have his cry out, which experience had taught her was the best way. She found her husband very serious, and full of care, thinking over the charge he had received.

“It’s a gentleman’s son, not one of the commoner sort,” he said; “but why they should have brought him to me—such a little fellow—is more than I can see.”

Nello sat by his little bed and cried. His heart was full, and his little frame worn out. In the state of depression which had followed upon the delight of the morning, novelty had departed, and strangeness had come in its place—a very different matter; everything was strange wherever he turned: and no place to put his pigeon! By and by the vacant spaces would fill, and boys—boys whom he did not know—big boys, rough boys, and that head boy, who had the window—would pour in; and he had no place to put his bird.

Nello’s tears fell like summer rain upon the precious basket, till the storm had worn itself out. Then, first symptom of amelioration, his ear was caught by the rustle of the bird in the cage. He took it up, then placed it in his lap, then opened the cover a little way, and, entrancing moment! saw it—the glossy head, the keen little eye gleaming at him, the soft, ruffled feathers. It made a small dab at him as he peered in—and oh, how delighted, how miserable, how frightened was Nello! He drew back from the tiny assault, then approached his head closer, and took from his pocket a bit of his bread and butter, which he had saved on purpose. Then he sat down on the floor, a small creature, scarcely visible, hidden between the beds, betraying himself only by the reverberation of the sobs which still shook his little bosom from time to time, entranced over his bird. The pigeon gurgled its soft coo, as it picked up the crumbs. The little boy, after his trouble, forgot everything but this novel delight; a thing all his own, feeding from his hand already, looking up at him sidelong, with that glimmer of an eye, with a flutter towards him if it could but have got loose. No doubt when he set it free it would come upon his shoulder directly. Nello lost himself and all his grief in pleasure. He forgot even that he had not a window in which to hang his bird.

By and by, however, there came a rush and a tramp of feet, and eleven big boys, earthy and hot from the field where they had been working, came pouring in. They filled the room like a flood, like a whirlwind, catching Nello upon their surface as the stream would catch a straw. One of the big, hobnailed fellows stumbled over him as he sat on the floor.

“Hallo, what’s here?” he cried; “what little kid are you?” seizing the child by the shoulders. He did not mean any harm, but grasped the little boy’s shoulder with the grip of a playful ploughman. Then there was a rush of the whole band to see what it was. The new boy! but such a boy—a baby—a gentleman baby—a creature of a different order.

“Let’s see him,” they cried, tumbling over each other, while Nello, dragged to his feet, stood shrinking, confronting them, making trial of all the manhood he possessed. He would not cry; he drew back against his bed, and doubled his little fist, his heart heaving, his lip quivering.

“I have done no harm,” said Nello, with a sob in his voice; and the head boy called out, good-humouredly enough, though the thunder of his boyish bass sounded to Nello like the voice of doom, to “let him be.”

“What’s he got there?” he asked.

The basket was snatched from the child’s hand, notwithstanding his resistance. Nello gave a great cry when it was taken from him.

“Oh, my bird, my pigeon, my bird!—you are not to hurt my bird.”

“Give it here,” said the head boy.

But the first who had seized the treasure held it fast.

“I’ve got it, and I’ll keep it,” he cried.

“Give it here!” shouted the other.

The conflict and the cloud of big forms, and the rough voices and snatchings, filled Nello with speechless dismay. He leaned back against his bed, and watched with feelings indescribable the basket which contained his treasure pulled and dragged about from one to another. First the handle gave way, then the lid was torn off, as one after another snatched at it. Oh, why was Nello so small and weak, and the others so big and strong!

“Give it here!” shouted the head boy; but in the midst of the scuffle, something happened which frightened them all—the bird got loose, carefully as it had been secured, flew up over their heads, fluttered for a moment, driven wild by the cloud of arms stretched out to catch it, and then, with a sweep of its wings, darted out through the open window, and was seen no more.

CHAPTER XXX.

A CHILD FORLORN.

