Chapter III (2)

Yet the smiling, sunlit pastures and cane fields, to which he was taking his way, and which had seemed so beautiful in prospect when he had hoped to secure fair Amy Herbert to reign over them as mistress, appeared to afford him but dull anticipation now.

‘How shall I ever get through the work?’ he thought, ‘and my heavy heart and sluggish spirit will lay me open to the worst influences of the country. But I will not despair. My wants and my weakness are not unknown, and a way will be found for me even out of this “Slough of Despond.”’

He was suddenly roused from his love-sick reverie by the sound of a low moaning, which seemed to pervade the surrounding atmosphere. Starting up on his couch, Egerton now perceived through the porthole that the sky had become dark, and the noise of the captain of the vessel shouting his orders through a speaking-trumpet, and the sailors rushing about to execute them, made him aware that something was wrong. He was not the man to keep out of the way of danger. Brave as a lion and intrepid as an eagle, Richard Egerton, from a boy, had ever been the foremost in any emergency or danger. Now, as the warning sounds reached his ear, he rushed at once on deck. He remembered ‘Old Contrairy’s’ prophecy of a squall, and his first thoughts were for the comfort and safety of Miss Herbert. But as he issued from the passengers’ saloon a fearful sight awaited him. One of those sudden hurricanes, for which the West Indies are famous, and which will sometimes swamp the stoutest vessel in the course of a few seconds, had arisen, and the whole ship’s company was in confusion. As Egerton sprang upon deck he could distinctly see what appeared to be a black wall of water advancing steadily to meet the unfortunate ‘Star of the North.’ With the exception of the noise consequent on attempting to furl the sails in time to receive the shock of the approaching storm, there was but little tumult upon deck, for everyone seemed paralysed with terror.

At the first alarm, Miss Herbert, with the remainder of the passengers from the poop, had attempted to go below, but, having reached the quarter-deck, was crouching at the foot of the companion-ladder, too terrified by the violence of the tornado to proceed further. As for Egerton, he had to hold on fast to the bulwarks to prevent himself being washed overboard. His head was bare, and as he stood there, with the wind blowing his curls about in the wildest disorder, and his handsome face knit with anxiety and pain, Amy Herbert looked up and saw him, and registered a vow, in the midst of her alarm, that if they ever came safely out of that fearful storm she would humble her pride before him and confess that she had been in the wrong. The moaning of the tempest increased to a stunning roar, and then the huge wall of water broke upon the ‘Star of the North’ with a violence to which no thunder can bear comparison.

All hands were aghast, and the men were dashed about the deck hither and thither as the wind caught the vessel on her broadside. The awful noise of the hurricane rendered all communication by speech impossible, but the captain, by setting the example, stimulated his men to cut away the masts in order to right the ship, which had been thrown almost on her beam-ends.

In a moment Egerton perceived the danger to which Amy Herbert would be exposed by the fall of the crashing timber. She was crouching in the most exposed part of the quarter-deck, her lovely eyes raised upwards, full of the wildest fear.

‘There! there! Go there!’ he exclaimed frantically, though his voice had no power to reach her, as he pointed to a more sheltered position under the companion-ladder. ‘Get under there, for Heaven’s sake!’

She saw the warning gesture of his hand, the agony depicted in his face, and understood the meaning of them, just as the huge mast bowed itself towards the sea. Egerton continued his efforts to make her see the necessity of moving, and she was just about to take advantage of the hint, when Captain Barrington crawled on all fours into the place himself. The little man was not too brave by nature, and fear had driven all thoughts of chivalry out of his head. For the moment the girl did not see who had forestalled her intention; she only perceived that she had lost her chance of safety, and waited the event in trembling anxiety. Down came the topmast with a crashing shock that threatened to sink the vessel. Yet Amy Herbert was sheltered from possible injury, for, with a mighty effort, Richard Egerton had quitted his stronghold and flung his body upon the deck before her. For one moment he was conscious—happily conscious—that she was safe, and he had saved her; the next, he had fainted from a blow on the head and the pain of a large splinter of wood that had been broken from the falling mast and driven with violence into his arm. He did not hear the scream with which Amy Herbert viewed the accident, nor see the agonised face which bent above his prostrate form. He heard, and saw, and knew nothing, until he opened his eyes in his own cabin and perceived, with the dazed wonder of returning consciousness, that the old sailor, Williams, and the ship’s doctor, Mr French, were bending over him.

* * * * *

‘You’ll do now,’ remarked the doctor as he held a cordial to his lips.

‘Is she safe?’ was all Richard Egerton said in reply, as he looked at his splintered arm. They thought he meant the ‘Star of the North.’

‘Oh yes, she’s safe enough now, sir,’ replied the old seaman; ‘but we’ve had an awful time of it, and no mistake. We’ve lost our top-gallant mast, and our spars and hen-coops have been washed overboard, and one of the boats got adrift in the squall, and the poor “Star” is stript of half her toggery.’

‘But are any of the passengers injured?’

‘No one but yourself, sir; but two of our best men went over with the mast, and Ralph White has broke his leg, and there’ll be a tidy little bill for some one to pay when we gets into port again.’

