Chapter V: Part 5

'She be going after her young man down to the lane end,' cried the girl.

Orange's cheek burned. That was true--hatefully true. She was going to seek her lover, but only because he did not come to see her. After this incident she was unmolested. She met no one else on her long walk to Trecarrel.

Would she find the Captain up? She hoped so, she supposed so, for she knew that he sat up late; he had often told her as much. It was as she had conjectured and hoped. When she reached the house, she saw a light from his smoking-room, a comfortable room, where he kept his whips and guns; a room ornamented with stuffed foxes' heads and their tails, and with the antlers of red deer. A door from this little room opened on to the lawn. Orange went to the window, but the blind was down and she could not see in; but she heard Trecarrel within whistling an air; it was an operatic air he had recently heard in Exeter, and which had caught his fancy. How splendidly La Fontana had sung! What schooling her voice had gone through, and what quality was in it! How graceful she was, and what passionate action she showed. 'You never get that sort of a thing out of an Englishwoman,' he mused. 'Our countrywomen cannot act; they have no fire, no passion, they are dolls, and move mechanically. Their voices, moreover---- Good heavens! Who is that?'

He started up. The door opened, and Orange came in. He had been seated over his fire, with his cravat off, a bottle of claret and a glass on the table at his side; he had just finished a pipe.

'No fire, no passion in an English girl!'

There were both before him, flaming in Orange's eye, and heaving in her bosom.

'Bless my soul, Orange, what on earth has brought you here?'

'You, Harry, you!' She was out of breath, and choking with emotion. 'Oh, Harry, dear Harry, why have you not been to see me?'

'Come over to the fire. You must be cold.'

'I--I, cold!' she laughed bitterly. 'I am burning; feel my hand. I have run; but it is not that. The flame is here.' She touched her heart. 'It is eating its way, it is consuming me. Oh, Harry, why have you not been to see me? You do not know what I have suffered.'

'We have both suffered,' he answered: but there was not much token of pain in his blue eyes, nor tone in his voice. 'Come over here; I am sure you must be damp with the night air. This is most indiscreet of you, Orange; I hope you have come attended.'

'I am alone.'

'You ought not to have come. It is wrong--it is indelicate.' He was fitting on his cravat as he spoke. 'Good heavens, what would be said had you been seen?'

'No one has seen me; no one knows where I am.'

'This is madness,' he said. He twirled his moustache; he was greatly discomposed. 'I wish you had been more reasonable, Orange.' Then to himself, 'I wish I had remained in Exeter, or gone to bed.'

'I dare say it is madness and unreasonable,' she said; 'I am mad. Do you know, Harry, all that has happened? Do you know that my mother and I are beggars? We have nothing left to us.'

'My good Orange, I have been myself on the verge of that same condition all my life, and so can sympathise with you.'

'You have a house of your own, we have none. You have land that no man can take from you, and you can at least dig that and live on its produce. But my mother and I have nothing; no house, no land, no money. We eat the bread of charity, and how long is it to last? Harry, I ask you?'

He was silent, engaged on his cravat. It offended his delicacy to be seen and to converse with a lady without his cravat.

'You do not answer me, Harry; you are not going to desert me now I am down. If you had been poor and an outcast, would not I have taken you, though I were wealthy?'

'But there is the rub,' said the Captain, interrupting her. 'If I were rich I would share it with you and welcome, but I am not rich; I am miserably poor, hardly able to keep my head out of a debtor's prison.'

'Harry, I do not mind that. You are bound to me; you cannot desert me in my misery. No, I know you too well. You are too good, too noble, too true a gentleman. I cannot, I will not believe it. Take me as I am. We can but be poor together, and I will work as your slave. With love labour is light, and poverty is made rich.'

'That is rather a pretty sentiment, Orange, but it is impracticable.'

'It is not impracticable. Try me.'

'That is absurd. I cannot try you, and, if the experiment fails, dissolve the partnership.'

She was silent, and looked him full in the face. Then her feelings overcame her. She stretched out her arms to him. 'Harry,' she gasped, 'Harry, I love you!'

He did not put out his arms to encircle her, to take her to his heart; but he put his hand to his pipe and began to scrape out the ashes with a bit of stick--a toothpick that was on the mantelpiece.

'Be reasonable, Orange; it is impossible for us to marry now. There is this terrible scandal about Ophir barring it for one thing; there is my poverty for another. We must wait.'

'I knew it,' she said, relieved; 'I knew the delay was for a time only. But, Harry, in the meanwhile I have no home. Where am I to live? What roof is to cover me from the rain and the snow? Where am I to get food to put in my mouth, whence the clothes to cover me? Whilst you are waiting for Ophir to be forgotten, I am starving.'

'This calls for consideration,' he said, still cleaning his pipe; and now he blew through it, to assure himself that the passage was clear.

'Harry, you have an aunt at Penzance, take me to her. I will live with her a few years, till this trouble about Ophir is passed, and then you shall marry me from her house.'

'That is not possible, Orange. My aunt strongly disapproved of my engagement. She is a most bigoted Catholic, and could not endure the thought of my taking a Protestant to wife.'

'I will be a Catholic; I do not care.'