Nello slept and forgot his woes; and when he was awoke in the morning by the tumult, all the eleven jumping out of bed at once, performing their noisy but scanty ablutions, tossing boots about, and scrambling for clothes, the child lay trembling yet anxious, and half amused in spite of himself. The rough fun that was going on tempted Nello to laugh, though he was miserable. He shrank from them all, so big, so loud, so coarsely clothed, and in such a hurry; but he was tickled by their horse-play with each other—the hits and misses with which their missiles went and came. When the head boy was caught by a pillow straight in the face as he approached to execute justice upon one of the laggards, Nello could not restrain a little broken chuckle, which attracted the attention of the combatants. This, however, drew upon him the arrest of fate. “I say, little one, ain’t you going to get up?—bell’s rung!” said his next neighbour. The head boy was aggrieved by the poor little laugh. “Get up, you lazy little beggar!” he cried. “I say, let’s toss him!” cried another, with sudden perception of fun to be had easily. The boys meant no particular harm; but they made a simultaneous rush at the little trembling creature. Nello felt himself seized, he knew not for what purpose. Then the noise, and the rude, laughing faces—which looked to him in his fright like demons—all swam in giddy uncertainty round him, and the poor little fellow came down upon the floor, slipping out of their rough and careless hands, faint and sick and sore, his head turning, his little bones aching. But though in his giddiness and faintness he scarcely saw anything—even the faces turning into misty spectres—Nello’s spirit survived for a moment the collapse of his little frame. He got to his feet in a frenzy, and struck out at them with his white little childish fists. “I will kill you!” cried Nello, through his teeth; and a great horse-laugh got up. But this was soon extinguished in dismay and horror when the little fellow fell back fainting. They all gathered around, horror-stricken. “Lift him on his bed,” said the head boy almost in a whisper. They did not know anything about faints; they thought the child was dead. Then there was a pause. In their horror it occurred to more than one inexperienced imagination to hide the little body and run away. “What can they do to us?” said another, awe-stricken. “We didn’t mean it.” For a moment the boys had all that thrill of horrible sensation which ought to (but, it would seem, does not always) accompany homicide. At the end, however, humanity prevailed over villanous panic, and Mrs. Swan was called to the rescue. The boys were too glad to troop away, already subject to punishment on account of being late, and, huddling together, went down to the schoolroom in a band, where vengeance awaited them—though not for Nello’s murder, as some of them thought.

Nello came to himself at last, after giving Mrs. Swan a great deal of trouble; and there was nothing for it but to leave him in bed all day; for the child was bruised with the fall, aching in every limb, and too resentful and wretched to make any effort. He lay and cried and brooded, what between childish plans of vengeance and equally childish projects of escape. Oh, the pangs of impotence with which the small boy wronged contemplated the idea of those big fellows who had been so cruel to him! How should weakness be aware that strength does not intend to be cruel? Nello could not be tolerant, or understanding, at his age, even if there had not been his aching bones to prove the wickedness of his assailants. He hated them all. How could he help hating them? He lay and planned what he would do to them. But Nello’s dreams were not malicious. At the last moment, when they had suffered torments of dread in prospect of the punishment which he permitted them (in his fancy) to see approaching, Nello’s vengeance suddenly turned into magnanimous contempt. He would not condescend to reprisals; he would crush them with forgiveness as soon as they saw his power. Such were the plans which the child lay and concocted, and which amused him, though he was not aware of it. But when the boys came in Nello shrank to the farther side of his bed; he would not look at them; he would not listen to the rough inquiries. When they went away again, however, and he was left alone, a sudden fit of longing came over him. Oh, to see somebody he knew!—somebody that was kind! Schemes of vengeance pall, like every other amusement. He gazed round upon the bare walls, the range of beds, the strange, ugly, desolate place. He could not tell if it was worse when the savages were there, filling it with noise, stumblings of heavy feet, cries of rough voices, or when the sounds all died away, and he was left lonely, not a soul to speak to him; no kind hand to touch his hot little head; nobody to give him a drink, though he wanted it so much. Nello had to clamber out of bed, to pour himself out a cup of water from the great brown jug, which he could scarcely lift—and fell upon his bed again, utterly heartsick and desolate. Nobody to give him a drink! How they used to pet him when he had a headache! How Martuccia would croon over him, and bathe his head, and kiss his hands, and bring him everything she could think of to please him! And Mary would come and stand by his side, and put her cool, white hand upon his head—that hand which he had once called “as soft as snow.” Nello remembered the smile that came on Mary’s face when he had called her hand “as soft as snow.” He did not himself see the poetry of the phrase, but he thought he could feel again that mingled coolness, and softness, and whiteness. And Lily! Lily would sit by him all day long, and read to him, or sing to him, or tell him stories, or play when he got a little better and could play. A great lump came in Nello’s throat. “Oh, my Lily!” he cried, with a lamentable cry. He had no mother to appeal to, poor child—not even the imagination of a mother. Lily had been everything. Nothing had ever been so bad with him but could be borne when Lily was there. Naturally he had not so much felt the want of Lily when it was pleasure (as he thought) that he was going to. He could part with her without much emotion in the excitement of novelty and childish hope; but now——. Nello turned his face to the wall and sobbed. The lonely place—all the lonelier for bearing traces of that rude multitude—held him, a little atom, in its midst. Nobody heard his crying, or cared. He tore the bedclothes with his little frantic hands, with that sense of the intolerable which comes so easily to a child. But what did it matter that it was intolerable? Little Nello, like older people, had to bear it all the same.

