Chapter X: Part 10

The spring tides came, and with them seawater oozing in at the rotted joints of the vessel. Mrs. De Witt was well aware of the presence of bilgewater in the bottom. Bilgewater has the faculty of insisting on cognisance being taken of its presence. Whenever she returned to the _Pandora_, the odour affected her with horror, for it assured her that her days of independence were numbered. But all at once a new light sprang up in the old lady's mind, she saw a middle course open to her; a way of maintaining a partial independence, on a certainty of subsistence.

She had not returned the call made her by her nephew Elijah Rebow. Half a year had elapsed, but that was no matter. Etiquette of high life does not rule the grades to which the Rebows and De Witts belonged. Why should not she keep house for her nephew? He was well off, and he was little at home; his house was large, she would have free scope in it for carrying on her own independent mode of life, and her keep would cost her nothing. That house had been her home. In it she had been born and nurtured. She had only left it to be incumbered with a husband and a son. Now she was free from these burdens, what more reasonable than that she should return? It was the natural asylum to which she must flee in her necessity.

It was true indeed that Rebow had taken in Mrs. Sharland and Glory, but what ties attached them to him equal to hers of flesh and blood. Was she not his aunt?

Now that Mrs. De Witt saw that it was clearly in her interest to disestablish the Sharlands and install herself in their place, she saw also, with equal clearness, that morality and religion impelled her to take this course. What was Elijah's connection with Glory? Was it not a public scandal, the talk of the neighbourhood? As aunt of Rebow was she not in duty bound to interfere, to act a John the Baptist in that Herod's court, and condemn the intimacy as improper?

Mrs. De Witt pulled herself up, morally as well as physically, and in habit also. That is, she was sitting on her military coat tails, and with a gathering sense of her apostleship of purity she shook them out, she drew in at the same time the strings of her apron and of her cap, tightened and lifted her bustle, so that the red military tails cocked in an audacious and defiant--if not in an apostolic and missionary manner. She ran her fingers through the flutings of her frills, to make them stand out and form a halo round her face, like the corolla of white round the golden centre of the daisy. Then she drank off a noggin of gin to give herself courage, and away she started, up the companion, over the deck, and down the ladder, to row to Red Hall with her purpose hot in her heart.

After the disappearance of the madman, Mehalah had returned to the house and to her room. She said nothing next day of what she had seen. Elijah and his men had searched the marshes and found no trace of the man save the broken chain. That Rebow took back, and hung over his chimney-piece. He enquired in Salcott and Virley, but no one there had seen anything of the unfortunate creature. It was obvious that he had not gone inland. He had run outward, and when it was found that the punt was gone, the conclusion arrived at was that the madman had left the marshes in it.

Elijah rowed to Mersea, and made enquiries without eliciting any information. He went next to Bradwell on the south coast of the great Black water estuary, there his punt had been found, washed ashore; but no traces of the man were to be discovered. That he was drowned admitted of no doubt. Rebow satisfied himself that this was the case, and was content to be thus rid of an encumbrance. Mehalah's knowledge of the matter was unsuspected, and she was therefore not questioned. She did not feel any necessity for her to mention what she had seen. It could be of no possible advantage to anybody.

Her life became monotonous, but the monotone was one of gloom. She had lost every interest; she attended to her mother without heart; and omitted those little acts of tenderness which had been customary with her, or performed them, when her mother fretted at the omission, in a cold, perfunctory manner. Mrs. Sharland had been accustomed to be overruled by her daughter, but now Mehalah neither listened to nor combated her recommendations. She rarely spoke, but went through the routine of her work in a mechanical manner. Sometimes she spoke to her mother in a hard, sharp tone the old woman was unused to, and resented; but Mehalah ignored her resentment. She cared neither for her mother's love nor for her displeasure.

When she met the men about the farm, if they addressed her, she repelled them with rudeness, and if obliged to be present with them for some time, did not speak.

Neither had she a word for Rebow. She answered his questions with monosyllables, or not at all, and he had often to repeat them before she condescended to answer. He spoke at meal times, and attempted to draw her into conversation, but she either did not listen to him, was occupied with her own thoughts, or she would not appear to hear and be interested in what he said.

A morose expression clouded and disfigured her countenance, once so frank and genial. Joe remarked to Jim that she was growing like the master. Jim replied that folks who lived together mostly did resemble one another. He knew a collier who had a favourite bull-dog, and they were as alike in face as if they were twins.

Mehalah avoided Abraham, she rarely spoke to him, and when he attempted to open a conversation with her she withdrew abruptly. When all her work was done, she walked along the sea-wall to the spit of land, and, seating herself there, remained silent, brooding, with dull, heavy eyes looking out to sea at the passing sails, or the foaming waves.

She did not think, she sat sunk in a dull torpor. She neither hoped anything nor recalled anything. As she had said to Elijah, she neither loved nor hated; she did not fear him or desire him. She disliked to be in his presence, but she would not fix her mind on him, and concern herself about him. Her self-respect was sick, and till that was recovered nothing could interest and revive her.

