Chapter XXV: Madgin Junior's First Report (1)

Mr. Madgin senior lost no time after his arrival at home before hastening up to Deepley Walls to see Lady Chillington. He had a brief conference with Mirpah while discussing his modest chop and glass of bitter ale; and he found time to read a letter which had arrived for him some days previously from the London diamond merchant whom he had employed to make inquiries as to whether any such gem as the Great Hara had been offered for sale at any of the great European marts during the past twenty years. The letter was an assurance that no such stone had been in the market, nor was any such known to be in the hands of any private individual.

Mr. Madgin took the letter with him to Deepley Walls. In her grim way Lady Chillington seemed greatly pleased to see him. She was all impatience to hear what news he had to tell her. But Mr. Madgin had his reservations; he did not deem it advisable to detail to her ladyship step by step all that he had done. Her sense of honour might revolt at certain things he had found it necessary to do in furtherance of the great object he had in view. He told her of his inquiries among the London diamond merchants, and read to her the letter he had received from one of them. Then he went on to describe Bon Repos and its owner from the glimpses he had had of both. For all such details her ladyship betrayed a curiosity that seemed as if it would never be satisfied. He next went on to inform her that he had succeeded in placing his son as footman at Bon Repos, and that everything now depended on the discoveries James might succeed in making. But nothing was said as to the false pretences and the changed name under which Madgin junior had entered M. Platzoff's household. Those were details which Mr. Madgin kept judiciously to himself. Her ladyship was perfectly satisfied with his report; she was more than satisfied--she was pleased. She was very sanguine as to the existence of the diamond, and also as to its retention by M. Platzoff; far more so, in fact, than Mr. Madgin himself was. But the latter was too shrewd a man of business to parade his doubts of success before a client who paid so liberally, so long as her hobby was ridden after her own fashion. Mr. Madgin's chief aim in life was to ride other people's hobbies, and be well paid for his jockeyship.

"I am highly gratified, Mr. Madgin," said her ladyship, "by the style, _plein de finesse_, in which you have so far conducted this delicate investigation. I will not ask you what your next step is to be. You know far better than I can tell you what ought to be done. I leave the matter with confidence in your hands."

"Your ladyship is very kind," observed Mr. Madgin, deferentially. "I will do my best to deserve a continuance of your good opinion."

"As week after week goes by, Mr. Madgin," resumed Lady Chillington, "the conviction seems to take deeper root within me that that man--that villain--M. Platzoff, has my son's diamond still in his possession. I have a sort of spiritual consciousness that such is the case. My waking intuitions, my dreams by night, all point to the same end. You, with your cold, worldly sense, may laugh at such things; we women, with our finer organisation, know how often the truth comes to us on mystic wings. The diamond will yet be mine!"

"What nonsense women sometimes talk," said Mr. Madgin contemptuously to himself as he walked back through the park. "Who would believe that my lady, so sensible on most things, could talk such utter rubbish. But women have a way of leaping to results, and ignoring processes, that is simply astounding to men of common sense. The diamond hers, indeed! Although I have been so successful so far, there is as much difference between what I have done and what has yet to be done as there is between the simple alphabet and a mathematical theorem. To-morrow's post ought to bring me a letter from Bon Repos."

To-morrow's post did bring Mr. Madgin a letter from Bon Repos. The writer of it was not his son, but Cleon. It was addressed, as a matter of course, to Deepley Walls, of which place the mulatto had been led to believe Mr. Madgin was the proprietor. The note, which was couched in tolerable English, was simply a request to be furnished with a testimonial as to the character and abilities of James Jasmin, late footman at Deepley Walls. Mr. Madgin replied by return of post as under:--

"Deepley Walls, July 27th.

"SIR,--In reply to your favour of the 25th inst, inquiring
as to the character and respectability of James Jasmin, late a
footman in my employ, I beg to say that I can strongly recommend
him, and have much pleasure in so doing, for any similar
employment under you. Jasmin was with me for several years; during
the whole time I found him to be trustworthy, sober and intelligent
in an eminent degree. Had I not been reducing my establishment
previous to a lengthened residence in the south of Europe, I should
certainly have retained Jasmin in the position which he has
occupied for so long a time with credit to himself and with
satisfaction to me.

"I have the honour, sir, to remain,
"Your obedient servant,
"SOLOMON MADGIN.

"---- CLEON, Esq.,
"Bon Repos, Windermere."

After writing and despatching the above epistle, over the composition of which he chuckled to himself several times, Mr. Madgin was obliged to wait, with what contentment was possible to him, the receipt of a communication from his son. But one day passed after another without bringing news from Bon Repos, till Mr. Madgin grew fearful that some disaster had befallen both James and his scheme. At length he made up his mind to wait two days longer, and should no letter come within that time, to start at once for Windermere. Fortunately his anxiety was relieved and the journey rendered unnecessary by the receipt, next day, of a long letter from his son. It was Mirpah who took it from the postman's hand, and Mirpah took it to her father in high glee. She knew the writing and deciphered the post-mark. For once in his life Mr. Madgin was too agitated to read. He put his hand to his side, and motioned Mirpah to open the letter.