'But,' said he, coldly, 'that is not all. Our families are so wide apart in the social scale. My aunt is very proud of her race, and you know your stock is not--well, neither ancient nor gentle. You may change your creed, but not your blood. I think nothing of this. If I had considered it, I would not have sought to marry you, but my aunt--you see we are speaking of her, and you propose that I should take you to her--my aunt is very stiff in these matters. I cannot force you into her house. So you see this scheme is impracticable also.'

'Where am I to go?' asked Orange, desperately; 'I must live somewhere. You are my proper protector, to whom I fly. I ask you, find me, give me a home. See, Harry, I am poor now, but it may not always be so. The directors of Ophir have left us some thousands of pounds in Patagonian bonds.'

'Oh! I know them. They were left because worthless.'

'They are worthless now, but they may become valuable hereafter. Let us wait till then; I will be patient, and in time you will marry me.'

'Oh, certainly, when the Patagonians are at par.'

'But in the meantime, Harry, what is to become of me?'

'Really, I am at a loss to know. I am at my wits' end what to propose.'

Then her cheek and brow became crimson.

'Harry! I am sunk so low that I care not what the world says, and what becomes of me. I will stay here; you shall not send me away. I have no pride left. Let me be a poor serving maid, a kitchen-wench in the house, and work for you. If the world talks, let it--I defy it.'

Trecarrel sprang back. This was indeed madness. She must be cured.

'Orange!' he said, 'I am too honourable to listen to such words with composure. Go back whence you came. Here! I will accompany you. You must not be alone.'

'No, I came alone, and I can go alone. But--what is to become of me?'

'You think only of yourself, Orange; you are selfish. Poor Mirelle! how she must suffer also. What is to become of that sweet and fragile flower?'

Orange looked him full in the eyes. A light flickered and flashed in hers, a terrible light. She stood as a statue before him for a moment. Fierce thoughts, wild, dark, like smoke from the bottomless pit, rose, and rolled over and obscured her brain.

'Poor Mirelle! Sweet and fragile flower!' At that moment, with her, Orange, pleading before him, with her in an agony and in abasement before him, he could think of Mirelle, and throw Mirelle in her teeth.

Then she turned to the door. All hope was gone.

'Let me attend you home,' he said.

'I have no home,' she answered hoarsely.

'Let me go with you to where you are lodging.'

'I came alone, I will return alone,' she said, and left the room.

She hurried into the road. When there, however, she stood and waited. Would he come after her? She waited on; the light in his smoking-room disappeared, it reappeared at another window, and travelled upwards, then shone out of an upstair room. Captain Trecarrel was going to bed.

Then Orange ran back to Launceston.

As she passed the low public-house, she stumbled over something. It was the young woman, drunk, lying in the road. She reached the house of the Flamanks, and thrust open the drawing-room window and went in.

'Hah!' exclaimed Mrs. Flamank, standing there, with Mrs. Trampleasure trembling and sniffling behind her; 'this is fine goings on in my house. Out to one o'clock in the morning, cutting about, heaven knows where, and with whom. This is a Christian habitation. Out of my house you go to-morrow.'

'Betsy Delilah!' remonstrated Mr. Flamank from the door, 'the poor souls have no house to go to.'

'She,' exclaimed Mrs. Flamank, indicating Orange--'she don't want one. She likes the street at night, apparently.'

'Madam,' said Mirelle, stepping forward, and speaking with composure, 'give us but two days' shelter, and then we will trouble you no more, I undertake. I have a friend to whom I will appeal.'

Then she went upstairs, and wrote:--

'Mr. Herring!--Come to us. Help us!--MIRELLE.'

*CHAPTER XXXIII.*

*TRANSFORMATION.*

Grizzly Cobbledick and Joyce carried John Herring to the Giant's Table. Joyce had not the smallest intention of surrendering her charge to Cicely. She had feared lest the farmer should accompany the waggon, and insist on the injured man being conveyed to West Wyke House. Fortunately, the chance of making a bargain with the Squire had arrested him at Bridestowe, and the young lout who acted as driver was easily managed.

Grizzly consented to receive Herring into his den, not because he felt gratitude to him for having saved him from imprisonment, and for having cured Joyce of her injuries, but because he thought that 'backie' might be extracted from him.

Gratitude is not a savage virtue; but then, is gratitude to be found anywhere? It is a figment of the poet and moralist, like the unicorn and the mermaid. A simulation of this ideal virtue is assumed by those who are cultured, but the genuine plant grows on no human soil and under no known climate.

Grizzly bore Herring no ill-will, and he thought it possible that the tobacco which was lost to him through the insolvency of Tramplara might be made up to him by the indebtedness of Herring. He would see to that; he would hold Herring in captivity till as much 'backie' was produced as could be counted on the toes and fingers, with the head thrown in. If he died, he died. Speculations succeed or fail; there are blanks and prizes in the lottery, disappointments and luck in life.

'Cut off,' said Grizzly to his daughter, 'and go and wire a rabbit. The young maister, if he comes round, will want some'ut to eat, sure.'

'But what if he wakes up whilst I be gone?'

'Then he wakes--that be all.'

'You'll be good and kind to 'n, vaither,' entreated Joyce.

'Why not? He ain't done me no hurt,' answered Grizzly.

It took a little persuading and threatening on Grizzly's part before Joyce could be induced to relinquish her place. She would not have gone, but have sat on in unreasoning jealousy and fear of losing Herring, unless her father had insisted on her giving him proper food.