Mehalah was seated under the windmill when Mrs. De Witt drew to land. That lady was on her war-path, and on seeing the person whom she designed to attack and rout out of her shelter, she turned the beak of her boat directly upon her, and thrust ashore at Mehalah's feet.

The sight of Mrs. De Witt in her red coat roused the girl from her dream, and she rose wearily to her feet and turned to walk away.

'Glory!' shouted the fishwife after her. 'Sackalive! I want to speak to you. Stop at once.'

Mehalah paid no attention to the call, but walked on. Mrs. De Witt was incensed, and, after anchoring her boat, rushed after and overtook her.

'By Cock!' exclaimed the lady, 'here's manners! Didn't you hear me hollering to you to hold hard and heave to?' She laid her hand on Mehalah's shoulder. The girl shook it off.

'Sackalive!' cried Mrs. De Witt. 'We are out of temper to-day. We have the meagrims. What is all this about? But I suppose you can't fare to look an honest woman in the face. The wicious eye will drop before the stare of wirtue!'

'What have you to say to me?' asked Mehalah moodily.

'Why, I want to speak along of you about what concerns you most of all. Now his father and his mother are dead, who's to look after Elijah's morals but me, his aunt? Now I can't stand these goings on, Glory! Here are you living in this out-of-the way house with my nephew, who is not a married man, and folks talk. My family was always respectable, we kept ourselves up in the world. My husband's family I know nothing about. He was a low chap, and rose out of the mud, like the winkles. I took him up, and then I dropped him again; I was large and generous of heart when I was young--younger than I am now. I wouldn't do it again, it don't pay. The man will raise the woman, but the woman can't lift the man. He grovels in the mud he came out of. She may pick him out and wipe him clean a score of times, but when she ain't looking, in he flops again. I have had my experience. Moses was a good-looking man, but he looked better raw than cooked, he ate tougher than he cut. He wasn't the husband that he seemed to promise as a bachelor. George was another; but he was an advance on Moses, he had a little of me in him. There was Rebow mixed with De Witt; he was a glass of half and half, rum and water. But this is neither here nor there. We are not talking of my family, but of you. I'm here for my nephew's welfare and for yours. Glory! you ain't in Red Hall for any good. Do you think my nephew can take in an old woman that is not worth sixpence to bait lines with, and feed her and find her in liquor for nothing! Everybody knows he's after you. He's been after you ever so long. Everybody knows that. He had a hankering after you when George was a galliwanting on the Ray. That's known to all the world. Well, you can't live in the house with him and folks not talk.'

'Do you dare to believe----'

'Glory! I always make a point to believe the worst. I'm a religious person, and them as sets up to be religious always does that. It is part of their profession. When I buy fish of the men, I say at once, it stinks, I know it ain't fresh! when I take shrimps I say, they're a week out of the water, and they won't peel nicely. So I look upon you and everyone else, and then it's a wery pleasing surprise when I find that the stale fish turns out fresh. But it ain't often that happens. It may happen now and then, just as now and then a whale is washed up on Mersea Island. Now look you here, Glory! don't you believe that Elijah will marry you and make an honest woman of you. He won't do it. He don't think to do it. He never did intend it. He belongs to a better family than yours. You have gipsy blood in your veins, and he knows it; that's as bad as having king's evil or cancer. I made a mistake and looked below me. He won't do it. He knows that I made a mistake, he won't do the same. There's as much difference in human flesh as there is in that of flat-fish, some is that of soles, other is that of dabs; some is fresh and firm as that of small eels, other is coarse and greasy as that of conger. The Rebows belong to another lot from you altogether. Elijah knows it. He never thought to marry you. He couldn't do it.'

Mehalah, stung even through the hard panoply of callousness in which she had encased herself, turned surlily on the woman.

'You lie! It is I who will not marry him.'

'There's an Adam and Eve in every brown shrimp,'[1] said Mrs. De Witt sententiously; 'and there's wigour and weakness in every human creature. It is possible that at a time when Eve is up in Elijah he may have proposed such a foolish thing as to marry you, and it is possible that, at a time when Adam was the master in you, you may have refused him. I don't deny it. But I do say that Elijah will never marry you in cold blood. And I'll tell you what--you won't stand out against him for long. He has too much of the Adam, and you too little for that. You may set up your pride and self-will against him, but you will give way in the end--your weakness will yield to his strongheadedness. What he purposes he will carry out; you cannot oppose Elijah; the Adam in his heart is too old and wigorous and heady.'

[1] Children find in the front paddles of the brown shrimp, when pulled out, two quaint little figures which they call Adam and Eve.

Mehalah made no answer. Sunk in her dark thoughts she strode on, her arms folded over her heart, to still and crush it; her head bowed.

'Now Glory!' pursued Mrs. De Witt; 'I've a bit of a liking for you, after all, and I'm sorry for what I was forced to do about that five and twenty pounds. I tell you, I am sorry, but I couldn't help it. I couldn't starve, you know--I was a lone widow without a son to help me. As I said, I've a sort of a liking for you, for you was the girl my George----' Mehalah's breast heaved, she uttered an ill-suppressed cry, and then covered her face.

