if 1^1 ^-<^ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/broomsquireOObaririch THE BROOM-SQUIRE ^^/r BY S: BARING-GOULD AUTHOR OF "MEHALAH," "COURT ROYAL," "THE GAVEROCKS,' "NOEMI," "EVE," ETC., ETC IRew l^orft an5 Xon&on FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY pyB;,lSHER§ CopBrtflbtt 1895, BY S. BARING-GOULD. Copfitfgbt, 1896, BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY. \ ^ \? CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. AT THE SIGN OF THE SHIP I II. WANDERING SOULS 8 III. THE PUNCH-BOWL I4 IV. WITHOUT A ROOF 22 V. MEHETABEL 28 VL MEHETABEL IT MUST BE 35 VII. FALSE PERSPECTIVE 4 1 VIIL ONLY A CHARITY GIRL 48 IX. BIDEABOUT 55 X. INTO THE NET 63 XI. A SURNAME AT LAST 70 XII. UNEXPECTED 77 XIII. HOME 85 XIV. NOT PARADISE 92 XV. IVER 98 XVI. AGAIN IVER IO5 XVII. DREAMS 112 XVIII. REALITIES 1 1 7 XIX. BACK AGAIN 1 24 XX. GONE 131 XXL thor's stone 137 XXIL IVER ! COME 144 XXIII. A SHOT 149 XXIV. THE IRONSTONE HAMMER 1 56 XXV. AN APPARITION 162 XXVI. A SECRET 169 XXVII. POISON , , , , . . 1 76 iir43«>l(>S iv CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XXVIII. A THREAT 1 82 XXIX. A HERALD OF STRIFE 1 89 XXX. A BEQUEST I95 XXXI. SURPRISES 202 XXXII. ANOTHER SURPRISE 308 XXXIII. MARKHAM 2 1 6 XXXIV. THE PICTURE 222 XXXV. THE ONLY CHANCE 228 XXXVI. THE SLEEPING DRAUGHT 235 XXXVII. A MENACED LIFE 243 XXXVIIL SHUT OUT 229 XXXIX. AT THE SILK MILL 256 XL. BY THE HAMMER POND 262 XLI. WANDERERS 268 XLII. THE CAVE 275 XLIIL AT COLPUS'S 282 XLIV. AGAIN-IRONSTONE 288 XLV. IN HOPE 294 XLVI. A TROUBLED HOPE 3OO XLVII. BEFORE THE JUDGE 3O7 XLVIII. THE VERDICT 314 XLIX. WELCOME 32 I L. MOVE ON 327 LI. THOr's STONE AGAIN 334 LIL THE ROSE-CLOUD 34 1 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. CHAPTER I. AT THE SIGN OF THE SHIP. On a September evening, before the setting of the sun, a man entered the tavern of the Ship in Thursley, with a baby under his arm. The tavern sign, rudely painted, bore, besides a presentment of a vessel, the inscription on one side of the board : — " Now before the hill you climb, Come and drink good ale and wine." On the other side of the board the legend was differ- ent. It ran thus : — " Now the hill you're safely over, Drink, your spirits to recover." The tavern stood on the high-road side between Godalming and Portsmouth ; that is to say the main artery of communication between London and Ports- mouth. After rising out of the rich overshadowed weald land, the road had crossed long sandy wastes, where pop- ulation was sparse, where were no enclosures, no farms, only scattered Scottish firs ; and in front rose the stately ridge of sandstone that culminates in Hind Head and Leith Hill. It was to prepare the wayfarer for a scram- ble to the elevation of a little over nine hundred feet that he was invited to " drink good ale and wine," or, if he were coming from the opposite direction was called upon to congratulate himself in a similar manner 2 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. on having over-passed this ridge. The wayfarer with the baby under his arm came from the Godalming side. He looked up at the sign, which appealed at once to his heart, for he was obviously a sailor, no less than did the invitation commend itself to his condition. He entered, tumbled the baby on to the tavern table that was marked with wet rings from beer cans, and upset a saucer containing fly poison, and said, with a sigh of relief — " There you are ! Blowed and all of a lather ! " - He pulled out a blue cotton pocket-handkerchief, mopped his face and shouted, " Beer ! " " Well, I never ! " exclaimed the landlady. " Who- ever heered afore or saw of a babby lugged about wrong side uppermost. What would you say if I was to bring you your tankard topsy-turvy? " I wouldn't pay for it," said the sailor. " 'Cos why ? " asked the woman, planting herself arms akimbo, in front of the wayfarer. " 'Cos it 'ud capsize the ale," he answered. " Very well, ain't babbies got no in'ards to capsize ? " asked the landlady, defiantly. "And chucked in among the pison for killing them dratted flies, too ! " " Never mind about the kid," said the man. " I do mind about the child," retorted the woman ; " look at him there — the innocent — all in the nasty slops. What '11 the mother say to the mess and crum- ple you've made of the clothes? " The landlady took the infant from the table, on one arm, and proceeded to the bar to draw the beer. Presently she returned, kissing the child and ad- dressing it in terms of affection. She thrust the pew- ter full of foaming ale on the table towards the custo- mer, with resentfulness in her action. " He's a stomachy (sturdy) young chap," she said, patting the babe with the now disengaged hand. " He ain't a he at all," retorted the man. " He's a she." " A girl, is it ! " exclaimed the hostess ; " and how came you by the precious ? " F l^ f\LJ MSmh^ -■* i!9 ^P^ ^HL -' iiiyk -. : piM%\-^yi I'l^ lit'^ :: :^«mi'|H Mmr^:^ :^09^^^^Hh_„ , , ^ gjiK^ J^ "^ 11 .,„ "^ ^^^^^hhk^ '<i^r<*t»^^^|^^^^^p j^^^^mnj E-' F i ,. -"^ V w^^f^^ FT ^ m^sL^ . THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 3 "Best rights of all," answered the man; "'cos I'm the kid's father." " Her mother ought to be ashamed of herself let- ting you haul about the poor mite under your arm, just as though she was pertatoes." " Her mother can't help it," said the man. " She's dead, and left me wi' this here child a month or six weeks old, and I've been sweating along the way from Lun'non, and she yowlin' enough to tear a fellow's nerves to pieces." This said triumphantly ; then in an apologetic tone, " What does the likes o' me know about holdin' babies ? I were brought up to seaman- ship, and not to nussin'. I'd joy to see you, missus, set to manage a thirty-pounder. I warrant you'd be as clumsy wi' a gun as I be wi* a kid." " D'r say," responded the landlady, " and where be you a-g*win to with this here angel? Takin' her to sea to make a mermaid of her ? " " No, I aren't," said the mariner. " Her mother's dead — in lodgin's down by the Katherine docks, and got no relatives and no friends there. I'm off to sea again when I've dispodged o' this here incumbrance. I'm takin' her down to her mother's sister — that way." He indicated the down road with his thumb. " It's a wonder you ain't made a crook of her back- bone, it is," said the woman. " And if you'd gone and crippled she for life, what would you think o* that ? " " I didn't carry her like that all the road," answered the sailor. " Part ways I slung her over my back." " Wonder she's alive. Owdatious strong she must be. Come in, my cherry beam. I'll give you as good as mother's milk. Three parts water and a bit o' shuggar. Little your father thinks o' your wants so long as he gets his ale." " I let her suck my thumb," said the sailor, timidly. " Much good she got out o' that," retorted the land- lady. "Yes, yes, my syrup. I'll give you something." " If you can stop her yowling, I'll thank you." With a contemptuous look at the father, the hostess withdrew. 4 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. Then the sailor planted his elbows on the table, drank a long draught of beer, and said, sententiously, " It's an institootion is wimin." " Woman is the joy of our lives," said a lanky, dark- haired man at the table. " 'Tain't exactly that," answered the sailor, now first observing that there were other men in the room. " *Tis that there's things for everything — there's the capstan for hawlin' up the anchor, and there's the woman for nussin*. They was ordained to it — not men — never, no — not men. Look at my hand." The sailor ex- tended his arm across the table. " It's shakin' like a guitar-string when a nigger's playing — and all along of that kid's yawls. Wimin Hkes it." " It's their moosic," said the lanky man. Then in rushed the landlady with flashing eyes, and holding out both palms before her said, *' The child's mouth be that purple or blue — it's fits." " It's blackberries," answered the seaman. " They was nice and ripe, and plenty of them." " Blackberries ! " almost shrieked the hostess, '* and the child not six weeks old ! You've killed her! It's upset her blessed little inside." " I thought I'd done wrong," said the sailor, timidly, "that's why I was a-carryin' of her topsy-turvy. I thought to ha' shooked the blackberries out again." " If that child dies," exclaimed the landlady, solemnly, " then where will you go to, you unnat'ral parient?" " I did it wi' the best intention," apologized the man. " That's what Betsy Chaffers said when she gave wrong change. Oh that heaven should ever a created man. They's terrible monsters." She disappeared again after the child. The sailor drank more beer, sighed, wiped his brow, then his upper lip, and looked appealingly about him at the men who were present. Of these there were four and a half. That is to say, four men and a boy. Three of the men were at the table, and of these the lanky sallow man was one. THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 5 These three men were strange, unpleasant-looking fellows, dressed up in scraps of incongruous clothing, semi-nautical, semi-agricultural. One was completely enveloped in a great-coat that had belonged to a very- tall and stout man, and he was short and thin. An- other was incompletely dressed, for what garments he had on were in rags that afforded glimpses between them of tattered lining, of flesh, but of no shirt. The third man had the unmistakable lower jaw and mouth of an Irishman. By the fire sat an individual of a different type. He was a young man with heavy brows and a large mouth devoid of lips, set tight as a snapped man-trap. He had keen, restless, watchful eyes. His hair was sandy, thrust forward over his brow, and hanging low behind. On the opposite side of the hearth crouched a boy, a timid, delicately formed lad with a large head and full lustrous eyes. " Come from far ? " asked one of the ragamuffins at the table. " Didn't yur hear me say from Lun'non town ? " answered the sailor. *^ Lagged that there dratted baby the whole way. FU have another glass of beer." " And what distance are you going ? " asked the lanky man. ** I shall put into the next port for the night, and to- morrow on to Portsmouth, and stow away the kid with my wife's sister. Lord ! I wishes the morrer were well over." " We're bound for Portsmouth," said the man in tatters. " What say you ? shall we keep company and relieve you of the kid ? If you'll pay the shot here and at the other end, and at the other pubs — can't say but what we'll ease you." " It's a bargain," exclaimed the sailor. " By George ! I've had enough of it from Lun'non here. As to money, look here," he put his hand into his trousers pocket and pulled out a handful of coins, gold, silver and copper together. " There is brass for all. Just home, paid off — and find my wife dead — and me 6 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. saddled with the yowling kid. Tm off to sea again. Don't see no sport wider-erring here all bebothered with a baby." '* We are very willing to accompany you," said the tattered man, and turning to the fellow with sallow face and lantern jaws, he said, " What's your opinion, Lonegon ? " " I'm willing, Marshall ; what say you, Michael Casey?" ** Begorra — I'm the man to be a wet nuss." The sailor called for spirits wherewith to treat the men who had offered their assistance. " This is a mighty relief to me," said he. " I don't think I could ha' got on by myself." " You've no expayrience, sir," said Casey. ** It's I'm the boy for the babbies. Ye must rig up a bottle and fill it with milk, and just a whisk of a drop of the craytur to prevent it curdling, and then stuff the mouth with a rag — and the darlin'll suck, and suck, and be still as the evenin* star as I sees yonder glimmering at the window." ** You'll have to start pretty sharp if you want to get on a stage before dark," said the man by the fire. " It's a lone road," threw in the boy shyly. " What's the odds when we are four of us ? " asked the man whose name was Lonegon. "And all of us pertecting the little cherub from ketching cold," threw in Casey. '* We ain't afraid — not we," said the ragged man. " Not of bogies, at any rate." " Oh, you need not fear bogies," observed the man at the fire, dryly. " What is it, then? " asked Michael Casey. "Sure it's not highwaymen ? " The man by the fire warmed his palms, laughed, and said : " It would take two to rob you, I guess, one to put the money into your pocket and the second to take it out." " You're right there," answered the Irishman, laugh- ing. " It's my pockets be that worn to holes wi' the THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 7 guineas that have been in them, that now they let 'em fall through." The man by the fire rubbed his palms together and made a remark in a low tone — addressed to the boy. Lonegon turned sharply round on his seat and cried threateningly , " What's that you're "hinting agin us ? Say it again, and say it aloud, and I'll knock your silly, imperdent head off." " I say it again," said the young man, turning his cunning head round, like a jackdaw. " I say that if I were going over Hind Head and by the Punch Bowl at night with as much money in my pocket as has that seaman there — I'd choose my companions better. You haven't heard what I said ? I'd choose my companions better." THE BROOM-SQUIRE. CHAPTER II. WANDERING SOULS. The long, lean fellow, Lonegon, leaped to his feet, and struck at the man by the fire. The latter was prepared for him. He had snatched a brand from the hearth, and without losing the sarcastic laugh on his great mouth, presented it sharply in the way of the descending fist, so as to catch Lone- gon's wrist. The sparks flew about at the clash, and the man who had received the blow uttered a howl of pain, for his wrist was torn by the firwood, and his hand burnt by the fire. With an imprecation and a vow to " do for " " eyes, liver, and lights'* of the " clodhopper," he rushed at him blindly. With a mocking laugh, the man assailed thrust forth a leg, and Lonegon, stumbling across it, measured his length on the floor. The man called Marshall now interfered by snatching the pewter tankard from the sailor, and aiming it at the head of him wl^o had overthrown his mate. At the same time the boy, terrified, began to scream. ** Mother ! mother ! help ! pray ! they'll murder Bide- about." The hostess speedily appeared, set her arms akimbo, planted her feet resolutely on the floor, and said, in commanding tones — " Now then ! No fighting on the premises. Stand up, you rascal. What have you done with the pewter? Ah, crushed out of all shape and use. That's what Molly Luff sed of her new bonnet when she sat down on it— Lawk, a biddy ! Who'd ha' thought it ? " Lonegon staggered to his feet, and burst into a torrent of recrimination against the man whom the boy had called Bideabout. THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 9 " I don't care where the rights are, or where be the wrongs. An addled egg be nasty eating whether you tackle it one end or 'tother. All I sez is — I won't have it. But what I will have is — I'll be paid for that there tankard. Who threw it ? " " It was he — yonder, in tatters," said the boy. " You won't get money out o* me," said Marshall ; " my pockets — you may turn 'em out and see for your- self— are rich in nothing but holes, and there's in them just about as many of they as there are in the rose o* a watering can." " I shall be paid," asserted the hostess. " You three are mates, and there'll be money enough among you." " Look here, mistress," put in the sailor, " I'll stand the damage, only don't let us have a row. Bring me another can of ale, and tell me what it all comes to. Then we'll be on the move." " The other fellows may clear off, and the sooner the better," said the landlady. *' But not you just now, and the baby has dropped into the sweetest of sleeps. 