It was best to leave the child quiet, the Swans thought. They were not unkind, but they were not used to take much trouble. The boys who came to them generally were robust boys, able to take care of themselves, and to whom it did no harm to be hustled about—who enjoyed the scrimmages and struggles. Mrs. Swan had her own children to look after. “I’ve left him to himself; he’s better to be quite quiet,” she said to her husband, and the husband approved; “far better for him to be quiet.” Attempts to amuse a child, in such circumstances, would have been foolish, they thought, and as for petting and sympathising with him, far better that he should get accustomed to it, and make up his mind to put up with it like the rest. They could not make any difference between one and another; and if he had a day’s rest, and was allowed to lie in bed, what could the child want more? There was no imagination in the house lively enough to envisager the circumstances from Nello’s point of view, or to understand what chills of terror, what flushes of passion, came over the child, when the others poured in to bed again in the evening, driving him desperate with fear and wild with anger. Who could imagine anything so vehement in the mind of such a little boy? But Nello was not molested that next evening; they were disposed rather to be obsequious to him, asking, in their rough way, how he was, and offering him half-eaten apples and bits of sticky sweetmeats, by way of compensation. But Nello would not listen to these clumsy overtures. He turned his face to the wall persistently, and would have nothing to say to them. Even the tumult that was going on did not tempt him to turn round, though, after the first moment of fright, the crowd in the room was rather comforting than otherwise to Nello. The sound of their voices kept him from that melancholy absorption in himself.

Next morning he had to get up, though he was still sick and sore. Nello was so obstinate in his refusal to do so, that the master himself had to be summoned. Mr. Swan would stand no nonsense.

“Get up, my boy,” he said, “you’ll get no good lying there. There has nothing happened to you more than happens to new boys everywhere. Come, you’re not a baby to cry. Get up, and be a man.”

“I want to go home,” said Nello.

“I daresay you do; but you’re not going home. So your plan is to make the best of it,” said the schoolmaster. “Now come, I let you off yesterday; but I’ll send a man to take you out of bed if you don’t get up now. Come along, boy. I see you want to be a baby, as your uncle said.”

“I am no baby,” cried Nello, furious; but the schoolmaster only laughed.

“I give you half-an-hour,” he said; and in half-an-hour, indeed, Nello, giddy and weak, managed to struggle down to the schoolroom. His watch was no longer going. He had forgotten it in the misery of the past day; it lay there dead, as Nello felt—and his bird was flown. He stumbled downstairs, feeling as if he must fall at each step, and took his seat on the lowest bench. The lessons were not much, but Nello was not equal to them. The big figures about seemed to darken the very air to the boy—to darken it, and fill it up. He had no room to breathe. His hand shook, so that he could not write a copy, which seemed a simple matter enough. “Put him at the very bottom; he knows nothing,” Mr. Swan said to his assistant; and how this galled the poor little gentleman, to whom, in his feebleness, this was the only way left of proving a little superiority, what words could say? Poor little Nello! he cried over the copy, mingling his tears with the ink, and blurring the blurred page still more. He could not get the figures right in the simplest of sums. He was self-convicted of being not only the least, but the very last, the dunce of the school. When the others went out to play, he sat wretched in a corner of the wretched schoolroom, where there was no air to breathe. He had not energy enough to do anything or think of anything; and it was only the sight of another boy, seated at a desk writing a letter, which put it into his head that he too might find a way of appeal against this cruelty. He could not write anything but the largest of large hands. But he tore a leaf out of the copybook, and scrawled a few lines across it. “I am verrey meeserble,” he wrote; “Oh, Lily, ask Mary to kome and take me home.”

“Will you put it into a cover for me?” he said to the boy who was writing, who proved to be the very head boy who reigned over Nello’s room. “Oh, please, put it into a cover. I’ll forgive you if you will,” cried Nello.

The head boy looked at him with a grin.

“You little toad, don’t you forgive me without that? I never meant to hurt you,” he said: but melting, he added, “give it here.” Nello’s epistle, written across the lined paper, in big letters, did not seem to require any ceremony as a private communication. The head boy read it and laughed. “They won’t pay any attention,” he said; “they never do. Little boys are always miserable. And won’t you catch it from Swan if he sees it!”

“It is for my sister Lily; it is not for Mr. Swan,” cried the child, upon which the head boy laughed again.