‘And that reminds me, Williams, that I must go and look after poor White,’ said the doctor. ‘I think I may leave my patient in your care now. All you have got to do is to see that he lies there till I come back again.’

‘I’ll look after the gentleman, doctor, never you fear,’ replied the old seaman as Mr French left the cabin.

‘It was an awful hurricane, Williams,’ remarked Egerton, with a sigh of remembrance, as he turned uneasily upon his pillow.

‘You may well say that, sir; and it’s just a miracle as we’re still afloat.’

‘How little we thought, as we talked together on deck an hour or two ago, that death was so close at hand for some of us.’

‘Ay, indeed, and with that smiling, burning, treacherous blue sky above us. You have seen some of the dangers now, sir. I suppose you ain’t going, in the face of this storm, to hold to Bill’s song, that “Whatever is, is best.”’

‘Yes, I am, Williams,’ replied the young man firmly.

‘What! with our tight little ship knocked to pieces in this fashion, and your arm broken in two places?’

‘Just so, Williams. Heaven sent both the storm and the accident. They _must_ be for the best.’

‘Well, I’m blowed!’ exclaimed the old sailor in sheer amazement. The announcement seemed to have taken all the wind out of his sails, and he sat staring at the wounded man as if he had charge of a lunatic.

‘How comes it that you are attending on me?’ asked Egerton, as Williams handed him a glass of water.

‘Well, sir, I seem to have took a fancy to your way of talking; so when they wanted some one here to help the doctor with your arm I offered to come, that’s all.’

‘It was very good of you. You told me this morning that you had had troubles, and prayer had never availed to get you out them. Do you mind telling me what those troubles are?’

‘Not a bit, sir, if I sha’n’t tire you; but it is a long story. I had a sweetheart when I was a young chap—most young chaps have, you know, sir—I daresay you’ve had one yourself before now—and I had a school-mate, too, by name—well! we’ll call him Robert—and we both loved the girl dearly; but he got her, sir, and I had to go to the wall.’

‘That was very unlucky for you.’

‘Well, it was unfortunate, though he courted her above-board, and all was fair enough at the time. But the worst of it was that he turned out a regular bad ’un, and ill-treated his wife shamefully arter he’d married her. When I came home from sea, it used to make my blood reg’lar boil to hear poor Lottie tell how he’d beaten and kicked and starved her, for he’d taken to drink, you see, sir, and all his love had gone like a flash of lightning.’

‘Was he a sailor too?’

‘Yes, sir, and once, when I come off a long voyage to China and Australy, and round home by San Francisco, I heard that Lottie was a widder and in great distress, without hardly a bit of money. Well, I looked her up pretty sharp, as you may guess, and I found it was all true.’

‘And then you married her.’

‘No, I didn’t sir. I’ve never been married. I don’t deny I asked her, but she wouldn’t have me, nor no one. She said it was too late, and she was dyin’, which sure enough she was. But she had a child, sir—little Dickey—such a dear little chap, with blue eyes—just like her own—and pretty yeller curls; and when she died she left him on my hands, and lor’, how fond I was of that little creetur! He took his poor mammy’s place in my heart altogether.’

The old sailor stopped here, and drew his hand across his eyes.

‘Did he die too, Williams?’ inquired Egerton.

‘Not as I knows of, sir. He may be dead or livin’. It’s all the same to me now. _That_ was the time I used to pray, Mr Egerton, night and day, that the little feller I was so proud on might grow up a good man and a good son to me and a comfort to my old age, and when I lost him I chucked up religion altogether.’

‘How did you lose him?’

‘In the crudest of ways, sir. He had grow’d up beside me five years, and I had done everythink for him; and when he’d put his two little arms round my neck and kiss me, and look so like his poor mother—who was the only sweetheart I ever had, Mr Egerton—I used to thank the Lord, with tears in my eyes, for _His_ goodness to me. But it was all a delusion, sir.’

‘Tell me the end of it.’

‘The end of it was that, when my pretty Dickey was a smart little feller of about ten years old, I got him a place as ship-boy aboard the ‘Lady Bird,’ and we sailed for the Brazils together, as proud and ’appy as the days was long. And I was a teachin’ the boy everythink, Mr Egerton, and he was gettin’ that ’cute and handy—when, in an evil moment, that man whom we all thought dead and buried, turned up again somewhere down by Rio Janeiro, and claimed his boy of me.’

‘What! the father?’

‘Yes, sir. Of course he had the right to do it, and that’s what the skipper tried to make me understand; but it broke my heart entirely. He thought he’d make money out of the lad’s wages, and so he took him away from me, who was just like a father to him; and his screams, as we parted, have never left my ears since. And when I heard afterwards that the brute ill-treated Dickey, just as he’d done his poor mammy, I nearly went mad. The men calls me sulky, and “Old Contrairy,” and sich like names; but many’s the time when they think me cross, I’m only dreaming over that time ag’in and cursin’ them as brought me to sich a pitch. I shall never see my pretty Dickey ag’in, sir, till I meets ’im up above; and I shall owe Robert Hudson a grudge to the day of my death for robbin’ me of him in that there cruel manner.’