'My poor George,' went on the old woman, aware that she had gained an advantage. 'He was wery fond of you. Sackalive! how he would love to talk of you to me his doting old mother, and scheme how you was to live in love together! That boy's heart was full of you, full as----' she cast about for a simile, 'as a March sprat is full of oil. Now I know, my George--he was a good lad! and more like me in features than his father, but he hadn't the soul of a Rebow!--My George, I feel sure, couldn't rest in his grave, if he'd got one, knowing as how tongues were going about you, and hearing what wicked things was said of your character. A woman's good name is like new milk. If it once gets turned there's no sweetening it after, and I can tell you what, Glory! your name is not as fresh as it was; look to it before it is quite curdled and sour.'

'I can do nothing! I can do nothing!' moaned the despairing girl.

'Look you here, Glory!' said Mrs. De Witt. 'I'm the aunt of the party, and I must attend to his morals. I'll go in and see him and I'll manage matters. He's my nephew. I can do anything with him. Trust me with men, girl. I know 'em. They are like nettles. Grasp 'em and they are harmless; touch 'em trembling, and they sting you. They are like eels, try to hold them where you will and they wriggle away, but run a skewer through their gills and you have them.'

'What are you here for, talking to my girl?' asked Rebow, suddenly coming from behind the house, which Mrs. De Witt had now reached.

'Sackalive!' exclaimed his aunt, 'how you flustered me. We was just talking of you when you appeared. It is wonderful how true proverbs are; they are the Bible of those that don't read, a sort of scripture written in the air. But I want a talk along of you, Elijah, that is what I'm come after, I your precious aunt, who loves you as the oyster loves his shell, and the crab its young that it cuddles.'

'What do you want with me?'

'Come, Elijah, let us go indoors. To tell you Gospel truth, I'm dry after my row and want a wet. As I wet I will talk. I've that to say to you that concerns you greatly.'

'Follow me,' he said surlily, and led the way up the steps. Mehalah turned back, but walked not to the point where she had been sitting before, lest she should be again disturbed on the return of Mrs. De Witt to her boat. She went instead to the gate at the bridge over the dyke, that led towards Salcott. There was no real road, only a track through the pasture land. She leaned her hands on the bar of the gate and laid her weary head on her hands. Outside the gate was a tillage field with green wheat in it glancing in the early summer air. Aloft the larks were spiring and caroling. In the ploughed soil of Mehalah's heart nothing had sprung up,--above it no glad thought soared and sang. Her head was paralysed and her heart was numb. The frost lay there, and the clods were as iron.

In the meantime Mrs. De Witt was in the hall with her nephew, endeavouring to melt him into geniality, but he remained morose and unimpressionable.

By slow approaches she drew towards the object of her visit.

'I have been very troubled, nephew, by the gossip that goes about.'

'Have you?' asked he, 'I thought you were impervious to trouble short of loss of grog.'

'You know, Elijah, that your character is precious to me. I wally it, for the honour of the family.'

'What are you driving at?' he asked with an oath. 'Speak out, and then take your slimy tongue off my premises.'

'This is my old home, Elijah, the dear old place where I spent so many happy and innocent days.'

'Well, you are not likely to spend any more of either sort here now. Say what you have to say, and begone.'

'You fluster me, Elijah. When I have a glass of rare good stuff such as this, I like to sit over it, and talk, and sip, and relax.'

'I don't,' he said; 'I gulp it down and am off. Come, say your say, and be quick about it. I have my affairs to attend to and can't sit here palavering with an old woman.'

'Oh!' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt, in rising wrath, 'if I were young it would be different, if I were not a moral and religious character it would be different, if I were not a Rebow, but half gipsy, half boor, it would be different!'

'If you allude to Glory, with that sneer,' said he, 'I tell you, it would be different.'

'I dare say!' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt tossing her head. 'Blood and kinship are all forgot.'

'You forgot them fast enough when you ran after Moses De Witt.'

'I did demean myself, I admit,' said she; 'but I have repented it since in dabs and sprats, and I don't intend to do it again. Listen to me, Elijah. Once for all, I want to know what you mean by keeping this girl Glory here?'

'You do, do you?--So do I. I wonder; she defies and hates me, yet I keep her. I keep her here, I can do no other. I would to God I could shake free of her and forget her, forget that I had ever seen her, but I can't do it. She and I are ordained for one another.'

'Parcel of stuff!' exclaimed his aunt. 'You send her packing, her and her old fool of a mother, and I will come and keep house for you.'

'Pack Glory off!' echoed Elijah.

'Yes, break this wretched, degrading tie.'

'I couldn't do it!' he said. 'I tell you again, I would if I could. I know as well as if it were written in flames on the sky that no good can come of her being here, but for better for worse, for well or for woe, here we two are, and here we remain.'

'You love her??

'I love her and I hate her. I love her with every fibre and vein, and bone and nerve, but I hate her too, with my soul, because she does not love me, but hates me. I could take her to my heart and keep her there,' his breast heaved and his dark eyes flared, 'and kiss her on her mouth and squeeze the breath out of her, and cast her dead at my feet. Then perhaps I might be happy. I am now in hell; but were she not here, were I alone, and she elsewhere, it would be hell unendurable in its agonies, I should go mad like my brother. She must be mine, or my fate is the same as his.'

'Are you going to marry her?'

'She will not marry me. Believe what I say. That girl, Glory, is the curse and ruin of me and of this house. I know it, and yet I cannot help it. She might have made me happy and built up my prosperity and family. Then I should have been a good and a glad man, a man altogether other from what I am now. But your son came in the way. He marred everything. Glory still thinks of him, it does not matter that he be gone. She will cling to him and keep from me. Yet she is destined for me. She never was for George. If he were to turn up--I don't say that it is possible or even probable, but suppose he were--she would fly to him. I might chain her up, but she'd break away. There is nothing for it,' he pursued, drooping into a sullen mood. 'We must battle it out between us. None can or must intervene; whoever attempts it shall be trampled under our feet. We must work out our own fate together; there is no help for it. I tell you, if I were born again, and I knew that this were before me, I'd fly to the Indies, to Africa, anywhere to be from her, so as never to see her, never to know of her, and then I might jog on through life in quiet, and some sort of happiness. But that is not possible. I have seen her. I have her here under my roof, but we are still apart as the poles. Go away, aunt, it is of no good your interfering. No one comes here, she and I must work the sum out between us. There's a fate over all and we cannot fight against it, but it falls on us and crushes us.'

Mrs. De Witt was awed. She rose. She knew that her mission was fruitless, that there was no possibility of her gaining her point.

She opened the door, and started back before an apparition in carnation and white.

'Whom have we here?'

'Mrs. Charles Pettican, madam,' said the apparition with a stately curtsey.

*CHAPTER XXII.*

*THE LAST STRAW.*

Mehalah was lost to consciousness, leaning on the gate, her aching brow and leaden eyes in her hand. She did not hear the larks that sang above her, nor saw the buttercups and daisies that smiled to her from below. By the gate was a willow covered with furry flower now ripe and shedding its golden pollen. The soft air scattered the delicate yellow dust over the girl's hair and neck and shoulders, a minute golden powder, but she noticed it not. The warm air played caressingly with some of her dark hair, and the sun brought out its copper glow--she was unaware of all.

A little blue butterfly flickered above her and lighted on her head, it lay so still that the insect had no fear.

Then a hand shook the gate.

'Gone to sleep, girl?' asked a female voice.

Mehalah looked up dreamily.

A young, handsome, and dashing lady before her, in white and carnation, a crimson feather in her hat, and carmine in her cheeks. Mehalah slowly recognised Admonition.

Mrs. Pettican looked curiously at her.

'Who are you?--Oh! I know, the girl Sharland!' and she laughed.

Mehalah put her hand to the latch to open the gate.

'You need not trouble,' said Admonition: 'I want nothing from you. I have heard of you. You are the young person,' with an affected cough, 'whom Master Rebow has taken to live with him I think. You had the assurance once to come to my dear husband, and to pester him.'

'He was kind to me,' said Mehalah to herself.

'Oh yes, he was very kind indeed. He did not know much of you then. Report had not made him familiar with your name.'

Mehalah looked moodily at her. It was of no use pretending to misunderstand her. It was of no use resenting the insinuation. She sullenly bore the blow and suffered.

'I have come here on your behalf,' said Admonition, speaking to her across the gate. She had the gate half open, and kept it between them.

'You have nothing to do with me, or I with you,' said Mehalah.

'Oh! nothing, I am respectable. I keep myself up, I look after my character!' sneered Mrs. Pettican. 'Nevertheless I am here with an offer from my husband. He is ready to receive your mother into his house; I do not approve of this, but he is perverse and will have his way. He will take her in and provide for her.'

'Mehalah looked up. A load was being lifted from her heart. Were her mother taken in by Mr. Pettican, then she could leave, and leave for ever, Red Hall.

'Yes. He admits his relationship,' said Admonition. 'I would not, were I he, now that the name is--well--not so savoury as it was. But he is not particular. Men are not. I have been brought up, I am thankful to say, with very strict ideas, and have been formed in a school quite other from that of Mr. Pettican. However, as I was observing--you need not come near me--keep the gate between us, please.'

'You were saying,' anxiously repeated Mehalah, who had stepped forward in her eagerness.

'I was saying that Mr. Pettican will overlook a great deal, and will receive your mother into his house, and provide her with all that is necessary. But you----'

'I,' repeated Mehalah, breathlessly.

'You must never, never set foot within my doors. I could not allow it. I am a person of respectability, I value proprieties. I could not allow my house to be spoken of as one which admitted--' with a contemptuous shrug.

Mehalah took no notice of the insult. She looked hard at Admonition, and said gravely, 'You will shelter and care for my mother, on condition that I never go near her.'

'Yes.'

'I may never see her, never speak to her, never kiss her again.'

'No, I could not suffer you to enter my respectable house.'

'Not even if she were dying?'