'Twere a sin to wake her." " I'm going on to the Huts," said the seaman. " And we're going with him as a guard to the baby," said the Irish fellow. " A blackguard set," threw in Bideabout. ** What about the color so long as it is effective ? " asked Casey. By degrees the anger of Lonegon was allayed, and he seated himself growling at the table, and wiped the blood from his torn wrist on his sleeve, and drawing forth a dirty and tattered red kerchief, bound it round the bruised and wounded joint. The man, Bideabout, did not concern himself with the wrath or the anguish of the man. He rubbed his hands together, and clapped a palm on each knee, and looked into the fire with a smirk on his face, but with an eye on the alert lest his adversary should attempt to steal an advantage on him. Nor was he unjustified in being on his guard, judging by the malignant glances cast at him by Lonegon, 10 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. " Whom may you be ? " asked the tattered man. " Fm Jonas Kink," answered the young fellow at the fire. " He's Bideabout, the Broom-Squire," explained the landlady. Then with a glimmering of a notion that this variation in names might prove confusing, she added, " leastways that's what we calls him. We don't use the names writ in the Church register here. He's the Broom-Squire — and not the sort o* chap for you ragamuffins to have dealings with — let me tell you." '* I don't kear what he be," said Lonegon, sullenly, " but dang it, I'd like a sup o' ale with your leave," and without further ceremony he took the new tankard from the sailor and quaffed off half its contents. The hostess looked from the drinker to the seaman and said, " Are you standing tick for they ? " " I'll pay for their drink and they'll help me along the road with the baby," said the sailor. The landlady shrugged her shoulders contempt- uously, and asked, '* If I may be so bold, what's her name?" " What's whose name ? " ** The baby's." " Ha'n't got none," said the seaman. " What, ain't she been christened yet ? " " No, I reckon not," answered the father. Then he proceeded to explain. " You see my poor wife she was down in lodgings and hadn't no friends nor relations no'ther nigh her, and she took ill and never got over the birth of this here babe, and so it couldn't be done. But the kid's aunt'll see to all that right enough when I've got her there." " What ! you're trapsing about the country hugging a babe along under your arm and slung over your shoulder and feeding her o' blackberries and chucking her in among fly poison, and not a Christian yet ! My ! What a world it is ! " " All in good time, missus." " That's what Betsy Cole said o' her pork and 'ams when the pig wor killed and her hadn't salt nor salt- THE BROOM-SQUIRE. ii petre. She'd see to it some day. Meanwhile the maggots came and spiled the lot." ** It shall all be made right in a day or two." " Ah ! but what if it be too late ? Then where will you go to some day? How can you say but that the child wi* being hung topsy-turvy and -swinging like a pendiddlum may die of the apoplexy, or the black- berries turn sour in her blessed stomach and she go off in convulsions, or that she may ha' put out the end o' her tongue and sucked some o' that there fly paper ? Then where will you be ? ** " I hope I shall be on board ship just before that comes to pass," said the sailor. " Do you know what happens if a child dies and ha'n't been christened ? It becomes a wanderer." " What do you mean ? " " It ain't a Christian, so it can't go to heaven. It ain't done no evil, so it can't go to hell ; and so the poor spirit wanders about in the wind and never has no rest. You can hear them piping in the trees and sob- bin' at the winder. I've heard 'm scores of times. How will you like that when at sea to have your own child sighing and sobbin' up in the rigging of the vessel, eh ? " " I hope it will not come to that," said the sailor. " That's what Susan Bay said when she put a darnin' needle into the armchair cushion, and I sed, said I, 'twas a ticklesome thing and might do hurt. She did it once too often. Her old man sat down on it." She brought some more ale at the request of the seaman, and as she set down the tankard said : " I won't be so bold as to say it's in Scriptur*, but it's in the Psalm-book I dare swear. Mother, she were a tip-top tearin' religious woman, and she used to say it to me when I was younger than I be now : — " * They flies in clouds and flap their shrouds When full the moon doth shine ; In dead of night when lacketh light, We here 'em pipe and pine. ** * And many a soul wi' hoot and howl Doth rattle at the door, Or rave and rout, and dance about All on a barren moor.' 12 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. " And it goes on somehow like this. You can think on it as you go over Hind Head in the dark : " * Or at the winder wail and weep, Yet never venture nigher ; In snow and sleet, within to creep To warm 'em at the fire.' " The child began to cry in the adjoining room. " There," said the landlady, " 'tis awake she is, poor mite without a name, and not as much Christianity as could make a cat sneeze. If that there child were to die afore you got to Portsmouth and had her baptized, sure as my name is Susanna Verstage, I'd never for- give myself, and I'd hear her for sure and certainty at the winder. I'm a motherly sort of a woman, and there's a lot o' them poor wanderers comes piping about the panes of an evening. But I can do nothing for them." " Now then, lads, let's be moving," said the mariner. The three men at the table rose ; and when stand- ing exposed more of their raggedness and the incon- gruity of their apparel than was shown when they were seated. The landlady reluctantly surrendered the child. " A babe," said she, " mustn't be shaken after feed- ing;" then, " a babe mustn't be allowed to get its little feet cold, or gripes comes ; " then, " you must mind and carry it with the head to your shoulder, and away from the wind.'* Presently another item occurred to the good woman, as the men left their places at the table: '* You must hold the child on your arm, between the wrist and the elbow-jint." As they went to the door she called, '* And never be without a drop o' dill water : it's comforting to babies." As they made their exit — " And when nussin', mind, no green meat nor fruit." When all had departed the landlady turned to the man by the fire, who still wore his sarcastic smirk, and said " Bideabout ! What do you think of they?" THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 13 '* I think," answered the Broom-Squire, " that I never saw three such cut-throat rascals as those who have gone off with the sailor ; and as for him — I take he's softish." " I thought him a bit of a natural." " He must be so to start on one of 'the lonesomest roads in England, at fall of night, with such a parcel of jailbirds." " Well, dear life ! " exclaimed the good woman. " I hope nothing will hap* to the poor child." " Mother," said the boy, timidly, '' it's not true is it about the spirits of babies in the wind ? " " Of course it is. Where would you have them go ? and they bain't Christians. Hark ! I won't say there be none flying about now. I fancy I hear a sort of a kind o' whistling." ** Your boy Iver, he's coming with me to the Punch- Bowl," said the Broom-Squire ; " but I'll not go for half-an-hour, becos I don't want to overtake that lanky, black-jawed chap as they call Lonegon. He ain't got much love for me, and might try to repay that blow on his wrist, and sprawl on the floor I gave him." "What is Iver going to the Punch-Bowl for?" asked the landlady, and looked at the boy, her son. '' It's a snipe's feather Bideabout has promised me," answered the lad. " And what do you want a snipe's feather for at this time o' night ? " " Mother, it's to make a paint brush of. Bideabout ain't at home much by day. I've been over the road scores o' times." " A paint brush ! What do you want paint brushes for ? Have you cleaned out the pig-stye lately? " " Yes, mother, but the pig lies abroad now ; it's warm in the stye." " Well, you may go. Dear life ! I wish I could see that blessed babe again, safe and sound. Oh, my ! " The good-hearted woman was destined to have her wish answered more speedily than she could have anticipated. 14 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. CHAPTER III. THE PUNCH-BOWL. The Broom-Squire and the boy were on their way up the hill that led towards the habitation of the for- mer ; or, to be more exact, it led to the summit of the hill whence the Squire would have to diverge at a sharp angle to the right to reach his home. The evening had closed in. But that mattered not to them, for they knew their way, and had not far to go. The road mounted continuously, first at a slight in- cline, over sand sprinkled with Scotch pines, and then more rapidly to the range of hills that culminates in Hind Head, and breaks into the singular cones entitled The Devil's Jumps. This is one of the loveliest parts of fair England. The pine and the oak and the Spanish chestnut luxu- riate in the soil, the sand tracts between the clumps are deep in heather, at intervals the country is furrowed as by a mighty plough ; but the furrowing was done by man's hand to extract the metal of which the plough is formed. From a remote antiquity this district of Surrey, as well as the weald of Sussex, was the great centre of the iron trade. The metal lies in masses in the sand, strangely smooth and liver-colored, and going by the name of kidney iron. The forest of An- derida which covered the weald supplied at once the ore and the fuel for smelting. In many places are ** hammer ponds," pools of water artificially constructed, which at one time served to turn wheels and work mechanism for the beating out of the iron that had been won on the spot. The discovery of coal and iron together, or in close proximity, in the North of England brought this THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 15 industry of the counties of Surrey and Sussex to an abrupt end. Now the deposits of ore are no longer worked, no furnaces exist, only the traces of the old men's mines and forges and smelting pits remain to attest that from an age before Caesar landed in Kent, down to the close of the last century, all the iron em- ployed in England came from this region. Another singular feature of the district consists in the masses of hard stone, gray with lichen, that lie about, here topping a sandhill, there dropped at random in the plain. There was at one time many more of these, but owing to their power of resisting heat they were largely exploited as hearthstones. These masses, there can be no doubt, are remains of superincumbent beds of hard rock that have been removed by denudation, leaving but a few fragments behind. That superstition should attach to these blocks is not marvellous. The parish in which lies the Punch- Bowl and rises Hind Head, comprises one such Thors- stone, named perhaps after the Scandinavian Thunder god. One of these strange masses of stone formerly occupied a commanding position on the top of Borough Hill. On this those in need knocked, whereupon the " Good People " who lived under it lent money to the knockers, or any utensil desired in loan, on condition that it was returned. One night, a petitioner, who was going to give a feast at the baptism of his child, went to the stone, and knocked, and asked in a loud voice for the loan of a cauldron. This was at once thrust out from under the stone, and was carried away and used for the christening feast. Unhappily, the applicant for the cauldron neglected to return it at the time appointed, and since then no more loans have been made. The cauldron, which is of cop- per, isinow preserved in Frensham parish church. It is two feet in diameter, and stands on an iron trivet. After the road had ascended some way, all trees dis- appeared. The scenery was as wild and desolate as any in Scotland. On all sides heathery slopes, in the even- ing light a broken patch of sand showed white, almost i6 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. phosphorescent, through contrast with the black ling. A melancholy bird piped. Otherwise all was still. The richly-wooded weald, with here and there a light twinkling on it, lay far below, stretching to Lewes. When the high-road nearly reached the summit, it was carried in a curve along the edge of a strange depres- sion, a vast basin in the sand-hills,sinking three hundred feet to a marshy bottom full of oozing springs. This is termed the Devil's Punch-Bowl. The modern road is carried on a lower level, and is banked up against the steep incline. The old road was not thus protected and ran considerably higher. The night was gathering in, fold on fold, and ob- scuring all. The Punch-Bowl that the Broom-Squire and the boy had on their right was a bowl brimming with naught save darkness. Its depths could not be fathomed by the eye at that time of night, nor did any sound issue from it save a hissing as though some fluid were seething in the bowl ; yet was this produced solely by the wind swirling in it among the harsh branches of the heather. " So your mother don't like your drawing and paint- ing," said the Broom-Squire. " No, Bideabout, she and father be terrible on at me to become a publican, and carry along with the Ship, after father's got old and gived up. But I don't fancy it ; in fact, I hate the thought of it. Of course," added the boy ; ** if they forces me to it, I must. But any- how I wouldn't like to have that there Ship sign at our door so bad painted as she be. I could do better if I had the paints." '' Oh ! drinkers don't care for beautiful pictures at the door, but for good ale within." " I don't like that there ship, and I wouldn't stand it — if the inn were mine." " You're a fool," said the Broom-Squire contempt- uously. " Here's the spot where the turn comes off the road to my house. Mind where you walk, and don't roll over down the Punch-Bowl ; it's all a bog at the bottom," THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 17 "There's no light anywhere," observed the boy. " No — no winders look this way. You can't say if a house is alive or dead from here." " How long have you had your place in the Punch- Bowl, Bideabout ? " " I've heard say my grandfather was the first squatter. But the Rocliffes, Boxalls, Snellings, and Nashes will have it they're older. What do I care so long as I have the best squat in the lot." That the reader may understand the allusions a word or two must be allowed in explanation of the settlements in the Punch-Bowl. This curious depression in the sand range is caused by a number of springs welling up several hundred feet below the summit of the range. The rain that falls on the hills sinks through the sand until it reaches an im- pervious bed of clay, when it breaks forth at many orifices. These oozing springs in course of vast ages have undermined and washed away the superincumbent sand and have formed the crater called the Devil's Punch-Bowl. The bottom is one impassable swamp, and the water from the springs flows away to the north through an opening in the sand-hills. At some unknown date squatters settled in the Punch-Bowl, at a period when it was in as wild and solitary a region as any in England. They enclosed portions of the slopes. They built themselves hovels ; they pastured their sheep, goats, cattle on the sides of the Punch-Bowl, and they added to their earnings the profits of a trade they monopolized — that of making and selling brooms. On the lower slopes of the range grew coppices of Spanish chestnut, and rods of this wood served ad- mirably for broom-handles. The heather when long and wiry and strong, covered with its harsh leafage and myriad hard knobs, that were to burst into flower, answered for the brush. On account of this manufacture, the squatters in the Punch-Bowl went by the designation of Broom-Squires. They provided with brooms every farm and gentle- 2 i8 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. man's house, nay, every cottage for miles around. A wagon-load of these besoms was often purchased, and the supply lasted some years. The Broom-Squires were an independent people. They used the turf cut from the common for fuel, and the farmers were glad to carry away the potash as manure for their fields. Another business supplemented farming and broom- making. That was holly-cutting and getting. The Broom-Squires on the approach of Christmas scattered over the country, and wherever they found holly trees and bushes laden with berries, without asking permis- sion, regardless of prohibition, they cut, and then when they had a cartload, would travel with it to Lon- don or Guildford, to attend the Christmas market. Not only did they obtain their fuel from the heaths, but much of their victual as well. The sandy hills abound in rabbits, and the lagoons and morasses at the foot of the hills in the flat land teem with fish and wild fowl. At the present day the ponds about Frensham are much in request for fishing — at the time of our tale they were netted by the inhabitants of the neighbor- hood when they felt a hankering after fish, and the "moors," as marshes are locally termed, were prowled over for ducks, and the sand burrows watched for rab- bits, all without let and hindrance. At the present date there are eight squatter families in the Punch-Bowl, three belong to the branches of the clan of Boxall, three to that of Snelling, and two to the less mighty clan of Nash. At the time of which I write one of the best built houses and the most fertile patches of land was in the possession of the young man, Jonas Kink, commonly known as Bideabout. Jonas was a bachelor. His father and mother were dead, and his sister had married one of the Rocliffe's. He lived alone in his tolerably substantial house, and his sister came in when she was able to put it tidy for him and to do some necessary cooking. He was re- garded as close-fisted though young ; his age about twenty-three years. Hitherto no girl had caught his JONAS APPROACHED THE PROSTRATE FIGURE AND WAVED THE FLAMING GRASS ABOVE IT." — Page IQi '^ 'j j '^ W / ''''/'' o » • « c THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 19 fancy, or had caught it sufficiently to induce him to take one to wife. " Telly what/' said his sister, " you'll be nothing else but an old hudger (bachelor).