'What'll the likes o' he say to turnips, eh? He ain't one to eat num. The quality eat nort but meat. You may give a horse the best beef-steak, and you may set before a man the choicest hay, and neither will begin to bite. You must give mun what them likes, not what you think best. So wi' the maister; he be quality, and, when you offers 'n your turnip and cabbidge, that be there a biling over the turves, he'll turn his head away. It be all the same to he as giving 'n hay or a horse beef. You must give to ivery creeter its proper food.'

When Joyce was gone, old Cobbledick surveyed Herring carefully and examined his bones. No bones were broken. His head was suffering from concussion, not from fracture. The old fellow had wit enough to ascertain this. Then he proceeded to partly undress him. It was not the custom of the Cobbledick tribe to unclothe themselves when they retired to rest; but then they were hardly clothed when about by day. If Cobbledick now stripped Herring it was not in the interest of the patient, but in his own. Having removed a portion of the garments of the still unconscious man, he proceeded to vest himself in them. Inexperience made him put on the clothes clumsily, and neither in their traditional order nor in their proper manner. Still, the general effect was one of transformation. He tried on Herring's boots, but was unable to compress his great flat feet into them; so he flung them aside; but he laboriously removed the spurs, and buckled them on his own heels. The stockings he left on Herring's legs; he knew he would be unable to wear them. His own limbs, from the knees downwards, were swathed in hay-bands. He assumed the waistcoat, but not the shirt, and was careful to set the watch in the pocket--the wrong pocket, of course--and let the seals dangle from the fob. The waistcoat was open, and his brown, dirty skin showed dark against the nankin. The coat was rather tight, high-collared, with a roll; Cobbledick was mightily pleased with it. He jumped and swung the tails from side to side, and ran after them, round and round, like a kitten pursuing its own tail. He sallied forth to a pond and contemplated himself in it. The effect was not perfect. He went back and deprived Herring of his cravat, which till now he had left about his neck. This he wrapped about his own throat, making it very stiff, and holding his chin high in the air. Herring's hat was there; it had not been left in the road; Farmer Facey had picked it up and tossed it into the waggon as it departed. Cobbledick put the beaver on, somewhat on one side, as he had seen Sampson Tramplara cock his hat when tipsy; and he took up the hunting-whip Joyce had brought with her, and, so accoutred, he lounged in the door of his den. But Grizzly was not satisfied with himself. His hay-swathings were not in character. He proceeded to divest himself of these. Then his bare legs looked incongruous with the remainder of his equipment. Now Herring had worn cloth gaiters over his stockings. Grizzly had unbuttoned these with much difficulty. Indeed, it can hardly be said that he had unbuttoned them; he had rather torn them off, sending the buttons flying. To button them on his own calves was a feat beyond his powers. His fingers were incapable of performing such work as passing a button through a hole. He tried, and abandoned the attempt in despair.

He flung his own rags over Herring, and went forth to examine himself again in the pool. The brown shins and calves did not please him. He sat down and thought.

Then he remembered that the masons engaged at Ophir had been mixing lime for whitewashing. What if he stole down there and whitewashed his legs! That would complete his transformation. The old man was as conceited as a young buck newly accoutred by a fashionable tailor.

So Cobbledick started for the mine, walking with difficulty. The constraint of the garments encasing his nether limbs was to him as great as that caused by Saul's armour to David. David, finding he could not go in this, put it off him. Grizzly was less wise; he waddled on in suffering and constraint, and was caught and thrown occasionally by the spurs that dangled at his bare heels. The gorse scratched his shins, usually protected by hay-bands; but he heeded not these inconveniences. With his head in the air, one arm akimbo, and the hand holding the riding-whip resting on his hip, he strutted on, wishing, and yet fearing to be seen--desirous of admiration, and yet shy of the reception he might meet with from those accustomed to see him half-naked.

He mounted a flat slab of granite, and, taking off his hat, bowed and waved it, as he had seen old Tramplara salute distinguished and wealthy visitors to Ophir. Imitation is strong in the savage and in the idiot. By the help of this faculty the social world gets on without jars, for there are savages and idiots in all ranks of life, and the deeper their savagery and their idiocy the more pronounced is the development of their imitative powers. They copy the manners of those around them, simulate their breeding and virtues, and so disguise their nature and pass muster. Social education consists in the training of neophytes what to copy and what to disregard in the bearing and manners of those with whom they associate. But such as are left without instructors pick up and imitate all that they ought to avoid, and overlook what they should copy. Thus it is that servant maids reproduce in themselves the pretences and follies of their mistresses, and not their thrift and good sense; and the butler apes his master's vices and eschews his virtues.

Left alone in the den, lying on the fern, with the smoke of the peat fire and the reek of stewing vegetables filling it, Herring opened his eyes and looked about him.

It was some time before he recognised where he was, and then he was unable to account for his being there. The evening was stealing on, the sun was setting; there was a glow of golden light outside the door, and a streak of yellow glory came from a notch in the stone at the back of the table, unfilled with moss. Herring's head was painful, and all his limbs ached. He could scarce move his arms; they were sprained and bruised. He tried to stand up, but the effort gave him torture, and he was forced to lie down again. He was, however, satisfied that he was sound in limb, though sprained and bruised. He could close his hands and move his feet. Then he thought of the events that had recently taken place. He could follow the thread to one point--after that it was broken off. He had borrowed a horse at Bridestowe, he had ridden hard in pursuit of Sampson Tramplara--and then ensued darkness and a blank.