That letter never reached Penninghame. The schoolmaster read it according to his orders, and put it into the fire. He wrote himself to the address which Nello had given, to say that the little gentleman was rather homesick, but pretty well; and that perhaps it would be better, in the circumstances, not to write to him till he had got a little settled down, and used to his new home. He hoped his little pupil would soon be able to write a decent letter; but he feared his education had been very much neglected hitherto, Mr. Swan wrote. Thus it came to pass that Nello lived on, day after day, eagerly expecting some event which never happened. He expected, first of all, Mary to arrive in a beautiful chariot, such as was wont to appear in Lily’s stories, with beautiful prancing horses—(where they were to come from, Nello never asked himself, though he was intimately acquainted with the two brown ponies and the cob, which were all the inhabitants of the Squire’s stables), and with an aspect splendid, but severe, to proceed to the punishment of his adversaries. Nello did not settle what deaths they were to die; but all was arranged except that insignificant circumstance. Mary would come; she would punish all who had done wrong; she would give presents to those who had been kind; and all the boys who had laughed at little Nello would see him drive away glorious behind those horses, with their arching necks, and high-stepping, dainty feet. Then after a few days, which produced nothing, Nello settled, with a pang of visionary disappointment, that it was Mr. Pen who could come. He would not make a splendid dash up to the door like Mary in her chariot; but still he would deliver the little captive. Another day, and Nello, coming down and down in his demands, thought it might at least be Martuccia, or perhaps Miss Brown, who would come for him. That would not be so satisfactory to his pride, for he felt that the boys would laugh and jeer at him, and say it was his nurse who had come; but still even Miss Brown would be good to see in this strange place. At the end of the week, however, all Nello’s courage fled. He thought then faintly of a letter, and watched when the postman came with packets of letters for the other boys. He could not read writing very well; but he could make it out if they would only write to him. Why would not they write to him? Had they forgotten him altogether, clean forgotten him, though he had been but a week away?

Nello did what he was told to do at school: but he was very slow about it, being so little, and so unused to work—for which he was punished; and he could not learn his lessons for brooding over his troubles, and wondering when they would come, or what they could mean; and naturally he was punished for that too. The big boys hustled him about; they played him a hundred tricks: they laughed at his timid, baby-washings, his carefulness, the good order to which he had been trained. To toss everything about, to do everything loudly, and noisily, and carelessly, was the religion of Mr. Swan’s boys, as everything that was the reverse of this had been the religion in which Nello was trained. Poor little boy, his life was as full of care as if he had been fifty. He was sent here and there on a hundred errands; he had impositions which he could not write, and lessons which he could not learn; and not least, perhaps, meals which he could not eat; and out-of-door tasks quite unsuitable for him, and which he could not perform. He was for ever toiling after something he ought to have done. He grew dirty, neglected, unkempt, miserable. He could not clean his own boots, which was one thing required of him; but plastered him self all over with mysterious blacking, in a vain attempt to fulfil this task, he who had scarcely dressed himself till now, scarcely brushed his own hair. He kept up a struggle against all these labours, which were more cruel than those of Hercules, as long as he had the hope within him that somebody must come to deliver him; for, with a childish jump at what he wished, he had believed that some one might come “to-morrow,” when he sent, or thought he sent, his letter away. The to-morrow pushed itself on and on, hope getting fainter, and misery stronger, yet still seemed to gleam upon him, a possibility still. “Oh, pray God send Mary,” he said, every night and morning. When a week was over, he added a more urgent cry, “Oh, pray God send some one, only some one! Oh, pray God take me home!” the child cried. He repeated it one night aloud, in the exhaustion of his disappointment, with an irrepressible moaning and crying: “Oh, pray God take me home!” He was very tired, poor little boy; he was half wrapped in his little bit of curtain, to hide him as he said his prayers, and he had fallen half asleep while he said them, and was struggling with drowsiness, and duty, and a hope which though now falling more and more into despondency, still gave pertinacity to his prayer. He was anxious, very anxious to press this petition on God’s notice. Repetition; is not that the simplest primitive necessity of earnest supplication? Perhaps God might not take any notice the first time, but He might the next. “Oh, take me home. Oh, pray God take me home!” God too, like Mary and the rest, seemed to pay no attention; but God did not require written letters or directions in a legible hand: He could be approached more easily. So Nello repeated and repeated, half-asleep, yet with his little heart full of trouble, and all his cares awake, this appeal to the only One who could help him, “Oh, pray God, pray God, take me home!”

But in this trance of beseeching supplication, half asleep, half conscious, poor little Nello caught the eye of one of his room-fellows, who pointed out the spectacle to the rest. “Little beggar! pretending to say his prayers; and much he cares for his prayers, going to sleep in the middle of them,” they said. Then one wag suggested, “Let’s wake him up!” It was a very funny idea. They got his water-jug, a small enough article indeed, not capable of doing very much harm. Had poor little Nello been less sleepy in his half-dream of pathetic appeal, he must have heard the titterings and whisperings behind him; but he was too much wrapt in that drowsy, painful abstraction, to take any notice, till all at once he started bolt upright, crying and gasping, woke up and drenched by the sudden dash of cold water over him. A shout of laughter burst from all the room, as Nello turned round frantic, and flew at the nearest of his assailants with impotent rage. What did the big fellow care for his little blows? he lay back and laughed and did not mind, while the small creature in his drenched nightgown, his face crimson with rage, his little frame shivering, his curly locks falling about his cheeks, flew at his throat. The head boy, however, awakening to a sense of the indiscretion, and perhaps touched by a pang of remorse at sight of the misery and fury in the child’s face, got hold of Nello in his strong arms, and plucked the wet garment off him, and threw him into his bed. “Let the child alone, I tell you. I won’t have him meddled with,” he said to the others—and covered him up with the bedclothes. Poor little Nello! he wanted to strike at and struggle with his defender. He was wild with rage and misery. His small heart was full, and he could bear no more.

After this, however, the boys, half ashamed of themselves, got quickly to bed; and darkness, and such silence as can exist in the heavy atmosphere where twelve rustics sleep and snore, succeeded to the tumult and riot. Nello, exhausted, sobbed himself to sleep under the bedclothes; but woke up in the middle of the night to remember all his wrongs and his misery. His cup was full; even God would not pay any attention to him, and it seemed to Nello that it would be better to die than to bear this any longer. Though the dark frightened him, it was less alarming than the rough boys, the hard lessons, the pangs of longing and waiting for a deliverance which never came. He had still the sovereign which Mary gave him, and the watch he had been so proud of, though that was dead now, and he had not spirit enough left to wind it up. It was October, and the nights were long. Though it was but in reality between two and three o’clock in the morning, Nello thought it would soon be time for all these savage companions to get out of bed again, and for the noisy dreadful day to begin. He got up very quietly, trembling at every sound. There was a window at the end of the room through which the moon shone, and the light gave him a little consolation. He kept his eye fixed upon it, and groped for his clothes, and put them on very stealthily. If any one should hear him, he would be lost; but Nello’s little rustlings, like a bird in the dark, what were they to break the slumbers of all those outdoor lads, who slept violently, as they did everything else! No one stirred; the snoring and the breathing drowned all the little misadventures which chilled Nello with terror, as when his boots dropt out of his hand, or the buttons on his trousers struck shrilly against the chair. Nothing happened; nobody stirred, and Nello crept out of the room, holding his breath with the courage of despair. He got downstairs, trembling and stumbling at almost every step. When he got to the lower story, that kind moon, which had seemed to look at him through the window, almost to smile at him in encouragement and cheerful support, showed him a little window which had been left open by some chance. He clambered through and found himself in the garden. There was a great dog in front of the house, of which Nello was in mortal terror; but here at the back there was no dog, only the kitchen garden, with the tranquil breadth of a potato-field on the other side of the hedge. It was not easy to get through that hedge; but a small boy not quite nine years old can go through gaps which would scarcely show to the common eye. It scratched him and tore his trousers; but there was nothing in such simple accidents to stop the little fugitive. And what it was to feel himself outside, free and safe, and all his tormentors snoring! Nello looked up at the moon, which was mellow and mild, not white as usual, and which seemed to smile at him. The potato-field was big and black, with its long lines running to a point on either side of him; and the whole world seemed to lie round him dark and still; nothing stirred, except now and then a rat in the ditch, which chilled Nello with horror. Had he known it was so early, the child would have been doubly frightened; but he felt that it was morning, not night, which encouraged him. And how big the world was! how vast, and silent, and solitary! only Nello, one little atom, with a small heart beating, a little pulse throbbing in the midst of that infinite quiet. The space grew vaster, the stillness more complete, the distance more visionary, and there was a deeper sable in the dark, because of Nello’s little heart beating so fast, and his eyes that took everything in. What was he to do, poor little soul, there by himself in the open country, in the unknown world all in the middle of the night!

CHAPTER XXXI.

A CRISIS AT PENNINGHAME.

In these circumstances all the world flocked to Penninghame to inquire for Mr. Musgrave. Rural importance shows in such circumstances. He was “by rights” the greatest man in the district, though superior wealth had come in and taken his pre-eminence from him—but everybody recollected his pretensions now. Inquiries came for him daily from every one near who could pretend to be anything. The great great people, and the small great people, the new families and the old, the clergy (who were as good as anybody), and all who sought for a place among the gentry, with whatever hope or right, all interested themselves about the invalid. “His eldest son is still living, I believe. And what will happen when Mr. Musgrave dies?” the people asked. And all who had any possibility of knowing, all who had any right to know, exerted themselves to supply answers to this question. One had it on the best authority, that John Musgrave was waiting, ready to come home, and that there would be another trial immediately. Some, on the other hand, were certain that John Musgrave never would come home at all to tempt Providence. “There will be an effort made to pass him over, and make his little son heir instead,” they said; and some believed it to be certain that the other brother would pension him off, so that the house might not be shamed by a convict squire.

Naturally, Mary knew nothing about these discussions. She spent her time in her father’s room, relieving the nurse when her hours for sleep came, resting herself only when she could no longer bear up against the fatigue, seeing nobody but Mr. Pen and Lilias. Mary took little notice now of Nello’s departure, and the schoolmaster’s letter. It had all been done against her will, but she was too much occupied, now that it was done, to dwell upon it. It was very shameful that he was so backward, and perhaps Mr. Pen and Randolph were right in sending him to school. Her mind was too much pre-occupied for the moment to give anything but this half-angry, reluctant assent to what had been done. And perhaps it would be better now if Lilias could go to school too, out of this melancholy house, out of the loneliness which was so hard upon the child. But Lilias was the only consolation Mary herself had; she had grown to be part of herself during this long year. It might be doing the child injustice, as she feared; but how could she send her only companion, her consoler and sympathiser, away? As for Lilias, though she was deeply moved by Nello’s departure, the want of news of him did not move her much. Her father never wrote, never communicated with the child. They had not the custom of letters. It was very dreary, no doubt, but still when he came back unexpectedly, perhaps just at the moment he was most wanted, stepping in, with all the delight of surprise added to the pleasure of again seeing the absent, that was worth waiting for. This was the philosophy of the family. It was not their habit to write letters. Lilias accepted her own loneliness with resignation, not thinking of any possible alleviation; and she watched, sitting at the door of the old hall, for every one who might come along the road. It was October—the days getting short, the air more chilly, the sun less genial. The woods began to put on robes of colour, as if the rosy sunset clouds had floated down among them. The air blew cold in her face, as she sat outside the hall door. Martuccia within, in the background, shivered, and drew her shawl more closely across her ample shoulders. But Lilias did not feel the cold. She was looking out for some one—for papa, who might come all at once, at any time—for Mr. Geoff, who might bring news of papa—for something to come and break the monotony of this life. Something Lilias felt sure must be coming; it could not go on like this for ever.

“Nello was always company for his sister,” Mary said. Though she assented, she could not but complain. She had come out to breathe the air, and was walking up and down, Mr. Pen by her side. “It is very hard upon Lily, just at this moment, when everything is hanging in the balance, that her little brother should have been sent away.”

“It would be very well,” said Mr. Pen, “if you would send her away too. Nello wanted it. He would never have learned anything at home. He will come back so much improved. If he is to be received as the heir of everything—— ”

“If, Mr. Pen?”

“Well; I would not go against you for the world; but there is truth in what Randolph says. Randolph says there must be certificates of his birth, and all that; quite easy—quite easy to get—but where is your brother John to look after it all? He ought to be here now.”

“Yes, he ought to be here. But would it be safe for him to come, Mr. Pen?”

“Miss Mary, I can’t help wondering about that,” said Mr. Pen, with troubled looks—had he grown unfaithful to John?—“if he is innocent, why shouldn’t he come now? No jury would convict—— ”

Mary stopped him with a motion of her hand. “Randolph has been gaining you over to his side,” she said. They were walking up and down the road close to the house. Just where the great gates ought to be—if the Musgraves were ever rich enough to restore the courtyard of the old Castle—was the limit of their walk. Mary could not allow herself to be out of reach even for an hour. She was here, ready to be called, in case her father should come to any semblance of himself. “I do not say he has not some reason on his side, now that my father is—as he is. Everything seems to have grown so much nearer. It is dreadful not to know where John is, not to be able to communicate with him. I wrote to the last place where they were living—the place the children came from—but I have never had any answer. When my poor father goes—as go he must, I suppose—what am I to do?”

“You must let Randolph manage for you. Randolph must do it. God knows, Miss Mary, I don’t want to go against you—— ”

“But you do,” she said with a half-smile. She smiled at it, but she did not like it. It is hard, even when a dog who has been your special follower turns away and follows some one else.

“You never did it before since we have known each other, Mr. Pen.”

Poor Mr. Pen felt the reproach. He was ready to weep himself, and looked at her with wistful, deprecating eyes; but was it not for her sake?

“I don’t know what else to say to you. It breaks my heart to go against you,” he said. “Whatever pleases you seems always best to me. But Randolph says—and I cannot deny it, Miss Mary, there’s truth in what he says.”

“Yes, there’s truth in what he says. He has got the child away, and placed him out of reach, with your help, Mr. Pen; and he will push the father away, out of his just place, and make all the difficulties double. He has put you against him already that was his friend, and he will put other people against him. I begin to see what he is aiming at;” cried Mary, clasping her hands together, with indignant vehemence.

Mr. Pen did not know what to say or do to soothe her. He was full of compunction, feeling himself guilty. He to have turned against her! He felt all the horror of it to his very heart.

“We should be just to Randolph too,” he said, tremulously; “he means to do what is right. And if I seem to cross you, ’tis but to serve you, Miss Mary. How could you stand in the breach, and bear all that will have to be borne? If Randolph does not come to do what has to be done, you would have to do it; and it would be more than should be put upon you.”