** This was coming to be a general opinion. Jonas Kink had a heart for money, and for that only. He sneered at girls and flouted them. It was said that Jonas would marry no girl save for her money, and that a monied girl might pick and choose for herself, and such as she would most assuredly not make elec- tion of Bideabout. Consequently he was foredoomed to be a " hudger." *' What's that ? " suddenly exclaimed the Broom- Squire, who led the way along a footpath on the side of the steep slope. " It's a dead sheep, I fancy, Bideabout." " A dead sheep — I wonder if it be mine. Hold hard, what's that noise ? " " It's like a babe's cry," said the boy. " Oh, lawk ! if it be dead and ha* become a wanderer ! I shu'd never have the pluck to" go home alone." " Get along with your wanderers. It's arrant non- sense. I don't believe a word of it." " But there is the crying again. It is near at hand. Oh, Bideabout ! I be that terrified ! " '* I'll strike a light. I'm not so sure about this being a dead sheep." Something lay on the path, catching what little light came from the sky above. Jonas stooped and plucked some dry grass. Then he got out his tinderbox and struck, struck, struck. The boy's eyes were on the flashing sparks. He feared to look elsewhere. Presently the tinder was ignited, and the Broom-Squire blew it and held dry grass haulms to the glowing embers till a blue flame danced up, became yellow, and burst into a flare. Cautiously Jonas approached the prostrate figure and waved the flaming grass above it, whilst sparks flew about and fell over it. The boy, shrinking behind the man, looked timidly to THE BROOM-SQUIRE. forward, and uttered a cry as the yellow flare fell over the object and illumined a face. ** I thought as much," said the Broom-Squire. "What else could he expect? Them theer chaps ha' murdered him. They've robbed and stripped him." " Oh— Bideabout ! " " Aye. What other could come o' such companions. They've gone off wi' his clothes — left his shirt — have they? That's curious, as one of the blackguards had none,'* Then the child's wailing and sobbing sounded more continuously than before. " The baby ain't far off," said Jonas. " I suppose we can't leave it here. This is a pretty awkward affair. Tell'y what, Iver. You bide by the dead man and grope about for that there baby, and I'll go down to the houses and get help." " Oh, Bideabout ! I dursn't." "Dursn't what?" " Not be left alone — here — in the Punch-Bowl with a dead man." " You're a fool," said Jonas, " a dead man can't hurt nobody, and them rascals as killed him are for sure a long way off by this time. Look here, Iver, you timid 'un, you find that squalling brat and take it up. I don't mind a brass fardin' being here wi* a corpse so long as I can have my pipe, and that I'll light. But I can't stand the child as well. You find that and carry it down, and get the Boxalls, or someone to take it in. Tell 'em there's a murdered man here and I'm by the body, and want to get home and can't till someone comes and helps to carry it away. Cut along and be sharp. I'd ha' given a shilling this hadn't happened It may cost us a deal o' trouble and inconvenience—' still — here it is — and — you pick about and find that creature squealin* its bellows out." There was callousness unusual and repulsive in so young a man. It jarred with the feelings of the fright- ened and nervous boy. Tears of alarm and pity were in his eyes. He felt about in the heather till he THE BROOM-SQUIRE. it reached the infant. It was lying under a bush. He took the poor little creature up, and the babe, as though content to feel itself with strong arms under it, ceased to cry. " What shall I do, Bideabout ? " . " Do — cut along and raise the Boxalls and the Snell- ings, and bid them come and remove the body, and get someone to take the child. Confound the whole con- cern. I wish they'd done it elsewhere — or I hadn't come on it. But it's like my ill-luck." 22 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. CHAPTER IV. WITHOUT A ROOF. The boy, Iver, trudged along carrying the infant in his arms. The little face was against his cheek, and the warm breath played over it. Whenever the child cried, he spoke, and his voice reassured the babe, and it was quiet again. He walked cautiously, as the path was narrow and the night dark. A false step might send him rolling down the steep slope with his burden. Iver had often been to the squatters' quarters, and he knew very well his direction ; but he was now agi- tated and alarmed. After a while he reached bushes and could see trees standing black against the sky, and caught the twink- ling of lights. Before him was a cottage, and a little garden in front. He opened a wicket and went up to the door and rapped. A call of '' Who is there ? " in response. The boy raised the latch and entered. A red peat fire was burning on the hearth, and a man sat by it. A woman was engaged at needlework by the light of a tallow candle. " Tom Rocliffe ! " exclaimed the boy. " There's been a murder. A sailor — he' s dead on the path — there's Bideabout Kink standing by and wants you all to come and help and — here's the baby." The man sprang to his feet. " A murder ! Who's dead ? " " There was a sailor came to our place, it's he." "Who killed him?" " Some chaps as was drinking with him, so Bideabout says. They've robbed him — he had a lot of brass." " Dead — is he ? " The man ran out. " And what have you got there ? " asked the woman. THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 23 " It's his baby." " How came he by the baby ? ** " I heard him say his wife was dead, and he were going to carry the child to his wife's sister." " What's the man's name ? " " I don't know." " Where did he come from ? ** " He was a seaman." " Where was he going to put the baby ? " " I don't know 'xactly — somewhere Portsmouth way." " What's the man's name ? " " I don't know." "How'll you find her?" " I don't know." " Portsmouth is a large place. Are you sure she's in Portsmouth?" " He said Portsmouth way, I think." " Then there be a difficulty in finding her?" " 'Spose there will. Will you take the baby ? " "I — I " The woman stared. " What's its name?" " It ain't got none." ** Is it a boy or girl?" " I think it's a girl." " How old is it ? " " I think he said about six weeks." "Is it healthy?" " I don't know." " Maybe it has the smallpox." " I do not think so. Will you take it ? " " I — not I. I know nothin' about it. There's no saying, it might bring diseases into the house, and I must consider my own children. Is it terrible dirty ? " " I — I don't think so." ^* And it hasn't got a name ? " " No ; the sailor said it was not baptized." " What's the color of its eyes ? " " I don't know." " Has it got any hair ? " 24 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. " I have not looked." " P'raps it's an idjot ? " " I don't think so." " And is deformed ? " " Oh, no." " Well, I can't have no baby here as I don't know nothin' about. You can take it over to the Snellings. They may fancy it. I won't have nothin' to do with a babe as ain't got no parents and no name, and ain't got no hair and no color in its eyes. There is my Samuel snorin'. Take the child away. I don't want no measles, and smallpox, and scarlatina, and rickets brought into my house. Quick, take the nasty thing off as fast as you can." Iver shrunk away, left the house, and made his way, carrying the baby, to another cottage a hundred yards distant. There was a lane between them, with a stream running through it, and the banks were high and made the lane dark. The boy stumbled and fell, and though he probably had not hurt the child, he had frightened it, and it set up loud and prolonged screams. With brow bathed in perspiration, and heart beating from alarm, Iver hurried up to the second squatter's cabin, and, without knocking, burst in at the door. " I say," shouted he, " there's been a man killed, and here's a baby yelling, and I don't know what's the matter with it. I stumbled." A man who was pulling off his boots started to his feet. " Stop that darned noise," he said. " My wife — she's bad — got the fever, and can't abide no noise. Stop that din instantly, or I'll kick you out. Who are you, and what do'y mean rushing in on a fellow that way ? " The boy endeavored to explain, but his voice was tremulous, and the cries of the infant pitched at a higher note, and louder. " I can't hear, and I don't want to," said the man. Do you mind what I sed ? My wife be terrible bad wi' fever, and her head all of a split, and can't bear no noise — and will you do what I say ? Take that brat THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 25 away. Is this my house or is it yours ? Take that 'orrid squaller away, or I'll shy my boot at yer head." " But/* said Iver, " there's a man dead — been mur- dered up in the " " There'll be more afore long, if yon don't cut. I'll heave that boot at you when I've counted thrice, if you don't get out. Drat that child ! It'll wake my wife. Now, then, are you going?" Iver retreated hastily as the man whirled his heavy boot above his head by the lace. On leaving the house he looked about him in the dark. The cottages were scattered here and there, some in hollows by springs, others on knolls above them, without a definite road between them, except when two enclosures formed a lane betwixt their hedges. The boy was obliged to step along with great care, and to feel his way in front of him with his foot before planting it. A quarter of an hour had elapsed before he reached the habitation of the next squatter. This was a ramshackle place put together of doors and windows fitted into walls, made of boards, all taken from ruinous cottages that had been pillaged, and their wreckage pieced together as best could be managed. Here Iver knocked, and the door was opened cautiously by an old man, who would not admit him till he had considered the information given. " What do you say? A man murdered? Where? When ? Are the murderers about ? " " They have run away." " And what do you want me to do ? " " Would you mind taking in the poor little baby, and going to help Master Bideabout Kink to carry the body down." " Where to ? Not here. We don't want no bodies here." The old fellow would have slammed the door in Iver's face had not the boy thrust in foot and knee. Then a woman was heard calling, " What is that there, Jamaica? I hear a babe," 26 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. " Please, Mrs. Cheel, here is a poor little creature, the child of the murdered man, and it has no one to care for it," said the boy. " A babe ! Bless me ! give the child to me," cried the woman. " Now then, Jamaica, bundle out of that, and let me get at the baby." '' No, I will not, Betsy," retorted the man designated Jamaica. *' Why should I? Ask for an inch, and they'll have an ell. Stick in the toe of the baby, and they'll have the dead father after it. I don't want no corpses here." " I will have the baby. I haven't set my eyes on a baby this hundred years." " I say you shan't have nothing of the sort." " I say I shall. If I choose to have a baby, who's to say me nay ? " " I say you nay. You shan't have no babies here." "This is my house as much as yourn." " I'm master I reckon." " You are an old crabstick." " You're an old broom-handle." " Say that again." " I say it." ** Now then — are you going to hit me ? " " I intend to." Then the old man and his wife fell to fighting, claw- ing and battering each other, the woman screaming out that she would have a baby, the man that she should not. Iver had managed to enter. The woman snatched at the child, the man wrenched it away from her. The boy was fain to escape outside and fly from the house with the child lest the babe should be torn in pieces between them. He knew old Cheel and his wife well by repute — for a couple ever quarrelling. He now made his way to another house, one oc- cupied by settlers of another family. There were here some sturdy sons and daughters. When Iver had entered with the babe in his arms and had told his tale, the young people were full of excitement. THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 27 " Bill," said one of the lads to his brother, " I say ! This is news. I'm off to see." " I'll go along wi' you, Joe." '* How did they kill him ? " asked one of the girls. " Did they punch him on the head ? " . " Or cut his throat ? " asked Bill. " Joe ! " called one of the girls, " I'll light the lan- tern, and we'll all go." " Aye ! " said the father, " these sort o' things don't happen but once in a lifetime." '' I wouldn't be out of seeing it for nuthin'," said the mother. *' Did he die sudden like or take a long time about it ? " " I suppose they'll inquitchhim," said one of the girls. " There'll be some hanging come o' this," said one of the boys. " Oh, my ! There will be goings on," said the mother. *' Dear life, I may never have such a chance again. Stay for me, Betsy Anne. I'm going to put on my clogs." " Mother, I ain't agoing to wait for your clogs." " Why not? He won't run away." " And the baby ? " asked Iver. " Oh, bother the baby. We want to see the dead man." " I wonder, now, where they'll take him to ? " asked the mother. " Shall we have him here ? " "I don't mind," said the father. ^' Then he'll be inquitched here ; but I don't want no baby." ** Nor do I nuther," said the woman. " Stay a mo- ment, Betsy Anne ! I'm coming. Oh, my ! whatever have I done to my stocking, it's tore right across." "Take the child to Bideabout," said one young man, *' we want no babies here, but we'll have the corpse, and welcome. Folks will come and make a stir about that. But we won't have no babies. Take that child back where you found it." " Babies ! " said another, scornfully, " they come thick as blackberries, and bitter as sloes. But corpses — and they o' murdered men — them's coorosities." " But the baby ? " again asked the boy. 28 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. CHAPTER V. MEHETABEL. IvER stood in the open air with the child in his arms. He was perplexed. What should be done with it ? He would have rubbed his head, to rub an idea into it, had not both his arms been engaged. Large warm drops fell from the sky, like tears from an overcharged heart. The vault overhead was now black with rain clouds, and a flicker over the edge of the Punch-Bowl, like the quivering of expiring light in a despairing eye, gave evidence that a thunderstorm was gathering, and would speedily break. The babe became peevish, and Iver was unable to pacify it. He must find shelter somewhere, and every door was shut against the child. Had it not been that the storm was imminent, Iver would have hasted directly home, in full confidence that his tender-hearted mother would receive the rejected of the Broom-Squire, and the Ship Inn harbor what the Punch-Bowl refused to enter- tain. He stumbled in the darkness to Jonas Kink's house, but finding the door locked, and that the rain was beginning to descend out of the clouds in rushes, he was obliged to take refuge in an out-house or barn — which the building was he could not distinguish. Here he was in absolute darkness. He did not ven- ture to grope about, lest he should fall over some of the timber that might be, and probably was, collected there. He supposed that he was in the place where Jonas fashioned his brooms, in which case the chopping block, the bundles of twigs, as well as the broom-sticks would be lying about. Bideabout was not an orderly THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 29 and tidy worker, and his material would almost certainly be dispersed and strewn in such a manner as to trip up and throw down anyone unaccustomed to the place, and unprovided with a light. The perspiration broke out on the boy's brow. The tears welled up in his eyes. He danced the infant in his arms, he addressed it caressingly, he scolded it. Then, in desperation, he laid it on the ground, and ran forth, through the rain, to the cottage of an old maid near, named Sally, stopping, however, at intervals in his career, to listen whether the child were still crying ; but unable to decide, owing to the