Had Sampson shot him? He tore open his shirt and felt; there was no wound. He felt his head; it was not bandaged.

How came he in the den of the Cobbledicks? As he was puzzling over this question, the entrance was darkened, and Joyce entered, carrying a fowl by the legs. The moment she saw that he was conscious, she uttered a cry of joy, and was at his side, on her knees, grasping his hands, with tears and flashes of delight in her eyes.

'Oh, maister! the dear maister! you be alive and not going to sleep away dead! You can see who be here--your own poor Joyce. Right glad I be to see the life in your eyes and the blood in your cheeks again. Oh, glory rallaluley! I be joyful! I could sing my heart up over my lips, and away through this great covering stone.'

'Joyce!' said Herring, 'I do not understand. What is the meaning of this? How came I here?'

'Sure, my maister, it were I as brought you here. The young Cap'n Sampson Tramplara would ha' killed'y, but I fought 'n for'y, and I were too much for 'n. You mended my arms and made them strong, and they were strong enough to keep 'n off from killing of you. He'd ha' done it. He had that in his hand would ha' scatted your head all to smash, and he were about to do it, but I were too strong for he, thanks be to you for mending of me up. Glory rallaluley!'

'But how came I here, Joyce?'

'Sure enough, because I brought'y in a waggon as grand as a king. Sure,' she said, laughing and crying in one breath, 'I never went on nothing but my own bare feet afore, and but for the grandness, I'd rather walk any day. But I could not ha' carried you thus far. That were why I were forced to hire a waggon. Not but as though I wouldn't ha' done it. I'd ha' carried you the world over in my airms, if I could, and never let you drop till I died. But--Loramussy! what have become of your clothes? By the blue blazes! this be vaither's doing.'

'Joyce, how did this take place? I cannot understand.'

'The horse were throwed and you with him. Cap'n Sampson had put a gate across the road; and you rode quite innocent like right on to it. After you were down, he came out from behind the hedge, and would ha' killed you, but your own poor Joyce were there, and her fought 'n, and her tore at 'n. He might ha' cut her flesh off her bones, and scat her bones, but her'd not hev let 'n hurt you no more.'

Then she seized his hands in a paroxysm of joy and covered them with kisses, and pressed them to her beating heart. 'It were I, your own Joyce, as saved'y.'

See what self-respect will do--how it lifts out of the slough! Once Joyce had licked his hand like a dog. Now she had learned her own worth, she had battled for and saved his dear life; and her pride had heaved her from the low estate of bestiality to the level of a human being. She kissed his hand, she no longer licked it. That marked a distinct stride in civilisation.

'But,' she added, as she knelt over him, still holding his hand to her bosom, and looked out of her wet and burning eyes into his face, 'it were none for Joyce, nor for Miss Cicely, I did all this--it were for you and the Whiteface.'

Joyce loved him; her love for him filled her whole dim soul with light. She was perfectly humble; she knew she was a poor savage, and as widely removed from him on one side as she was from the fox or badger on the other. There was no self-seeking in her love. It was in this simple, pure, unselfish devotion that the human soul broke into flame and transformed Joyce. She looked up to Herring as she might to a star; she had no thought of attaining to either. It was enough for her to look up and be led by the light each shed on her way.

Her father was also transformed externally, but remained the same low brute at heart. There was no outer change in the girl, the same foul rags, only more ragged than before, the same dishevelled wretchedness of aspect; but within, all was different. God spake, and there was light.

Herring looked up at her, wondering, but still much confused; his head could not endure much thought. She was swaying herself from side to side, still holding his hand between hers in her bosom; and the tears ran down her tanned cheeks and fell over him--a soft and soothing rain, a rain bearing balm and blessing. She had raised her eyes, and her lips moved.

'What are you saying, Joyce?' he asked, thinking she was speaking to him, but that he could not hear.

'I were saying nort to you,' she said; 'I do not know hardly what I were saying, but my heart were that nigh to bursting wi' joy, that I felt I must speak--but not to you--sure I didn't know to whom I were speaking and saying that I were so happy as I never was afore and never will be again. And I tried to say glory rallaluley turned backsy-foremost but the words wouldn't out, and I just cried for gladness, and looked up--that were all.'

'What is that noise?' asked Herring.

'What?' she asked, dropping his hand and listening.

There were shouts and cries approaching. Then the crash of a stone against the supporters of the table. Next moment in dashed old Grizzly, without the hat, wild with alarm, and threw himself on the ground, where he tore off his coat and neckcloth, waistcoat and breeches, and, screaming with rage and terror, threw each article, as it came off, in the faces of the men that peered in at the entrance.

'Take mun! take mun! I will none of 'em! I will never have none o' the sort again.'

His legs were torn and bleeding. One was smeared with white to the knee, the other was of its natural tan.

Some of the miners had seen Cobbledick engaged in adorning his shins with whitewash, dressed out in his borrowed garb, and had set upon him with jeers. He had fled and been pursued.

'I'll hev none of it never more,' he cried, and swore horribly. 'Give me my rags again.'

That was the end of the transformation of Grizzly. But the transformation of Joyce, which was from within, was more enduring.