‘_Who_ did you say?’ cried Egerton, starting up in his berth.

‘Please to lie down, sir? The doctor will be arter me if I lets you knock about in that manner. The name slipped out unawares, for ’tain’t of no use raking it up ag’in. It has nothin’ to do with my story.’

‘But, pray, tell it me again?’

‘It was Robert Hudson, sir.’

‘But Robert Hudson was the name of _my_ father!’

‘_Your_ father, sir! But, beggin’ your pardon, how can that be, when you’re called Egerton?’

‘I know I am; but I took the name from a relation who left me his money on condition that I did so. My real name is Richard Hudson, and I was brought up to the sea and adopted by my mother’s cousin, Henry Egerton, because my father treated me so brutally. He was had up by the police for thrashing me till I fainted, and then the magistrates gave me over to the guardianship of Mr Egerton——; and, Williams, can it possibly be?’

‘Sir, sir! don’t keep me in suspense. What was the maiden name of your mother?’

‘Charlotte Erskine, and she was born in Essex.’

‘At Pinfold?’

‘That is the place. My grandfather had the “Peartree Farm” there, and she is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. Mr Egerton used often to take me to see her grave.’

‘Oh, sir! this is very, very wonderful! Is it possible you can be my little Dickey?’

‘It is quite true that I am the son of Robert and Charlotte Hudson, and that if I had not changed my name, we should have recognised each other before now. Do not think I have forgotten you, Williams? I cannot remember the face of my sailor friend; but I have never forgotten all his kindness to me. But surely I used to call you “Caleb” in those days, and have always thought of you by that name since.’

‘True, enough, sir, that’s me—Caleb Williams, and I can hear your sweet little voice a-callin’ Caleb from the top of the house to the bottom now; you was never long out of my arms, Mr Egerton. Day and night you was on this bosom, as you may say, and my heart’s been as empty as a dried gourd since I lost sight of you. And so you’re my own boy—leastways, what I used to call my own—and I’ve been a nussin’ you again as I used to nurse you in the olden times. Oh, bless the Lord for all His mercies!’ cried the old seaman, as he fairly broke down, and sobbed with his face in his hands.

* * * * *

They talked for a long time over the past; Richard Egerton being scarcely less affected than old Williams, as, one by one, little incidents and reminiscences came to light to confirm their several identities, and make him see still more clearly how much he owed to the old man who sat beside him.

‘And now, Caleb,’ he said, when the evening shadows had deepened into dusk, ‘this will be your last voyage. I cannot let you work any more. You know that I have riches, and you must share them.’

‘Oh, sir, you are too good!’

‘Don’t call me “sir” again, please. Call me Richard, Caleb, or “Dickey,” or anything that pleases your fancy; but the man who acted as a father to me when I had worse than none, shall never address me as though I were his superior. What was it you prayed for me to become, Caleb, in those days when I used to sit on your knee with my little hands clasped about your neck?’

‘A good man and a good son, my dear, dear boy,’ quavered the old seaman.

‘Well, I will try, at all events, to fulfil the last clause. My cousin Egerton, who was a rich tradesman, has left me all his property. I have land and houses in Barbadoes, and I intend to settle there; at least, for the next few years. You must come and live with me. You will find plenty of work on the estate to employ your time, if you wish to work; and if you wish to rest, you shall be idle. My father has been dead in reality for many years past, so that we shall be left alone and in peace this time to end our days together.’

‘And there is no one else, my dear boy?’ inquired Williams anxiously.

‘How do you mean?’

‘You are not married, nor likely to be?’

‘I am not married, nor likely to be. There is no one else,’ repeated Richard Egerton, with a bitter sigh.

‘Don’t sigh like that, sir.’

‘Dickey, please, Caleb.’

‘Dickey, then—my little Dickey, as I loved so hearty. To think I should have found you again arter all these years—grow’d to such a fine man, too—and in that awful storm! It beats everythink I ever heard of.’

‘Whatever is, is best,’ replied Egerton. ‘You won’t grumble again, will you, Caleb, because the answer to your prayer may be delayed a little?’

‘Don’t mention it, my boy. I feels ashamed even to remember it.’

‘You see that even the hurricane has borne its good fruit as well as its evil. Without it we might never have been made known to each other.’

‘It’s bin a marciful interposition of Providence from beginning to end,’ said old Williams, wiping his eyes. ‘But I should like to see you a bit more cheerful, Dickey. There has been a sad look in your face the last four days, which I couldn’t help noticin’, and now that I knows you to be who you are, I sha’n’t rest satisfied till you smiles in the old way again.’

Egerton was just about to answer him, when a gentle knock sounded on the cabin door, which stood ajar in consequence of the heat.

‘Who’s that?’ demanded the old sailor gruffly.

‘It is only I,’ responded a soft, trembling voice, which Egerton at once recognised as that of Amy Herbert. ‘I came to inquire how Mr Egerton is getting on, and if I can do anything for him.’

‘No, miss, thank ye, you can’t do nothin’; he’s a-goin’ on very nicely, and I’m here,’ responded Williams.

‘May I speak to him for a minute?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Richard eagerly, raising himself to a sitting position.

The young lady pushed open the cabin door and stood on the threshold, blushing like a rose. She looked very beautiful, although her eyes were swollen with crying, and her dress and hair were in disorder.

‘I felt I could not sleep until I had thanked you for what you did for me, Mr Egerton,’ she uttered tearfully. ‘You endangered your own life to save mine, who have done nothing to deserve such a sacrifice on your part.’

‘Ay, that he did!’ interrupted Williams.

‘It is nothing—nothing,’ said Egerton faintly, for the sight of her had upset all his courage. ‘You could not help it. It is not your fault if—if—’

‘If—_what_?’ demanded Amy Herbert.

He turned his eyes towards her, and a new hope ran through his veins like a reviving cordial. ‘Caleb, my dear old friend,’ he exclaimed tenderly, ‘leave me for five minutes to myself.’

‘What! all alone with the lady?’ returned Caleb, regarding Miss Herbert as though she were a dangerous animal.

‘Yes, for one moment only. I have something to say for her ear alone.’

He had sprung off the berth in his excitement, and was about to quit the cabin.

‘Don’t go out, then, my dear boy, for mercy’s sake,’ said Williams, ‘for you’ve lost a deal of blood, and are weaker than you think for. Will you promise me?’

‘I do promise, if you will only go.’

The old man shambled out of the cabin as he spoke, and the two were left alone.

‘I want so much to tell you,’ said Egerton, speaking with some difficulty, ‘what I had not the courage to say this morning, that I know it is not your fault. The blame rests entirely on me. It was my presumption—my madness, if you will—that led me on to speak to you as I did, and I acquit you of all blame. I know you feel for my disappointment now—and I thought it would make you easier to hear this—that is all.’

‘Oh, if I could only make you understand!’ she sobbed.

‘Pray don’t distress yourself. I do understand it all. How can you help it if you find it impossible to love me?’

‘But I do not—I mean, I can—that is to say, I did not mean—’ stammered the girl, colouring scarlet at the admission she had been betrayed into making.

‘Am I to understand that you did not mean what you said this morning?’ exclaimed the young man as he grasped her hand. ‘Amy, you have given me fresh life. Oh, do not take it back again! Say if you love me!’

Her maidenly bashfulness struggled for a moment with her probity, but the latter conquered.

‘Yes, I do love you! It was my egregious vanity and love of conquest that made me trifle with your feelings this morning. I have been very miserable ever since. I have hoped you would speak to me again, and when I saw you risk your life for my sake, I wished that I might have died for you instead.’

‘O Amy, Amy! Your words are opening heaven to me. Darling, is it possible that you will be my wife?’

‘If you can forgive my heartless rejection of you, Richard. If you can believe that I am true in saying that I hated each word even as I uttered it. If you still think me worthy of being your life-companion, I will give you a very different answer now.’

‘You have made me the very happiest man on earth,’ he cried exultantly, as he folded her in his arms.

‘Lor’, sir!—I mean my boy, Dickey—you mus’n’t be a-goin’ on like this!’ exclaimed old Caleb, appearing on the scene when least expected. ‘The doctor’s particular orders was that you were to keep quiet and not bounce about.’

‘Caleb, my dear friend, I will be as quiet as your heart can wish now, for mine is at rest. Don’t stare so. Come here, and sit down again, whilst I explain to this young lady all that you have been to me, and tell you all that I trust she will very soon be to me.’

‘Oh, we’re to have a missus arter all, then!’ cried the old sailor meaningly. ‘Why, I thought you told me just now, my boy, that you warn’t a-goin’ to be spliced!’

‘Ah, Caleb, the storm has sent me a wife as it brought you a son. Had it not been for that awful hurricane, and the peril in which it placed this precious life, I am not quite sure if we should ever have been so happy as we are this evening. Never mind my wounded arm and the gash upon my cheek; Miss Herbert says she shall like it all the better for a scar. The wound in my heart is healed, Caleb, and life looks very fair for us all henceforward. And yet you could not believe “Old Contrairy,”’ he added playfully, that ‘Whatever is, is best.’

THE END.

‘SENT TO HIS DEATH!’

I came down to breakfast one morning last autumn, and found a letter on the table from my old friend Bessie Maclean.

Bessie and I were girls at school together, and continued our intimacy after we left, until we married and went to different parts of the country. Marriage is a terrible breaker up of old ties; not only by reason of the separation which generally ensues, but because of the new duties it entails. We had both married the men of our hearts, however, and in comfortable circumstances; and so far all was well. But little by little our correspondence, which at first had been so voluminous and detailed, became scanty and irregular.

Bessie had half-a-dozen children to occupy her time and attention; and I—I had my dear husband to fill up the measure of my life, and felt myself a wicked and ungrateful woman if I even wished for more.

But—there is always a ‘but’ in the happiest worldly existence, is there not?—Dick and I had no children; and the disappointment had sometimes caused me to shed bitter tears. In secret though; I had never told my husband one-half I felt upon the subject.

Of course he twitted me with it sometimes in a playful manner, which showed that the fact did not sink very deep into his heart, whatever it did in mine. Yet I had thought occasionally that he looked more thoughtful than usual when children were in the room: and the idea made me thoughtful too. Especially I had noticed it when we paid our first visit to Bessie in her new house; for I must tell you that a few months before my story commences, Tom Maclean had bought a large farm in the vicinity of the town where the gaol stands, of which my husband is the governor. Of course, after so long a separation, Bessie and I were delighted to find we had become near neighbours again; and as soon as ever the Macleans were settled, they invited us both over to Poplar Farm, to stand sponsors to the latest arrival—a little boy whom they called Richard, after my Dick, God bless him! Poplar Farm was ten or twelve miles from Chesterwick, however, so I had not seen my friends more than five or six times since the christening day; and the visits I had paid them had not quite realised the expectations I had formed of meeting Bessie again.

I suppose it was my vile envious nature, or perhaps the quiet life I have led with Dick has made me selfish; but it seemed to me as though all the time my old school-fellow spent with me was devoted, not to our friendship, or reminiscences of our girlish days, but to talking about her children and telling me of their accomplishments or complaints, or consulting me as to their dresses or amusements. Of course I was pleased at first to be introduced to her fine brood of boys and girls; but I could hardly be expected to feel as much interest in them as their mother did, and I was sorely disappointed to find she had lost so much of hers in me. She did not seem to care to hear anything about my husband, or how we loved each other in our happy, peaceful home; nor did she even talk much about Tom, with her affection for whom I could have sympathised better than with any other. But he appeared to be almost forgotten or overlooked in her maternal care for the little ones; and she was more anxious that Lily’s new hat should become her, or Charley’s medicine be swallowed without a fit of obstinacy, than that Mr Maclean should appreciate his dinner, or have his evening hours undisturbed for settling his accounts. I have observed the same thing—oh! scores of times—amongst my married female acquaintances; and the fact has done more to reconcile me to the want of a family than any other.

Not that I believe that the charge of a hundred children could ever make me forget my darling’s wants—but there, this is not a love story, so I must try and keep my Dick’s name out of it as much as possible.

I had received several letters from Bessie during the last month, which had rather surprised me, as she had grown very lazy at correspondence, as I have said before, and naturally, taking up her residence at Poplar Farm had not made her write oftener, excepting when she required the benefit of my experience with regard to the advantages of her new home. Her two last letters, however, had been written in a very unaccountable strain; and if I had not known she was comfortably and happily situated, I should have imagined it was just the reverse.

‘Another letter from Bessie!’ I exclaimed, as I broke the seal. ‘What on earth can she want now? I suppose she has found out somebody sells whiter flour than Watkins, or better tea than Amyott? I almost believe, Dick, she regrets having left Lincolnshire.’

‘I don’t know why she should,’ replied Dick, as he commenced a raid upon the breakfast-table; ‘for, according to Maclean’s account, they lived in a perfect swamp there. But why can’t the woman look after her own flour and tea? Why is she to worry you about everything in this fashion?’

‘Oh! I suppose she thinks, as I have no children, I cannot possibly have anything to do,’ I said, laughing; ‘for I heard her remark, with regard to Mrs Anderson, who is in the same plight as myself, that it must be quite a charity to give her any employment!’

‘Like her impudence,’ growled Dick—(I don’t think Bessie is a favourite with my husband; perhaps I talked too much about her beforehand),—‘I should let her know to the contrary if I were you, Dolly. I believe, with all her fuss and bustle, that you do twice her work in half the time.’

‘Ah! I have only _one_ baby to look after, you see, though he’s a big one,’ I said, as I gave his head a squeeze with my disengaged hand; ‘but goodness me, Dick, this letter is worse than the last even. Bessie seems really in low spirits now. She says that Mr Maclean’s business will take him away from home for a few nights next week, and she wants me to go over and spend them with her in—yes, she actually calls Poplar Farm—“this gloomy ramshackle old place.”’

‘It’s old enough,’ said Dick, ‘and all the better for it; but it’s not “ramshackle.” Better walls and roof were never built than those of Poplar Farm. It stands as steady as the gaol.’

‘But about my going to her, Dick—can you spare me?’

‘Can I spare you!’ repeated my husband in that tone of voice that, after ten years’ marriage, has still the power to make my heart beat faster. ‘Of course I can! I could spare you for good and all, if someone would only be obliging enough to take you off my hands; but there’s no such luck in store for me. Only mind the days don’t stretch themselves into weeks, sweetheart!’

‘Into weeks!’ I replied, indignantly. ‘Have I ever stayed weeks away from you yet, Dick? I’m not even sure that I shall go at all.’

‘Yes! you’d better go, Dolly; Bessie Maclean is selfish and egotistical, and somewhat of a fool; but I daresay she’s nervous at the idea of remaining in that isolated home by herself, particularly as it is all so strange to her. And you don’t know what fear is, old woman!’

‘I wish she could overhear the character you give her,’ I answered, laughingly. But Dick was right. I am _not_ a nervous woman, and if I had been, he would have cured me of it long before. Living in a gaol, and having, of my own free will, constant access to the prisoners, had effectually dispersed any ladylike unreasonable fears I may once have thought womanly and becoming, and made me ashamed of starting at shadows. So, having sent an affirmative answer to my friend’s appeal, I set out for Poplar Farm, when the time came, with as much confidence in my powers of protection as though I had been of the sterner sex.

Dick drove me over in the curricle.

It was a bright November morning: one of those days when the air is crisp and exhilarating without being in the least degree cold; a day on which one feels younger, and more hopeful and capable of good—on which one’s sorrows seem too paltry for consideration, and one’s happiness far more than one deserves. I experienced this sensation in the fullest sense, as I crept as close as I could to my husband’s side, and smuggled one hand beneath his arm.

‘Holloa!’ cried Dick; ‘why, what’s this? Repenting of your promise already, eh? Oh! you spoony woman, I’m ashamed of you!’

I _was_ repenting it, but I did not tell him so. It is good for people who love very much to part sometimes, if only to teach them how great a blessing they possess in each other’s affection.

As we drove up the long-neglected drive of Poplar Farm, I could not help thinking that Bessie was right in considering it gloomy. The sun had disappeared again behind an autumn cloud. The trees had shed most of their leaves, which lay in sodden heaps along the paths, and a chilly wind had commenced to blow. I drew my cloak closer against my shoulders, and told Dick what I thought.

‘Nonsense, Dolly!’ he replied. ‘The place is well enough; and when Maclean has had time to put it in order, will be one of the prettiest farms in the county. I only wish I had the money to buy such another. But naturally it does not look its best when the trees are bare.’

‘Stop!’ I cried, suddenly; ‘there’s the baby. Let me get down and kiss him. That must be the new nurse carrying him, Dick. But what a lugubrious looking young person she is!’

My husband had good-naturedly drawn up by this time, and I had scrambled down to meet my little godson, who was about three months old. But as soon as I had pulled aside the veil that covered his face, I started with surprise.

‘Oh! how he _has_ gone off!’ I exclaimed.

The baby, who had been so fat and dimpled and red-faced last time I saw him, was now drawn and white and thin. The change was apparent so that even Dick could see it from the box-seat.

‘Whew!’ he whistled; ‘why, what’s the matter with the little chap—is he ill?’

‘Oh no! he’s not ill. He is perfectly well. You don’t think he looks ill, madam?’ said the girl who was carrying him, anxiously.

‘I don’t think I ever saw a child so changed in my life,’ I answered, in my blunt fashion. ‘Are you the wet-nurse Mrs Maclean told me she had engaged for him?’

‘Yes, madam,’ she said, in a very low voice.

I raised my eyes, and examined her then for the first time thoroughly; and I could not help observing what a remarkable-looking girl she was. She had the very palest and clearest of complexions—so colourless that it looked like the finest white wax, and her skin was of the texture of satin. Her large, clear, grey eyes, which shone with a limpid light, like agates with water running over them, had a startled look, which might almost have been mistaken for fear, and her delicately cut mouth drooped in the most pathetic manner. To add to the mournfulness of her appearance, her hair was almost completely hidden beneath her cap, and her dress was the deepest widow’s mourning. I made a few indifferent remarks about the child, kissed it, and jumped up to my seat again. The nurse was not the person I felt to whom to speak on the subject of the baby’s appearance. She made a deep reverence as the carriage moved off, and I saw she was a very superior sort of young woman; but of what account was that, where little Dick’s health, and perhaps his life, was concerned?

‘Bessie’s a greater fool than I took her for,’ I exclaimed, indignantly, as we drove on towards the house.

‘What’s in the wind now?’ said Dick.

‘Fancy, choosing a wet-nurse for a baby all crape and bombazine and tears. Why, that girl looks as if she cried night and day. I knew Bessie had been weak enough to be persuaded by the doctor to give up nursing baby herself, but she might have exercised a little discretion in the choice of a substitute. The child is half the size he was last month.’

‘What a lot we know about babies!’ said Dick, in his chaffing way.

‘I should hope I know more than half the mothers I meet,’ I continued, with some warmth. ‘I should be ashamed to be as ignorant as Bessie herself, for instance, though she _has_ had six children,’ I added, with a little droop in my voice.

‘My own Dolly!’ said Dick, fondly; and when he says those words in that voice, I don’t care for anything else in all the wide, wide world. He wouldn’t stay—even to dismount from his box, for we knew Mr Maclean had already left the house, and he thought our chatter would get on better without him, added to which he had duties demanding him at home. So I gave him one long, long kiss, and let him go; and as soon as he was out of sight, turned into the door of Poplar Farm.

Bessie was in the dining-room, where the dinner was already spread, surrounded by her batch of self-willed unruly children. As she came forward to meet me, I saw that she looked tired and worn out, and that her dress was untidy and neglected.

‘It is so good of you to come, Dolly,’ was her greeting, ‘for I am so worried I don’t know what I should have done without you.’

‘I am very glad to be of use, Bessie; but what worries you—the baby?’

‘Dear me! no. It is something quite different. Why should baby worry me? He has his wet-nurse, and she takes him completely off my hands.’

‘He is so pulled down,’ I said unhesitatingly, for I took an interest in my little godson. ‘I met him just now in the drive, and hardly recognised the child. Are you satisfied his nurse does him justice?’

‘Oh, perfectly so. She is a most estimable young woman, so quiet and ladylike in her way of speaking. Did you notice her eyes? such a remarkable colour; and her hands are as white as yours or mine.’

‘But the baby does not appear to be thriving. He can’t inherit her eyes or her hands, you know, and if he could, I don’t see that they would be much use to him. What’s her name? Where did you find her?’

‘She’s a Mrs Graham; and she was recommended to me from the Lying-in Hospital at Chesterwick. I’m sorry you don’t think baby looks well. Perhaps the change has pulled him down a little, though I really can’t see it myself.’

I daresay she did not. Bessie is that sort of woman that never will see anything until it has actually occurred. If her children died, she would make as great a fuss over them—perhaps more—than mothers who have guarded theirs from their infancy upwards; yet she will let them eat improper food, and get damp feet, and remain out in the burning sun without any covering to their heads; and if you remonstrate with her, her invariable excuse is, that they have always done so before and got no harm. As if the fact of a wrong being permitted should make it a right; or because we have fallen from the top of a house once without injury, we may cast ourselves thence headlong each day without impunity.

I really never did think, when Bessie and I were girls together, that she would turn out such a ninny.

‘What _has_ worried you then, since it is not the baby?’ I demanded presently.

‘Hush! I can’t tell you before the children. It’s an awful business, and I wouldn’t have them hear of it for worlds. Will you lay your bonnet aside, and have dinner with us as you are? or I’m afraid it may get cold. Lily—Charley—Tommy, lay down these toys, and come to the table at once. Put Bessie up on her high chair; and somebody go and call Annie. Ah! Dolly, my dear, how well you have kept your figure! What would I not give to be as slim and neat as you are.’

And although, of course, I would not compare one advantage with the other, yet I must say that the pleasures of having a family would possess a great drawback to me, if I were compelled at the same time to become as rotund and untidy in appearance as poor Bessie is at present. And I believe the chief thing Tom Maclean fell in love with was her pretty rounded little figure. Alas! alas!

But I am keeping the early dinner waiting. As soon as it was despatched, with the usual accompaniments of cutting up the children’s meat, wiping their mouths, and preventing their throwing the tumblers at each other’s heads, Mrs Maclean rose and offered to show me to my bedroom. It was next to her own, and communicated with it by a door.

‘This dear old place!’ I exclaimed as I entered it; ‘you are making it very pretty, Bessie. Aren’t you glad that you have come into such a handsome property, instead of having been stuck down in a modern villa, with the plaster on the walls only half-dry?’

But Bessie did not appear to appreciate my congratulations.

‘Dolly,’ she said, as she sunk down into a chair, ‘I would change Poplar Farm for the poorest little villa that was ever built.’

‘My dear girl, what do you mean?’

‘_Mean!_ That the house is haunted, Dolly—’

I confess it; I could not help it: I burst into the loudest and rudest laugh imaginable.

Poplar Farm haunted! What an absurdly unreasonable idea! Why, the last tenants had only just moved out in time to let the Macleans come in, and the house had been freshly papered and painted from basement to attic. There was not a nook nor a corner for a ghost to hide in.

I could not help laughing; and what is worse, I could not stop laughing, until my friend was offended.

‘You may laugh as much as you like,’ she said at last; ‘but I have told you nothing but the truth. Do you mean to say that you consider such a thing impossible?’

‘No! I won’t go as far as that; but I think it is very uncommon, and very unlikely to occur to—to—to—’

Here I was obliged to halt, for the only words I could think of were, ‘to anyone so material as yourself;’ and I couldn’t quite say that. For though I do not deny the possibility of apparitions, I believe that the person who is capable of perceiving them must be composed of more mind than matter, and there is nothing spiritual nor æsthetic about poor Bessie.

‘What is the ghost like, and who has seen it?’ I demanded, as soon as I could command my countenance.

‘Several of the servants and myself,’ replied Bessie; ‘and Tom might have seen it, too, if he were not so lazy. But one night when the noises were close to our door, he refused to rouse himself even to listen to them, and told me to go—Well, dear, I really can’t repeat what he said; but husbands do not always use the politest language when out of temper, you know!’

‘Noises! Then the ghost has been heard as well as seen?’

‘Oh yes! and such mournful noises, too. Such weeping and wailing, enough to break one’s heart. The first time I saw it, Dolly, I thought I should have died of fright.’

‘Tell me all about it.’

‘I had been sitting up late one Saturday night mending the children’s socks for Sunday, and Tom had been in bed for a good two hours. Everybody was in bed but myself, and I thought, as I carried my single candle up the dark staircase, how silent and ghastly everything appeared. As I turned into the corridor, I heard a gasping sound like a stifled sob. At first I could hardly believe my ears; but when it was repeated, my heart seemed to stand still. I was hesitating whether to go back or forward, and trembling in every limb, when IT—this dreadful THING—crossed me. It sprung up, I don’t know from where, in the darkness, and just looked at me once and rushed away. I nearly sunk to the ground, as you may well imagine. I had only just time to get inside my own door, when I tumbled right across the bed, and Tom had to get up and pick up the candlestick, and help undress me; and really, by the way he went on about it, you’d have thought it was all my fault.’

‘What was IT like? that is the main thing, Bessie.’

‘My dear, you don’t suppose I looked at it more than I was absolutely obliged. I know IT was dressed all in white, with snow-white hair hanging over its face, and fearful staring eyes. It’s a perfect wonder to me I stand alive here now.’

‘And it has been seen since then?’

‘Oh, several times, and we hear IT every night as regularly as possible about two o’clock in the morning. The cook has seen it—so has the housemaid; and not a servant amongst them would fetch a glass of water from downstairs after ten o’clock, if we were all dying for want of it.’

‘A pleasant state of affairs,’ I ejaculated; ‘and will you take no steps to investigate the mystery, and dissolve the household fears?’

‘What steps could I take?’

‘Sit up for the apparition, and speak to it; and if it won’t answer, take hold of it and see if it is flesh and blood or air.’

‘My dear Dolly, I would rather die.’

‘Well, I hope you’ll wake me up when the sounds begin to-night,’ I answered, ‘for I am curious to hear them.’

But I didn’t tell Bessie that I would be the one to ‘bell the cat;’ for, though I have little fear, I have no foolhardiness; and if her ghost turned out to be a real one, I had no wish to interfere with it.

In the evening, as much with a view of pointing out the baby’s condition to Bessie as for any other reason, I asked her to accompany me to the nursery, and see him put to bed. I found that he slept in a room alone with his wet-nurse, who was engaged in bathing the little creature as we entered. Mrs Graham looked very pretty and delicate as she bent over the bath, attending to the child; but I observed that she never once smiled at nor played with him, as nurses usually do with infants during the process of washing. Little Dick was certainly very attenuated and languid, and even his mother seemed to observe it when pointed out to her. Mrs Graham listened to our conversation with rather an anxious expression on her countenance, and I thought by drawing her out we might gain some clue to the baby’s ill health.

‘Is your own child strong and vigorous?’ I asked her.

‘My own child is dead, madam,’ she replied.

‘It was your first, I presume? You appear very young.’

‘It was my first. I was twenty last birthday.’

She seemed unwilling to be more communicative, and I did not like to enter directly on the subject of her husband’s death. Poor child! she might have loved him as I did Dick. So, as Bessie had sauntered into the general nursery and left us alone together, I ventured to sound her on another matter, which I thought might be having a secret effect upon her.

‘Have you seen anything of this apparition the servants speak of, Mrs Graham?’

‘No, madam,’ she replied, quietly.

‘It is very foolish of people to be frightened of they really don’t know what; but no one seems to have been brave enough to try and find out the reason of the mysterious noises heard at night here. You have heard them, perhaps?’

‘No, madam,’ she said again, without further comment.

‘Would it alarm you to see or hear it?’ I had forced her now to say something in reply.

‘I think not,’ she answered, ‘I think if spirits can come back from the dead, they must do so only in sympathy with those they have left behind; and, if that is possible, and I thought this one came for me, I should only be too thankful to have a glimpse of its face, or to hear the sound of its voice. I think those people who have so much fear of spirits can never have known what it is to lose any one they would lay down their lives to follow wherever it might lead them.’

She spoke in a low, mournful cadence that touched my heart. Poor girl! she was thinking of her husband and her own desolate condition. I felt for and sympathised with her, and before I left the nursery I took her thin hand and pressed it. She looked surprised, but I had only to say, ‘I love my own husband as my life,’ to see the tears run into her eyes, and to know she understood me. Still she was by no means a proper person to perform the part of a mother towards little Dick, and I resolved before I left Poplar Farm to try and persuade Bessie to change her.

The rest of the day passed rather monotonously. I worked at one of Dick’s shirts, and wondered how I ever could have thought Bessie such a charming companion, whilst she alternatively indulged and scolded her very unpleasant young family. At last they were all despatched to bed, and as soon as decency would permit, I yawned and said I should like to follow their example. So we were all packed away by ten o’clock, my last act having been to pay a visit to Mrs Graham’s room, where I had left her fast asleep with my little godson tucked in snugly on her arm. Bessie lay awake for some time talking of the celebrated ghost, but I was too sleepy to be a good listener, and am afraid I dropped off in the midst of her recital. When I waked again, it was by dint of feeling her shake my arm.

‘Dolly! Dolly!’ she was exclaiming, in a low, hurried voice. ‘Listen! there is the sound, and close against the door.’

END OF VOL. I.

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