prolonged chime in his ears. It is not at once that the drums of hearing obtain relief, after that they have been set in vibration by acute clamor. On reaching the old maid's door he knocked. For some time Sally remained irresponsive. " I knows very well," said she to herself under the bedclothes, " it's that dratted boy who has been at the Rocliffe's." Tver persisted in knocking. At length she appeared at the casement, opened it, thrust forth her night- capped head, and said peevishly, " It ain't no manner o' use. I won't have no babies here, not to my time o' life, thank'y. I sez I won't, and wot I sez that I sticks to like toffee between the teeth. You may knock them there knuckles of yorn into dimples, but open I won't. I won't. I won't." The old woman stamped on her bedroom floor. " I do not ask that, Sally," pleaded the boy. *' I have set the baby in Bideabout's barn, and there's no knowin', it may get hold of the chopper and hack off its limbs, or pull down all the rick o' broom-handles on itself, or get smothered in the heather. I want a lan- tern. I don't know how to pacify the creature, and 'tis squeadling that terrible I don't know what's the mat- ter." ** Is it a drawin' of the hind legs up, and stiffenin' of the back ? " asked the old maid. "I think so," answered the boy, dubiously ; then. 30 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. with further consideration, " I'm sure of it. It wriggled in my arms, like a worm when one's gettin' it on a hook out fishing." ** That's convulsions," said Sally. " 'Twill go off in one of they, sure as eggs is eggs and ain't inions." ** Do you really say so ? " " It's that, or water on the brain. Wi' all this pour- ing rain, I shouldn't wonder if 'twasn't the tother. Not, you know, that I've any acquaintance wi* babies. Only I've heard wimmin talk as has had em just like rabbits." ** Do they die when they have water on the brain ? " asked the boy. "Always. Babies can't stand it, no more nor can goslings gettin' their backs wetted." " Don't you think that perhaps it's only hunger?" " Can't say. Has the babe been a grabbin' and a clawin' at your nose, and a tryin' to suck it ? " " Once, Sally, when my nose got into the way." "Then there's hunger too," said Sally, sententiously. " Them babies has terrible apertites, like canibals, and don't know what's good for 'em." " Will you help me ? " pleaded the boy. " Have you a feeding bottle?" " Presarve and deliver us — I ! What do you take me for, you imperant bye ? " " I think any medicine bottle would do, if well washed out. I shouldn't like, if there was any castor oil or senna tea dregs left, you know. But properly washed out, it might do, with a little milk in it." "You'll choke the baby like that," said the old maid. " I have seen how it is done. You stuff a bit of rag into the throat of the bottle, and leave a tip o' rag hanging out." " Dare say, but you byes seems to understand these things better than I." " Won't you come down and help me, Sally ? " " ril come down presently, wheri I've tumbled intg some of my clothes,*' THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 31 Then the head disappeared, and the casement was shut. After the lapse of a few minutes, a light appeared at the window of the lower room, and the door was slowly unlocked and unbarred. Then the old woman appeared in the' doorway. She wore her huge white-frilled nightcap, that fluttered in the wind about the shrivelled face it enclosed, but she presented an extremely limp and attenuated ap- pearance in her person. " I've been a turnin' over in my head," she said, *' and ten chances to half-a-one,' if that there child hev been squealin' so long, it's either broke a blood vessel, or will die o' 'plexy. There'll be a purty expense to the parish. There'll be two buryings laid on it that oughten't to be. That means an extra penny in the rates. If them there chaps wanted to murder a man, why didn't they go and do it in Hampshire, and not go a burdenin' of this county an' parish? There's rayson in everything." ** Do you really suppose the child will die ? " asked the boy, more concerned about the life than about the rates. " How can I say ? I've had precious little to do wi* babies, thanks be. Now, sharp, what is it you want ? I'm perishin' wi* cold." '* May I have a bottle and some milk, and a lantern ? " "You can have wot you wants, only I protest I'll have no babies foist on me here." Then she added, " I will not trust you byes. Show me your hands that you ain't hidin' of it behind yer back." " I assure you the child is in Bideabout's shed. Do be quick, and help. I am so afraid lest it die, and be- comes a wanderer." " If I can help it I will do what I can that it mayn't die, for certain," said the woman, " anything but taking it in here, and that I won't, I won't, I won't." Again she stamped. Iver provided himself with the requisites as speedily as might be, and hastened back to the outhouse, At S2 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. the door a cat was miawling, and rubbed itself against his shins. When he entered the cat followed him. The child was still sobbing and fitfully screaming, but was rapidly becoming exhausted. Iver felt the arms and head and body to ascertain whether any bone was broken or battered by the fall, but his acquaintance with the anatomy of a child was too rudimentary for him to come to any satisfactory conclusion. He held the bottle in one hand, but was ignorant how to administer the contents. Should the child be laid on its back or placed in a sitting posture ? When he applied the moistened rag to its mouth he speedily learned that position was immaterial. The babe fell to work vigorously, with large expectation of results. Some moments elapsed before it awoke to the fact that the actual results were hardly commensurate with its anticipations, nor with its exertions. When roused to full consciousness that it was being trifled with, then the resentment of the infant was ve- hement and vociferous. It drew up its legs and kicked out. It battled with its hands, it butted with its pate, and in its struggles pulled the plug out of the mouth of the flask so that the milk gushed over its face and into its mouth, at once blinding and choking it. A series of strangulating coughs and gasps ensued, and the creature turned the color of a mulberry. Iver was more alarmed than he had been before. He did his utmost to rescue the contents of the bottle from being entirely spilled, and he replaced the plug. *' Oh, dear, oh, dear, what shall I do ? " he exclaimed, and began to cry with vexation. The cat now came to his assistance. It began to lick up the spilled milk. Iver seized the occasion. "Look, see, pretty puss!" said he, caressingly, to the child. " Stroke pussy. Don't be afraid. You see she likes the milk that you wouldn't have. Naughty pussy eats little birds and mousies. But she won't touch babies," THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 33 The cat having appropriated the spilled milk looked at the infant in an uncanny way out of her glinting green eyes, as though by no means indisposed to try whether baby was not as good eating as a fledgling bird, as toothsome as a mouse. Iver caught up the cat and scratched her under the chin and behind the ears. " Do you hear? The pussy purrs. Would that you also might purr. She is pleased to make your ac- quaintance. Oh do, do, do be quiet ! " Then casting aside the cat he endeavored slowly to distil some of the milk down the child's throat without suffering it to swallow too much at once, but found the task difficult, if not impossible, for his hand shook. **Wait a bit," said he. "There are straws here. I will cut one and put it through the rag, and then you can tipple like a king upon his throne." He selected a stout barley straw, and finding a knot in it endeavored to perforate the obstruction with a pin. When this failed he looked about for another straw, and at last discovered one that was strong, un- interrupted by knots, and sufficiently long to serve his purpose. For awhile he was so engrossed in his occupation that the child remained unnoticed. But when the straw had been adjusted satisfactorily, and the apparatus was in working order, as Iver ascertained by testing it himself, then he looked round at his charge. The babe was lying silent and motionless. His heart stood still. " It is dead ! It is going to die ! It will become a wanderer! " he exclaimed ; and putting down the feed- ing bottle, snatched up the lantern, crept on his knees to the child, and brought the little face within the radius of the sickly yellow light. " I cannot see ! O, I can see nothing ! There is no light worth having ! " he gasped, and proceeded to open the door in the lantern side. " What is to be done ? " he asked despairingly. ** I do not know if it be dying or be in a fit. O ! live ! do, 3 34 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. do live ! I'll give you a brass button and some twine out of my pocket ! I promise you my next lollipops if you will. Nasty, cross, disobliging thing." He went to the barn door and looked out, saw that the rain was coming down in torrents, came back. " Is it true," asked he, " that you must be a wanderer, if you die unchristened ? Shall I ever hear you yowHng in the wind ? It is too, too dreadful ! " A chill came over the boy's heart. Iver had never seen death. He was vastly fright- ened at the thought that the little soul might fleet away whilst he was watching. He dared not leave the child. He was afraid to stay. If he were to desert the babe, and it expired — and to run home, would not the soul come crying and flapping after him? He considered with his hands to his head. '' I know what I will do ! " exclaimed he, suddenly ; " I'll make a Christian of it, anyhow." There was standing on the floor an old broken red bowl of coarse pottery, out of which fowls had been fed. It was now empty. Iver took it, wiped it out with his hand, and went with it to the door, where a rude *' launder " or shoot of wood carried the water from the thatch immediately over the door, and sent the collected moisture in a stream down one side. The boy held the vessel under the shoot till he had obtained sufficient for his purpose, and then, returning within, said, *' I'll stop your wander- ing," went up to the child, sprinkled some water over it and said, " Mehetabel, I baptize thee ** The cat made a spring and dashed past. Down went the contents of the bowl over the babe, which uttered a howl lusty, loud enough to have satisfied any nurse that the baptism was valid, and that the devil was expelled. THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 35 CHAPTER VI. MEHETABEL IT MUST BE. In at the barn door came Mrs. Verstage, Iver's mother. "Iver! Wot'sup?" " Oh, mother ! " " Where's that babe ? *' ** Here, mother, on the ground." " On the ground ! Good Hfe ! Sowsed, soaked through and through, whatever have you been doin' ? Holdin' it under the spout ?" **Baptizin' it, mother." *' Baptizin* of it ? " The woman stared. " I thought the creetur was dyin'." "Well, and wot then?" " Mother. Lest it shud take to wanderin'." " Baptizin' of it. Dear life ! And what did you call it ? " " Mehetabel." " Mehetabel ! 'Taint a human name." " It is, mother. It's a Scriptur' name." " Never heard on it." "Mehetabel was the wife of Hadar." " And who the dickens was Hadar?" " He was a dook — a dook of Edom." In the churchyard of Thursley stands a large white stone, on which is carved a medallion, that contains the representation of a man falling on the ground, with one arm raised in deprecation, whilst two men are robbing and murdering him, and a third is represented as act- ing sentinel lest the ruffians should be surprised. On the ground are strewn the garments of the man who is 36 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. being killed. Beneath this rudely sculptured group is this inscription : — IN MEMORY OF A generous, but unfortunate Sailor, Who was barbarously murdered on Hind Head, On September 24th, 1786, BY THREE VILLAINS, After he had liberally treated thern and promised them his farther Assistance on the Road to Portsmouth. In the " Royal Huts," a tavern, in which now very good entertainment for man and beast may be had, a tavern which stands somewhat further along the way to Portsmouth than Hind Head, may be seen at this day some rude contemporary paintings representative of the murder. The rufifians after having killed their victim, robbed him, not only of his money, but also of his clothes, and hastened on their way. A hue and cry were raised, when the corpse had been discovered, and the men were arrested upon the fol- lowing day at Sheet, near Peterhead, and were found in possession of the clothing of the deceased. In due course of time they were tried at Kingston, and on the 7th of April, 1787, were hung and gibbeted in chains on Hind Head Hill, beside the old road and close to the scene of their crime. A cross now marks the summit, and indicates the spot where stood the gallows, and a stone for some time pointed out the locality where the murder was committed. When, however, the new Portsmouth Road was cut further down the hill, skirting the Punch- Bowl at a lower level, then the stone was removed to the side of the new road. At present it is an object visited by vast numbers of holiday-makers, who seem to take almost as lively an interest in the crime that was committed over a century ago as if it were an ' THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 37 event of the present day. At the time the murder aroused the greatest possible excitement in the neighborhood, and pre-eminently in the parish of Thursley. As may be gathered from the wording of the inscrip- tion on the tombstone that covers the victim, his name never transpired. No relations claimed the right to bury him. None appeared to take charge of his orphan child. The parish fretted, it fumed, it protested. But fret, fume, and protest availed nothing, it had to defray the cost of the funeral, and receive and lap the child in its parochial mercies. A deceased wife's sister undoubtedly existed some- where. Such was the conviction of every parishioner. The poor man was on his way to Portsmouth to de- posit his child with her when the tragic event took place. Why did she not come forward? Why did she hold her tongue? Had there existed in her bosom one particle of natural feeling she would not have remained mute and motion- less, and allowed the parish to bury her brother-in-law and encumber itself with her niece. So the parish talked, appealingly, argumentatively, blusteringly, objurgatively, but all to no purpose. The deceased wife's sister kept mum, and invisible. Re- luctantly, resentfully, the parish was finally obliged to face the facts, pay the expenses of the interment, and settle that a weekly dole should be afforded for the maintenance of the child, and as that deceased wife's sister did not appear, the parochial bile overflowed upon the hapless babe, who came to be regarded as an incubus on the ratepayers and a general nuisance. The one difficulty that solved itself — ambulando, was that as to who would take charge of the child. That was solved by the hostess of the Ship. The parish endeavored to cajole the good woman into receiving the babe as a gift from Heaven, and to exact no compensation for her labors in rearing it, for the expense of clothing, feeding, educating it. But 38 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. Mrs. Verstage was deaf to such solicitations. She would take charge of the child, but paid she must be. Eventually the parochial authorities, after having called a vestry, and sat three hours in consultation, and to " knuckle under," as the hostess expressed it, and allow a trifle for the entertainment of the Httle waif. So the matter was settled. Then another had to be determined. What about the christening performed in the shed by Iver ? What about the outlandish name given the child ? The landlady raised no question on these heads till it was settled that the little being was to be an inmate of her house, and under her care. Then she reasoned thus — " Either this here child be a Mehetabel or she bain't. Either it's a Christian or it's a heathen. What is it ? Is it fish, is it flesh, or is it good red herring ? It ain't no use my calling her Mehetabel if she bain't nothing of the sort. And it ain't no use teachin' her the caterplasm, if she ha'n't been made a Christian. I'll go and ax the pa'son." Accordingly the good woman took Iver by the shoulder and dragged him to Witley Vicarage, and stated her case and her difficulties. The Vicar had already had wind of what had occurred. Thursley was at the period a chapelry in the extensive parish of Witley, and the church therein had, before the Reformation, been regularly served by the monks of Witley Abbey. It was afterwards more or less irreg- ularly supplied with sacred ministrations from the mother-church, and had no resident pastor. In former days the parishioners were never very sure whether there was to be a service in Church at Thur- sley or not. The sexton was on the look-out, and if he saw the parson's wig glimmering over the hedge top, as he rode along, then he at once rushed to the bell-rope and announced to such of the parishioners as were within hearing, that there was to be divine service. If there were no service, then those who had come from a distance in expectation of devotion, re- THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 39 tired to the tavern and drank and gossiped, and were not disposed to cavil. The Church of Thursley is curious, it has a central bell-tower supported on huge beams of oak, such oaks they must have been as are never seen now. Those desiring to see the parson had to seek him in the Vicarage of the mother parish. Mrs. Verstage accordingly had to go with her boy to Witley. " If the boy gave a name " said the parson. " He did, your Reverence, and such a name." "What is it?" " Mehetabel." " Wherever did you pick up that name ? " asked the Vicar, turning to the boy. " Please, sir, we was doin' the Dooks of Edom in Sunday-school. We'd already learned David's mighty men, and could run 'em off like one o'clock, and — I don't know how it was, sir, but the name slipped out o* my mouth wi'out a thought. You see, sir, we had so many verses to say for next Sunday, and I had some of the Dooks of Edom to repeat." " Oh ! So you gave it the name of one of the Dukes." " Please, sir, no. Mehetabel was the wife of one, she was married to his Grace, Dook Hadar." " Oh, Hadar ! to be sure, quite so ; quite so ! Very good boy, glad you are so well primed in all things necessary to salvation." " And is the child to be called Mehetabel ? " asked the woman. " That depends," said the Vicar. " How did the boy perform the sacred function ? " ** Please, sir," said Iver, " I did it as your Honor does, after the second lesson on Sunday afternoon, and the churching." " He hadn't no surplice on," argued the mother. ** You had a bowl of pure water ? " asked the parson. " Yes, sir, rain water. I caught it out of the spout." 40 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. " And the words used ? " " The same as you say, sir ; exactly." The parson rubbed his chin. " Was it done in thoughtlessness — in irreverent folly ? " " Oh, no, sir ! I did it in sober earnest. I thought the child was going to die." " Of course," said the Vicar, " lay baptism is valid, even if administered by a Dissenter ; but — it is very unusual, very much so." " I didn't do all that about the cross," observed Tver, " because the cat jumped and upset the bowl." ** Of course, of course. That belongs to the recep- tion into the church, and you couldn't do that as it was " " In Bideabout's basin," said Iver. " You are certain the water touched the child ? " " Soused her," responded the hostess. " She caught a tremendous cold out o' it, and has been runnin' at the nose ever since." " 1 think the very best thing we can do," said the Vicar, " is that I should baptize the child conditionally, in church, — conditionally mind." " And call her by another name ? " asked the woman. " I do not think I can do that." " It's a terrible mouthful," observed Mrs. Verstage. *' I daresay that in practice you will be able to con- dense it. As for that boy of yours, ma'am, I should like a word with him, by himself." ** So, the creetur must bide Mehetabel ? " " Mehetabel it must be." THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 41 CHAPTER VII. • FALSE PERSPECTIVE. As this story concerns that child which received the name of Mehetabel, it has been necessary to begin de novo with her as a babe, and to relate how she came by her name — that is her Christian name — and how it was that she had no surname at all. Also, how it was that she came to be an inmate of the Ship, and how that her fortunes were linked at the very outset of her career, on the one hand with Iver, who baptized her, and on the other hand with the Broom-Squire, whose roof — that at least of his shed — had sheltered her when every door of the squatter settlement in the Punch- Bowl, was resolutely closed against her. But although this story begins with Mehetabel before she could speak, before she could assimilate anything more substantial than milk, yet the author has no in- tention of inflicting on the reader the record of her early days, of her acquisition of the power of speech, and capacity for consuming solid food. Neither is it his purpose to develop at large the growth of her men- tal powers, and to describe the evolution of her features. Suffice it then to say that Mehetabel grew up in the Ship Inn, almost as a child of the hostess and of her husband, with Iver as her playmate, and somewhat consequential patron. By the parish at large, whether that of Witley or of its subdivision Thursley, she was coldly regarded. She was but a charity girl, and kind as Mrs. Verstage was, the hostess never forgot that. Iver was fourteen years older than Mehetabel, and, above all, was a boy, whereas Mehetabel was a waif, and only a girl. Iver, moreover, regarded the child with gracious 42 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. condescension. Had he not baptized her ? Did she not owe her name to him ? Had he not manufactured her first feeding-bottle ? As Mehetabei grew up, it is not surprising that she should regard Iver with admiration and affection, that she cherished every kindness he showed her, and in every way sought to deserve his notice. The child had an affectionate, a clinging nature, and she threw the tendrils of her heart around the hand- some boy, who was both patron and playmate. It is a matter wholly immaterial whether Mehetabei underwent the ordeal of the customary childish mala- dies, measles, chicken-pox, whooping-cough for cer- tainty, and scarlet fever and smallpox as possibilities, for none of them cut short the thread of her life, nor spoiled her good looks ; either of which eventualities would have prevented this story proceeding beyond the sixth chapter. In the one case, there would have been no one about whom to write, in the other, had she been marked by smallpox or deafened by scarlatina, the interest of the reader could not have been claimed for her — so exacting is the reader of fiction. A heroine must be good-looking, or she will not be read about. Indeed, it is more than probable, that had the author announced his story to be one of a very plain woman, he might have looked in vain for a publisher to undertake the issue of the story. Before proceeding further it will be well to assure the reader that, from an early age, promise of beauty was given, and not of beauty only, but of intelligence and robust health. Mehetabei was sent by Mrs. Verstage not only to a day school, kept by a widow, in Thursley, but also on the Lord's Day to the Vicar's Sunday-school at Wit- ley. The Vicar was an excellent man, kindly dis- posed, earnest in his desire to do good, so long as the good was to be done in a novel fashion, absolutely un- tried. Sunday-schools were but a recent introduction, and he seized on the expedient with avidity. Hitherto THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 43 the children had been catechised in Church after the second lesson in the afternoon, before their parents and the entire congregation. But as this was an usage of the past the Vicar rejected it in favor of the new system. According to the traditional custom the children had been instructed in the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. But this did not please the innovating Vicar, who cast these out of his curriculum to make way for a knowledge of the geog- raphy of Palestine, and an accurate acquaintance with the genealogies that are to be found scattered here and there in the pages of Holy Writ. The teaching of doctrine, according to the Vicar, lay at the bottom of the divisions of Christendom, but there could be no controversy over the latitude and longitude of the sites mentioned in Scripture. The landlord, proprietor of the Ship and of Mrs. Susanna Verstage, was a dull, obstinate man, slow of thought and of speech, withal kindly. Like many an- other dull man, if he did a stupid thing he stuck to it ; and the stupider the thing done, the greater the te- nacity with which he held to the consequences. His mind was chiefly occupied with a small farm acquired out of the sand waste, hedged about, dressed and cultivated, and increasing annually in value. In this was his interest and pride ; he cared nothing for the tavern, save as an adjunct to the farm. All his energies were devoted to the latter, and he allowed his wife to rule supreme in the inn. Simon Verstage was a well- to-do man. He must have managed very ill had he not made a farm answer for which he paid no rent, save an acknowledgment of 6d. an acre to the lord of the manor. He held the land on a head rent upon the lives of himself, his wife, and his son. The public- house, well frequented by wayfarers, and in good repute among the villagers, supplemented the profits made out of the farm in good years, and made up for deficit in such years as rain and deficiency in sun made bad agriculturally. The inn stood at a junction of roads, or rather where 44 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. two lanes fell into the main London and Portsmouth road. It sometimes went in consequence by the name of The Lane End Inn. In situation it was fairly shel- tered, a hillock of sand rock sheltered it on the east from the bitter winds that swept the waste between Milford and Thursley, and a growth of huge hollies was its protection against the equally cold blasts from the north. So long as Iver was a small boy, his father employed him about the farm, to assist him in ploughing, to hoe potatoes, and wield the muck-fork in the cowhouse, or, to use the local term, the cowstall. He kept the lad hard at work from morning rise till set of day. Iver endured this, not entering with interest and pleasure into the work of the farm. He had no per- ception of the points of a bullock, and he had a prej- udice in favor of ragged hedges. Iver's neglect of duties, and forgetfulness of what was told him, called forth reprimand and provoked chastisement. They were not due to wilfulness or frivolity^ but to preoccupation of the mind. The boy had no natural taste for the labors of the field. He disliked them ; for everything else he had eyes, save for that which pertained to the tasks imposed on him. Throughout early boyhood this lack of interest and inattention had caused much friction, and this friction became aggravated as he grew older, and his natural bent became more marked. It would be hard to find in one family two persons so utterly dissimilar as Iver and his father. They seemed to have diverse faculties seated in their several organs. They neither saw, heard, nor smelt in the same manner, or rather saw, heard, and smelt so differ- ently as to feel in distinct fashion. What pleased the one was distasteful to the other. It was not possible for Iver to open his mind to his father, because his father could not understand and appreciate his thoughts. But if his heart was sealed to Simon Verstage, it was open to his mother, who loved and spoiled him, THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 45 and took his part invariably, whether the boy were in the right or wrong. In every way possible she humored his fancies ; and she, unwisely, condoled with him on what she was pleased to consider as his father's injustice. At length there ensued a rupture so wide, so aggravated by mutual recrimination, that Mrs. Verstage doubted her ability to bridge it over. This breach was occasioned by Iver one morning climbing to the sign-board and repainting the stern of the vessel, which had long irritated his eye because, whereas the ship was represented sideways, the stern was painted without any attempt at fore-shortening ; in fact, full front, if such a term can be applied to a stern. The laws of perspective were outraged in the original painting ; of such laws Iver knew nothing. What he did know was that the picture was wrong. His eye, his natural instinct told him so. The matter had been for long one of controversy between himself and his father. The latter had been unable to understand that if the portholes at the side were visible, the entire stern could not possibly be viewed in full. " She's got a stern, ain't she ? " asked the old man. " If she has, then wot's we to deny it her? " At length Iver cut the controversy short, and brought the quarrel to a crisis by climbing a ladder with a brush and some paints obtained from the village carpenter, during the temporary absence of his father, and put- ting the foreshortening to rights to the best of his ability. When the old man was aware what his son had done on his return from Godalming, whither he had betaken himself to a fair, then he was furious. He stormed at Iver for daring to disfigure the sign-board, and at his wife for suffering him to do it unreproved. Iver turned stubborn and sulky. He muttered an answer, lacking in that respect due to a parent. The old man became abusive. Mrs. Verstage intervened ineffectually ; and when night arrived the youth made a bundle of his clothes 46 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. and left the house, with the resolve not to return to it so long as his father lived. Whither he had gone, for a long time was unknown. His mother wept, so did Mehetabel. The old man put on an assumption of indifference, was short and ungracious to his wife. He was constrained to engage a man to do the farm work hitherto imposed upon Iver, and this further tended to embitter him against his rebellious son. He resented having to expend money when for so long he had enjoyed the work of Iver free of cost. The boy's pride prevented him from writing home till he had secured himself a position in which he could maintain himself. When he did communicate with Thursley, it was through Mehetabel, because Simon had forbidden any allusion to the truant boy, and Mrs. Verstage was not herself much of a scholar, and did not desire unnecessarily to anger her hus- band by having letters in his handwriting come to her by the post. Years passed, during which the landlady's heart ached for her son : and as she might not speak of him to Simon, she made a confidant of Mehetabel. Thus, the old woman and the girl were drawn closer together, and Mehetabel glowed with the thought that she was loved by the hostess as though she were her own daughter. To talk about the absent one was the great solace of Susanna Verstage's life. There ever gnawed at her heart the worm of bereavement from the child in whom her best affections, her highest pride, her sole ambitions were placed. It may be questioned whether, without the sympathetic ear and heart of Mehetabel into which to pour her troubles and to which to con- fide her hopes, the woman would not have deteriorated into a hard-hearted virago. Her love to Simon, never very hot, had dried up. He had wounded her to the quick in unpardonable fashion in driving her only child out of the house, and all for the sake of a two-penny-ha'penny signboard. THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 47 Throughout her work she schemed, she thought for Iver ; she toiled and endured in the tavern only to amass a competence for him. She clung to the place only because she trusted some. day he would return to it, and because every corner was sweet with recollections of him. When not at work she dreamed, waking or sleep- ing, and all her dreams were of him. She built castles in the air — all occupied by him. She had but one hope : to meet her son again. All her activities, all her thoughts, all her aspirations, all her prayers were so many lines focussing on one point, and that her son. To Mehetabel she told her mind, and Mehet- abel shared all her hopes ; the heart of the girl beat in entire sympathy with that of the hostess. Iver's letters were read and re-read, commented on, and a thousand things read into them by the love of the mother that were not, and could not be there. These letters were ever in the girl's bosom, kept there to be out of reach of old Simon, and to be accessible at all moments to the hungering mother. They heard that Iver had taken to painting, and that he was progressing in his profession ; that he gave lessons and sold pictures. What musings this gave rise to ! what imaginations ! What expectations! Mrs. Verstage never wearied of talking of Iver to Mehetabel, and it never wearied the girl to speak with the mother about him. The girl felt that she was indispensable to the old woman ; but that she was only indispensable to her so long as Iver was away never entered into her imagination. There is a love that is selfish as well as a love that is wholly self-annihilating, and an inexperienced child is incapable of distinguishing one from the other. There is false perspective in the human heart as well as upon signboards. 