*CHAPTER XXXIV.*

*HERRING'S STOCKINGS.*

Joyce was unable to retain Herring. Those who had pursued her father saw him lying in the old cromlech, and the secret was out. Moreover, she herself began to see that it was not possible for her to keep him in the den. Her father's behaviour, when left in charge of the patient, had shown her how utterly untrustworthy he was, and Joyce could not always be there.

Ophir had exerted a deteriorating effect on Grizzly. He had become idle; he had learned to beg; he had acquired a taste for rum. He expected Joyce to do everything for him, that he might lounge away his time about the mine, repeating his parrot story to the visitors, putting the dust into the water, and watching them find it.

Old Tramplara and young Sampson had given him money, and the workmen, supposed all to be sworn abstainers, had indulged him from their bottles of cold alcoholic tea. Like a savage brought suddenly into association with civilised man, he learned their vices, and unlearned none of his own brutality.

When it was known at West Wyke that John Herring was lying ill under the Giant's Table, Mr. Battishill and Cicely sent to have him removed to their house, and poor Joyce offered only a faint, though sullen, resistance. She knew she could not keep him, but she was reluctant to lose him. She knew that it was good for him to go, and she did violence to her own heart in suffering him to be carried away. She followed him to the doorway of West Wyke, holding his hand, and without taking her eyes off him.

'Come, Joyce,' said Cicely, 'you have been so good and devoted hitherto, that you had best remain as nurse. Come in and attend to Mr. Herring till he is well.'

But Joyce shook her head.

'I'll not go under no hellens [slates], or I should smother,' she said. 'Where be you a-going to take 'n to?'

'We shall put him in that room,' answered Cicely, indicating the window.

'There'll be a light there of nights, I reckon. I shall see 'n. And of day, when vaither don't want nort a-doing, I'll just hop over and sit down outside, in thicky corner o' the garden wall.' Then Joyce grasped Herring's hand in both hers, and the tears filled her eyes. 'It were I, your poor Joyce, as saved you. You'll not forget that, will'y now?'

Then she turned away, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Cicely looked after her. Joyce did not turn back; she walked on with her peculiar free stride, her head down, and her arm across her face.

Herring had been jarred and contused by his fall, and he suffered greatly for a few days. Every movement caused pain. The doctor visited him, and insisted on quiet, and that his head should be kept cool and his mind unoccupied.

The news of Mr. Trampleasure's death and of Sampson's evasion were not communicated to him till it was seen that he troubled his mind about the result of the exposure of Ophir. Nothing could be done, at least by him, in the matter.

Every day Joyce came and sat in a nook of the garden against the wall, looking up at the window. Her hands were unoccupied; she could neither knit nor sew. She platted her fingers about one knee and remained in the corner as still as though carved out of stone, almost as rugged as though cut out of granite. Herring's bed was near the window, and he went to the casement, and leaning on the sill looked forth and spoke to her. Then her eyes, in which a strange wistfulness had risen up, lighted, and she smiled. She had brought him something, a little bunch of late wild flowers, some coral lichen daintily folded in green moss, a cluster of blackberries, old and inedible, but the sole cluster she could find. These little gifts she would intrust to no one to convey to Herring. No other hand should touch them and divert from him the something which went out from her with them. When he came to the window and looked out, she threw them up at him with so sure an aim that the bunch of borage and crane's-bill, the sprig of heather, or the blackberries, always reached his open hand.

This devotion of Joyce was embarrassing to Herring. As he lay in his bed he thought about her, whether something could not be done to bring her out of her rude life. He spoke his thoughts to Cicely, and she promised co-operation.

Next day, Cicely took a chair into the garden, and seated herself beside Joyce. The poor girl did not seem pleased with the visit, she had rather be alone.

'I do not think you will see Mr. Herring to-day, Joyce. His head is worse, and he will not be able to rise and speak to you from the window.'

'Why don't he get well faster?' asked Joyce. 'He'd ha' been right by this time wi' me.'

'Well, certainly, you treated him very well. He tells me you gave him capital boiled chicken. How did you manage to get that?'

'I took her,' answered Joyce.

'You stole it!' exclaimed Cicely. 'From whom?'

'From you. I know'd the young maister must have 'n, and so I took 'n. If he'd hev chanced to want milk, I'd ha' milked anybody's cow for 'n. If he'd ha' wanted your head, I'd ha' cut 'n off for him--my own likewise, for that matter. Would you?'

'I do not think I would, Joyce.'

'Then he ought to hev been with us out to the Giant's Table, not here.'

'You profess great readiness to do anything for him, Joyce. He was speaking to me about you yesterday, and wishing I could teach you something.'

'I don't want no teaching of nort,' said Joyce, sullenly.

'But would you not like to learn to knit?'

'No,' answered Joyce, 'I don't want to larn nort. What do'y knit with them long sticking pins?'

'Stockings, Joyce.'

'Vaither don't wear none; I don't, neither. Them's no good to us.'

Then the upper casement opened and Herring leaned out.

'What, Joyce!' he called; 'is Miss Cicely teaching you to knit? That is right. You are going to knit my stockings for me in future. I promise you I will wear none but those of your knitting.'

'Give me the pins,' said Joyce, vehemently. 'I'll larn.'

'Go back, Mr. John,' said Cicely; 'you know you are forbidden to rise to-day. Go back, or you will be worse to-morrow.'

'Is the maister not getting better?' asked Joyce, anxiously.

'He is; but his recovery is slow. His head has been injured, and we must take care that there be no relapse. We can pray to God for him, Joyce.'

The girl looked round full in her face inquiringly.

'Will that make 'n well?'

'I trust so.'

'Better than the doctor's medicine?'

'It helps the doctor to cure him.'

'I know nothing about it,' said Joyce. 'Did the maister pray for me when I were scat?'

Cicely could not take on herself to answer.

'I be sure he did,' said Joyce, confidently. 'Why did I ax you about it? If that would hev made me well, he'd a done it. You don't know the maister as I do.'

'Do you know about God?' asked Cicely.

'See there, now!' exclaimed Joyce, with animation, 'that be 'zackly what the maister once axed of I; and I sed, Sure I do, I see 'n every day when it bain't raining and there be no clouds. I reckon I thought he meant the sun. But I know better now, and I'll tell'y how I comed to know. Thicky night as the maister were thrown down and hurted by Cap'n Sampson, I thought he were sure to die in my airms. And I felt then that I must say something and ax some one for help--some one as wouldn't want to take 'n away from me. It weren't the sun as I spoke to, for the sun had gone down. I don't know 'zackly what and where he was I called to, but I knowed very well he were up where the sun be by daytime, but he as I mean were there o' night time ekally well. Then, after that, when the young maister were able to open his eyes and speak, I were that lifted up with gladness that my heart were nigh to starting, and I could do nort but cry tears, and tell he as I mean--but I don't know a mite who he be--how glad I were. I know very well he weren't the sun, for, you sees, the sun were then a-sinking, and I never gave 'n a thought for a minute to look at 'n. I looked right up, up, up; and there were over me the great covering table stone, and I seemed to go right through thicky and see above the clouds as well, and the stars, and I'm blessed if I know where to. I be no skollard I can say nort but glory rallaluley and kinkum-kum.'

'Kinkum-kum!' repeated Cicely, with a puzzled look.

'Sure--what else? I reckon he begins with Our Vaither, and he goes on to kinkum-kum; but I know nort more nor that. I ha' heard the Methody vellers a say it at their meetings on the moor.'

Cicely laughed; she could not help it--she was tickled.

'You have made a comical muddle of it,' she said, and turned her head to conceal her amusement.

'I don't know, and I don't care,' said Joyce, doggedly. 'He heard it, up there, when I said it, that I knows, sure-ly; and he didn't laugh, that I knows also.'

'Shall I teach you what it really is?'

'No,' said Joyce, resentfully; 'you laugh. If it be good for me, I'll ax the young maister to larn me when he be well. I sed them same words to he once--what make you giggle--and he didn't laugh; he didn't even smile, but I saw that in his eyes was more like tears. However, the words be good as they be, and I sez them scores and scores of times by day and by night, thinking of him as is sick, and he up there;' she pointed with her finger--not to the window, but far, far above it. 'He as I knows nort about, don't laugh, but listens, just as the maister listened when I said them to he at first; and he takes off his hat, as did the maister.'

'I wish I could persuade you to come indoors, Joyce. It is cold out here, the wind blows keenly over the garden wall, and I cannot remain here.'

'I bain't cold,' said Joyce; 'you can go in, I don't want'y here. I'll bide here alone a bit. But I'll larn the knitting and make the maister his stockings. I will, sure. He sed he'd never wear none but what I made, and what he sez he sticks to.'

A few days later Herring came down. He was now much better, though still stiff and bruised. His mind was perfectly clear, and he was impatient of his confinement.

'Mr. Battishill,' said he, 'now is our opportunity; Ophir is done, and Upaver begins. I will make a bid for the plant of Ophir, and remove it to the silver lead. I will rent Upaver of you, and mine there on my own account.'

'Very well,' answered Mr. Battishill, 'I can say with the shepherd in the "Winter's Tale," "Now, bless thyself, I meet with things dying, thou with things new-born." I was set on Ophir; you never doubted in Upaver.'

'You forget, sir, you were the finder of the silver lead.'

'Ah, yes; but I was drawn aside by the glitter of the gold of Ophir. I am sorry for Ophir, too. It was a dream of splendour. But again, with Paulina, "To the noble heart, what's gone and what's past help, should be past grief."'

'You have been at your Shakespeare, sir, whilst I have been upstairs.'

'To whom else should I go, John? "For I do love that man," said rare Ben Jonson of him; and who that has mind and heart does not say the same. Shakespeare is the common and personal friend of humanity. By the way, John, there are some letters for you. We would not let you have them before now, as, no doubt, they are on business--they come from Launceston.'

Herring looked at them. Their purport is already known. They were from the directors of Ophir.

'If Miss Cicely will write for me a letter about the machinery at Ophir, I will sign it,' he said; 'we had better secure it at once. I knew that Ophir would fail, and that was the reason why I did not hurry to get machinery for the silver lead. Now we shall secure the entire plant under half-price.'

'Oh, John, how far further ahead you see than do I! But you are calculating on working the mine yourself. How can you combine a mineralogical captaincy with military duties?'

'I have sold out,' said Herring, slightly colouring.

'Sold out, my boy! sold out after having been in the army only a few years! That is a very rash and inconsiderate proceeding.'

'I could hardly help myself,' he answered. 'I got into trouble. When the accident to Mr. Strange and his daughter took place I was on my way to Exeter to rejoin my regiment. I had been summoned back. I could not desert the Countess Mirelle, with her father dead and without a protector; and so I wrote to my Colonel for a short extension of leave. He refused it; but addressed his reply to Welltown, my little place in Cornwall, to which he had written before. At Welltown my presence here was unknown, and the letter was forwarded to Exeter, and it lay at my quarters till I went there, which, as you know, was not for some time. When I got to Exeter at last, I found that my neglect had got me into a serious scrape. Not only so, but the regiment was at Portsmouth, under immediate orders to sail for Honduras. I had difficulty in exchanging. Moreover, I felt that I must be here, to superintend the working of the silver lead mine; so I sold out.'

'John,' exclaimed Mr. Battishill, 'it is all very fine your pretending that interest in the icy Countess and enthusiasm over a mine detained you. Nothing of the sort. You found us in trouble and unable to help ourselves, and so you sacrificed your own prospects for the sake of pulling us through.' He pressed the young man's hand. 'I owe you a debt I can never repay.'

Mr. Battishill did not know all. He knew nothing of Mirelle's diamonds consigned to Herring's trust. He entertained no suspicion of the interest Herring felt in that cold and haughty girl. He little dreamed that Herring had taken on himself the double office of guardian angel to Mirelle as well as to the house of Battishill. He did not suppose that even care for that poor savage, Joyce, had mingled with the other motives in deciding the young man on abandoning his military career.

When Herring came out of doors for the first time, he found Joyce in the garden awaiting him. She was crying and laughing for joy.

'Maister,' she said, 'you will keep your word about them stockings.'

'Certainly,' he replied with a smile. 'I give you three months in which to learn to knit, and after that I will wear no stockings but those of your knitting.'

'Good-bye,' she said abruptly.

'Whither are you going?'

'To larn to knit,' she answered.

*CHAPTER XXXV.*

*BEGGARY.*

Hope is hard to kill. One last desperate effort Orange made to recover the Captain. That same night, whilst Mirelle was writing to John Herring, Orange wrote to Trecarrel, but her letter was not as brief as that of Mirelle.

'Harry,--Now the last shelter is refused us. We must leave this house the day after to-morrow. That is, the day when the sale at Dolbeare takes place. We cannot go thither, we cannot stay here. We have none to look to for advice but you. You must give it us; you are bound to assist us. Remember, had the disclosure and death of my father taken place one hour later, everything would have been changed, and I should have been your wife; then I would have opened Trecarrel to my poor mother. You cannot take advantage of an accident which intervened to break off our marriage. I do not ask you now to renew that contract; I ask you only to come to the aid of a widow and an orphan, and to help them to find shelter for their heads.'

She sent this note to Trecarrel by a boy next morning. He brought answer that the reply would arrive later. Then Orange went out. She was not sanguine of success with the Captain, for she had failed in a personal interview, and it is easier to refuse by letter than by word of mouth. Still, some sort of hope fluttered in her heart. She could not believe that the Captain would be so mean as wholly to desert them, and deny them his advice. She had not asked in her letter for more than that. Perhaps she had been too exacting when she forced her presence upon him last night.

She went to visit her friend Miss Bowdler. If the Captain had failed her, Miss Bowdler would not. Miss Bowdler was a well-to-do young lady, who lived with her 'Pa' in a large, handsome, red-brick house of Queen Anne's period, a house rich within with plaster-work of exquisite design and wood-carving by Grinling Gibbons. The house was one of many rooms, and it was solely tenanted by the young lady with the red eyelashes and her 'Pa.' They were rich, but were not received into county society; a source of vexation to Miss Bowdler, though her 'Pa' was indifferent so long as his creature comforts were attended to. Surely Miss Bowdler would give her friends shelter for a few days. Orange was not aware that Miss Bowdler had reckoned on using her (Orange) when Mrs. Trecarrel as her door into society of a superior class; and that now the marriage was broken off and this door was shut, the disappointment was bitter.

Orange rang the bell, and the summons was answered by the footman, working himself into his coat, with unbuttoned waistcoat. He looked at Miss Trampleasure superciliously, and proceeded leisurely to button his waistcoat.

'Is Miss Bowdler at home?'

'I don't know.' Then, with a jerk, he brought a red hand through the sleeve.

'I asked if your mistress were in,' said Orange, with indignation.

'I ain't deaf--I heard,' replied the footman. 'I don't think she is what is called "At Home."'

'She is to be seen?'

'I can't take on myself to say that. You can stop in the 'all, and I'll go and inquire.'

Slowly, still buttoning himself, the serving man stalked away.

Orange's cheek flamed, and the tears mounted. This man had been all obsequiousness before the crash.

Suddenly a loud voice in her ear startled her.

'You're a beggar, you're a beggar! Oh, shock-ing, shock-ing! Not a penny. Cluck, cluck, cluck!'

Orange recovered herself at once. Near the door on a perch sat a white cockatoo with pink feathers on her face, and cold, hard, unsympathetic eyes, staring at her.

'Polly,' said Orange, bitterly, 'what you say is too true.'

'Oh, shock-ing! Does your mother know you are out? What o'clock, you beggar? Oh, oh! Notapen-ny! Hot cockles! Cluck, cluck!'

'Polly, Polly, don't make such a noise! Pa!--oh!'

A door opened, and a red-haired head appeared. It was that of Miss Bowdler. The moment she saw Orange she started back. The footman had gone to the greenhouse in quest of her.

'Oh, Sophy! dear Sophy!' exclaimed Orange, springing forward.

Miss Bowdler recoiled from the outstretched hands.

'Good gracious, Miss Trampleasure, what a time of day for a call! My dear Pa does not like to be interrupted at this time; I read to him his newspaper of a morning. You will not, I know, detain me. Yes, Pa! coming, Pa! coming in an instant! There have been disturbances in the North among the cotton-spinners. Pa is in a fever to hear the particulars.'

'Hot cockles!' said the parrot, sentimentally, putting her head on one side and winking.

'Oh, Sophie, do listen to me. I want so much to see you. I have a favour I wish to ask you.'

'Pa, Pa! I'm coming.'

'Tol-de-rol-de-rol!' said the parrot. Then, swinging herself round on her perch, she went into convulsions of laughter.

'I pray you excuse me,' said Miss Bowdler; 'I told John Thomas expressly to say I was not at home in the morning, because Pa is so particular.'

'Do you hear?' asked the footman, who had appeared on the scene, now in full condition, every button in its place. 'Miss Bowdler is NOT AT 'OME.' Then he opened the door pompously. The red-haired lady took the opportunity to dart back into her room.

'You're a beggar!' shouted the cockatoo, with a look of devilry in her eye; 'you're a beggar! Not a pen-ny! Shock-ing, shock-ing! Oh, oh!' and then screamed and ran round and round her perch, laughing.

The door shut with a slam behind Orange. She set her teeth and stamped her foot.

'Would that I were Mrs. Trecarrel for one day only,' she said, 'that I might insult this wretched girl before county people.'

Her mother had a friend in the town, a very intimate confidante, a stout old lady, Mrs. Trelake, widow of a mayor of Launceston, a brewer. Mrs. Trampleasure had insisted on her daughter going to this old lady, and asking her to receive them for a week. Orange went thither, with her heart on fire from the humiliations she had undergone at Miss Bowdler's house. Orange was received at once with cordiality by Mrs. Trelake. She was a lady of moderate stature, with an immense throat. The throat was not a column supporting the head, but the face was sculptured out of the column. There was something good-natured in the face. Possibly she may have been good-looking when young; but it was now impossible, on seeing her, to observe anything but the solid trunk of throat. The old lady was stout, but neither her stoutness nor her throat incommoded her; she moved with nimbleness. She was, moreover, robust in health. Mrs. Trelake was a woman destitute of vanity. She had a neat hand, and was ignorant of it. She was aware that her neck was ugly, but she took no pains to hide it. She was one of those persons who make no effort to please, and are themselves easily pleased. She liked every one with whom she was brought in contact, but she loved nobody. She was the same genial person with every one, rich and poor, with her servants and with her guests. All she asked of her acquaintances was that they should amuse her, and of her servants that they should give her no trouble. Her sympathy was superficial. If an acquaintance spoke to her of trouble or good fortune, of embarrassment or great expectations, she entered into the situation from the outside, and without the smallest internal appreciation. If she cried with a companion, it was not because her friend had occasion for tears, but because her friend was in tears. If she laughed, it was not at a joke which she made no effort to understand, but because the joker laughed.

If you who knew her so well had told her your wife was dead with inexpressive voice, she would have received the information with indifference; if you had told her the same news with broken utterance, she would have sobbed; if you had told her the same fact with a smile on your lips, she would have sniggered. And your wife, remember, was her intimate friend.

People of this description are more common than is generally supposed. We have occupied some time over the portrait of Mrs. Trelake, not because she acts a prominent part in this story, but because we desire to inform our readers what to expect from the Mrs. Trelakes of their acquaintance when they appeal to them for help in their troubles.

Mrs. Trelake received Orange with warmth and pity. She saw that the girl was in trouble. The heart of Orange was full of her reception at Miss Bowdler's, and she recounted it to the old lady. Mrs. Trelake was shocked: she held up her hands, she blessed her stars, she vowed she could never look on Miss Bowdler again with regard; she undertook to cut her in the streets. (Mrs. Trelake dined with Miss Bowdler the same evening, and, when Miss Sophy told her version of the story, Mrs. Trelake was indignant over the dinner table at the audacity of Orange in presuming to thrust herself upon the Bowdlerian privacy.)

'To-morrow is the sale at Dolbeare,' said Orange.

'The sale, my dear! How dreadful!' Mrs. Trelake looked round the room at her pretty china and her case of stuffed hummingbirds. 'I could not bear to part with my things. Every article sold, I suppose. Will those pretty china jars go, with the dragons on them? I wonder whether I could get them cheap?'

'Even to the beds and chairs. The house still belongs to us. That is, we have the lease, but we shall have to let it, so as to pay the rent.'

'Not able to let the house nor pay the rent! Oh, my dear, how dreadful!'

'I said that we should have to let it.'

'I understood perfectly, my sweet child.'

'We cannot go into the house stripped of everything. We cannot stay longer at Mr. Flamank's. It was very good of him to take us in, but we are unable to trespass further on his kindness.'

'Certainly, my poor child, it would not do.'

'Then--to-morrow, whither are we to go?'