"Read it," he said in a husky voice, as she was about to hand it to him. So Mirpah sat down near her father and read what follows:--

"Bon Repos, July
"(some date, but I'll be hanged if I know what).

"MY DEAR DAD,--In some rustic nook reclining, silken
tresses softly twining, Far-off bells so faintly ringing, While we
list the blackbird singing, Merrily his roundelay. There! I
composed those lines this morning during the process of shaving. I
don't think they are very bad. I put them at the beginning of my
letter so as to make sure that you will read them, a process of
which I might reasonably be doubtful had I left them for the fag
end of my communication. Learn, sir, that you have a son who is a
born poet!!!

"But now to business.

"Don't hurry over my letter, dear dad; don't run away with the idea
that I have any grand discovery to lay before you. My epistle will
be merely a record of trifles and commonplaces, and that simply
from the fact that I have nothing better to write about. To me, at
least, they seem nothing but trifles. For you they may possess an
occult significance of which I know nothing.

"In the first place. On the day following that of your departure
from Windermere, I was duly inducted by Cleon into my new duties.
They are few in number, and by no means difficult. So far I have
contrived to get through them without any desperate blunder.
Another thing I have done of which you will be pleased to hear: I
have contrived to ingratiate myself with the mulatto, and am in
high favour with him. You were right in your remarks; he is worth
cultivation, in so far that he is all-powerful in our little
establishment. M. Platzoff never interferes in the management of
Bon Repos. Everything is left to Cleon; and whatever the mulatto
may be in other respects, so far as I can judge he is quite worthy
of the trust reposed in him. I believe him to be thoroughly
attached to his master.

"Of M. Platzoff I have very little to tell you. Even in his own
house and among his own people he is a recluse. He has his own
special rooms, and three-fourths of his time is spent in them.
Above all things he dislikes to see strange faces about him, and I
have been instructed by Cleon to keep out of his way as much as
possible. Even the old servants, people who have been under his
roof for years, let themselves be seen by him as seldom as need be.
In person he is a little, withered-up, yellow-skinned man, as dry
as a last year's pippin, but very keen, bright and vivacious. He
speaks such excellent English that he must have lived in this
country for many years. One thing I have discovered about him, that
he is a great smoker. He has a room set specially apart for the
practice of the sacred rite to which he retires every day as soon
as dinner is over, and from which he seldom emerges again till it
is time to retire for the night. Cleon alone is privileged to enter
this room. I have never yet been inside it. Equally forbidden
ground is M. Platzoff's bedroom, and a small study beyond, all _en
suite_.

"Those who keep servants keep spies under their roof. It has been
part of my purpose to make myself agreeable to the older domestics
at Bon Repos, and from them I have picked up several little facts
which all Mr. Cleon's shrewdness has not been able entirely to
conceal. In this way I have learned that M. Platzoff is a confirmed
opium-smoker. That once, or sometimes twice, a week he shuts
himself up in his room and smokes himself into a sort of trance, in
which he remains unconscious for hours. That at such times Cleon
has to look after him as though he were a child; and that it
depends entirely on the mulatto as to whether he ever emerges from
his state of coma, or stops in it till he dies. The accuracy of
this latter statement, however, I must beg leave to doubt.

"Further gossip has informed me, whether truly or falsely I am not
in a position to judge, that M. Platzoff is a refugee from his own
country. That were he to set foot on the soil of Russia, a
life-long banishment to Siberia would be the mildest fate that he
could expect; and that neither in France nor in Austria would he be
safe from arrest. The people who come as guests to Bon Repos are,
so I am informed, in nearly every instance foreigners, and, as a
natural consequence, they are all set down by the servants' gossip
as red-hot republicans, thirsting for the blood of kings and
aristocrats, and willing to put a firebrand under every throne in
Europe. In fact, there cannot be a popular outbreak against bad
government in any part of Europe without M. Platzoff and his
friends being credited with having at least a finger in the pie.

"All these statements and suppositions you will of course accept
_cum grano salis_. They may have their value as serving to give you
a rude and exaggerated idea as to what manner of man is the owner
of Bon Repos; and it is quite possible that some elements of truth
may be hidden in them. To me, M. Platzoff seems nothing more than a
mild old gentleman; a little eccentric, it may be, as differing
from our English notions in many things. Not a smiling fiend in
patent boots and white cravat, whose secret soul is bent on murder
and rapine; but a shy valetudinarian, whose only firebrand is a
harmless fusee wherewith to light a pipe of fragrant cavendish.