48 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. CHAPTER VIII. ONLY A CHARITY GIRL. Simon Verstage sat outside the door of his house, one hot June evening, smoking his pipe. By his side sat his wife, the hostess of the Ship. Eighteen years have passed since we saw her last, and in these years she has become more plump, a little more set in features, and mottled in complexion, but hardly otherwise older in appearance. She was one of those women who wear well, till a sickness or a piercing sorrow breaks them down, and then they descend life's ladder with a drop, and not by easy graduation. Yet Mrs. Verstage had not been devoid of trouble, for the loss of her son, the very apple of her eye, had left an ache in her heart that would have been un- endurable, were not the balm of hope dropped into the wound. Mehetabel, or as she was usually called Mat- abel, had relieved her of the most onerous part of her avocation. Moreover, she was not a woman to fret herself to fiddle-strings; she was resolute and patient. She had formed a determination to have her son home again, even if she had to wait for that till his father was put under ground. She was several years younger than Simon, and in the order of nature might calculate on enjoyment of her widowhood. Simon and his wife sat in the wide porch. This had been constructed as an accommodation for wayfarers, as an invitation to take shade and shelter in hot weather or blustering storm ; but it also served, what was un- contemplated, as an ear to the house. Whatever was uttered there was audible within — a fact very generally forgotten or unsuspected by such as occupied the THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 49 porch. And, indeed, on the present occasion, this fact was wholly unconsidered by the taverner and his spouse, either because it escaped their minds that the porch was endowed with this peculiarity, or.else because the only person then in the house was Mehetabel, and her hearing or not hearing what was said was an indifferent matter. Had there been customers present, drinking, the two would not have been together when and where they were, nor would the topic of conversation between them have been of a private nature. The innkeeper had begun with a remark which all the world might hear, and none would controvert, viz., that it was fine hay-making weather, and that next day he purposed carrying the crop. But Mrs. Verstage was indisposed to discuss a matter so obvious as the weather, and so certain as that it would be utilized for saving the hay. She plunged at once into that which lay near her heart, and said, " Simon, you'll answer that there letter now ? " "Whose? Iver's?" " Of course, Iver's letter. Now you yourself have heard from him, and what does that mean but he wants all square between you. He has got into a famous business. He sells his pictures and gives lessons in drawing and painting at Guildford. It's but a matter of time and he will be a great man." " What ! as a drawing master ? I'd as lief he played the fiddle and taught dancing." " How can you say that, Simon ?" ** Because it is what I feels. Here he had a good farm, a good inn, and a good business — one that don't dwindle but is on the increase, and the land bettering every day — and yet off he went, chucked aside the blessin's of Providence, to take up wi' scribblin* and scrawlin' on paper. If it weren't a thing altogether shameful it would be clear ridic'lous." Simon sucked in smoke enough to fill his lungs, and then blew it forth leisurely in a long spiral. " Odds' life," said he, " I don't se;e why I shu*d con- 4 50 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. cern myself about the hay, nor anythin* else. I've enough to live upon and to enjye myself. What more do I want now? " " What more ? " inquired the landlady, with a sigh and a catch in her voice — a sigh of sorrow, a catch of resentment. " What more — when your son is away ? " '* Whose fault is that ? Home weren't good enough for he. Even the Old Ship on the sign-board didn't give him satisfaction, and he must alter it. I don't see why I should worrit myself about the hay or any other thing. I'll just put up my feet an' enjye myself." " Simon, I pray you answer Iver's letter. Opportu- nities be like fleas, to be took sharp, or away they goes, they be terrible long-legged. Opportunities only come now and then, and if not caught are lost past recall. 'Twas so wi' Temperance Noakes, who might a' had the chimbley-sweep if she'd a kissed him when he axed. But she said. Wipe and wash your face fust — and she's an old maid now, and goin' sixty. Consider, Simon. Iver be your son, your only child. It's Providence makes us wot we is ; that's why you're a man and not a woman. Iver hadn't a gift to be a farmer, but he had to paintin'. It can't be other — it's Providence orders all, or you might be a mother and nursin' a baby, and I smokin' and goin' after the plough in leggins." '* That's all gammon," growled the landlord. " We be gettin' old," pursued Mrs. Verstage. ** In the end you'll have to give up work, and who but Iver is to come after you here ? " " Him — Iver ! " exclaimed Simon. " Your own self says 'e ain't fit to be a farmer." ** Then he may let the farm and stick to the inn." " He ain't got the makin* of a publican in him," re- torted the man ; " he's just about fit for nothin' at all." "Indeed, but he is, Simon," pleaded the woman, " only not in the way you fancies. What good be you now in a public-house ? You do nothing there, it is I who have all the managin'." " I attend to the farm. Iver can do neither. All the money you and I ha* scraped together he'll chuck THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 51 away wi* both hands. He'll let the fences down I ha' set up ; he'll let weeds overrun the fields I ha' cleared. It shall not be. It never shall be." " He may marry a thrifty wife, as you have done." " And live by her labor ! " he exclajmed, drawing his pipe from his mouth and in knocking out the ash in his anger breaking the stem. " That a child o* mine should come to that ! " " Iver is your own flesh and blood," persisted the woman, in great excitement. " How can you be so hard on him ? It's just like that old fowl as pecked her eggs, and we had to wring her neck. It's like rab- bits as eat their own young. Nonsense ! You must be reconciled together. What you have you cannot leave to a stranger." " I can do what I will with my own," retorted Simon. " Look here, Susanna, haven't you had that girl, Mata- bel, with you in place of a child all these years ? Don't she work like a slave? Don't she thoroughly under- stand the business ? Has she ever left the hogs un- meated, or the cow unmilked ? If it pleases you to go to market, to be away for a week, a fortni't you know that when you come home again everything will be just as you left it, the house conducted respectable, and every drop o' ale and ounce o' 'backy accounted for." " I don't deny that Matabel's a good girl. But what has that to do with the matter ? " " What ! Why everything. What hinders me leavin* the whole pass'l o* items, farm and Ship to her ? She'll marry a stiff man as 11 look after the farm, and she'll mind the public-house every mite as well as ever have you, old woman. That's a gal as knows chalk from cheese." Mrs. Verstage leaned back with a gasp of dismay and a cramp at her heart. She dropped her hands on htr lap. *' You ain't speaking serious, Simon ? " " I might do wuss," said he ; " and the wust I could do *ud be to give everythin' to that wastrel, Iver, who doti't Know the vally of a good farm and of a well- 52 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. established public-house. I don't want nobody after I'm dead and gone to see rack and ruin where all were plenty and good order both on land and in house, and that's what things would come to wi' Iver here." " Simon, he is a man now. He was a boy, and what he did as a boy he won't do as a man." *' He's a dauber of paints still." The taverner stood up. "I'll go and cast an eye over the hay-field," he said. " It makes me all of a rage like to think o' that boy." He threw away the broken pipe and walked off. Mrs. Verstage's brain spun like a teetotum ; her heart turned cold. She was startled out of her musings by the voice of Mehetabel, who said, '' Mother, it is so hot in the kitchen that I have come out to cool myself. Where is father ? I thought I heard him talking with you ?" " He's gone to the hay-field. He won't answer Iver's letter. He's just about as hard as one o' them Ham- mer Ponds when frozen to the bottom, one solid lump." " No, mother, he is not hard," said Mehetabel, " but he does not like to seem to give way all at once. You write to Iver and tell him to come here ; that were better than for me to write. It will not seem right for him to be invited home by me. The words from home must be penned by you just as though spoke by you. He will return. Then you will see that father will never hold out when he has his own son before his eyes." " Did you hear all that father and I was sayin' ? " asked the hostess, suspiciously. " I heard him call out against Iver because he altered the signboard ; but that was done a long time agone." " Nuthin' else ? " " And because he would never make a farmer nor an innkeeper." " It's a dratted noosence is this here porch," mut- tered the hostess. ** It ort to 'a been altered ages agone, but lor, heart-alive, the old man be that stub- born and agin' all change. And you heard no more ? " THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 53 I was busy, mother, and didn't give attention to what didn't concern me." " Oh ! " said Mrs. Verstage, *' only listened, did you, to what did concern you ?" A fear had come over the hostess Jest the girl had caught Simon's words relative to his notion, rather than intention, of bequeathing what he had away from Iver and to the child that had been adopted. Of course, Simon did not seriously purpose doing anything of the sort. It was foolish, inconsiderate of him to give utterance to such a thought, and that in such a place as the porch, whence every whisper was conveyed throughout the interior of the house. If Mehetabel had overheard his words, what a Fool's Paradise she might create for herself ! How her head might be turned, and what airs she might give herself. Leave the farm, the inn, everything to a girl with whom they were wholly unconnected, and to the det- riment of the son. Hoity-toity ! such a thought must not be allowed to settle, to take root, to spring up and fructify. " Mother," said the girl, " I think that you ought to write to Iver with your own hand, though I know it will cost you trouble. But it need not be in many words. Say he must come himself without delay and see father. If Iver keeps at a distance the breakage will never be mended, the wound will never be healed. Father is a resolute man, but he is tender-hearted under all, and he's ever been wonderful kind to me." " Oh, yes, so long as he ain't crossed he's right enough with anyone," answered Mrs. Verstage quickly. She did not reHsh the allusion to the old man's kindness towards Mehetabel, it seemed to her suspicious heart due to anticipation of what had been hinted by him. She considered a moment, and determined to have the whole matter out, and to dash any expectations the girl might have formed at once and for ever. A direct woman Mrs. Verstage had ever been. " Matabel," she said, and drew her lips together and contracted her brows, " whatever father may scheme 54 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. about making a will, it's all gammon and nonsense. I don't know whether he's said any tomfoolery about it to you, or may do so in time to come. Don't think nuthin' of it. Why should he make a will ? He has but Iver to whom he can leave what he has. If he don't make a will — where's the odds ? The law will see to it ; that everything goes to Iver, just as it ort." "You will write to Iver to come ? " " Yes, I will. Matters can't be worse than they be, and they may come to a betterment. O dear life of me ! What I have suffered all these years, parted from my only child." " I have tried to do what I could for you, dear mother." " Oh, yes " — the bitterness was still oozing up in the woman's heart, engalling her own mind — " that I know well enough. But then you ain't my flesh and blood. You may call me mother, and you may speak of Simon as father, but that don't alter matters, no more nor when Samuel Doit would call the cabbage plants broccaloes did it make 'em grow great flower heads like passon's wigs. Iver is my son, my very own child. You, Matabel, are only " "Only what, mother?" ** Only a charity girl." THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 55 CHAPTER IX. BIDEABOUT. The words were hardly spoken before a twinge of conscience made Mrs. Verstage aware that she had given pain to the girl who had been to her as a daughter. Yet she justified herself to herself with the consider- ation that it was in the end kindest to cut down ruthlessly any springing expectation that might have started to life at the words of Simon Verstage. The hostess cast a glance at Mehetabel, and saw that her face was quivering, that all color had gone out of her cheeks, that her hands were contracted as with the cramp. ** I had no wish to hurt you," said the landlady ; " but facks are facks, and you may pull down the blinds over 'em wi'out putting them out o' existence. There's Laura Tickner — got a face like a peony. She sez it's innade modesty ; but we all knows it's arry- sippelas, and Matthew Maunder tells us his nose comes from indigestion ; but it's liquor, as I've the best rea- son to know. Matabel, I love you well, but always face facks. You can't get rid of facks any more than you can get rid of fleas out o' poultry." Mrs. Verstage disappeared through the doorway. Mehetabel seated herself on the bench. She could not follow the hostess, for her limbs trembled and threat- ened to give way. She folded her arms on her lap, and leaned forward, with her eyes on the ground. " A charity girl ! Only a charity girl ! " She said the words to herself again and again. Her eyes burnt ; a spray hung on her eyelids. Her lips 56 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. were contracted with pain, spasms ran through her breast. " Only a charity girl ! She'd never, never a' sed that had she loved me. She don't." Then came a sob. Mehetabel tried to check it, but could not, and the sound of that sob passed through the house. It was followed by no other. The girl recovered herself, leaned back against the wall, and looked at the twilight sky. There was no night now. The season was near mid- summer : — " Bamaby bright, All day and no night." Into the luminous blue sky Mehetabel looked steadily, and did battle with her own self in her heart. That which had been said so shortly was true ; had it been wrapped up in filagree — through all dis- guise the solid unpleasant truth would remain as core. If that were true, then why should she be so stung by the few words that contained the truth ? It was not the words that had hurt her — she had heard them often at school — it was that " Mother " had said them. It was the way in which they had been uttered. Mrs. Verstage had ever been kind to the girl ; more affectionate when she was quite a child than when she became older. Gradually the hostess had come to use her, and using her as a servant, to regard her in that light. Susanna Verstage was one of those women to whom a baby is almost a necessity, certainly a prime element of happiness. As she philosophically put it, *' Men likes 'baccy ; wimin likes babies ; they was made so ; " but the passion for a baby was doubly strong in the heart of the landlady. As long as Mehetabel was en- tirely dependent, the threads that held her to the heart of the hostess were very strong, and very many, but so soon as she became independent, these threads were relaxed. The good woman had a blunt and per- emptory manner, and she at times ruffled the girl by THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 57 sharpness of rebuke ; but never previously had she alluded to her peculiar position and circumstances in such a galling manner. Why had she done this now ? Why gone out of her way to do so ? Mehetabel thought how wonderful it was that she, a stranger, should be in that house, treated almost, though not wholly, as its child, whereas the son of the house was shut out from it, — that against him only was the door fast, which was held open with invitation to every one else. It was the thought of this contrast, perhaps, that had been working in Mrs. Verstage's mind, and had pro- voked the impatience and occasioned the cruel words. " Well," said Mehetabel to herself, " I must face it. I have only the name that Iver gave me in the barn. I have no father, no mother, and no other name than that which I am given in charity." She looked at her gown. " I owe that to charity ; " at her hands — " My flesh is nourished out of charity." She wiped her eyes — the very kerchief was a gift to her in charity. "It is so," she said. " I must bear the thought and get ac- customed to it. I was given a name in charity, and in charity my father was granted a grave. All I can look to as in some fashion my own — and yet they are not my own — be the headstone in the churchyard to show how my real father was killed, and the gallows on Hind Head, with the chains, to tell where those hung who killed him. 'Tain't every one can show that." She raised her head with a flash of pride. Human Nature must find something on which to plume itself. If nothing else can be found, then a murdered father and a gallows for the murderers served. Mehetabel was a handsome girl, and she knew it. She could not fail to know it, situated as she was. The men who frequented the public house would not leave a girl long in doubt whether she were comely or the reverse. - But Mehetabel made small account of her appear- ance. No yOuth of the neighborhood had won his way 58 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. into her heart ; and she blew away the compliments lavished upon her as the men blew away the froth from their tankards. What mattered it whether she were good-looking or not, so long as she was only Meheta- bel, without a surname, without kin, without a penny ! When Iver had run away from home she had done all that lay in her power to comfort the mother. She had relieved the landlady of half of her work ; she had stayed up her heart when downcast, despondent. She had talked with her of the absent son, whose name the father would not allow to be mentioned in his hearing ; had encouraged her with hopes, and, by her love, had sought to compensate for the loss. It was due to her that the Ship Inn had a breath of youth and cheerfulness infused into it. But for her, the absence and indifference of the host, and the mo- roseness of the disappointed hostess, would have driven custom away. Mrs. Verstage had found her useful, even necessary. She could hardly endure to be for an hour without her, and she had come to rely upon her more and more in the conduct of business, especially such as required sufficient scholarship to do correspondence and keep accounts. The hostess was proud of the girl's beauty and en- gaging manner, and took to herself some of the credit of having her adopted daughter regarded as the belle of Thursley. She was pleased to see that the men admired her, not less than the women envied her. There was selfishness in all this. Mrs. Verstage's heart was without sincerity. She had loved Meheta- bel as a babe, because the child amused her. She liked her as a girl, because serviceable to her, and because it flattered her vanity to think that her adopted daughter should be so handsome. Now, however, that the suspicion was engendered that her own son might be set aside in favor of the adopted child, through Simon's partiaHty, at once her maternal heart took the alarm, and turned against the girl in resolution to protect the rights of Iver, THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 59 Mehetabel did not understand the workings of Su- sanna Verstage's mind. She felt that the regard entertained for her was troubled. She had heard Simon Verstage's remark about con- stituting her his heir, but had so little considered it as seriously spoken, and as embodying a resolution, that it did not now occur to her as an explanation of the altered conduct of the " mother " towards herself. Mehetabel felt instinctively that a vein of truer love throbbed in the old host than in his wife ; and now, with a hunger for some word of kindness after the re- buff she had sustained, she stood up and walked in the direction of the hayfield to meet Simon Verstage on his return journey. As she stepped along she heard a footfall behind her. The step was quickened, and a hand was laid on her shoulder. She turned, and exclaimed sharply : ** Bideabout — what do you want ? '* " You, Matabel." A man stayed her : the Broom-Squire. " What with me ? " " I want you to listen to what I have to say.** " I can spare you a minute, not more. I expect father. He has gone to look at the hay." Mehetabel disengaged her shoulder from his grasp. She stepped back. She had no liking for the Broom- Squire. Indeed, he inspired her with a faint, undefined repugnance. Jonas was now a middle-aged man, still occupying his farm in the Punch-Bowl, making brooms, selling holly, cultivating his patch of land, laying by money and still a bachelor. He had rounded shoulders and a short neck ; this made him thrust his head forward in a peering man- ner, like a beast of prey watching for a victim. His eyes were keen and restless. His hair was short-cut, and his ears projected from the sides of his head like those of a bat. Otherwise he was not a bad-looking man. His features were good, but his expression was unpleasant. The thin lip was curled contemptuously ; 6o THE BROOM-SQUIRE. and he had a trick of thrusting forth his sharp tongue to wet his Hps before making a spiteful remark. He was a frequent visitor at the Ship, and indeed his incHnation for Hquor was his one weakness. Of late he had been much oftener at this inn than formerly. Latterly he had been profuse in his com- pliments to Mehetabel, which she had put aside, much as she brushed empty tankards, and tobacco ash off the table. He was no welcome guest. His bitter tongue was the occasion of strife, and a brawl was no infrequent result of the appearance of the Broom- Squire in the public house. Sometimes he himself be- came the object of attack, but usually he succeeded in setting others by the ears and in himself escaping un- molested. But on one of the former occasions he had lost two front teeth, and through the gap thus formed he was wont to thrust his tongue. '* I am glad to have caught you," said the Broom- Squire ; *' and caught you alone — it is hard to find you so — as it's hard to find a treacle cask without flies round it." " What have you to say ? " " You have always slipped out of my way when I thought I had you." " I did not know that you had a fancy to catch me alone." She made as if to proceed on her course. *' Stand still," said he imperiously. ''It must come out. Do not look at me with that keep-your-distance air. I mean no incivility. I care a deal more for you than for any one else." " That is not saying much." " I care for you alone in all the world." " Except yourself." " Of course." He breathed as though relieved of a burden. " Look here, Mehetabel, I've not been a marrying man. Wife and family cost too much. I've been sav- ing and not spending. But this can't go on forever. All good things come to an end some time. It has come to this. I must, have a woman to mind the THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 6i house. My sister and I have had a tiff. You know her, Sarah Rocliffe. She won't do as I like, and what I want. So I'll just shut the door in her face and make a long nose at her, and say, * Got some one else now.' '' " So," exclaimed Mehetabel, the color rushing to her cheeks in anger, " you want me as your house- keeper that you may make a nose at your sister and deny her the house." " I won't have any other woman in my house but yourself." " You will have to wait a long time before you get me. " I mean all fair and honorable," said Jonas. " I didn't say housekeeper, did I ? I say wife. If any chap had said to me, * Bideabout, you are putting your feet into a rabbit net, and will be caught, and — * " he made a sign as if knocking a rabbit's neck to kill it — " I say, had any one said that, I'd a' laughed at him as a fool." *' You may laugh at him still," said the girl. " No one that I know has set any net for you." " You have," he sniggered. " Aye, and caught me." " I ! " laughed Mehetabel contemptuously, *' I spread a net for you ? It is you who pursue and pester me. I never gave you a thought save how to make you keep at arm's length." " You say that to me." His color went. *' It is ridiculous, it is insulting of you to speak to me of netting and catching. What do I want of you save to be let go my way." " Come, Mehetabel," said the Broom-Squire caress- ingly, " we won't quarrel about words. I didn't mean what you have put on me. I want you to come and be my wife. It isn't only that I've had a quarrel with my sister. There's more than that. There is something like a stoat at my heart, biting there, and I have no rest till you say — * I'll have you, Jonas ! '" ** The stoat must hang on. I can't say that." "Why not?" 62 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. " I am not obliged to give a reason/* " Will you not have me ? " " No, Bideabout, I will not. How can I take an offer made in this way ? When you ask me to enable you to be rude to your sister, when you speak of me as laying traps for you ; and when you stay me on my road as if you were a footpad." Again she made an attempt to go in the direction of the hayfield. Her bosom was heaving with anger, her nostrils were quivering. Again he arrested her. " If you will not let me go," said she, " I will call for help. Here comes father. He shall protect me." " I'll have you yet," said the Broom-Squire with a sneer. " If it ain't you that nets me, then it'll be I net you, Mehetabel." THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 6$ CHAPTER X. INTO THE NET. ** We must have cake and ale for the hayfield," said Mrs. Verstage. '* Of ale there be plenty in the house, but for cake, I must bake. It ort to ha' been done afore. Fresh cakes goes twice as fast as stale, but blessin's on us, the weather have been that changeable I didn't know but I might put it off to anywhen." This was said on the morrow of the occurrence just described. Whilst Mrs. Verstage was engaged in the baking she had not time for much talk, but she asked abruptly : " What's that as to Bideabout ? Father said he'd come on you and him, and you was both in a sort o' take on." Mehetabel had no reason for reticence, and she told the hostess of the suit of the Broom-Squire, and of the manner in which he made his proposal. Mrs. Verstage said nothing at the time. She was occupied — too occu- pied for comments. But when the cake was in the oven, she seated herself at the kitchen table, with a sigh of relief, and beckoned to Mehetabel to do the same. Mrs. Verstage was warm, both on account of the heat of the morning, but also because she had been hard at work. She fanned herself with a dish, and as she did so looked at the girl. " So — the Broom-Squire offered himself, did he ?" Mehetabel made a sign in the affirmative. " Well,** continued the hostess, " if he weren't so good a customer here he would be suitable enough. But yet a good wife will soon cure him. A hudger (bachelor) does things as a married man don't allow himself." Mehetabel looked questioningly at the landlady. 64 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. She said : ** There must be good stuff in a man, or marriage won't bring it out." **Who says there ain't good stuff in Bideabout?" " I have never seen the glint of it." '* You don't see the iron ore as lies under the sand, but there it is, and when wanted it can be worked. I like a man to show his wust side forefront. There's many a man's character is like his wesket, red plush and flowers in front and calico in rags behind hid away under his coat." Mehetabel was surprised, troubled. She made no response, but color drifted across her face. ** After all," pursued Mrs. Verstage, " he may ha' come here not after liquor, but drawed by you. Then you see he's been alone all these years, and scriptur' saith it ain't good for a man to be that. They goes sour and mouldy — men do if unmarried. I think you'd be fulfillin' your dooty, and actin' accordin' to the word o' God if you took him." " I— mother ! I ! " The girl shrank back. " Mother, let him take some one else. I don't want him." " But he wants you, and he don't want another. Matabel, it's all moonshine about leap year. The time never comes when the woman can ax the man. It's tother way up — and Providence made it so. Bideabout has a good bit o' land, for which he is his own land- lord, he has money laid by, so folks tell. You might do worse. It's a great complerment he's paid you. You see he's well off, and you have nothin'. Men gen- erally, nowadays, look out for wives that have a bit o' money to help buy a field, or a cow, or nothin' more than a hog. You see Bideabout's above that sort o' thing. If you can't have butter to your bread, you must put up wi' drippin'." " I'm not going to take Bideabout," said Mehetabel. " I don't say you should. But he couldn't a took a fancy to you wi'out Providence ordainin' of it." ''And if I don't like him," threw in the girl, half angry, half in tears, " I suppose that is the doings of Providence too ? " THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 65 Mrs. Verstage evaded a reply to this. She said : " I do not press you to take him. You are kindly welcome to stay on with us a bit, till you've looked about you and found another. We took you up as a babe and cared for you ; but the parish allowance was stopped when you was fourteen. It shan't be said of us that bare we took you in and bare we turn you out. But marry you must. It's ordained o' nature. There's the dif- ference atwixt a slug and a snail. The snail's got her own house to go into. A slug hasn't. When she's un- comfortable she must go underground." The hostess was silent for awhile. Mehetabel said nothing. Her cheeks burned. She was choking. Mrs. Verstage went on : " There was Betsy Purvis — she was a bit of a beauty, and gave herself airs. She wouldn't have Farmer James, as his legs was so long, he looked like a spider — and she wouldn't have Odger Kay, as his was too short — he looked like a dachs- dog. It came in the end she married Purvis, who had both his legs shot off in the wars, 'cos and why.'