“Have I ever shrunk from what has to be done?” she said, with again a half-smile of pained surprise.

Mr. Pen had no answer to make; he knew very well she had not failed hitherto; and in his heart he was aware that Randolph’s motives were very different from Mary’s. Still, he held with a gentle obstinacy to the lesson he had learned. It was going against her, but it was for her sake. They took one or two turns together in silence, neither saying any more. As they turned again, however, towards the house for the third time, Eastwood met them, hurrying from the door. Nurse had sent downstairs for Miss Musgrave, begging her to come without delay. The urgent message, and the man’s haste and anxious, eager looks, frightened Mary. The household generally had come to that state of expectation which welcomes any event, howsoever melancholy, as a relief to the strain of nerve and strength which long suspense produces. Eastwood was eager that there might be some change—if for the better, so much the better—but that was scarcely to be looked for—anyhow a change, a new event. The same thrill of anticipation ran through Mary’s veins. Was it come now—the moment of fate, the crisis which would affect so many? She bade Mr. Pen to follow her, with a movement of her hand. “Wait in the library,” she said, as she went upstairs.

While Mary took the air in this anxious little promenade up and down, Lilias sat at the hall door, looking out upon the road, looking far away for the something that was coming. She did not know that the rider on the pale horse was the most likely passenger to come that way. Happier visitors were in Lilias’ thoughts—her father himself to clear up everything, who would go and fetch Nello back, and put all right that was wrong; or Mr. Geoff, who was not so good, but yet very comforting, and between whom and Lilias there existed a link of secret alliance, unknown to anybody, which was sweet to the child. Lilias was looking out far upon the road, vaguely thinking of Geoff, for he was the most likely person to come—he who rode along the road so often to ask for the Squire: far more likely than her father, who was a hope rather than an expectation. She was looking far away, as is the wont of the dreamer, pursuing her hope to the very horizon whence it might come—when suddenly, all at once, Lilias woke to the consciousness that there was some one standing near her, close to her, saying nothing, but looking at her with that intent look which wakes even a sleeper when fixed upon him, much more a dreamer, linked to common earth by the daylight, and all the sounds and touches of ordinary life. She rose to her feet with a start—frightened yet satisfied—for here was something which had happened, if not the something for which she looked. But Lilias’ eyes enlarged to twice their size, and her heart gave a great jump, when she saw that the figure standing beside her was that of the old woman whom she had met in the Chase.

’Lizabeth had come up unobserved from the water-side. She was dressed exactly as she had been when Lilias saw her before, with the hood of her grey cloak over her white cap—a stately figure, notwithstanding the homely dress.

Lilias gave a cry at the sight, and ran to her. “Oh, old woman!” she cried—“oh, I want to ask you—I want to ask you so many things.”

“Honeysweet!” said ’Lizabeth, with a glow in her dark eyes. She did not for the moment think either of what she had come to say, or of the risk that attended her communications with her daughter’s child. She thought only of the face she saw reflected in that other face, and of the secret property she had in the child who was so beautiful and so sweet. This was ’Lizabeth’s heiress, the inheritor of the beauty which the old woman had been conscious of in her own person, and still more conscious of in the person of her daughter. Lilias was the third in that fair line. Pride filled the old woman’s heart, along with the warm gush of tenderness. No one had ever looked at Lilias with such passionate love and admiration. She did not venture to take the child into her arms as she had done in the solitude of the woods, but she looked at her with all her heart in her eyes.

Lilias seized her by the hand and drew her to the seat from which she had herself risen. “Come!” she said eagerly. “They say you know everything about papa—and I have a right to know; no one has so good a right to hear as I. Oh, tell me! tell me! Sit down here and rest. I once went up the hill, far away up the hill, to go to you, but there I met Mr. Geoff. Do you know Mr. Geoff? Come, come, sit down here and tell me about papa—— ”

“My darling,” said. ’Lizabeth, “blessings on your bonnie face! but I dare not stay. Some time—soon, if it’s God’s will, you’ll hear all the like of you could understand, and you’ll get him back to enjoy his own. God bless my bairn that would give me her own seat, and think no shame of old ’Lizabeth! That’s like my Lily,” the old woman said, with ready tears. “But listen, honey, for this is what I came to say. You must tell the lady to send and bring back the little boy. The bairn is in trouble. I cannot tell you what kind of trouble, but she must send and bring him back. My honey, do you hear what I say?”

“The little boy, and the lady?” said Lilias, wondering; then she exclaimed suddenly with a cry of pain, “Nello! my little brother!” and in her eagerness caught ’Lizabeth’s hands and drew her down upon the seat.

“Ay, just your little brother, my honeysweet. My lad is away that would go and look after him, so you must tell the lady. No, no, I must not stay. The time will maybe come. But tell the lady, my darling. The little boy has need of her, or of you. He is too little a bairn to be away among strangers. I cannot think upon his name—nor I cannot think,” said ’Lizabeth, with a gleam of grandmotherly disapproval, “what my Lily could be thinking of to give a little lad such an outlandish name. But tell the lady to send and bring him home.”

“Oh, I will go, I will go directly. Wait till I tell you what Mary says,” cried Lilias; and without pausing a moment, she rushed through the hall, her hair flying behind her, her face flushed with eagerness. The old woman stood for a moment looking after her with a smile; listening to the sound of the doors which swung behind the child in her rapid course through the passages which led to the inhabited part of the house. ’Lizabeth stood stately yet rustic in her grey cloak, with her hands folded, and looked after Lilias with a tender smile on her face. She had nothing left to be proud of, she so proud by nature, and to whom it was the essence of life to have something belonging to her in which she could glory. ’Lizabeth’s pride had been broken down with many a blow, but it sprang up again vigorous as ever on the small argument of this child. Her beauty, her childish refinement and ladyhood, gave the old woman a pleasure more exquisite perhaps than any she had ever felt in her life. There was little in her lot now to give her pleasure. Her daughter was dead, her days full of the hideous charge which she had concealed for so many years from all the world; and she was old, approaching the end of all things, with nothing better to hope for than that death might release her unfortunate son before herself. At this moment even a worse terror and misery was upon her; yet as she stood there, looking after the little princess who was of her blood, her representative, yet so much above anything that had ever belonged to ’Lizabeth, there was a glow through all her veins, more warm, more sweet than any she had ever felt in her life. Pride, and love, and delight swelled in her. Her child’s child—heir of her face, her voice, all the little traits of attitude and gesture, which mark individuality—and yet the young lady of the Castle, born to a life so different from hers. She stood so, gazing after Lilias till the sound of her feet and the door, closing behind her, had died away. Her heart was so full that she turned to Martuccia sitting motionless behind with her knitting. “Oh, that her life may be as sweet as her face!” she said involuntarily. Martuccia turned upon her with a smile, but shook her head and said, “Not speak Inglese.” The sound of the voice called ’Lizabeth to herself. The smile faded from her face. Little had she to smile for, less than ever at this moment. She sighed, coming to herself, and turned and walked away.

Lilias ran against Mary as she entered the house at Eastwood’s call. “Oh!” she cried, breathless, “Nello! will you send for Nello? Oh, Mary, he is in trouble, the old woman says—he is ill, or he is unhappy, or I cannot tell you what it is. Will you send for him, will you send for him, Mary? What shall I do? for papa will think it was my fault. Oh, Mary, Mary, send for my Nello! Wait a moment, only wait a moment, and hear what the old woman says—— ”

“Speak to her, Mr. Pen,” said Mary; “I cannot stay.” She was going to her father, who must, she felt sure, want her more urgently than Lilias could. Even then it went to Mary’s heart to neglect the child’s appeal. “Mr. Pen will hear all about it, Lilias,” she said, as she hastened upstairs. But Mr. Pen paid very little attention to what Lilias said.

“An old woman! What old woman? My dear child, you cannot expect us at such a moment as this—” said the Vicar. He was walking up and down the library with his ears open to every sound, expecting to be called to the Squire’s bedside, feeling in his pocket for his prayer-book. For it seemed to Mr. Pen that the hasty summons could mean only one thing. It must be death that had come—and it would be a happy release—what else could any one say? But death, even when it is a happy release, is a serious visitor to come into a house. He has to be received with due preparation, like the potentate he is. Not without services of solemn meaning, attendants kneeling round the solemn bedside, the commendatory prayer rising from authorised lips—not without these formulas should the destroying angel be received into a Christian house. He was ready for his part, and waiting to be called; and to be interrupted at such a moment by tales of an old woman, by the grumblings of a fretful child sent to school against his will—even the gentle Mr. Pen rebelled. He would not hear what Lilias said. “Your grandfather is very ill, my dear,” he told her solemnly, “very ill. In an hour or so you may have no grandfather, Lilias; he is going to appear in the presence of God—— ”

“Is he afraid of God, Mr. Pen?” asked Lilias with solemn eyes.

“Afraid!—you—you do not understand. It is a solemn thing—a very solemn thing,” said the Vicar, “to go into God’s presence! to stand before Him and answer—— ”

“Oh!” cried the little girl, interrupting him, “Nello is far worse, far worse. Would God do him any harm, Mr. Pen? But cruel people might do a little boy a great deal of harm. God is what takes care of us. The old gentleman will be safe, quite safe there; but my Nello! he is so little, and he never was away from me before. I always took care of him before. I said you were not to send him away, but you would not pay any attention. Oh, my Nello, my Nello, Mr. Pen!”