"One permanent guest we have at Bon Repos--a guest who was here
before my arrival, and of whose departure no signs are yet visible.
That is why I call him permanent. His name is Ducie, and he is an
ex-captain in the English army. He is a tall, handsome man of four
or five and forty, and is a thorough gentleman both in manners and
appearance. I like him much, and he has taken quite a fancy to me.
One thing I can see quite plainly; that he and Cleon are quietly at
daggers drawn. Why they should be so I cannot tell, unless it is
that Cleon is jealous of Captain Ducie's influence over Platzoff;
although the difference in social position of the two men ought to
preclude any feeling of that kind. Captain Ducie might be M.
Platzoff's very good friend without infringing in the slightest
degree on the privileges of Cleon as his master's favourite
servant. On one point I am certain: that the mulatto suspects Ducie
of some purpose or covert scheme in making so long a stay at Bon
Repos. He has asked me to act as a sort of spy on the Captain's
movements; to watch his comings and goings, his hours of getting up
and going to bed, and to report to him, Cleon, anything that I may
see in the slightest degree out of the common way.

"It was not without a certain inward qualm that I accepted the
position thrust upon me by Cleon. In accepting it, I flatter myself
that I took a common-sense view of the case. In the _petit_ drama
of real life in which I am now acting an uneventful part, I look
upon myself as a 'general utility' man, bound to enact any and
every character which my manager may think proper to entrust into
my hands. Now, you are my manager, and if it seem to me conducive
to your interests (you being absent) that, in addition to my
present character, I should be a 'cast' for that of spy or amateur
detective, I see no good reason why I should refuse it. So far,
however, all my Fouché-like devices have resulted in nothing. The
Captain's comings and goings--in fact, all his movements--are of a
commonplace and uninteresting kind. But I have this advantage, that
the character I have undertaken enables me to assume, with Cleon's
consent, certain privileges such as under other circumstances would
never have been granted me. Further, should I succeed in
discovering anything of importance, it by no means follows that I
should consider myself bound to reveal the same to Cleon. It might
be greatly more to my interest to retain any such facts for my own
use. Meanwhile, I wait and watch.

"Thus you will perceive, my dear dad, that an element of
interest--a dramatic element--is being slowly evolved out of the
commonplace duties of my position. This nucleus of interest may
grow and develop into something startling; or it may die slowly out
and expire for lack of material to feed itself upon. In any case,
dear dad, you may expect a frequent feuilleton from

"Your affectionate Son,
"J.M. (otherwise JAMES JASMIN).

"P.S.--I should not like to be a real flunkey all my life. Such a
position is not without its advantages to a man of a lazy turn, but
it is terribly soul-subduing. Not a sign yet of the G.H.D."

"There is nothing much in all this to tell her ladyship," said Mr. Madgin, as he took off his spectacles and refolded the letter. "Still, I do not think it by any means a discouraging report. If James's patience only equal his shrewdness and audacity, and if there be really anything to worm out, he will be sure to make himself master of it in the course of time. Ah! if he had only my patience, now--the patience of an old man who has won half his battles by playing a waiting game."

"Is it not possible that Lady Chillington may want you to read the letter?"

"It is quite possible. But James's irreverent style is hardly suited in parts for her ladyship's ears. You, dear child, must make an improved copy of the letter. Your own good taste will tell you which sentences require to be altered or expunged. Here and there you may work in a neat compliment to your father; as coming direct from James, her ladyship will not deem it out of place--it will not sound fulsome in her ears, and will serve to remind her of what she too often forgets--that in Solomon Madgin she has a faithful steward, who ought to be better rewarded than he is. Write out the copy at once, my child, and I will take it up to Deepley Walls the first thing to-morrow morning."

(_To be continued_.)

ABOUT THE WEATHER.

Why is it that we in England talk so much about the weather? One reason, I suppose, is because we are shy and awkward in the presence of strangers, and the weather is a safe subject far removed from personalities of any kind. Then the variableness of our climate furnishes an opportunity for comment which does not exist in countries where for months there is not a cloud in the sky, and you can tell long before what kind of weather there will be on any particular day.

Whatever else may be said of our English climate, it cannot be accused of monotony. You are not sure of seeing the same sky every morning you arise, than which there is no greater source of ennui. Those of us who have lived long abroad know how tired we got of a cloudless blue sky. We can sympathise with the sailor who, on returning to London from the Mediterranean, joyfully exclaimed--"Here's a jolly old fog, and no more of your confounded blue skies!" Certainly we could do with a little more sunshine in England than we get. It is not true that while we have much weather we have no sunshine, but we have not as much of it as many of us would like. Still England is not as bad as some places; for instance, Halifax, Nova Scotia, where they have nine months' winter and three months' bad weather. Indeed, the English takes rather a good place amongst the climates of the world. It is free from extremes, and allows us to go out every day and at all hours.

However, judging from the way we grumble, it would seem that we are anything but satisfied with our climate.

_Scene_--Drawing-room at Scarborough. Melissa (writing): "Aunty, darling, how do you spell damnable?" "Good gracious, darling, never use such a word. I am surprised." "Well, but, auntie, I am writing to papa, to tell him about the weather." "Oh, well, my darling, I suppose I may tell you. D-a-m-n-a-b-l-e; but remember that you must not use the word except to describe the weather."

I suppose the clerk of the weather office has long ago ceased trying to satisfy us in this matter. What seems wretched weather to one person makes another happy. Cold, that the young enjoy because it makes them feel their vitality to the tips of their fingers, is death to the old. Those who are fond of skating look out of the windows of their bedrooms, hoping to see a good hard frost. The man who has three or four hunters "eating their heads off" in the stable wishes for open weather, so that he and they may have a run. The farmer says that frost is good for his land; the sportsman, who has hired an expensive shooting, does not like it. A young lady enjoys her walk and looks her best on a fine frosty morning; but she should not forget that the weather which is so pleasant to her puts thousands of people out of work.

Idle people feel changes of weather most. A man who lives a busy life in a hot climate once said to me: "I do not know why people growl about the heat; for my part, I have no time to be hot." And if the energetic feel heat less than do the indolent, they certainly feel cold less. They are too active to be cold; and perhaps it is easier to make oneself warm in a cold climate than cool in a hot one.

A man who had been complaining because it had not rained for a good while, when the rain did come then grumbled because it did not come sooner. The rich, however, rather than the poor, talk of the "wretched weather," because they have fewer real sorrows to grumble at. Indeed, the poor often set an example of cheerfulness and resignation in this matter which is very praiseworthy. "What wretched weather we are having!" said a man to an old woman of his acquaintance whom he passed on the road. "Well, sir," she replied, "any weather is better than none." Fuller tells us of a gentleman travelling on a misty morning who asked a shepherd--such men being generally skilled in the physiognomy of the heavens--what weather it would be. "It will be," said the shepherd, "what weather shall please me." Being asked to explain his meaning, he said, "Sir, it shall be what weather pleaseth God; and what weather pleaseth God, pleaseth me."

The people who are most satisfied with their climate are the Australians and New Zealanders. I never met one of them who did not, in five minutes, begin to abuse the English climate and glorify his own. They will not admit that it has a single fault, though we have all heard of the hot winds that make the Australian summer terribly oppressive. The fact is that every country has a bad wind, or some other kind of supposed drawback, which is very trying to strangers, but which, whether they know it or not, suits the inhabitants. God knows better than we do the sort of weather that each country should have.

What are we to say about the winter we have lately been enduring? Well, it was very "trying" for us all, and an even stronger word might be used by the poor, the aged, and the delicate. Still, let us remember that without omniscience it is impossible to say whether any given season is good or bad. So infinitely complex are the relations of things that we are very bad judges as to what is best for us. How do we know that our past winter of discontent may not be followed by a glorious summer, and that the two may not be merely antecedent and consequent, but in some degree cause and effect?

On no other subject are people so prone to become panegyrists of the past as in this matter of the weather. "Ah," they say, "we never now have the lovely summers we used to have." Reading the other day Walpole's Letters, I discovered that so far from the summers in his day being "lovely," they were not uniformly better than the winters: "The way to ensure summer in England," he writes, "is to have it framed and glazed in a comfortable room." This remark was made of the summer of 1773; that of 1784 was not more balmy, judging from the same writer's comment: "The month of June, according to custom immemorial, is as cold as Christmas. I had a fire last night, and all my rosebuds, I believe, would have been very glad to sit by it."

Here is another weather grumble from the same quaint letter-writer: "The deluge began here but on Monday last, and then rained nearly eight-and-forty hours without intermission. My poor bag has not a dry thread to its back. In short, every summer one lives in a state of mutiny and murmur, and I have found the reason: it is because we will affect to have a summer, and have no title to any such thing."

This reminds us of Quin, who, being asked if he had ever seen so bad a winter, replied: "Yes, just such an one last summer." If people could be satisfied about the weather, this sort of summer ought to have pleased the Irishman who, as he warmed his hands at a fire remarked: "What a pity it is that we can't have the cold weather in the summer."

SERENADE.

"Come out! the moon is white, and on the river
The white mist lies;
The twilight deepens, and the stars grow brighter
In the pure, perfect skies;
The dewy woods with silent voices call you;
Come out, heart of my heart, light of my eyes!

"Come out, for where you are not, beauty is not;
Come out, my Dear!
See how the fairies will adorn the meadows
The moment you draw near;
And the world wear that robe and crown of glory
It never wears except when you are here."

In vain!--a little light among the jasmine
Her lattice gleams,
Her white hand at the closing of it lingers
A moment--so it seems--
To drop an unseen rose down to her lover:
White rose--whose scent will sanctify his dreams!

E. NESBIT

A PHILANTHROPIST.

BY ANGUS GREY.

I.

"And when I had your own bottle finished, Doctor, an ould man that was passing by to the fair of Kinvarra told me that there was nothin' in the world so good for a stiff arm as goose's grease or crane's lard, rendered, rubbed in, and, says he, in a few days your arm will be as limber as limber. So I went to the keeper at Inchguile, and he shot a crane for me; but there wasn't so much lard in it as I thought there'd be, because it was just after rearing a chitch."

"Well, we must try and get you a better one next time," said the Doctor, nodding farewell to his loquacious patient, one of those non-paying ones who look on a "dispensary ticket" as conveying an unlimited right of discourse on the one hand and attention on the other. But the Doctor was just now in a position of vantage, being seated on his car, on which he slowly jogged out of sight, leaving the victim of rheumatism who had stopped him still experimentally rubbing the joints of his arm.

It was the first of June by the calendar, but the outward signs of the season were but slightly visible in that grey West Country, where stones lay as the chief crop in the fields and innumerable walls took the place of hedges, and a drizzling mist from the Atlantic hid all distant outlines.

The Doctor had been all day face to face with such cheerless surroundings, and was on his way homewards. But presently he stopped at the entrance of a little "boreen," where a wrinkled, red-skirted dame was standing sentry, leaning on a stout blackthorn stick. "Is it me you're looking out for, Mrs. Capel?" he asked. "I hope Mary is no worse to-day."

"She's the one way always," was the reply; "and it wasn't of you I was thinking, Doctor, but standing I was to watch that ruffian of a pig of Mr. Rourke's that had me grand cabbages eat last night, and me in Cloon buying a pound of madder to colour a petticoat. Ah, then, look at him now standing there by the wall watching me out of the corner of his eye!" and flourishing her stick the energetic old lady trotted off to the attack.

"I may as well go in and see Mary," muttered the Doctor, tying the reins to an isolated gate-post, and walking up the narrow lane to the thatched cottage it led to.

"God save all here," he said, putting his head in over the half-door.

"God save you kindly," was the reply from an old man in corduroy knee-breeches and a tall hat, who sat smoking a short pipe in the deep chimney-corner, and watching with interest the assault of various hens and geese upon the heap of potato-skins remaining in a basket-lid which had done duty as a dinner-table.

The Doctor passed through to a little room beyond, whitewashed and containing a large four-post bed. The invalid, a gentle, consumptive-looking girl, lay on the pillows and smiled a greeting to the Doctor.

His eye, however, passed her, and rested with startled curiosity on a visitor who was sitting by her side, and who rose and bowed slightly. The stranger was a lady, young and slight, with dark eyes and hair and a small, graceful head. He guessed at once she must be Miss Eden, the new Resident Magistrate's sister, of whose ministrations to the poor he had heard much since his return from his late holiday.

He stopped awkwardly, rather confused at so unexpected a meeting; but the stranger held out her hand, and looking up at him said: "I am so glad you have come back; we have wanted you so much."

The Doctor did not answer. The sweet, low voice, with no touch of Irish accent, was a new sound to him, the little hand that she gave him was fairer and smaller and more dainty than any he had ever touched. To say the truth, his early farm-house life and his hospital training and dispensary practice had not brought him into contact with much refinement, and this girl with her slight, childlike figure and soft, earnest eyes seemed to him to have stepped from some unreal world. Then, finding he still held the little hand, he blushed and let it go.

"How are you getting on, Mary?" he asked, turning to his patient.

"Middling, sir, thank you," said the girl. "I do have the cough very bad some nights, but more nights it's better; and the lady, may God enable her, has me well cared."

"I could not do much," said the lady, with an appealing glance, "and you must not be angry with me for meddling with your patients. But now that you have come I am sure Mary will be better."

"Don't be troubling yourself about me," said the sick girl, gently. "I'll never be better till I see Laurence again."

"Oh, don't be giving yourself up like that," said the Doctor, cheerily; "we won't let you die yet awhile."

"I won't die," she answered, gravely, "till the same day that Laurence died: the 13th of September. There's no fear of me till then."

She looked tired, and her visitors left, the Doctor telling his new acquaintance as they walked down the lane what a strong, bright girl this had been till a year ago, when her brother had died of consumption. From that day her health had begun to fail, the winter had brought a cough, and Easter had found her kept to her bed. It was a hopeless case, he thought, though she might linger for a time.

"Indeed, and she's a loss to us," put in old Mrs. Capel, who had now joined them, having returned from her pursuit of the predatory pig. "She was a great one for slavin', and as strong as any girl on the estate, but she did be frettin' greatly after her brother, and then she got cold out of her little boots that let in the water, and there she's lying now, and couldn't get up if all Ireland was thrusting for it."

The mist had now turned to definite rain, and Louise Eden accepted "a lift" on the Doctor's car, as he had to pass her gate in going home. His shyness soon wore off as the girl talked to him with complete ease and simplicity, first of some of his poor patients, then of herself and her interest in them.