* she couldn't get another. She'd been too finical in choosin'." " Are you tired of me ? " gasped the girl. " Do you wish to be rid of me ? " " Not at all," answered the landlady. " It's becos we're so fond of you, father and I, that we want to see you well settled." " And father — does he wish me to take Bideabout ? " Mrs. Verstage hesitated. ^' He hasn't said that right out. You see he didn't know for certain Jonas were hoppin' about you. But he'd be tremendous pleased to have you well married." " And you think I should be well married if I became Bideabout's wife? " " Of course. He's a great catch for the likes of you, who belong to nobody and to no place, properly. Beggars mustn't be choosers." Mehetabel sprang to her feet. " It is so. I am a beggar, I am only a charity girl, nothing else." 5 65 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. She struck her head against the wall. " Let me beat my brains out if I am in your way. Why should I be thrown into the arms of any passer-by?" ** You misjudge and misunderstand me," said Mrs. Verstage, hotly. " Because you have been with me so long, and because I love you, I want to see you set- tled. Because I can't give you a prince in spangles and feathers you fly out against me." *' I don't ask for a prince, only to be let alone. I am happy here, as a girl, working for you and father." " But we shall not live forever. We are growing old, and shall have to give up. Iver may return any day, and then " The hostess became crimson to the temples ; she knew how handsome the girl was, doubly handsome she seemed now, in her heat and agitation, and it oc- curred to Mrs. Verstage that Iver, with his artistic ap- preciation of the beautiful, might also think her hand- some, that the old childish fancy for each other might spring to new and to stronger life, and that he might even think of Mehetabel as a wife. That v/ould never, never do. For Iver something better must be found than a girl without means, friends, and name. " What then ? " asked Mehetabel. " Suppose Iver do come here and keep the inn. I can go with you wherever you go, and if you become old, I can attend to you in your old age." " You are good," said Mrs. Verstage ; but although her words were gracious, her manner was chilling. *' It is for us to think of you and your future, not you to consider for us. The Broom-Squire " " I tell you, mother, I don't like him." "You must hear me out. You do not love him. Lawk-a-jimmeny ! we can't all marry for love. You don't suppose I was in love with Simon when I took him ? I was a good-looking wench in my day, and I had many admirers, and were more of tragedy-kings than Simon. But I had sense, and I took him for the sake of the Ship Inn and the farm. We have lived happy together, and if it hadn't been for that matter THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 67 of Iver, there'd not ha' been a cloud between us. Love grows among married folk, like chickweed in a garden. You can't keep it out. It is thick everywhere, and is never out o' season. I don't say there ain't a ripping of it out one day — but it comes agairt, twice as thick on the morrow, and much good it does ! I don't think I cared for Simon when I took him any more than you care for Jonas, but I took him, and we've fared well enough together." After a pause the hostess said, " Talkin' of marriage, I have a fine scheme in my head. If Iver comes back, as I trust he will, I want him to marry Polly Colpus." " Polly Colpus, mother ! " " She's James Colpus's only child, and will come in for money. James Colpus is a wonderful thrivin' man." " But she has a moustache." " What of that, if she have money ? " " But — Iver — if he couldn't bear an ugly signboard to the house, will he relish an ugly figure-head to his wife within it ? " " She has gold which will gild her moustache." *' I don't know," said Mehetabel ; " Iver wouldn't take the business at his father's wish, will he take a wife of his mother's providing? " *' He will know which side his bread is buttered better than some persons I could name." ** I fancy when folk look out for wives, they don't borrow their mother's eyes." "You cross me in everything to-day," said the hostess, peevishly. Mehetabel's tears began to flow. Mrs. Verstage was a woman who did not need much time or much balancing to arrive at a determination, and when she had formed her resolution, she clung to it with the same tenacity as her husband did to his. Her maternal jealousy had been roused, and the maternal instinct is the strongest that exists in the female nature. Many a woman would allow herself to be cut to bits for her child. But not only will she 68 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. sacrifice herself without hesitation, but also any one else who in any way hinders the progress of her schemes for the welfare of her child. Mrs. Verstage entertained affection for the girl, an affection very real, yet not to the extent of allowing it to blind her to the true in- terests of her own son. She was roused to jealousy by the partiality of Simon for his adopted daughter, to the prejudice of Iver. And now she was gravely alarmed lest on the return of Iver, the young affection of the two children for each other should take a new spell of life, assume a new form, and intensify into passion. Accordingly she was resolved, if possible, to remove the girl from the Ship before the arrival of Iver. The proposal of the Broom-Squire was opportune, and she was anxious to forward his suit as the best means for raising an insuperable barrier between her son and the girl, as well as removing her from Simon, who, with his characteristic wrong-headedness, might actually do what he had proposed. " I don't see what you're crying about," said Mrs. Verstage, testily. ** It ain't no matter to you whether Iver takes Polly Colpus or a Royal Princess." " I don't want him to be worried, mother, when he comes home with having ugly girls rammed down his throat. If you begin that with him he'll be off again." " Oh ! you know that, do you ? " *'I am sure of it." " I know what this means ! " exclaimed the angry woman, losing all command over her tongue. " It means, in plain English, just this — * I'm going to try, by hook or by crook, to get Iver for myself.' That's what you're driving at, hussy ! But I'll put you by the shoulders out of the door, or ever Iver comes, that you may be at none of them tricks. Do you think that because he baptized you, that he'll also marry jrou?" Mehetabel sprang through the door with a cry of ■pain, of wounded pride, of resentment at the injustice wherewith she was treated, of love in recoil, and almost THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 69 ran against the Broom-Squire. Almost without power to think, certainly without power to judge, fevered with passion to be away out of a house where she was so misjudged, she gasped, " Bideabout ! will you have me now — even now. Mother turns m'e out of doors." '* Have you ? To be sure I will," said Jonas ; then with a laugh out of the side of his mouth, he added in an undertone, " Don't seem to want that I should set a net ; she runs right into my hands. Wimen is wimen ! " 70 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. CHAPTER XI. A SURNAME AT LAST. When Simon Verstage learned that Mehetabel was to be married to the Broom-Squire, he was not lightly troubled. He loved the girl more dearly than he was himself aware. He was accustomed to see her about the house, to hear her cheerful voice, and to be wel- comed with a pleasant smile when he returned from the fields. There was constitutional ungraciousness in his wife. She considered it lowering to her dignity, or unnecessary, to put on an amiable face, and testify to him pleasure at his presence. Little courtesies are dear to the hearts of the most rugged men ; Simon received them from Mehetabel, and valued them all the more because withheld from him by his wife. The girl had known how to soothe him when ruffled, she had forestalled many of his little requirements, and had exercised a moderating influence in the house. Mrs. Verstage, in her rough, imperious fashion, had not humored him, and many a domestic storm was allayed by the tact of Mehetabel. Simon had never been demonstrative in his affection, and it was only now, when he was about to lose her, that he became aware how dear she was to his old heart. But what could he do, now that she had given herself to Jonas Kink ? Of the manner in which this had been brought about he knew nothing. Had he been told he would have stormed, and insisted on the engage- ment coming to an end. But would this have mended matters? Would it not have made Mehetabel's posi- tion in the house only more insupportable? He remained silent and depressed for a week, and when the girl was in the room followed her with his eyes, with a kindly, regretful light in them. When THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 71 she passed near him, he held out his hand, took hers, squeezed it, and said, " Matabel, we shall miss you — wun'erful — wun'erful ! '* ** Dear father ! ** she would answer, and return the pressure of his hand, whilst her eyes filled. " I hope you'll be happy," he would say ; then add, " I suppose you will. Mother says so, and wimen knows about them sort o' things better nor we." To his wife Simon said, " Spare nothing. Give her a good outfit, just as if she was our own daughter. She has been a faithful child, and has saved us the expense and worrit of a servant, and I will not have it said — but hang it! what odds to me what is said? I will not have her feel that we begrudge her aught. She has no father and mother other than we, and we must be to her all that we can." " Leave that to me," said the wife. Mainly through the instrumentality of Mrs. Verstage the marriage was hastened on ; it was to be as soon as the banns had been called thrice. " Wot's the good o' waitin' ? " asked Mrs. Verstage, " where all is pleasant all round, and all agreed?" Mehetabel was indifferent, even disposed to have the wedding speedily, there was no advantage in postpon- ing the inevitable. If she were not wanted in the Ship, her presence was desired in the Punch-Bowl, if not by all the squatters there, at all events by the one most concerned. She felt oppression in the house in which she had been at home from infancy, and was even conscious that her adopted mother was impatient to be rid of her. Mehetabel was proud, too proud to withdraw from her engagement, to acknowledge that she had rushed into it without consideration, and had accepted a man whom she did not love. Too proud, in fine, to con- tinue one day longer than need be, eating the bread of charity. Seamstresses were summoned, and every preparation made that Mehetabel should have abundance of cloth- ing when she left the Ship. 72 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. " Look here, Susanna," said Simon, " you'll have made a pocket in them gownds, you mind." " Yes, Simon, of course." " Becos I means to put a little purse in for Matabel when she goes from us — somethin' to be her own. I won't have the little wench think we han't provided for her." " How much ? " asked Mrs. Verstage, jealously. " That I'm just about considerin'," answered the old man cautiously. " Don't you do nothin' reckless and unraysonable, Simon. What will she want wi' money ? Hasn't she got the Broom-Squire to pay for all and everything?" During the three weeks that intervened between the precipitate and ill-considered engagement and the mar- riage, Mehetabel hardly came to her senses. Some- times when occupied with her work in the house a qualm of horror came over her and curdled the blood in her heart ; then with a cold sweat suffusing her brow, and with pale lips, she sank on a stool, held her head between her palms, and fought with the thoughts that rose like spectres, and with the despair that rolled in on her soul like a dark and icy tide. The words spoken by the hostess had made it impossible for her to retrace her steps. She could not understand what had come over Mrs. Verstage to induce her to address her as she had. The after conduct of the hostess was such as showed her that although wishing her well she wished her away, and that though having a kindly feeling towards her, she would not admit a renewal of former relations. They might continue friends, but only on condition of being friends at a distance. Mehetabel racked her brain to find in what manner she had given offence to the old woman, and could find none. She was thrust from the only bosom to which she had clung from infancy, without a reason that she could discover. Meanwhile she drew no nearer to Bideabout. He was delighted at his success, and laid aside for a while his bitterness of speech. But she did not admit him to nearer intimacy. His at- THE BROOM-SQUIRE. j^ tempts at familiarity met with a chilling reception ; the girl had to exercise self-restraint to prevent the repug- nance with which she received his addresses from be- coming obvious to him and others. Happily for her peace of mind, tie was a good deal away, engaged in getting his house into order. It needed clearing out, cleansing and repairing. No money had been expended on dilapidations, very little soap and water on purification, since his mother's death. His sister, Mrs. RoclifTe, some years older than him- self, living but a few yards distant, had done for him what was absolutely necessary, and what he had been unable to do for himself ; but her interest had naturally been in her own house, not in his. Now that he announced to her that he was about to marry, Sarah Rocliffe was angry. She had made up her mind that Jonas would continue a " hudger," and that his house and land would fall to her son, after his demise. This was perhaps an unreasonable ex- pectation, especially as her own conduct had pre- cipitated the engagement ; but it was natural. She partook of the surly disposition of her brother. She could not exist without somebody or something to fall out with, to scold, to find fault with. Her inces- sant recrimination had at length aroused in Jonas the resolve to cast her wholly from his dwelling, to have a wife of his own, and to be independent of her service. Sarah Rocliffe ascertained that she had overstepped the mark in quarrelling with her brother, but instead of blaming herself she turned the fault on the head of the inoffensive girl who was to supplant her. She re- solved not to welcome her sister-in-law with even a semblance of cordiality. Nor were the other colonists of the Bowl favorably disposed. It was a tradition among them that they should inter-marry. This rule had once been broken through with disastrous results. The story shall be told presently. The squatter families of the Punch-Bowl hung to- 74 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. gether, and when Sarah RocHffe took it in dudgeon that her brother was going to marry, then the entire colony of Rocliffes, Boxalls, Nashes, and Snellings adopted her view of the case, and resented the en- gagement as though it were a slight cast on them. As if the Bowl could not have provided him with a mate meet for him ! Were there no good wenches to be found there, that he must go over the lips to look for a wife ? The girls within the Bowl, thanks be, had all surnames and kindred. Matabel had neither. It was not long before Bideabout saw that his en- gagement to Mehetabel was viewed with disfavor by his immediate neighbors, but he was not the man to concern himself about their opinions. He threw about his jibes, which did not tend to make matters better. The boys in the Bowl had concocted a jingle which they sang under his window, or cast at him from be- hind a hedge, and then ran away lest he should fall on them with a stick. This was their rhyme : — " A harnet lived in an 'oUow tree, A proper spiteful twoad were he. And he said as married and 'appy he'd be ; But all folks jeered and laughed he-he ! " Mehetabel's cheeks were pale, and her brows were contracted and her lips set as she went to Thursley Church on the wedding-day, accompanied by Mrs. Verstage and some village friends. Gladly would she have elected to have her marriage performed as quietly as possible, and at an hour and on a day to which none were privy save those most im- mediately concerned. But this did not suit the pride of the hostess, who was resolved on making a demon- stration, of getting to herself the credit of having acted a generous and even lavish part towards the adopted child. Mehetabel held up her head, not with pride, but with resolution not to give way. Her brain was stunned. Thought would no more flow in it than veins of water through a frozen soil. All the shapes of human beings that passed and circled around her were as phantasms. THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 75 In church she hardly gathered her senses to know when and what to respond. She could scarcely see the register through the mist that had formed over her eyes when she was required to sign her Christian name, or collect'her thoughts to understand the perplexity of the parson, as to how to enter her, when she was without a surname. When congratulated with effusion by Mrs. Verstage, with courtesy by the Vicar, and boisterously by the boys and girls who were present, she tried to force a smile, but ineffectually, as her features were set in- flexibly. The bridegroom kissed her cheek. She drew back as if she had been stung, as a sensitive plant shrinks from the hand that grasps it. The previous day had been one of rain, so also had been the night, with a patter of raindrops on the roof above Mehetabel's attic chamber, and a flow of tears beneath. During the morning, on the way to church, though there had been no rain, yet the clouds had hung low, and were threatening. They separated and were brushed aside as the wed- ding party issued from the porch, and then a flood of scorching sunlight fell over the bride and bridegroom. For the first time Mehetabel raised her head and looked up. The impulse was unconscious — it was to let light shine into her eyes and down into the dark, despairing chambers of her soul filled only with tears. The villagers in the churchyard murmured admira- tion ; as she issued from the gates they cheered. Bideabout was elate ; he was proud to know that the handsomest girl in the neighborhood was now his. It was rare for a sarcastic curl to leave his lips and the furrow to be smoothed on his brow. Such a rare oc- casion was the present. And the Broom-Squire had indeed secured one in whom his pride was justifiable. No one could say of Mehetabel that she had been frivolous and forward. Reserved, even in a tavern : always able to maintain her dignity ; respecting herself, 76 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. she had enforced respect from others. That she was hard-working, shrewd, thrifty, none who visited the Ship could fail to know. Many a lad had attempted to win her favor, and all had been repulsed. She could keep forward suitors at a distance without wounding their self-esteem, without making them bear her a grudge. She was tall, well- built and firmly knit. There was in her evidence of physical as well as of moral strength. Though young, