CHAPTER XX.

THE COTTAGE ON THE FELLS.

There was a sound of movement within the house, but no light visible as they stood at the door. Then a window was cautiously opened, and a voice called out into the darkness, “Is that you, my lad?” Geoff felt more and more the little thrill of alarm which was quite instinctive, and meant nothing except excited fancy; such precautions looked unlike the ordinary ease and freedom of a peasant’s house. A minute after the door was opened, and ’Lizabeth Bampfylde made her appearance. She had her red handkerchief as usual tied over her white cap, and the flash of this piece of colour and of the old woman’s brilliant eyes were the first things which warmed the gloom, the blackness and whiteness and mystic midnight atmosphere. She made an old-fashioned curtsey, with a certain dignity in it, when she saw Geoff, and her face, which had been somewhat eager in expression, paled and saddened instantly. The young man saw her arms come together with a gesture of pain, though the candle she held prevented the natural clasp of the hands. She was not glad to see him, though she had sent for him. This troubled Geoff, whom from his childhood most people had been pleased to see. “You’ve come, then, my young lord?” she said, with a half-suppressed groan.

“Indeed, I thought you wanted me to come,” he said, unreasonably annoyed by this absence of welcome; “you sent for me.”

“You thought the lad would be daunted,” said Wild Bampfylde, “and I told you he would not be daunted if he had any metal in him. So now you’re at the end of all your devices. Come in and welcome, my young lord. I’m glad of it, for one.”

Saying this, the vagrant disappeared into the gloom of the interior, where his step was audible moving about, and was presently followed by the striking of a light, which revealed, through an open door, the old-fashioned cottage kitchen, so far in advance of other moorland cottages of the same kind, that it had a little square entrance from the door, which did not open direct into the family living-room. This rude little ante-room had even a kind of rude decoration, dimly apparent by the light of ’Lizabeth’s candle. A couple of old guns hung on one wall, another boasted a deer’s head with fine antlers. Once upon a time it had evidently been prized and cared for. The open door of the room into which Bampfylde had gone showed the ordinary cottage dresser with its gleaming plates (a decoration which in these days has mounted from the kitchen to the drawing-room), deal table, and old-fashioned settle, lighted dimly by a small lamp on the mantelpiece, and the smouldering red of the fire. ’Lizabeth closed the door slowly, and with trembling hands, which trembled still more when Geoff attempted to help her. “No, no; go in, go in, my young gentleman. Let me be. It’s me to serve the like of you, not the like of you to open or shut my door for me. Ah, these are the ways that make you differ from common folk!” she said, as the young man stood back to let her pass. “My son leaves me to do whatever’s to be done, and goes in before me, and calls me to serve him; but the like of you—. It was that, and not his name or his money, that took my Lily’s heart.”

Geoff followed her into the kitchen. It was low and large, with a small deep-set window at each corner, as is usual in such cottages. Before the fire was spread a large rug of home manufacture, made of scraps of coloured cloth, arranged in an indistinct pattern upon a black background, and Bampfylde was occupying himself busily, putting forward a large high easy-chair in front of the fire, and breaking the “gathered” coals to give at once heat and light. “Sit you down there,” he said, thrusting Geoff into it almost with violence, “you’re little used to midnight strolling. Me, it’s meat and drink to me to be free and aneath the stars. Let her be, let her be. She’s not like one of your ladies. Her own way, that’s all the like of her can ever get to please them—and she’s gotten that,” he said, giving another vigorous poke to the fire. Up here among the fells the fire was pleasant, though it was the middle of August: and Geoff’s young frame was sufficiently unused to such long trudges to make him glad of the rest. He sat down and looked round him with a grateful sense of the warmth and repose. A north-country cottage was no strange place to young Lord Stanton, and all the tremour of the adventure had passed from him at the sight of the light and the homely, kindly interior. No harm could possibly happen in so familiar an atmosphere, and in such a natural place. Meantime old ’Lizabeth, with a thrill of agitation in her movements which was very apparent, busied herself in laying the table, putting down a clean tablecloth, and placing bread, cheese, and milk upon it. “I have wine, if you like wine better,” she said. “He will get it, but he takes none himself—nothing, poor lad, nothing. He’s a good son and a good lad—many a time I’ve thanked God that He’s left me such a lad to be the comfort of my old age.”

Wild Bampfylde gave a laugh which was harsh and broken. “You were not always so thankful,” he said, producing out of some unseen corner a black bottle; “but the milk is better of its kind, being natural, than the wine.”

“Hush, lad; milk is little to the like of him; but that’s good, for I have it here for—a sick person. Take something, take something, young gentleman. You can trust them that have broken bread in your presence, and sat at your table. Well, if you will have the milk, though it costs but little, it’s good too; I would not give my brown cow for ne’er a one in the dales; and eat a bit of the wheaten bread,—it’s baker’s bread, like what you eat at your own grand house. I would not be so mean as to set you down, a gentleman like you, to what’s good and good enough for us. The griddle-cake! no, but you’ll not eat that, my young lord, not that; it’s o’er homely for the like of you.”

“I am not hungry,” said Geoff, “and I came here, you know, not to eat and drink, but to hear something you had to tell me, Mrs. Bampfylde—”

“My name is ’Lizabeth—nobody says mistress to me.”

“Well; but you have something to tell me. I left home without any explanation, and I wish to get back soon, that they—that my mother,” said Geoff, half-ashamed, yet too proud to omit the apparently (he thought) childish excuse, since it was true, “may not be uneasy.”

“Your mother? forgive me that did not mind your mother! Oh, you’re a good lad; you’re worthy a woman’s trust that thinks of your mother, and dares to say it! Ay, ay—there’s plenty to tell; if I can make up my mind to it—if I can make up my mind!”

“Was not your mind made up then,” said Geoff with some impatience, “when in this way, in the night, you sent for me?”

“Oh lad!” cried ’Lizabeth, wringing her hands. “How was I to know you would come, the like of you to the like of me? I put it on Providence that has been often contrairy—oh, aye contrairy, to mine and me. I shouldn’t have tempted God. I said to myself, if he comes it will be the hand of Heaven. But who was to think you would come? You a lord, and a fine young gentleman, and me a poor old woman, old as your grandmother. I thought my heart would have sunk to my shoes when I saw he had come after a’!”

“I told you he would come,” said Bampfylde, who stood leaning against the mantelpiece. He had taken his bread and cheese from the table, and was eating it where he stood.

“Of course I would come,” said Geoff. “I could not suppose you would send for me for nothing. I knew it must be something important. Tell me now, for here I am.”