'My character would not allow of it. The respectability of my house must be maintained.'

Mehalah thought for awhile.

'I cannot make up my mind at once,' she said.

'It will be a great relief to you to get rid of your mother.'

'Yes, immeasurable.'

'I thought as much!' with a toss of the head, and curl of the lip.

Mehalah did not give attention to these marks of contempt. Presently she asked, 'And who will attend to my mother?'

'I will.'

'_You!_' exclaimed Glory, with a flash of her old indignation. '_You_, who neglect and illtreat the husband who lifted you out of the gutter. You who have not gratitude and generosity to the man to whom you owe your position and comforts! How would you treat a poor, helpless, aged woman trusting to your mercy unconditioned, when the man who bound you to him by most solemn and sacred promises is insulted, and neglected, and degraded by you? No, never. My mother shall never, never be left to you of all women in the world. Never, never, never!' she beat her hand on the gate. 'Let me bear my burden, let it crush me, but she shall not be taken from me and die of neglect and cruel treatment. I can bear!' she raised herself with a poor effort of her old energy, 'I will bear all for her. She once bore with me.'

'Drab!' hissed Admonition, and she flung past her, shaking the gate furiously as she went by.

It was with carnation in her cheek as well as in her dress and hat that she appeared before Mrs. De Witt and Elijah Rebow.

Mrs. De Witt drew back to let Mrs. Pettican in.

'I think you was passing out,' said the latter; 'madam, your servant.'

'Your servant, madam,' from Mrs. De Witt, still lingering.

'Now then, one at a time. Aunt, go out and shut the door,' said Rebow peremptorily, and the old woman was obliged to obey.

'What has brought you here?' asked Elijah surlily.

Mrs. Pettican looked round, then drew nearer. 'I think,' she said, 'you once advised me something, but I don't know how far your interest is the same as it was.'

'What do you mean?'

'I don't know whether you would be satisfied to get Mehalah Sharland off your hands now, or keep her here.'

'She remains here, she never shall leave it.'

'It is just this,' said Admonition. 'My husband has of late been plucking up a little courage, or showing obstinacy. My cousin Timothy--I don't know what to make of him--he is not what he was. He is always making some excuse or other to get away, and I find he goes to Mersea. He hasn't been as dutiful and amiable to me of late, as I have a right to expect, considering how I have found him in food and drink and tobacco, the best of all, and no stint. There's some game up between him and my husband, and I believe it is this, I know it is this. Charles is bent on getting Mrs. Sharland and her daughter, the latter especially, to come and live with him and take care of him. He dares to say I neglect him. He reckons on pitting that girl against me, he thinks that she would be more than a match for me.'

'He thinks right,' burst in Rebow with a laugh.

'I won't have her in the house. I don't mind taking in the old woman, but the daughter I will not admit.'

'You are right. She'd master you and make you docile or drive you out,' jeered Rebow.

'She shall not come. I have told her so. I will not be opposed and brow-beaten in my own house. I will not have the care of my husband wrested from me.'

'Have you come here to tell me this?'

'I know that Charles and Timothy have put their heads together. They are both up in rebellion against me, and Timothy has walked over to Mersea to get a boat and row here to invite that girl to come with her mother to Wyvenhoe, and take up their abode with my husband. Charles promises if they will do so to provide for them and leave them everything in his will, so as to make them independent at my cost. When I got wind of this--I overheard the scheme by the merest accident--I got a gig and was driven over to Salcott, and the boy has put up the horse at the inn, and I walked on. I will stop this little game. The girl shall not come inside the house. If she puts in her little finger, her fist will follow, and I will be driven out, though I am the lawful wife of Charles Pettican. I don't know what Timothy means by aiding and abetting him in this. I will have it out with him, and that very soon. I want to know what are your views. I have been pretty plain with mine. You may help me or hinder me, but I hope I shall be able to keep my door locked against such as that girl, and if Timothy thinks to flirt along with her under my roof, and before my face, he is vastly mistaken. That husband of mine is deeper than I suspected, or he would not have come over Timothy and got him to aid him in this. But I see it all. Timothy thinks if the girl gets there, and is to have Charles' money, he will make up to her, marry her, and share the plunder. If that be his game he has left me out of his calculations. Timothy is a fool, or he would not have gone over from me to Charles. I'll have the matter out here----'

'Not in this room,' said Elijah. 'There's rows enough go on in here without your making another. Set your mind at rest: Glory does not leave this house. But I advise you to see your cousin, and, if possible, prevent him from making the proposal. If she hears it, she will be off to-morrow, and carry her mother with her; and then there may be trouble to you and me to get her back.'

'She shall not come across my doorstep.'

'I tell you if once she hears that the chance is given her, she will go, and not you nor a legion of such as you could keep her out. Go upstairs and go straight on till you come to a door. Go in there; it is the bedroom of Glory and her mother. Never mind the old fool--she is sick and in bed. You will find a small room or closet beyond, with a three-cornered window in it. Look out of that. It commands the whole bay, and you will see a boat, if it approaches the Hall. There's Sunken island and Cobb marsh between you and Mersea City. You will see a boat creep through one of the creeks of Cobb marsh into Virley flat, and that will be the boat with your cousin in it. If you come down then you will meet him as he lands.'

As soon as Admonition had rushed past Mehalah the girl walked away from the gate and ascended the sea-wall. She could obtain peace nowhere. She could hide nowhere, be nowhere without interruption. She saw Mrs. De Witt depart, and thought that now she could sit on the wall and remain unmolested. But again was she disturbed, this time by old Abraham. He was at the near landing-stage, just come from the Ray--the landing-place employed when tides were full. 'Hark ye, mistress,' said the shepherd. 'I've had much on my tongue this many a day, but you haven't given me the chance to spit it out. I won't be put off any longer.'

She did not answer or move away. The reaction after the momentary kindling of hope and burst of passion had set in, and she had relapsed into her now wonted mood.

'It is of no use, mistress, your going on as you are,' continued the old man. 'Wherever he is, the master speaks of you as no man ought to speak save of his wife; and all the world knows you are not that. What are you, then? You are in a false position, and that is one of your own making.'

'You know it is not, Abraham.'

'I know it is one you could step out of to-morrow if you chose,' he said. 'The master has offered you your right place. As long as you refuse to take it so long everybody will be turned against you, and you against everybody. You keep away from everybody because you shame to see them and be seen by them. I know you don't like the master, but that's no reason why you shouldn't take him. Beggars mustn't be choosers. He is not as young and handsome as George De Witt, but he is not such a fool, and he has his pockets well lined, which the other had not.'

'It is of no use your saying this to me, Abraham,' said Mehalah sadly.

'No, it is not,' pursued the dogged old man. 'Here you must stick as long as your mother lives, and she may live yet a score of years. Creaky gates last longest. Why, she ain't as old as I, and there's a score of years' work in me yet. How can you spend twenty years here along of the master, with all the world talking? It will shame you to your grave, or brazen you past respect. This state of things can't do good to anybody. You must take him, and set yourself right with the world, or go from here.'

'I cannot get away. Would to heaven I could!'

'Then you must marry him. There is no escape from it, for your own sake. Why, girl,' the shepherd went on, 'if you was his wife you would have a lawful right and place here--this house, these marshes, these cattle would be yours. You would not be dependent on him for anything; you would hold them as a right. Now he can have you and your mother in prison at any time, for you are still his tenants and owe him rent for the Ray. But if you marry him, you cut away his power: he can't proceed against you and your mother for one penny. You would cancel the debt, do away with the obligation. If you was to marry him, and saw your way clear, I fancy you might go away at any time, and he would have no hold on you. Now he has you fast by this claim. And now your character is being ruined by association with him. There,' continued the old man, 'I doubt I never said so much afore; but I have known you since you was a girl, and I no more like to see you going to the bad than I like to see a field that has been well tilled allowed to be overrun with thistles, or a sheep lie down in the fen and die of rot that might have been saved with a little ointment stuck on in proper time.'

Mehalah made no response.

'I dare say it stings.' said Dowsing. 'I've seen sheep jump with pain when the copperas comes against a raw; but that's better than to lie down and rot away without an effort, and without a word, as you are doing now.' He gave her a nod, and went on his way.

Mehalah stepped into his boat and seated herself in her usual manner, with her head in her arms, and sank into her wonted torpor.

'Now, then, young woman!'

Again interrupted, again aroused. There was no rest for her that day.

'Jump on land, will you, young woman, and let this lass step into your boat and get ashore without having to go into the mud.'

'Timothy! that is Mehalah!' exclaimed Phoebe Musset. She was in the boat with Admonition's cousin. 'I'd rather you carried me. I do not want to be obliged to her for anything.'

Mehalah stepped from her boat upon the turf, and held out her hand mechanically to assist the girl.

'Don't hold out your hand to me!' screamed Phoebe. 'I wouldn't touch it. Keep to yourself, if you please, and let me pass.'

'Why, Phoebe!' exclaimed Timothy, 'what is the matter? I have come here to see this girl.'

'What!--to see Mehalah--or Glory, as you sailor and fisher fellows like to call her?'

'Yes.'

'Then I'm ashamed to have come with you,' said Phoebe, pouting. 'You offered me a nice little row on the water, and the sun was so bright, and the air so warm, and you were so agreeable, that I ventured; but I would not have stepped into the boat had I known you were coming to visit another young woman, and she one of so smirched a character.'

'Phoebe! For shame!'

'For shame!' repeated the girl turning on Timothy. 'For shame to you, to bring me here with you when you are visiting this----' She eyed Mehalah from head to foot with studied insolence, and sniffed. 'I know her. A bad, spiteful cat! always running after fellows. She tried to wheedle poor George De Witt into marrying her. When he was lost, she burnt her house and flung herself on the mercy, into the arms, of Rebow. Now, I suppose, she is setting her red cap at you. Oh! where is the cap gone, eh?' turning to Mehalah as she skipped ashore.

Timothy was fastening the boat to that of Dowsing.

Mehalah's wrath was rising. She had endured much that day--more than she could well bear. The impertinence of this malicious girl was intolerable altogether. She turned away to leave her.

'Stop! stop!' shouted Timothy. 'I have come here with a message to you. I have come here expressly to see you. I picked up Miss Musset on the way----'

'You picked me up just to amuse me till you found Glory!' screamed Phoebe. 'Now you pitch me overboard, as that savage treated me once. I will not stand this. Timothy, come back this instant! Row me back to Mersea. I have not come here to be insulted. I will not speak another word with you unless you----'

'For heaven's sake,' cried Timothy, tearing down the sea-wall and jumping into the boat, 'come in, Phoebe, at once, or I shall be off and leave you!'

'What is the matter now?'

He had his knife out, and was hacking through the cord that attached his boat to Dowsing's. In another moment he was rowing as hard as he could down the creek.

Admonition appeared on the wall. Timothy had detected her crossing the marsh, and fled.

She turned in fury on Phoebe.

Mehalah withdrew to the windmill, away from their angry voices, and remained sitting by the sea till the shadows of evening fell.

Then she returned, a fixed determination in her face, which was harder and more moody than before.

She walked deliberately to the hall, opened the door, and stepped in. Elijah was there, crouched over the empty hearth, as though there was a fire on it. He looked up.

'Well, Glory?'

Her bosom heaved. She could not speak.

'You have something to say,' he proceeded. 'Won't the words come out? Do they stick?' His wild dark eye was on her.

'Elijah,' she said, with burning brow and cheek, 'I give up. I will marry you.'

He gave a great shout and sprang up.

'Listen patiently to me,' she said, with difficulty controlling her agitation. 'I will marry you, and take your name, but only to save mine. That is all. I will neither love you, nor live with you, save as I do now. These are my terms. If you will take them, so be it. If not, we shall go on as before.'

He laughed loudly, savagely.

'I told you, Glory, my own, own Glory, what must be. You would not come under my roof, but you came. You would not marry me--now you submit. You will not love me--you must and shall. Nothing can keep us apart. The poles are drawing together. Perhaps there may be a heaven for us both here. But I do not know. Anyhow the sum is nearer the end than it was. Glory, this day week you shall be my wife.

*CHAPTER XXIII.*

*BEFORE THE ALTAR.*

Virley Church has been already described, as far as its external appearance goes. The interior was even less decent.

It possessed but one bell, which was tolled alike for weddings and for funerals; there was a difference in the pace at which it went for these distinct solemnities, but that was all. The bell produced neither a cheerful nor a lugubrious effect on either occasion, as it was cracked. The dedication of Virley Church is unknown--no doubt because it never had a patron; or if it had, the patron disowned it. No saint in the calendar could be associated with such a church and keep his character. St. Nicholas is the patron of fishers, St. Giles of beggars, but who among the holy ones would spread his mantle over worshippers who were smugglers or wreckers? When we speak of worshippers we use an euphemism; for though the church sometimes contained a congregation, it never held one of worshippers. Salcott and Virley, the Siamese-twin parishes, connected by a wooden bridge, embraced together five hundred souls. There were two churches, but few churchgoers.

On the day of which we write, however, Virley Church was full to overflowing. This is not saying much, for Virley Church is not bigger than a stable that consists of two stalls and a loose box, whereof the loose box represents the chancel. When the curate in charge preached from the pulpit--the rectors of the two parishes were always non-resident--they kept a curate between them--he was able to cuff the boys in the west gallery who whispered, cracked nuts, or snored.

The bellringer stood in the gallery, and had much ado to guard his knuckles from abrasion against the ceiling at each upcast of the rope. He managed to save them when tolling for a burial, but when the movement was double-quick for a wedding his knuckles came continually in contact with the plaster; and when they did an oath, audible throughout the sacred building, boomed between the clangours of the bell.

Virley Church possessed one respectable feature, a massive chancel-arch, but that gaped; and the pillars slouched back against the wall in the attitude of the Virley men in the village street waiting to insult the women as they went by.

On either side of the east window hung one table of the Commandments, but a village humourist had erased all the 'nots' in the Decalogue; and it cannot be denied that the parishioners conscientiously did their utmost to fulfil the letter of the law thus altered.

The congregation on Sundays consisted chiefly of young people. The youths who attended divine worship occupied the hour of worship by wafting kisses to the girls, making faces at the children, and scratching ships on the paint of the pews. Indeed, the religious services performed alternately at the two churches might have been discontinued, without discomposure to any, had not traditional usage consecrated them to the meeting of young couples. The 'dearly beloveds' met in the Lord's house every Lord's day to acknowledge their 'erring and straying like lost sheep' and make appointments for erring and straying again.

The altar was a deal table, much wormeaten, with a box beneath it. The altar possessed no cover save the red cotton pocket-handkerchief of the curate cast occasionally across it. The box contained the battered Communion plate, an ironmoulded surplice with high collar, a register-book, the pages glued together with damp, and a brush and pan.

The Communion rails had rotted at the bottom; and when there was a Communion the clerk had to caution the kneelers not to lean against the balustrade, lest they should be precipitated upon the sanctuary floor. No such controversy as that which has of late years agitated the Church of England relative to the position of the celebrant could have affected Virley, for the floor in the midst, before the altar, had been eaten through by rats, emerging from an old grave, and exposed below gnawed and mouldy bones a foot beneath the boards.

A marriage without three 'askings' was a novelty in Salcott and Virley sufficient to excite interest in the place; and when that marriage was to take place between one so well known and dreaded as Elijah Rebow and a girl hardly ever seen, but of whom much was spoken, it may well be supposed that Virley Church was crowded with sightseers. The gallery was full to bursting. Sailor-boys in the front amused themselves with dropping broken bits of tobacco-pipe on the heads below, and giggling at the impotent rage of those they hit.

There was a sweep in Salcott, who tenanted a tottering cottage, devoid of furniture. The one room was heaped with straw, and into this the sweep crept at night for his slumbers. This man now appeared at the sacred door.

'Look out, blackie!' shouted those near; 'we are not going to be smutted by you.'

'Then make way for your superiors.'

'Superiors!' sneered a matron near.

'Well, I am your superior,' said the sweep, 'for my proper place is poking out at the top of a chimney, and yours is poking into the fire at the bottom. Make way. I have a right to see as well as the best of you.'

The crowd contracted on either side in anxiety for their clothes, and the sweep worked his way to the fore.

'I'll have the best place of you all,' he said, as the gods in the gallery received him with ironical cries of 'Sweep! sweep!'

He charged into the chancel, and sent his black legs over the Communion rails.

At some remote period the chancel of Virley had fallen, and had been rebuilt, with timber and bricks on the old walls left to the height of two feet above the floor. As the old walls were four feet thick, and the new walls only the thickness of one brick, the chancel was provided with a low seat all round it, like the _cancellae_ of an ancient basilica. The sweep, with a keen eye peering through his soot, had detected this seat and seen that it was unappropriated. He was over the altar with a second jump, and had seated himself behind it, facing west, in the post of dignity occupied in the Primitive Church by the bishop, with his legs under the table, and his elbows on it, commanding the best view attainable of everything that went on, or that would go on, in the church.

His example was followed at once. A rush of boys and men was made for the chancel; the railings fell before them, and they seized and appropriated the whole of the low seat that surrounded the sanctuary.

'I've the best place now, you lubbers,' said the sweep. 'I shall have them full in face, and see the blushes of the bride.'

'They are a-coming! they are a-coming!' was repeated through the church. A boy peering out of the window that lighted the gallery had seen the approach of the procession from Red Hall over the wooden bridge.

In came the Reverend Mr. Rabbit, very hot and sneezy--he laboured under hay fever all the blooming time of the year. He got to the altar. The clerk dived into the box and rose to the surface with the register-book and the surplice.

'Where is the ink?'

'Here is a pen,' said the clerk, producing one with nibs parted like the legs of the Colossus of Rhodes.

'But we shall want ink.'

'There is a bottle somewhere in the box,' said the clerk.

'Never mind if there ain't,' observed one of the elders seated by the table; 'there is the sweep here handy, and you have only to mix a bit of his smut with the tears of the bride.'

'Shut that ugly trap of yours,' said the chimney-cleaner.

'It may be ugly,' retorted the humourist, 'but it is clean.'

'Here they are!' from the gallery.

'Make way!' shouted Mrs. De Witt, battering about her with her umbrella. 'How are people to get married if you stuff up the door, as though caulking a leak?'

She drove her way in.

'Now, then,' said she, 'come on, Mistress Sharland. Dear soul alive! how unmannerly these Virley people are! They want some of us from Mersea to come and teach them manners. Now, then, young Spat!' she shouted to a great boy in a fishing guernsey, 'do you want your head combing? Do you see what you have done to my best silk gown? What do you mean coming to a house of worship in mud-splashers?[1] Are you come here after winkles?'

[1] Wooden paddles, worn by those who go out 'winkling' in the mud, to prevent their sinking.

'I ain't got my splashers on,' said the boy.

'Then you have feet as big and as dirty as paddles. You have trodden on my best silk and took it out at the gathers.' Then, turning and looking through the door behind her, she waved her umbrella with a proud flourish. 'Come on, hearties! I've cleared the way.'

She put her shoulder to the crowd and wedged her way further ahead. 'Ah!' she said, 'here are a lot of sniggering girls. If all was known what ought to be known some of you ought to be getting married to-day. Leave off your laughing up there!' gesticulating towards the boys in the loft. 'Don't you know yet how to behave in a place of worship? I have a great mind to draw my _Pandora_ up at Virley hard and settle here and teach you.'

Mehalah came in, pale, with sunken eyes, that burned with feverish brightness. A hectic flush dyed her cheeks. Her lips were set and did not tremble.

After having given her promise, under conditions, to Rebow she had neither slept nor eaten. She had abandoned her habit of retiring to the shore to sit and brood, and maintained instead incessant activity. When she had done what was necessary for others she made work for herself.