She was half-Irish, she said, her mother having come from this very West Country, but she had lost both her parents early and been brought up at school and with English relatives. Lately her brother, or rather step-brother, having been made an R.M. and appointed to the Cloon district, had asked her to live with him, and this she was but too happy to do. She had always longed to give her life to the poor and especially the Irish poor, of whose wants she had heard so much. She had even thought of becoming a deaconess, but her friends would not hear of it, and she had been obliged to submit herself to their conventional suburban life. "But here at last," she said, "I find my hands full and my heart also. These people welcome me so warmly and need so much, the whole day is filled with work for them; and now that you have come, Dr. Quin," she added, smiling at him, "I can do so much more, for you will tell me how to work under you and to nurse your patients back to health again."

It was almost dark when they came to the gate of Inagh, the house usually tenanted by the Resident Magistrate of the day, and here Louise Eden took leave of her new acquaintance, again giving him her hand in its little wet glove. The Doctor watched her as she ran lightly towards the house. She wore a grey hat and cloak, and the rough madder-dyed skirt of the peasant women of the district. None of the "young ladies" he had hitherto met would have deigned to appear in one of these fleecy crimson garments, so becoming to its present wearer. She turned and waved her hand at the corner of the drive, and the Doctor having gazed a moment longer into the grey mist that shrouded her, went on his journey home.

His little house on the outskirts of Cloon had not many outward charms, being built in the inverted box style so usual in Ireland. A few bushes of aucuba and fuchsia scarcely claimed for the oblong space enclosed in front the name of a garden. But within he found a cheerful turf fire, and his old housekeeper soon put a substantial meal on the table.

"Any callers to-day, Mamie?" he asked as he sat down.

"Not a one, sir, only two," was the reply. "The first was a neighbouring man from Killeen that was after giving himself a great cut with a reaping-hook where he was cutting a few thorns out of the hedge for to stop a gap where the cows did be coming into his oatfield. Sure I told him you wouldn't be in this long time, and he went to Cloran to bandage him up."

"And who was the other, Mamie?"

"The second first, sir, was a decent woman, Mrs. Cloherty, from Cranagh, with a sore eye she has where she was cuttin' potatoes and a bit flew up and hot it, and she's after going to the Friars at Loughrea to get a rub off the blessed cross, but it did no good after."

The old woman rambled on, but the Doctor gave her but a divided attention. He laughed and blushed a little presently to find himself gazing in the small round mirror that hung against the wall, his altitude of six feet just bringing his head to its level. The face that laughed and blushed back at him was a pleasant one: frank, blue eyes and a square brow surmounted by wavy fair hair were reflected, and the glad healthfulness of four-and-twenty years. He had been looked on as a "well-looking" man in his small social circle of Galway and Dublin, and had laughed and joked and danced with the girls he had met at merry gatherings, but without ever having given a preference in thought to one above another. Certainly no eyes had ever followed him into his solitude as the dark ones first seen to-day were doing.

He went out presently, the rain having ceased, and sauntered down the unattractive "Main Street" of Cloon.

The shops were shut, save those frequent ones which added the sale of liquor to that of more innocent commodities. In one a smart-looking schoolboy was reading the _Weekly Freeman_ aloud to a group of frieze-coated hearers. At the door of another a ballad-singer was plaintively piping the "Mother's Farewell," with its practical refrain:--

"Then write to me often, _and send me all you can_,
And don't forget where'er you are that you're an Irishman."

The Doctor might at another time have joined and enlivened one of the listless groups standing about, but, after a moment or two of hesitation, he turned his back to them and walked in the direction of the gate of Inagh. "There's Mrs. Connell down there, that I ought to go and see; she's always complaining," he said to himself, in self-excuse. But having arrived at her cottage, he saw by a glance at the unshuttered window that his visit would be a work of supererogation, as she was busily engaged in carding wool by the fireside, the clear light of the paraffin lamp, which without any intervening stage of candles had superseded her rushlight, showing her comely face to be hale and hearty.

Half unconsciously the young man passed on, crossed a stile and walked up a narrow, laurel-bordered path towards the light of another window which was drawing him, moth-like, by its gleam. It also, though in the "Removable's" house, was unshuttered, testifying to the peaceful state of the district. He could see a cheerful sitting-room, gay with flowers and chintzes, the light of a shaded lamp falling on Louise Eden's fair head, bent over a heavy volume on the table, an intrusive white kitten disputing her attention with it. He drew back, with a sudden sense of shame at having ventured so far, and hurried homewards to dream of the fair vision the day had brought him.

It was the beginning of an enchanted summer for the young Doctor. Day after day he met Miss Eden, at first by so-called accident; but soon their visits were pre-arranged to fall together at some poor cottage, where she told him he could bring healing or he told her she could bring help.

She had thrown herself with devotion into the tending of the poor. "I have wasted so many years at school," she would say, "just on learning accomplishments for myself alone; but now I have at last the chance of helping others I must make the most of it, especially as it is in my own dear Ireland."

"The lady" was soon well known amongst the neglected tenants of an estate in Chancery. Her self-imposed duties increased from day to day. The old dying man would take no food but from her hands. The Doctor found her at his house one evening. She had cut herself badly in trying to open a bottle for him, and was deadly pale. "I can't bear the sight of blood," she confessed, and fainted on the earthen floor. It was with gentle reverence that he carried her out and laid her on the cushions of his car, spread by the roadside; but the sweet consciousness of having for that one moment held her in his arms never left him when alone. In her presence her frank friendliness drove away all idle dreams and visions.

It was on a Sunday afternoon of September that Dr. Quin and Louise Eden met again sadly at the house where they had first seen each ocher, that of the Capels. They were called there by a sudden message that the poor girl Mary was dying, and before they could obey the summons she had passed away.

The little room was brighter now; a large-paned window, the gift of her ministering friend, let the light fall upon the closed eyes. At the foot of the bed hung a beautiful engraving of the Magdalen at the Saviour's feet, while a bunch of tea-roses in a glass still gave out their delicate fragrance. Neighbours were beginning to throng in, but gave place to "the lady." The old father silently greeted her and wrung her offered hand, but moved away without speaking. The mother, staying her loud weeping, was less reserved.

"It's well you earned her indeed, miss," she said; "and she did be thinking of you always. The poor child, she was ill for near ten months, but I wouldn't begrudge minding her if it was for seven year. Sure I got her the best I could, the drop of new milk and a bit o' white bread and a grain o' tea in a while, and meself and the old man eatin' nothin' but stirabout, and on Christmas night we had but a herrin' for our dinner, not like some of the neighbours that do be scattering. Sure we never thought she was goin' till this morning, when she bid us send for the priest. And when she saw the old man crying, 'Father,' says she, 'don't fret. I'll soon be in Heaven praying for you with me own Laurence.' Sure she always said she'd die on the same day as him, and she didn't after--it was of a Saturday he died and this is a Sunday."

Louise and the Doctor looked up suddenly at each other. This was indeed the 13th of September, the day on which Laurence Capel had last year passed away.

They presently left the house of mourning, soon to become, by sad incongruity, a house of feasting, Louise leaving a little money for "the wake" in the old woman's hands. They walked towards home together, the Doctor leading his horse.

"I hope there is nothing wrong, Miss Eden," he asked after a little, noticing how abstracted and depressed she seemed.

"Yes," she answered; "I have had news that troubles me. My brother has written to tell me that he is going to marry the lady at whose house he has been staying in Yorkshire; and that, as she has a large property there, he will give up his Irish appointment. They offer me a home, and I am sure they would be very kind. But what troubles me is the thought of leaving Cloon, where I have learned to help the people and to love them. I can never settle into a dull, selfish, luxurious life again." Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke.

The young man's heart beat fast. Might he--might he dare to lay himself at her feet? He nervously played with the horse's mane and said tremulously, "We can never do without you now, Miss Eden. We should all be lost without you."

He paused and looked at her. She was gazing sadly at the distant blue outline of the Clare hills, and the sun sinking behind them flashed upon her tearful eyes. She was on the other side of the horse and a little in advance, and he could not, had he dared, have touched her hand. The words came out suddenly:

"We can never do without you here: I can never do without you. Will you stay with me? I haven't much to offer you: two hundred pounds a-year is all I am earning now, and I may soon get the hospital. I can't give you what you are used to; but if I had the whole world and its riches, it's to you I would bring them."

She had stopped now and listened to him, startled. Then she turned again, looked at the tranquil hills and the far-stretching woods of Inchguile, and the smoke curling from many a poor hearthstone. A vision flashed across her mind of a life spent here in the country she had learned to love, amongst the people she longed to succour, with for a helper the strong, skilful man who had stood with her by so many beds of sickness. Then she thought of what her future would be in a luxurious English household. She could see the well-regulated property, the tidy cottages, where squire and parson would permit her help, but not need it. An old woman looked from her doorway as they passed and said: "God speed ye! God bring ye safe home and to heaven!"

They had come to the high road now, and as they stopped to let a drove of cattle pass, she turned and met the Doctor's wistful eyes with a flash of enthusiasm in hers.

"I will stay," she said. "I will give my life to Cloon and its poor!"

Then, as they reached the stile which led into Inagh, she crossed it lightly and walked up the narrow path, scarcely remembering to look back before she was out of sight and wave her hand in farewell to her happy lover.

Happy was not, perhaps, the word to describe him by. A sudden rapture had swept over him, blinding his vision, when she had said, "I will stay." Yet now that she was out of sight without having deigned him one touch of her hand, one soft word, he felt as if all had been a dream; and was also conscious of a feeling, too subtle to be formed into a thought, that there was something wanting in this supreme moment which surely is not wanting when two hearts for the first time know themselves to be beating for each other. But she had always been such an object of worship to him, as one beyond his sphere, that he remembered how far away she had been from him but yesterday, and that doubtless the ordinary rules of love must be put aside when one so high stooped to crown the life of so unworthy a worshipper.

II.