’Lizabeth sat down, dropping into a wooden arm-chair at the end of the table with a kind of despair, and throwing her apron over her head, fell a-crying feebly. “What am I to do? what am I to do?” she said, sobbing. “I have tempted Providence—Oh, but I forgot what was written, ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’”

For a minute or two neither of the men spoke, and the sounds of her distress were all that was audible. Once or twice, indeed, Geoff thought he heard a faint sound, like the echo of some low wail or moan, come through the silence. Not the moan itself, but an echo, a ghost of it. But his companions took no notice of this, and he thought he must be mistaken. Everything besides was still. The fire by this time had burned up, and now and then broke into a little flutter of flame; the clock went on ticking with that measured steady movement which ‘beats out the little lives of men;’ and the broken sobs grew lower. An impatience of the stillness began to take possession of Geoff, but what was he to do? He restrained himself with an effort.

“You should make a clean breast,” said Bampfylde, munching his bread and cheese as he spoke, with his eyes fixed on the fire, not looking at his mother. “Long since it would have been well to do it and an ease to your mind. I would make a clean breast now.”

“Oh, lad, a clean breast, a clean breast!” she said, rocking herself. “If it was only me it concerned—if it was only me!”

“If it was only you what would it matter?” said the vagrant, with a philosophy which sounded less harsh to the person addressed than to him who looked on. “You—you’re old, and you’ll die, and there would be an end of it; but them that suffer most have years and years before them, and if you die before you do justice—— ”

“Then you can tell, that have aye wanted to tell!” she cried with a hot outburst of indignation mingled with tears. Then she resumed that monotonous movement, rocking herself again and again, and calmed herself down. It is not so intolerable to a peasant to be told of his or her approaching end as it is to others. She was used to plain speech, and was it not reasonable what he said? “It’s all true, quite true. I’m old, and I cannot bide here for ever to watch him and think of him—and I might make a friend, the Lord grant it, and find one to stand by him—— ”

“You mean another, a second one,” said her son. He stood through all this side dialogue munching his bread and cheese without once glancing at her even, his shoulders high against the mantelpiece, his eyes cast down.

After a moment’s interval ’Lizabeth rose. She came forward moving feebly in her agitation to where Geoff sat. “My young lord, if I tell you that that I would rather die than tell—that that breaks my heart; you’ll mind that I am doing it to make amends to the dead and to the living—and—you’ll swear to me first to keep it secret? You’ll swear your Bible oath?—without that, not another word.”

“Swear!” said Geoff, in alarm.

“Just swear—you can do it as well, they tell me, in one place as another, in a private house or a justice court. I hope we have Bibles here—Bibles enough—if we but make a right use of them,” said the old woman, perplexed, mingling the formulas of common life with the necessities of an extraordinary and unrealized emergency. “Here is a Testament, that is what is taken to witness in the very court itself. You’ll lay your hand upon it, and you’ll kiss the book and swear. Where are you going to, young man?”

Geoff rose and pushed away the book she had placed before him. He was half indignant, half disappointed. “Swear!” he said, “do you know what I want this information for? Is it to lock it up in my mind, as you seem to have done? I want it for use. I want it to help a man who has been cruelly treated between you. I have no right to stand up for him,” said Geoff, his nostrils expanding, his cheeks flushing, “but I feel for him—and do you think I will consent to put my last chance away, and hear your story for no good? No indeed; if I am not to make use of it I will go back again and find out for myself—I don’t want to be told.”

The old woman, and it may be added her son also, stood and gazed upon the glowing eager countenance of the young man with a mingling of feelings which it would be impossible to describe. Admiration, surprise, and almost incredulity were in them. He had not opposed them hitherto, and it was almost impossible to believe that he would have the courage to oppose them so decidedly; but as he stood confronting them, young, simple, ingenuous, reasonable, they were both convinced of their error. Geoff would yield no more than the hill behind. His very simplicity and easiness made him invulnerable. Wild Bampfylde burst into that sudden broken laugh which is with some the only evidence of emotion. He came forward hastily and patted Geoff’s shoulder, “That’s right, my lad, that’s right,” he cried.

“You will not,” said old ’Lizabeth; “not swear?—and not hear me?—oh, but you’re bold—oh, but you’ve a stout heart to say that to me in my ain house! Then the Lord’s delivered me, and I’ll say nothing,” she said with a sudden cry of delight.

Her son came up and took her by the arm. “Look here,” he said, “it was me that brought him. I did not approve, but I did your bidding, as I’ve always done your bidding; but I’ve changed my mind if you’ve changed yours. Now that he is here, make no more fuss, but tell him; for, remember, I know everything as well as you do, and if you will not, I will. We have come too far to go back now. Tell him; or I will take him where he can see with his own eyes.”

“See! what will he see?” cried ’Lizabeth, with a flush of angry colour. “Do you threaten me, lad? He’ll see a poor afflicted creature; but that will tell him nothing.”

“Mother! are you aye the same? Still him, always him, whatever happens. What has there been that has not yielded to him? the rest of us, your children as well, and justice and honour and right and your own comfort, and the young Squire’s life. Oh, it’s been a bonnie business from first to last! And if you will not tell now, then there is no hope that I can see; and I will do it myself. I am not threatening; but what must be, must be. Mother, I’ll have to do it myself.”

When he first addressed her as mother, ’Lizabeth had started with a little cry. What might be the reason that made this mode of expression unusual it was impossible to say; but it affected the old woman as nothing had yet done. She looked up at him with a wondering, wistful inquiry in her face, as if to ask in what meaning he used the word—kindly or unkindly, taunting or loving? When he repeated the name she started up as if the sound stung her, and stood for a moment like one driven half out of herself by force of pressure. She looked wildly round her as if looking for some escape, then suddenly seized the lighted candle, which still burned on the table. “Then if it must be, let it be,” she said. “Oh, lad! it’s years and years since I’ve heard that name! you that would not, and him that could not, and her that was far away; was there ever a mother as sore punished?” But it would seem that this expression of feeling exhausted the more generous impulse, for she set down the light on the table again, and dropping into her seat, threw her apron over her head. “No, I canna do it; I canna do it. Let him die in quiet. It canna be long.”

The vagrant watched her with a keen scrutiny quite unlike his usual careless ways. “It’s not them as are a burden on the earth that dies,” he said. “You’ve said that long—let him die in peace; let him die in peace. Am I wishing him harm? There’s ne’er a one will hurt him. He’s safe enough. Whoever suffers, it will not be him.”

“Oh, lad, lad!” cried the mother, uncovering her face to look at him. At ’Lizabeth’s age there are no floods of tears possible. Her eyes were drawn together and full of moisture—that was all, She looked at him with a passion of reproach and pain. “Did you say suffer? What’s a’ the troubles that have been into this house to his affliction? My son, my son, my miserable lad! You that can come and go as you like, that have a mind free, that have your light heart—oh ay, you have a light heart, or how could you waste your days and your nights among beasts and wild things? How can the like of you judge the like of him?”

During this long discussion, to which he had no sort of clue, Geoff stood looking from one to another in a state of perplexity impossible to describe. It could not be John Musgrave they were talking of? Who could it be? Some one who was “afflicted,” yet who had been exempt from burdens which had fallen in his stead upon others. Young Lord Stanton, who had come here eager to hear all the story in which he was so much interested, anxious to discover everything, stood, his eyes growing larger, his lips dropping apart in sheer wonder, listening; and feeling all the time that these two peasants spoke a different language from himself, and one to which he had no clue. Just then, however, in the dead silence after ’Lizabeth had spoken, the faint sound like a muffled cry which he had heard before, broke in more loudly. It made Geoff start, who could not guess what it meant, and it roused his companions effectually, who did know. ’Lizabeth wrung her hands; she raised her head in an agony of listening. “He has got one of his ill turns,” she said. Bampfylde, too, abandoned his careless attitude by the mantelpiece, and stood up watchful, startled into readiness and preparation as for some emergency. But the cry was not repeated, and gradually the tension relaxed again. “It would be but an ill dream,” said ’Lizabeth, pressing a handkerchief to her wet eyes.

Geoff did not know what to do. He was in the midst of some family mystery, which might or might not relate to the other mystery which it was his object to clear up; and this intense atmosphere of anxiety awoke the young man’s ready sympathies. All his feelings had changed since he came into the cottage. He who had come a stranger, ready to extract what they could tell by any means, harsh or kind, and who did not know what harshness he might encounter or what danger he might himself run, had passed over entirely to their side. He was as safe as in his own house; he was as deeply interested as he would have been in a personal trouble. His voice faltered as he spoke. “I don’t know what it is that distresses you,” he said; “I don’t want to pry into your trouble; but if I can help you you know I will, and I will betray none of your secrets that you trust me with. I will say nothing more than is necessary to clear Musgrave—if Musgrave can be cleared.

“Musgrave! Musgrave!” cried old ’Lizabeth, impatiently; “it’s him you all think of, not my boy. And what has he lost, when all’s done? He got his way, and he got my Lily; never since then have I set eyes on her, and never will. I paid him the price of my Lily for what he did; and was that nothing? Musgrave! Speak no more o’ Musgrave to me!”

“Oh, mother,” said her son, with kindred impatience, as he walked towards her and seized her arm in sudden passion; “oh, ’Lizabeth Bampfylde! You do more than murder men, for you kill the pity in them! What’s all you have done compared to what John Musgrave has done? and me—am I nothing? Two—three of us! Lily, too, you’ve sacrificed Lily! And is it all to go on to another generation, and the wrong to last? I think you have a heart of stone—a heart of stone to them and to me!”

At this moment there was another louder cry, and mother and son started together with one impulse, forgetting their struggle. ’Lizabeth took up the candle from the table, and Bampfylde hastily went to a cupboard in the corner, from which he took out something. He made an imperative sign to Geoff to follow, as he hurried after his mother. They went through a narrow winding passage lighted only by the flickering of the candle which ’Lizabeth carried, and by what looked like a mass of something white breaking the blackness, but was in reality the moonlight streaming in through a small window. At the end of the passage was a steep stair, almost like a ladder. Already Geoff, hurrying after the mother and son, was prepared by the cries for what the revelation was likely to be; and he was scarcely surprised when, after careful reconnoitring by an opening in the door, defended by iron bars, they both entered hastily, though with precaution, leaving him outside. Geoff heard the struggle that ensued, the wild cries of the madman, the aggravation of frenzy which followed, when it was evident they had secured him. Neither mother nor son spoke, but went about their work with the precision of long use. Geoff had not the heart to look in through the opening which Bampfylde had left free. Why should he spy upon them? He could not tell what connection this prison chamber had with the story of John Musgrave, but there could be little doubt of the secret here inclosed. He did not know how long he waited outside, his young frame all thrilling with excitement and painful sympathy. How could he help them? was what the young man thought. It was against the law, he knew, to keep a lunatic thus in a private house, but Geoff thought only of the family, the mysterious burden upon their lives, the long misery of the sufferer. He was overawed, as youth naturally is, by contact with misery so hopeless and so terrible. After a long time Bampfylde came out, his dress torn and disordered, and great drops of moisture hanging on his forehead. “Have you seen him?” he asked in a whisper. He did not understand Geoff’s hesitation and delicacy, but with a certain impatience pointed him to the opening in the door, which was so high up that Geoff had to ascend two rough wooden steps placed there for the purpose, to look through. The room within was higher than could have been supposed from the height of the cottage; it was not ceiled, but showed the construction of the roof, and in a rude way it was padded here and there, evidently to prevent the inmate doing himself a mischief. The madman lay upon a mattress on the floor, so confined now that he could only lie there and pant and cry; his mother sat by him, motionless. Though his face was wild and distorted, and his eyes gleaming furiously out of its paleness, this unhappy creature had the same handsome features which distinguished the family. Young Geoff could scarcely restrain a shiver, not of fear, but of nervous excitement, as he looked at this miserable sight. Old ’Lizabeth sat confronting him, unconscious of the hurried look which was all Geoff could give. She was clasping her knees with her hands in one of those forced and rigid attitudes almost painful, which seem to give a kind of ease to pain—and sat with her head raised, and her strained eyes pitifully vacant, in that pause of half-unconsciousness in which all the senses are keen, yet the mind stilled with very excitement. “I cannot spy upon them,” said Geoff, in a whisper. “Is it safe to leave her there?”

“Quite safe; and at his maddest he never harmed her,” said Bampfylde, leading the way down-stairs. “That’s my brother,” he said, with bitterness, when they had reached the living-room again; “my gentleman brother! him that was to be our honour and glory. You see what it’s come to; but nothing will win her heart from him. If we should all perish, what of that? ’Lizabeth Bampfylde will aye have saved her son from shame. But come, come, sit down and eat a bit, my young lord. At your age the like of all this is bad for you.”

“For me—what does it matter about me?” cried Geoff; “you seem to have borne it for years.”

“You may say that: for years—and would for years more, if she had her way; but a man must eat and drink, if his heart be sore. Take a morsel of something and a drink to give you strength to go home.”

“I am very, very sorry for you,” said Geoff, “but—you will think it heartless to say so—I have learned nothing. There is some mystery, but I knew as much as that before.”

Bampfylde was moving about in the back-ground searching for something. He re-appeared as Geoff spoke with a bottle in his hand, and poured out for him a glass of dark-coloured wine. It was port, the wine most trusted in such humble houses. “Take this,” he said; “take it, it’s good, it will keep up your strength; and bide a moment till she comes. She will tell you herself—or if not I will tell you; but now you’ve seen all the mysteries of this house, she will have to yield, she will have to yield at the last.”

Geoff obeyed, being indeed very much exhausted and shaken by all that had happened. He swallowed the sweet, strong decoction of unknown elements, which Bampfylde called port wine, and believed in as a panacea, and tried to eat a morsel of the oat-cake. They heard the distant moans gradually die out, as the blueness of dawn stole in at the window. Bampfylde, whose tongue seemed to be loosed by this climax of excitement, began to talk; he told Geoff of the long watch of years which they had kept, how his mother and he relieved each other, and how they had hoped the patient was growing calmer, how he had mended and calmed down, sometimes for long intervals, but then grown worse again; and the means they had used to restrain him, and all the details of his state. When the ice was thus broken, it seemed a relief to talk of it. “He was to make all our fortunes,” Bampfylde said; “he was a gentleman—and he was a great scholar. All her pride was in him; and this is what it’s come to now.”

They had fallen into silence when ’Lizabeth came in. Their excitement had decreased, thanks to the conversation and the natural relief which comes after a crisis, but hers was still at its full height. She came in solemnly, and sat down amongst them, the blue light from the window making a paleness about her as she placed herself in front of it; though the lamp was still burning on the mantelshelf, and the fire kept up a ruddy variety of light. She seated herself in the big wooden arm-chair with a solemn countenance and fixed her eyes upon Geoff, who, moved beyond measure by pity and reverence, did not know what to think.

“He will have told you,” she said. “I would have died sooner, my young lord; and soon I’ll die—but, my boy first, I pray God. Ay, you’ve seen him now. That was him that was my pride; that was the hope I had in my life; that was him that killed young Lord Stanton and made John Musgrave an exile and a wanderer. Ay—you know it all now.”

CHAPTER XXI.

AN EARLY MEETING

Geoff left the cottage when the sun had just risen. He was half-giddy, half-stunned by the strange new light, unexpected up to the last moment, which had been thrown upon the whole question which he had undertaken to solve. He was giddy too with fatigue, the night’s watch, the long walk, the want of sleep. Besides all these confusing influences there is something in the atmosphere of the very early morning, the active stillness, the absence of human life, the pre-occupation of Nature with a hundred small (as it were) domestic cares such as she never exhibits to the eye of man, that moves the mind of an unaccustomed observer to a kind of rapture, bewildering in its solemn influence. To come out from the lonely little house folded among the hills, with all its miseries past and present, its sad story, its secret, the atmosphere of human suffering in it, to all the still glory of the summer morning, was of itself a bewilderment. The same world, and only a step between them: but one all pain and darkness, mortal anguish and confusion—the other all so clear, so sweet, so still, solemn with the serious beginning of the new day, and instinct with that great, still pressure of something more than what is seen, some soul of earth and sky which goes deeper than all belief, and which no sceptic of the higher kind, but only the gross and earthly, can disbelieve in. Young Geoff disbelieving nothing, his heart full of the faith and conviction of youth, came out into this wide purity and calm with an expansion of all his being. It was all he could do not to burst into sudden tears when he felt the sudden relief—the dew crept to his eyelids though it did not fall, his bosom contracted and expanded as with a sob. To this world of mountain and cloud—of rising sunshine and soft-breathing air, and serene delicious silence, pervaded by the soft indistinguishable hum of unseen water and rustling grasses, and minute living creatures unseen too beneath the mountain herbage—what is the noblest palace built with hands but a visible limitation and contraction of the world, an appropriation of a petty corner out of which human conceit makes its centre of the earth? Bampfylde, who had come out with him, and to whom the story Geoff had just heard was not new, felt the relief more simply. He drew a long breath of refreshment and ease, expanding his breast and stretching out his arms; and then this rough vagrant fellow, unconscious of literature, did what Virgil in the Purgatorio did in such a morning for his poet companion; he spread both his hands upon the fragrant grass, all heavy with the early dew, and bathed his face and weary eyes.

“That’s life,” said the man of woods and hills; the freshness of nature was all the help he had, all the support as well as all the poetry his maimed existence could possess.

Bampfylde went with his young companion round the shoulder of the hill to show him the way. It was a nearer and shorter road to the level country than that by which they had come, for Geoff was anxious to get home early. Bampfylde pointed out to him the line of road which twisted about and about like a ribbon, crossing now one slope, now another, till it disappeared upon the shadowed side of the green hill which presided over Penninghame, and beyond which the lake gleamed blue, not yet reached by the sunshine.

“It’s like the story,” he said; “it’s like a parable; ye come by Stanton, my young lord, and ye go by Penninghame. It’s your nearest way; and there, if you ask at John Armstrong’s in the village, ye’ll get a trap to take you home.”

Geoff was not sufficiently free in mind to be able to give any attention to the parable. Those fantastic symbolisms of accident or circumstance which so often would seem to be arranged like shadows of more important matters by some elfish secondary providence, need a spirit at rest to enter into them. He was glad to be alone, to realise all that he had heard, to compose the wonderful tangle of new information and new thoughts into something coherent, without troubling himself about the fact that he was now bending his steps direct, the representative of Walter Stanton who had been killed, towards the house from which John Musgrave had been wrongfully driven for having killed him. He did not even yet know all the particulars of the story, and as he endeavoured to disentangle them in his mind Geoff felt in his bewilderment that absolute want of control over his own intelligence and thoughts which is the common result of fatigue and overstrain. Instead of thinking out the imbroglio and deciding what was to be done, his mind, like a tired child, kept playing with the rising light which touched every moment a new peak and caught every moment a new reflection in some bit of mountain stream or waterfall, or even in a ditch or moorland cutting, so impartial is Heaven; or his ear was caught by that hum of mystic indistinguishable multitude—“the silence of the hills,” so called—the soft rapture of sound in which not one tone is distinct or anything audible; or his eye by the gradual unrolling of the landscape as he went on, one fold opening beyond another, the distant hills on one hand, the long stretch of Penninghame water with all its miniature bays and curves. Then for a little while he lost the lake by a doubling of the path, which seemed to reinclose him among the hollows of the hills, and which pleased his languid faculties with the complete change of its shade and greenness; until turning the next corner, he found the sun triumphant over all the landscape, and Penninghame water lying like a sheet of silver or palest gold, dazzling and flashing between its slopes. This wonderful glory so suddenly bursting upon him completed the discomfiture of young Geoff’s attempts at thought. He gave it up then, and went on with weary limbs and a mind full of languid soft delight in the air about him and the scene before his eyes, attempting no more deductions from what he had heard or arrangements as to what he should do. Emotion and exertion together had worn him out.

About the time he resigned himself (with the drowsy surprise we feel in dreams) to this incapable state, his eye was caught by a speck upon the road beneath advancing towards him, so small in the distance that Geoff’s languid imagination, capable of no more active exercise, began to wonder who the little pilgrim could be, so little and so lonely, and so early astir. Perhaps it was the distance that made the advancing passenger look so small. Little Lilias at the Castle would have satisfied her mind by the easy conclusion that it was some little fairy old woman, the traveller most naturally to be met with at such an hour and place. But Geoff, more artificial, did not think of that. He kept watching the little wayfarer, as the figure appeared and disappeared on the winding road. By and by he made out that it was either a very small woman or a little girl, coming on steadily to meet him, with now and then an occasional pause for breath, for the ascent was steep. Geoff’s mind got quite entangled with this little figure. Who could it be? who could she be? A little cottager bound on some early expedition, seeking some of the mountain fruits, blackberries, cranberries, wild strawberries, perhaps; but then she never turned aside to the rougher ground, but kept on the path;—or she might be going to some farmhouse to get milk for the family breakfast: but then there were no farmhouses in that direction. Altogether Geoff felt himself quite sufficiently occupied as he came gradually downwards watching this child, his limbs feeling heavy, and his head somewhat light. At last, after losing sight of the little figure which had given him for some time a sort of distant companionship, another turn brought him full in sight of her, and so near that he recognised her with the most curious and startling interest. He could not restrain an exclamation of surprise. It was the little girl whom he had met at the door of Penninghame Castle, John Musgrave’s child, the most appropriate, yet the most extraordinary, of all encounters he could have made. He stood still in his surprise, awaiting her: and as for little Lilias, she made a sudden spring towards him, holding out her hand with a cry of joy, her little pale face crimsoned over with relief and pleasure. Her heart and limbs were beginning to fail her; she had begun to grow frightened and discouraged by the loneliness; and to see a face that had been seen before, that had looked friendly, that recognised her—what a relief it was to the little wayfaring soul! She sprang forward to him, and then in the comfort of it fairly broke down, and sobbed and cried, trying to smile all the time, and to tell him that she was glad, and that he must not mind.

Geoff, however, minded very much. He was full of concern and sympathy. He took her hand, and putting his arm round her (for she was still a child), led her to the soft, mossy bank on the edge of the path, and placed her there to rest. He was not at all sorry to place himself beside her, notwithstanding his haste. He, too, was so young and so tired! though for the moment he forgot both his fatigue and his youth, and felt most fatherly, soothing the little girl, and entreating her to take comfort, and not to cry.

“Oh,” said little Lilias, when she recovered the power of speech, “I am not crying for trouble, now; I am crying for pleasure. It was so lonely. I thought everybody must be dead, and there was no one but only me in all the world.”

“That was exactly what I felt too,” said Geoff; “but what are you doing here, so far away, and all alone? Have you lost yourself? Has anything happened? When you have rested a little, you must come back with me, and I will take you home.”

The tears were still upon the child’s cheeks, and two great lucid pools in her eyes, which made their depths of light more unfathomable than ever. And after the sudden flush of excitement and pleasure, Lilias had paled again; her little countenance was strangely white; her dark hair hung, loosely curling, about her cheeks; her eyes were full of pathetic meaning. Geoff, who had thrown himself down beside her, with one arm half round her, and holding her small hand in his, felt his young breast swell with the tenderest sympathy. What was the child’s trouble that was so great? Poor little darling! How sweet it was to be able to fill up her world, and prove to her that there was not “only me.” One other made all the difference; and Geoff felt this as much as she did. Her face had gleamed so often across his imagination since he saw it: the most innocent visitant that could come and look a young man in the face in the midst of his dreams—only a child! He felt disposed to kiss the little hand in half fondness, half reverence; but did not, being restrained by something more reverent and tender still.

“I would like to go with you,” said Lilias, “but not home. I am not going home. I am going up there—up, I don’t know how far—where the old woman lives. I am trying to find something out, something about papa. Oh, I wonder if you know! Are you a friend of my papa? You look as if you had a friend’s face—but I don’t know your name.”

“My name—is Geoffrey Stanton—but most people call me Geoff. I should like you to call me Geoff—and I am a friend, little Lily. You are Lily too, are you not? I am a sworn friend to your papa.”

“Lilias,” said the child, with a sigh; “but I don’t think I am little any more. I was little when I came, but old; oh! much older than any one thought. They thought I was only ten because I was so little; but I was twelve! and that will soon be a year ago. I have always taken care of Nello as long as I can remember, and that makes one old, you know. And now here is this about papa, which I never knew, which I never heard of, which is not true, I know. I know it is not true. Papa kill any one! papa? Do you know what that means? It is as if—— the sky should kill some one, or the beautiful kind light, or a little child. All that, all that, sooner than papa! Me, I have often felt as if I could kill somebody; but he—— ” the tears were streaming in a torrent down the child’s cheeks, and got into her voice; but she went on, “he! people don’t know what they are saying. I do not know any words to tell you how different he is—that it is impossible, impossible! impossible!” she cried, her voice rising in intensity of emphasis. As for Geoff, he held her hand ever closer, and kept gazing at her with the tears coming to his own eyes.

“He did not do it,” he said. “Listen to me, Lilias, and if you write to him, you can tell him. Tell him Geoffrey Stanton knows everything, and will never rest till he is cleared. Do you know what I mean? You must tell him—— ”

“But I never write—we do not know where he is; but tell me over again for me, me. He did not do it! Do you think I do not know that? But Mr. Geoff (if that is your name), come with me up to the old woman, and take her to the tribunal, and make her tell what she knows. That is the right way, Martuccia says so, and I have read it in books. She must go to the judge, and she must say it all, and have it written down in a book. It is like that—I am not so ignorant. Come with me to the old woman, Mr. Geoff.”

“What old woman?” he asked. “And tell me how you heard of all this, Lilias? You did not know it when I saw you before.”

“Last night—only last night; there is a man, an unkind, disagreeable man, who is at the Castle now. Mary said he was my uncle Randolph. They were in the hall, and I heard them talking. That man said it all; but Mary did not say No as I do, she only cried. And then I rushed and asked Miss Brown what it meant. Miss Brown is Mary’s maid, and she knows everything. She told me about a gentleman, and then of some one who was mamma, and of an old woman who could tell it all, up, up on the mountain. I think, perhaps, it is the same old woman I saw.”

“Did you see her? When did you see her, Lily?”

“I was little then,” said Lilias, with mournful, childish dignity. “I had not begun to know. I thought, perhaps, it was a fairy. Yes, you will laugh. I was only not much better than a child. And when children are in the woods, don’t you know, fairies often come? I was ignorant, that was what I thought. She was very kind. She kissed me, and asked if I would call her granny. Poor old woman! She was very very sorry for something. I think that must be the old woman. She knows everything, Miss Brown says. Mr. Geoff,” said Lilias turning round upon him, putting her two clasped hands suddenly upon his shoulder, and fixing her eyes upon his face, “I am going to her, will you not come with me? It is dreadful, dreadful, to go away far alone—everything looks so big and so high, and one only, one is so small; and everything is singing altogether, and it is all so still; and then your heart beats and thumps, and you have no breath, and it is so far, far away. Mr. Geoff, oh! I would love you so much, I would thank you for ever, I would do anything for you, if you would only come with me! I am not really tired; only frightened. If I could have brought Nello, it would have been nothing. I should have had him to take care of,—but Nello is such a little fellow. He does not understand anything; he could not know about papa as I do, and as you seem to do. Mr. Geoff, when was it you saw papa? Oh! will you come up, up yonder, and go to the old woman with me?”

“Dear little Lily,” said Geoff, holding her in his arms, “you are not able to walk so far; it is too much for you; you must come with me, home.”

“I am able to go to the end of the world,” cried Lilias, proudly. “I am not tired. Oh, if you had never come I should have gone on, straight on! I was thinking, perhaps, you would go with me, that made me so stupid. No, never mind, since you do not choose to come. Good-bye, Mr. Geoff. No, I am not angry. Perhaps you are tired yourself:—and then,” said Lilias, her voice quivering, “you are not papa’s child, and it is not your business. Oh! I am quite able to go on. I am not tired—not at all tired; it was only,” she said, vehemently, the tears overpowering her voice, “only because I caught sight of you so suddenly, and I thought ‘he will come with me,’ and it made my heart so easy—but never mind, never mind!”

By this time she was struggling to escape from him, to go on drying her tears with a hasty hand. Her lips were quivering, scarcely able to form the words. The disappointment, after that little burst of hope, was almost more than Lilias could bear.

“Lily,” he said, holding her fast, despite her struggles, “listen first. I have just been there. I have seen the old woman. There is nothing more for you to do, dear. Won’t you listen to me,—won’t you believe me? Dear little Lily, I have found out everything. I know everything. I cannot tell it you all, out here on the hill-side; but it was another who did it, and your father was so kind, so good, that he allowed it to be supposed it was he, to save the other man—— ”

“Ah!” cried Lilias, ceasing to struggle, “ah! yes, that is like him. I know my papa, there! yes, that is what he would do. Oh, Mr. Geoff, dear Mr. Geoff, tell me more, more!”

“As we go home,” said Geoff. He was so tired that it was all he could do to raise himself again from the soft cushions of the mossy grass. He held Lilias still by the hand. And in this way the two wearied young creatures went down the rest of the long road together—she, eager, with her face raised to him; he stooping towards her. They leaned against each other in their weariness, walking on irregularly, now slow, now faster, hand in hand. And oh! how much shorter the way seemed to Lilias as she went back. She vowed never, never to tell any one; never to talk of it except to Mr. Geoff: while Geoff, on his part, promised that everything should be set right, that everybody should know her father to be capable of nothing evil, but of everything good; that all should be well with him; that he should come and live at home for ever, and that all good people should be made happy, and all evil ones confounded. The one was scarcely more confident than the other that all this was possible and likely, as the boy and the girl came sweetly down the hill together, tired but happy, with traces of tears about their eyes, but infinite relief in their hearts. The morning, now warm with the full glory of the sun, was sweet beyond all thought—the sky, fathomless blue, above them—the lake a dazzling sheet of silver at their feet. Here and there sounds began to stir of awakening in the little farmhouses, and under the thatched cottage eaves; but still they had the earth all to themselves like a younger Adam and Eve—nothing but blue space and distance, sweet sunshine warming and rising, breathing of odours and soft baptism of dew upon the new-created pair.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE HENS AND THE DUCKLING.

“But, Lily, what could you do? while you see I know a great deal already,” Geoff said. Now that he was about to vanish out of her sight the bargain began to feel less satisfactory to the little woman, who was thus condemned, as so many grown women have been, to wait indefinitely for the action of another, in a matter so deeply interesting to herself. Lilias looked at him wistfully, with an anxious curve over her eyebrows, and a quiver in her mouth. The tension of suspense had begun for her, which is one of the hardest burdens of a woman. Oh, if she could but have gone herself, not waiting for any one, to the old woman on the hill! It was true the mountains were very lonely, and the relief of meeting Geoff had been intense; and though she had not gone half way, or nearly so much, her limbs were aching with the unusual distance; but yet to be tired, and lonely, and frightened is nothing, as Lilias felt, to this waiting, which might never come to an end. And already the ease and comfort and sudden relief with which she had leant upon Geoff’s understanding and sympathy, had evaporated a little, leaving behind only the strange story about her father, the sudden discovery of trouble and sorrow which had startled her almost into womanhood out of childhood. She looked up into Geoff’s face very wistfully—very anxiously; her eyes dilated, and gleaming with that curve over them which once indented in young brows so seldom altogether disappears again.

“Oh, Mr. Geoff!” she said, “but papa—is not your papa: and you will perhaps have other things to do: or—perhaps—you will forget. But me, I shall be always thinking, I shall never forget,” said the little girl.

“And neither shall I forget, my little Lily!” he cried. He too was nervous and tremulous with excitement and fatigue. He stooped towards her, holding her hands. “Give me a kiss, Lily, and I will never forget.”

The day before she would not have thought much of that infantile salutation—and she put up her soft cheek readily enough, with the child’s simple habit; but when the two faces touched, a flood of colour came over both, scorching Lilias, as it seemed, with a sense of shame which bewildered her, which she did not understand. She drew back hastily, with a sudden cry. Sympathy, or some other feeling still more subtle and incomprehensible, made Geoff’s young countenance flame too. He looked at her with a tenderness that brought the tears to his eyes.

“You are only a child,” he said, hastily, apologetically; “and I suppose I am not much more, as people say,” he added, with a little broken laugh. Then, after a pause—“But, Lily, we will never forget that we have met this morning; and what one of us does will be for both of us; and you will always think of me as I shall always think of you. Is it a bargain, Lily?”

“Always!” said the little girl, very solemnly; and she gave him her hand again which she had drawn away, and her other cheek; and this time the kiss got accomplished solemnly, as if it had been a religious ceremony on both sides—which indeed, perhaps, in one way or another it was.

When Geoff felt himself carried rapidly, after this, behind a fresh country horse, with the inquisitive ruddy countenance of Robert Gill from the “Penninghame Arms” by his side, along the margin of Penninghame Water towards his home, there was a thrill and tremor in him which he could not quite account for. By the time he had got half way home, however, he had begun to believe that the tremor meant nothing more than a nervous uncertainty as to how he should get into Stanton, and in what state of abject terror he might find his mother. Even to his own unsophisticated mind, the idea of being out all night had an alarming and disreputable sound; and probably Lady Stanton had been devoured by all manner of terrors. The perfectly calm aspect of the house, however, comforted Geoff; no one seemed stirring, except in the lower regions, where the humblest of its inhabitants—the servants’ servants—were preparing for their superiors.

Geoff dismissed his dog-cart outside the gates, leaving upon the mind of Robert Gill a very strong certainty that the young lord was “a wild one, like them that went before him,” and had been upon “no good gait.” “Folks don’t stay out all night, and creep into th’ house through a side door as quiet as pussy, for good,” said the rural sage, with perfect reasonableness.

As for Geoff, he stole up through the shrubberies to reconnoitre the house and see where he could most easily make an entrance, with a half-comic sense of vagabondism; a man who behaved so ought to be guilty. But he was greatly surprised to see the library window through which he had come out on the previous night wide open; and yet more surprised to hear, at the sound of his own cautious footstep on the gravel, a still more cautious movement within, and to descry the kindly countenance of Mr. Tritton, his tutor, with a red nose and red eyes as from want of sleep, looking out with great precaution.

Mr. Tritton’s anxious countenance lighted up at the sight of him. He came to the window very softly, but with great eagerness, to admit Geoff, and threw himself upon his pupil. “Where have you been—where have you been? But thank God you have come back,” he cried, in a voice which was broken by agitation.

Geoff could not but laugh, serious as he had been before. Good Mr. Tritton had a dressing-gown thrown over his evening toilet of the previous night; his white tie was all rumpled and disreputable. He had caught a cold, poor good man, with the open window, and sneezed even as he received his prodigal; his nose was red, and so were his eyes, which watered, half with cold, half with emotion.

“Oh, my dear Geoff,” he cried, with a shiver: “what is the cause of this? I have spent a most unhappy night. What can be the cause of it! But thank God you have come back; and if I can keep it from the knowledge of her ladyship, I will.” Then, though he was so tired and so serious, Geoff could not but laugh.

“Have you been sitting up for me? How good of you! and what a cold you have got!” he said, struggling between mirth and gratitude. “Have you kept it from my mother? But I have been doing no harm, master. You need not look at me so anxiously. I have been walking almost all the night, and doing no harm.”

“My dear Geoff? I have been very uneasy, of course. You never did anything of the kind before. Walking all night? you must be dead tired; but that is secondary, quite secondary: if you can really assure me, on your honour—— ” said the anxious tutor, looking at him, with his little white whiskers framing his little red face, more like a good little old woman than ever, and with a look of the most anxious scrutiny in his watery eyes. Mr. Tritton was very virtuous and very particular in his own bachelorly person, and there had crept upon him besides something of the feminine fervour of anxiety about his charge, which was in the air of this feminine and motherly house.

“On my honour!” said Geoff, meeting his gaze with laughing eyes.

And a pang of relief filled Mr. Tritton’s mind. He was almost overcome by it, and could have cried but for his dignity—and, indeed, did cry for his cold. He said, faltering, “Thank Heaven, Geoff! I have been very anxious, my dear boy. Your mother does not know anything about it. I found the window open, and then I found your room vacant. I thought you might have—stepped out—perhaps gone to smoke a cigar. A cigar in the fresh air after dinner is perhaps the least objectionable form of the indulgence, as you have often heard me say. So I waited, especially as I had something to say to you. Then as I found you did not come in, I became anxious—yes, very anxious as the night went on. You never did anything of the kind before; and when the morning came and awoke me—for I suppose I must have dozed, though I was too miserable to sleep, in a draught—— ”

“Yes, I see, you have caught cold. Go to bed now, master, and so shall I,” said Geoff. “I am dead tired. What a sneeze! and all on my account; and you have such bad colds.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Tritton, blowing his nose vehemently, “I have very bad colds. They last so long. I have sneezed so I really did fear the house would be roused, but servants fortunately sleep through anything. Geoff! I don’t want to force confidence, but it really would be right that you should confide in me: otherwise how can I be sure that her ladyship—ought not,” said the good man with a fresh sneeze, “to know—?”

“You ought to be in bed, and so ought I,” said Geoff. “I will tell my mother, don’t fear; but perhaps it will be as well not to say anything more just at present. Master, you must really go this moment and take care of yourself. Come, and I will see you to your room—— ”

“Ah! it is my part to look after you, Geoff,” said good Mr. Tritton. “It might be supposed—her ladyship might think—that I had neglected—— ”

“Come along,” said Geoff, arbitrarily, “to bed.” And how glad he was to stretch out his own young limbs and forget everything in the profound sleep of his age! Mr. Tritton had very much the worst of it. He did nothing but sneeze for the next two hours, waking himself up every time he went to sleep; and his head ached, and his eyes watered, and the good man felt thoroughly wretched.

“Oh, there is that poor Mr. Tritton with one of his bad colds again,” Lady Stanton said, who was disturbed by the sound; and, though she was a good woman, the pity in her face was not unmixed by other sentiments. “We shall have nothing but sneezing for the next month,” she said to herself in an undertone. And doubtless still less favourable judgments were pronounced down-stairs. A glass was found on the table of the library in which Mr. Tritton, good man, had taken some camphor by way of staving off his cold while he sat and watched. Harris the butler, perversely and unkindly (for who could mistake the smell of camphor?) declared that “old Tritton had been making a night of it. He don’t surprise me with his bad colds,” said that functionary; “look at the colour of his nose!” And indeed it could not be denied that this was red, as the nose of a man subject to fits of sneezing is apt to be.

When Geoff woke in the broad sunshine, and found that it was nearly noon, his first feeling of consternation was soon lost in the strange realization of all that had happened since his last waking, which suddenly came upon his mind like something new, and more real than before. The perspective even of a few hours’ sleep makes any new fact or discovery more distinct. So many emotions had followed each other through his mind, that such an interval was necessary to make him feel the real importance of all that he had heard and seen. ’Lizabeth Bampfylde had said what there was to say in few words, but the facts alone were sufficient to make the strange story clear. The chief difficulty was that Geoff had never heard of the elder son, whom the vagrant called his gentleman brother, and to whom the family and more than the family seemed to have been sacrificed. He did not remember any mention of the Bampfyldes except of the mother and daughter who had helped John Musgrave to escape, and one of whom had disappeared with him, and the mystery which surrounded this other individual, who seemed really the chief actor in the tragedy, had yet to be made out. His mind was full of this as he dressed hastily, with sundry interruptions. The household had not quite made out the events of the past night, but that there had been something “out of the common” was evident to the meanest capacity. The library window had been open all night, which was the fault of Mr. Tritton, who had undertaken to close it, begging Harris to go to bed, and not to mind. Mr. Tritton himself had been seen by an early scullion in his white tie, very much ruffled, at six o’clock; and the volleys of sneezing which had disturbed the house at seven had been distinctly heard moving about like musketry on a march, now at one point, now another, of the corridor and stairs. To crown all these strange commotions was the fact that the young master of the house, instead of obeying Harris’s call at half-past seven, did not budge (and then with reluctance) till eleven o’clock. If all these occurrences meant nothing, why then Mr. Harris pronounced himself a Dutchman; and the wonder breathed upwards from the kitchen and housekeeper’s room to my lady’s chamber, where her maid did all a maid could do (and this is not little, as most heads of a family know) to awaken suspicion. It was suggested to her ladyship that it was very strange that Mr. Tritton should have been walking about the house at six in the morning, waking up my lady with his sneezings—and it was a mercy there had not been a robbery, with the library window “open to the ground,” left open all night: and then for my lord to be in bed at eleven was a thing that had never happened before since his lordship had the measles. “I hope he is not sickening for one of these fevers,” Lady Stanton’s attendant said.

This made Geoff’s mother start, and give a suppressed scream of apprehension, and inquire anxiously whether there was any fever about. She had already in her cool drawing-room, over her needlework, felt a vague uneasiness. Geoff had never, since those days of the measles, missed breakfast and prayers before; he had sent her word that he had overslept himself, that he had been sitting up late on the previous night—but altogether it was odd. Lady Stanton, however, subdued her panic, and sat still and dismissed her maid, waiting with many tremors in her soul till Geoff should come to account for himself. He had been the best boy in the world, and had never given her any anxiety; but all Lady Stanton’s neighbours had predicted the coming of a time when Geoff would “break out,” and when the goodness of his earlier days would but increase the riot of the inevitable sowing of wild oats. Lady Stanton had smiled at this, but with a smouldering sense of insecurity in her heart; alarmed, though she knew there was no cause. Mothers are an order of beings peculiarly constituted, full of certainties and doubts, which moment by moment give each other the lie. Ah, no, Geoff would not “break out,” would not “go wrong;” it was not in him. He was too true, too honourable, too pure—did not she know every thought in his mind, and feeling in his heart? But oh, the anguish if Geoff should not be so true and so pure—if he should be weak, be tempted and fall, and stain the whiteness which his mother so deeply trusted in, yet so trembled for! Who can understand such paradoxes? She would have believed no harm of her boy—and yet in her horror of harm for him the very name of evil gave her a panic. Nothing wonderful in that. She sat and trembled to the very tyings of her shoe, and yet was sure, certain, ready to answer to the whole world for her son, who had done no evil. Other women who have sons know what Lady Stanton felt. She sat nervously still, listening to every sound, till he should come and explain himself. Why was he so late? What had happened last night to make the house uneasy? Lady Stanton would not allow herself to think that she was alarmed. It was true that pulses beat in her ears, and her heart mounted to her throat, but she sat still as a statue, and went on with her knitting. “One may not be able to help being foolish, but one can always help showing it,” she said to herself.

The sight of Geoff when he appeared, fresh and blooming, made all the throbbings subside at once. She even made a fine effort to laugh. “What does this mean, Geoff? I never knew you so late. The servants have been trying to frighten me, and I hear Mr. Tritton has got a very bad cold,” she said, getting the words out hurriedly, afraid lest she might break down or betray herself. She eyed him very curiously over her knitting, but she made believe not to be looking at him at all.

“Yes; poor old Tritton,” he said; “it is my fault; he sat up for me. I went out—— ” he made a little pause; for Geoff reflected that other people’s secrets were not his to confide, even to his mother—“with wild Bampfylde, who came, I suppose, out of gratitude for what little I did for him.”

“You went out—with that poacher fellow, Geoff?”

“Yes:” he nodded, meeting her horrified eyes quite calmly and with a smile; “why not, mother? You did not think I should be afraid of him, I hope?”

“Oh how very imprudent, Geoff! You, whose life is of so much value!—who are so very important to me and everybody!”

“Most fellows are important who have mothers to make a fuss,” he said, smiling. “I don’t think there is much more in me than the rest. But he has not harmed me much, you can see. I have all my limbs as usual; I am none the worse.”

“Thank God for that!” said Lady Stanton; “but you must not do the like again. Indeed, indeed, Geoff, you are too bold; you must not put yourself in the way of trouble. Think of your poor brother. Oh, my dear, what an example! You must not be so rash again.”

“I will not be rash—in that way,” he said. “But, mother, I want you to tell me something. You remember all about it: did you ever know of any more Bampfyldes? There was the mother, and this fellow. Did you ever know of any other?”

“You are missing out the chief one, Geoff—Lily, the girl.”

“Yes, yes; I know about her. I did not mean the girl. But think! Were those three all? Were there more—another——?”

Lady Stanton shook her head. “I do not remember any other. I think three were quite enough. There is mischief in one even, of that kind.”

“What do you mean by that kind? You did not know them. I hope my mother is not one of the kind who, not knowing people, are unjust to them.”

“Geoff!” Lady Stanton was bewildered by this grand tone. She looked up at him with sudden curiosity, and this curiosity was mixed inevitably with some anxiety too; for, when your son betrays an unjustifiable partisanship, what so natural as to feel that he must have “some motive”? “Of course I did not mean to be unjust. But I do not pretend to remember everything that came out on the trial. It was the mother and daughter that interested me. You should ask your cousin Mary; she recollects better than I do. But have you heard anything about another? What did the poacher say? Had you a great deal of conversation with him? And don’t you think it was rash to put yourself in the power of such a lawless sort of fellow? Thank God! you are safe and sound.”

“What do you mean about putting myself in his power? Do you think I am not a match for him? He is not such a giant, mother. Yes, I am quite safe and sound. And we had a great deal of talk. I never met with anybody so interesting. He talked about everything; chiefly about ‘the creatures,’ as he calls them.”

“What creatures?” said Lady Stanton, wondering and alarmed. There were “creatures” in the world, this innocent lady knew, about whom a vagabond was very likely to talk, but who could not be mentioned between her and her boy.

“The wild things in the woods, birds and mice, and such small deer, and all their ways, and what they mean, and how to make acquaintance with them. I don’t suppose he knows very much out of books,” said young Geoff; “but the bit of dark moor grew quite different with that wild fellow in it—like the hill in the Lady of the Lake, when all Clan Alpine got up from behind the rocks and the bushes. Don’t you remember, mother? One could hear ‘the creatures’ rustling and moving, and multitudes of living things one never gave a thought to. It felt like poetry, too, though I don’t know any poem like it. It was very strange and interesting. That pleases me more than your clever people,” said Geoff.

“Oh, my dear, I beg your pardon,” said Lady Stanton, suddenly getting up and kissing her boy’s cheek as she passed him. She went away to hide the penitence in her eyes. As for Geoff, he took this very easily and simply. He thought it was natural she should apologize to Bampfylde for not thinking well of him. He had not a notion of the shame of evil-thinking thus brought home to her, which scorched Lady Stanton’s cheeks.