Meditating that feminine problem which has puzzled the heads of so many men, wise and foolish, Mr. Hanlon walked slowly on.

It is a curious fact that the moment any one begins to speculate on the motives influencing the actions of his fellows, he at once flings aside as untenable the possibility that those alleged can be true.

A good story has been told concerning a gentleman who offered a friend five guesses as to how a mutual acquaintance spelt “cat.” The friend tried every erroneous combination he could think of, and, each guess proving a failure, finally inquired with impatience, “How the devil does the fellow spell it, then?”

“C A T,” was the reply.

In the same manner people are apt to go far afield in order to discover causes that really lie immediately under their noses. Miss Moffat did not like Mr. Hanlon, it is true, but no thought of evading his companionship entered her mind.

She had stated the literal truth when she said she should not care to be present when Amos Scott received the tidings of Lady Jane Somerford’s death; but of course Mr. Hanlon did not believe this, and so walked slowly on, full of cynical ideas anent women in general, and ladies in particular, with a very sufficient amount of bitterness towards the rich and those “who called themselves the gentry” added to the mental draught he was swallowing at the wish of no one in particular, unless indeed it might be himself.

After a little time he heard some sound cleaving the clear, crisp air; and, looking round to ascertain whence it proceeded, he saw Miss Moffat following in his path with rapid steps.

“You were so lost in thought I could not make you hear,” she said, looking so honestly at him with her fine frank eyes, that, remembering what his thoughts had been, he felt for the moment almost ashamed of them. “I called to you a dozen times, at least. It is a woman’s privilege to change her mind, is it not, Mr. Hanlon?” she added, “and I have changed mine. I was a coward for a moment; but I mean to be brave now, and go to the Castle Farm with you, if you are not of the Quaker persuasion, and will allow me to say yes, after having once said no.”

Concerning this speech Mr. Hanlon felt no inclination to attribute underhand motives; and yet the fact was that Grace having, after the manner of her sex, hurried to conclusions very rapidly, had decided she ought to be present when the people’s friend bore the news of his misfortune to Amos Scott.

“I can do something—some trifle towards moderating this man’s bitterness and Scott’s sorrow. Why should I spare myself? Of what use shall I ever be in the world if I fear to see grief?” and so she assumed her pleasantest manner; she talked naturally and genially, all to try to induce her companion to “moderate the rancour of his tongue,” and to bring herself into a frame of mind likely to influence Mr. Scott and his wife, and to enable her to advise both of them for their good.

As they walked, Mr. Hanlon propounded the following question to his own soul:—

“Shall I make myself agreeable to this heiress and ask her to marry me? Would not her money assist the cause I have made my own? Could not I mould her ideas to mine? and is there any social position to which, with her as my wife, I might not aspire?”

To a man of his intense self-appreciation the very idea of such an undertaking was agreeable, but there were many reasons why he never carried it out.

In the first place, Miss Moffat, with all her gracious kindness, was not an accessible person; in the next, he could find no pretext for thrusting his company upon her; further, he was doubtful as to the reception which his suit might meet; and fourth and most potent of all reasons, he felt that the sentiments he entertained towards the lady were those rather of awe than affection. She had taken his measure—unconsciously perhaps, but certainly—and unconsciously he knew this was so.

Upon the whole, Mr. Hanlon decided against the speculation. It is not always pleasant for a man to make love to a woman possessed of sufficient brains to gauge the depth of his character.

There came a day when both fully understood the other; when she comprehended his weakness, he her strength. But that day had not yet dawned when, under the bright spring sunshine, they walked together to the Castle Farm.

The external aspect of the place was not much changed since Mr. Moffat had driven up the divisional road seven years previously, but time had not dealt leniently with its inhabitants.

Mrs. Scott, standing in the doorway to give her visitors “kindly welcome,” looked aged and haggard; the elder boys and girls had the appearance of middle-aged men and women with cares upon their heads, while the younger children walked about with staid gait and set faces.

There had been something over the place for years, and that something was now about to take definite form at last.

“It’s myself is glad to see you, Miss Grace,” said Mrs. Scott, “and ye too, doctor,” she added, turning, with that never-failing courtesy characteristic of her country, towards Mr. Hanlon, “this beautiful morning, God bless it! Sure a day like this puts heart into one. It’s grand weather for the crops. Amos? he’s out in the long field, but I will send for him. Miss Grace, there is a clutch of chickens off to-day, and one of ducks yesterday. Would you like to see them? It was only last night I was saying Miss Grace was fond of the first brood. But you look white and tired,” she added suddenly; “Doctor, is not our young lady well?”

“I am well enough in body,” answered Grace gently, “but sick in mind, sick and sad, dear Mrs. Scott,” and she put out her hand, and pressed that of the farmer’s wife as she spoke.

“What is it, Miss Grace?” asked the woman trembling; “is it the masther? sure your father was well and hearty yesterday, and—”

“It is your trouble,” Miss Moffat answered; “and your trouble is mine. Lady Jane is dead! and I am afraid for Amos—”

“Oh, God help us! God help us!” cried the woman, as she threw herself into a chair, and covered her head with her apron.

“I will go and meet Amos,” said Miss Moffat in a low tone to her companion, and, rising, she left the house.

Well she knew her way to the long field, not an inch of the Castle Farm but was familiar to her; it had been almost as much her home at one period as Bayview, and her heart sickened as she looked over the familiar landscape, and thought of those who could soon look at it no more.

Afar she beheld Amos Scott striding towards her, a spade over his shoulder, his left hand swinging free, his gait that of a man whose mind is in disorder.

As he drew nearer she saw his face was flushed and his eyes bright.

The news had already reached him. It was not left for her to tell.

“Ye’ve heard, Miss Grace, ye’ve heard; and now they’ll be for trying to turn me out; that’ll be the next game, won’t it, miss?” he asked, stopping suddenly, and shooting the words at her singly, and with a might of suppressed fear and passion in his tone.

“I hope not,” she said; “I do hope and trust, Amos, you will leave this matter to your friends, and let them settle it for you.”

“My friends,” he repeated, “who are they? Th’ airl, whose father robbed me of my money; Brady up yonder, who wants to rob me of my land; Dillwyn, who stands by and says, ‘Hold hard, Scott: have at him, Brady;’ Mr. Robert, who puts his hands in his pockets and declares he has been as badly treated as myself?”

“And Grace Moffat, is she not your friend?”

“God bless you, Miss Grace; you are the friend of every man, woman, and child who needs help, but you cannot help me, I must help myself.”

He was softening—at least she thought so.

“Amos, I will go to Mr. Brady.”

“Miss Moffat, I tell you it’s no use; he has sworn to have this place; but he sha’n’t have it—no. Not as long as I am aboveboard, no man, gentle nor simple, shall own the Castle Farm.”

“But you do not own it,” she ventured; “you only rent it.”

“And where’s the odds, miss? As long as I paid my rent and my renewals, was it not mine as much as th’ airl’s? Did not I always vote for the Glendares’ man, let him be who he liked? Hadn’t I always my rent ready, no matter how me and the mistress and the children fared? Didn’t I do justice by the land? Look there, miss; would you see cleaner ground or straighter furrows in the whole of Ireland? I never grudged the dung, even when I had to draw it from Glenwellan. Though I say it as shouldn’t there is not a bit of ground better done by in the county. Me and my sons, haven’t we worked early and late? and now—but see there, miss, as sure as I stick that spade in the ground, Brady shall never have this land. I have took my Bible oath of that, and I never was one to go back from my word, let alone my oath.”

Grace shuddered, she could not help doing so. She knew—none better—what all this meant, what all this might lead to. She, born and bred amongst them, understood what a passion for the possession of land overmasters the Irish; how it hounds them on to the commission of deeds at which calmer nations stand appalled; how, nearer and dearer than wife, child, honour, life even, an acre of daisy-covered turf may become.

Involuntarily she looked towards the house. It needed no special gift of prophecy, no extraordinary amount of imagination, to prefigure the appearance it would present in days to come; roofless, doorless, windowless, abandoned by man and animal, a place near which no child played by day, a spot no man dare pass at night—the vision appalled her.

“Come with me, Amos,” she cried; “come with me to your wife, and let us and the children talk it over together.”

They walked side by side in the spring sunshine, they passed into the house where Mrs. Scott still sat with her apron thrown over her head, and Mr. Hanlon, standing with his back to the great fire, was discoursing to an utterly inattentive audience concerning abstract principles of government, and the utterly erroneous policy—suicidal he called it—pursued by England to Ireland.

“Well, mother, and so you’ve heard that the tug of war has come!” began Amos excitedly, without any formal greeting of his visitor; “but ye needn’t be feared, ye needn’t pack up to-day. I’ll have my rights. No earl, dead or living, shall keep my money and take my farm—money hard earned, honestly come by, more nor ever a Glendare could say. And Brady too—well, he’s not master here yet, and he never will be.”

“It is of no use kicking against the pricks, Scott, my friend,” said Mr. Hanlon; “the dead earl and the living rogue will be too many for you in the long-run. You’d best take another farm, or, better still, sell your goods, while you have any to sell, and go away to a free country, where you and your children can have liberty to work for yourselves instead of for a landlord; where you can live like men instead of worse than dogs; where you will be able to call your souls your own, and be rid of the yoke under which the toilers in this wretched country groan from the cradle to the grave.”

“I thank you for yer advice, Doctor; I’m sure it’s well meant and kindly given: but I am not going to America, and I have no intention of leaving the Castle Farm—till I am carried out of it feet foremost,” said Scott, not without a certain dignity.

“But supposing no arrangement can be made with Mr. Brady, Amos?” Grace began.

“No arrangement can be made, Miss Moffat,” interrupted Mr. Hanlon. “He is a very Shylock, he will have his pound of flesh though the fairest Portia in Ireland seek to prevent him.”

“I don’t know rightly what you are talking about,” said the poor dazed farmer; “but if it means that Brady’s going to take my home from me—that when it comes to the bit, Mr. Dillwyn and the young airl will stand by and see me and mine driven out to die by the roadside—just let him and them try it, that’s all. I’m a man of few words, but you can all of you remember what I say, let them try it.”

“But, Amos,” pleaded Grace, “is not one farm as good as another?”

“Miss Grace, I wonder to hear you!” he answered reproachfully. “Would another wife be as good to me as her yonder? would other children be as good to me as those I have dandled on my knee, and sat up with when they were sick, and ‘threatened’ when they were impudent to me and the mother, and given the ‘tawse’ to when they wouldn’t do what they were bid? Oh! ye don’t know—Lord forbid ye ever should—what a home means to a man of my years, that the great of the land are conspiring to leave homeless.”

“Poor Amos!” murmured Grace, with a pity too deep for words welling up in her tone. “I think—I hope I do understand what you feel; still place ought not to be so dear as people. If I had to leave Bayview to-morrow, I believe—I feel certain I could in time learn to love another place almost as much.”

“Ay, but then you are a woman, and that makes all the differ,” commented Mr. Scott, with that sublime contempt for the sex which, spite of their gallantry, is a fundamental characteristic of his class in Ireland.

“That is quite true,” she answered, with a faint smile. “I am only a woman; if I were a man, I would try to do more to help you. As it is, I do not want to see you break your own and your wife’s heart for no good purpose. Come, Amos, be persuaded; let me look you out a farm. It shall not cost you a penny to go from the one place to the other.”

“And let the young airl keep the money his father robbed me of; and let Brady laugh and say, ‘I got the best of him, as I have of everybody else’? No, faith, if he laughs when he has done with me, it’ll be on the wrong side of his mouth I’m thinking.”

“Why not go away, then, where it cannot matter whether he laughs or cries? Land is cheap enough in America; and you may be your own tenant, and landlord too for that matter. You might found a family there, and be a great proprietor before you die.”

“You mean well, Miss Grace, and I am beholden to you; but you don’t understand. I’d rather have my own bit of ground here, that I know every rood of, than own the whole of Canada. What would I do among strangers and foreigners? It is not much I want—only my rights, and I’ll have them,” he went on, lashing himself up into sudden fury. “Come, mistress, what are ye sitting for there, and the work all standing? and what am I doing here, talking foolishness, while the men and the horses are idle in the field? Good morning, Miss Grace, and thank you kindly, and you too, Doctor, and if ye see Brady, and me and my farm come up, ye can tell him Amos Scott is not going to be put upon or turned out of the land he paid his golden guineas for to him that’s dead and gone.”

Having delivered his mind of which speech, the farmer hurried out of the house, followed by some of the younger children.

When he was gone, Mrs. Scott put down her apron, and drew her hand wearily over her eyes, that ached because no tears would come.

“Ye’ll excuse him,” she said, speaking to both her visitors, but addressing her remarks more especially to Grace; “he is not himself. He is just out of his mind with trouble. He has been a changed man since th’ airl died, and the young lord went away without putting the wrong right. Everything is going to the bad with us. What the end of it will be, I don’t know, I’m sure I don’t!”

“I wish Amos would listen to reason,” said Grace, with a sigh.

“What is the use of his fighting when he has got money, and rank, and law, and power all against him?” observed Mr. Hanlon.

“Ah! Miss, as he says, you don’t understand; what seems reason to you, sounds like folly to him; and as for every body and thing being against him, Doctor, each word you say concerning that makes him madder. A lion in a cage could not be worse nor him when anybody speaks to him about having to leave the old place and see Brady get it.”

“But it is not the first time by many the same thing has been done,” urged Mr. Hanlon. “Renewal fees have been taken time after time on this estate, and the people who paid fought the matter out, and ruined themselves just as Scott will do.”

“Somebody must win, Sir,” she answered, in unconscious vindication of her husband’s tactics.

“I think I had better go now,” suggested Miss Moffat. “It seems to me we are working more harm than good. After a few days, perhaps, Amos will come to Bayview, and let me know what he intends doing.”

“I have to call at Maryville,” said Mr. Hanlon, looking at Grace as though he imagined she might regret his inability to accompany her home.

“Any one ill there?” inquired Miss Moffat.

“The youngest boy is ailing a little.”

“What terrible bad health Mrs. Brady’s children have, to be sure!” exclaimed Mrs. Scott.

“Yes,” answered Mr. Hanlon with a laugh: “Doctor Girvan says the young ones about Kingslough were strong enough when he had more to do with them. Inference obvious.”

“Is Maryville a healthy place?” asked Miss Moffat, looking straight into Mr. Hanlon’s face.

“Pretty well for some people, not for women and children, I should say.”

His meaning was obvious, at least so Grace decided; “I must know something about Nettie,” she thought.

“I will tell Mrs. Brady I have had the pleasure of meeting you,” said Mr. Hanlon, as if guessing what was passing through her mind.

“Yes, please do,” cried Grace eagerly; “and tell her how sorry I am to hear of her little boy’s illness.”

When next Miss Moffat met Mr. Hanlon, she asked,—

“Did you give my message to Mrs. Brady?”

“I did,” he answered, with a curious smile.

“And what did she say?”

“Nothing,” he replied, adding, as Miss Moffat turned red and tried to help looking annoyed, “that is about the extent of Mrs. Brady’s conversation with any one. She listens when she is obliged to listen, and answers when she cannot well avoid doing so.”

“Poor Nettie!” said Grace involuntarily, and she fancied she heard her companion mutter,—

“Poor indeed!”

Before Miss Moffat reached the end of the divisional road on her way homeward from Amos Scott’s, she heard hasty footsteps following, and, looking back, saw the farmer’s eldest son striding after her.

“Could I speak a word to you, Miss Grace?” he asked.

“As many as you like,” she answered, and at once took her seat on a large stone lying close at hand, to show him she was in no haste, but could listen to all he had to say.

During the interview at his own home the young man had sat on a settle near the fire, his body bent forward, his head drooping, his hands clasped. He never opened his lips, he never lifted his eyes save once, and that was to look at Mr. Hanlon.

Now, however, the spell seemed broken, and he began eagerly,—

“Miss Grace, will you help me to go to America?”

“You, David—without your father?”

“Yes, Miss, he’ll never go—leastways, I don’t believe he will; and my heart is just broke, to see things going on as they are at home. What for should I not go? If I stay here, I’ll have to hire myself as a labourer—maybe to Brady. Father ’ll fight him till we haven’t a bed left to lie on. Since the earl died he has been like a man possessed. He carries on about the Glendares and Brady till I’m fairly sick and tired of hearing their names. I don’t say but he has been badly treated. It was a stocking full of money he gave the earl; but, as Mr. Dillwyn says, if he was so foolish as to let his hard earnings slip through his fingers on the strength of a bit of a promise, he must take the consequences.”

“You must not speak so disrespectfully of your father,” said Grace severely; “it is not right.”

“I did not intend any disrespect, Miss,” he answered. “I’d do as much—I have worked as hard for him as a son could; but I’m not a child, and I can’t shut my eyes to what must come of all this. He won’t leave, and Brady will take the law of him, and we’ll all be brought to beggary. He was headstrong enough before Mr. Hanlon came to Kingslough—bad luck to the day he left his own part of the country—but to hear him discoursing now, anybody might think he was distraught. What is the use of talking about wrongs unless they can be put right? Maybe, Miss, you consider I am speaking wild-like, but I sometimes feel as if I was going crazy myself. Once we could eat our stir-about^[1] and potatoes in peace, but now I often have to leave my breakfast and dinner for fear I should be tempted to say something that might put a division between us.”

“Oh, David,” she cried, “do stop, please, you hurt me! When I think—when I think of the happiness and contentment I have seen in your home, I feel as if I could not realize the present misery—as if I would do anything, give anything to put matters straight.”

“And when I think, Miss,” he rejoined, “I feel as if I could go up to Maryville, and shoot Brady on his own door-step,—and I would too if it could do us any good.”

“Do not talk in that wicked, reckless way,” said Grace; “it was not Mr. Brady’s fault that the late earl took your father’s money.”

“It was his fault, taking the land at any rate,” returned the young man doggedly. “What did he want with it? Wasn’t there farms to be had in plenty without ours? Was it fair dealing to make a bid for it over my father’s head, turning an honest family out of house and home? I never hear our minister read that chapter about the man who had a vineyard he wouldn’t sell, or about that other who had only one yow^[2]-lamb, but it puts me in mind of our farm and Brady. We had but one vineyard, and I misdoubt me much if it doesn’t cost my father his life. We had only one yow-lamb, and he wants that from us.”

His voice quivered as he spoke; the passion and pathos of his country lent eloquence to his words, homely though they were; and tears, which she could not restrain, coursed slowly down Miss Moffat’s cheeks at the picture of a shattered home presented to her.

Amos could never make another; she clearly understood that if by no effort the Castle Farm could be preserved, his future presented no prospect but that of utter shipwreck. She could see the misery, the poverty, the certain ruin, the possible crime, but she could perceive no way of averting the calamity.

Her will, her money, her influence, were powerless here. A wrong had been committed which only one man living could put right, a wrong which, simple as it seemed, made her for the moment marvel how the earl could rest in his grave, considering the wretchedness his act had wrought. Never before had she touched that hard spot in the Irish nature which has puzzled the most thoughtful of psychologists, and baffles the wisdom of the wisest statesmen, which not time, or experience, or kindness, or remonstrance can soften, and which seems as indifferent to severe treatment as it is insensible to gentle handling.

Had any one told her a year previously that Amos Scott would turn a deaf ear to her entreaties, her advice, her offers of assistance, she must have laughed outright; and yet, behold, it was not more than an hour since she walked up to the farm with Mr. Hanlon, and already she felt herself beaten.

As she could not help Amos to what he wanted, he would not have her help at all. She was powerless to give him the Castle Farm, and consequently he turned his back both on her assistance and her advice.

She had thought, in her ignorance, money and the will to give it could effect almost anything; and yet here was a case where it could effect nothing, literally nothing, unless Mr. Brady could be bought off.

She would try if that were possible. It was a forlorn hope, but it was a hope nevertheless. She would see Mr. Dillwyn and Mr. Somerford, and, if need be, Mr. Brady himself; and she was planning the form of words she should use, when her short reverie was broken by David,—

“So, Miss, when I heard you speaking so kind and sensible, I made up my mind I would ask you to lend me enough to go away. I can be of no sort of use here. If I stay, I may do an injury to myself or somebody else. I have long had it in my mind—months,—ever since the earl lay a-dying.”

“But I thought you were going to be married?” suggested Miss Moffat.

“I am ‘speaking’ to Maggie Lennen; but I’ll never marry her, Miss, if I can’t better myself. She’ll wait for me, and when I am able to send for her, she’ll come out; and then, if things go as I am feared they will, I can spare a pound now and then to my mother.”

“And you would leave her to bear all this trouble alone?”

“She won’t be alone; she has the rest of them. I wish we were every one of us sailing to-morrow; but as that can’t be, I’ll go. I have made up my mind, Miss Grace, whether you lend me the money or not.”

“I will not say ‘yes,’ neither will I say ‘no’ to-day. I will think over what you have told me, and see whether nothing can be done for your father. I am more grieved for his trouble than words can tell.”

“Ah! Miss Grace; its yourself had always a kind heart. If the old man didn’t seem to set a right value on your goodness to-day, it was only because he is not just himself. He’s that throng^[3] with sorrow, he can’t fairly understand; but the time will come when he’ll mind it all. I don’t say much, and mother she says nothing; but we feel. If our heart’s blood could serve you, there is not one of us but would give it. There is nothing father would not do for you, letting alone leaving the farm.”

“I think that is always the way, David,” she said, with a mournful smile. “The ‘except’ is generally the one request we make. Suppose, now, I were to ask you, as a personal favour to myself, to remain with your parents; you would say, ‘I will do anything for you, Miss Grace, but that.’”

“I would not,” he answered vehemently. “If you bid me stay, I’ll stay.”

“I will neither bid you stay nor go,” she replied, “till I have talked the matter over with people older and wiser than I am.”

And so saying, she rose and wended her steps slowly homewards.

“You may find people older, and maybe wiser than yourself, Miss Grace,” soliloquized the young man, as he watched her retreating figure, “but ye’ll never find anybody better, search the wide world through.”