Colonel Eden returned that evening, and for some days Louise was constantly occupied with his affairs, driving and walking with him and listening to his plans and projects, and thus giving up her own solitary expeditions and visits.

She was glad of the excuse to do this. The moment of exaltation in which she had resolved to devote her life to these poor Galway peasants had passed away, and though she kept pictures before her mind of a redeemed district, and children brought up in health and cleanliness instead of disease and dirt, and home industries taking the place of the idleness that followed spasmodic labour, misgivings entered with them as she saw herself no longer "the lady" who stooped from a high level, but a mere doctor's wife (she would not admit even to her thoughts the undesirable title of "Mrs. Quin"), living in that small staring house at the entrance of the town. Of one thing she was certain, she could not possibly suggest such an idea to her brother. She could imagine too well his raised eyebrows and sarcastic words. She must wait until he had broken all ties with the neighbourhood, and then she could come back without consulting him. Her affianced husband's personality she kept as much as possible in the background. He was to be her fellow in good works, her superior in the skill and knowledge of a healer. She had only seen him during her ministrations to the poor, only talked with him of their needs and his own aspirations, had hardly looked on him as a being in whom she could take a personal interest, until that moment in the sunset when she had in the impulse of a moment linked her life to his.

A dread began to creep over her of seeing him again. How should she meet him? Could she still keep him at a fitting distance? Would he not feel that he had some claim upon her even now?

One morning, hearing wheels, she looked up from her half-hearted study of an Irish grammar and saw the well-known car and the bony grey horse appearing. To fly out by the back door, catching up her hat on the way was the work of a second. She ran down the laurel walk, crossed the stile, and was soon safely on her way to the Inchguile woods.

She was overtaken presently by a frieze-coated man, Martin Regan, who, though an Inchguile tenant and out of her usual beat, she had met once or twice, his bedridden father having sent to beg a visit from her. Their holding was a poor one enough, but by constant hard work the son had managed to keep things going. She knew the old woman who ruled in the house was his stepmother, but had not noticed any want of harmony in the family. Rumours, however, had reached her lately that the old man had been making a will, by which he left the farm and all his possessions to his wife, who had already written to recall her own son from America to share the expected legacy with her.

These rumours came back to the mind of Louise Eden as she noticed the trouble in Martin Regan's face.

"I was just going up to speak to your honour, miss," he said, "when I seen you going through the gate, so I followed you to tell of the trouble I'm in."

"Is what I have heard true, then?" asked Louise. "Surely your father could not be so unjust as to leave the farm you have worked on so hard away from you?"

"It's true indeed, miss," said Martin. "And I'm after going to the agent about it, for Sir Richard is away, and if he could hear of it--he's a good landlord and would never see me wronged. But he says all the power is gone from the landlord now, and that if the old man was to leave the land to Parnell or another and away from all his own blood the law couldn't stop him. So God help us! I dunno at all what'll I do."

"Had you any quarrel with your father that led to this?" asked Louise, with sympathy that won the confidence of her companion, who had walked on with her to the woods, where their path was brilliantly bordered by the opaque red berries of the mountain ash, and the transparent hues of the guelder-rose.

"None at all," was the answer. "They made the will unknownst to me, and they have the little farm and the little stock, and all there is left to themselves, and for me nothing but the outside of the door and the workhouse."

"Do you think they threatened him or used force?" suggested the girl.

"Did they force him to do it, is it? They did not. But it's too much whisky and raisin cakes they had, and me coming into the house after selling a sick pig. I never heard word or sound about it till a neighbouring man told me they were gathered in the house with the priest, and looking for a witness, and I went in, and Peter Kane was in the house preparing to sign his name, and I took him by the neck and threw him out of the door, and the stepmother she took me by the skin of the shirt, and gave me a slap across the face with the flat of her hand, and I called Peter Kane to witness that she struck me, and he said he never saw it. And why? Because he had a cup of whisky given him before, and believe me, when he turned about, it smelled good! After that, no decent man could be found to sign his name, till they got two paid men. Sure there's schemers about that 'ud hang you up for half a glass of whisky."

"And who drew up the will?" inquired Miss Eden.

"The curate, Father Sheehy that did it. Sure our own priest would never have done it, but it was a strange curate from the County Mayo. And I asked him did he know there was such a one as me in the world, and he said he never did. Then yourself'll need forgiveness in heaven, Father, says I, as well as that silly old man."

"Could you not speak quietly to your father about it?" suggested Louise.

"Sure I never see the old man but when I go into the room in the morning to wipe my face with the little towel after washing it, and he don't speak to me himself, but to himself he do be speaking. And the old woman says to me, 'Go down now to your landlord and see what he can do for you;' and I said I will go, for if he was at home, there was never a bishop or a priest or a friar spoke better and honester words to me than his honour's self."

Martin Regan paused to take breath and wipe his mouth with his coat sleeve, and after a moment's abstracted gaze at the vista of tall fir trees before him, burst out again: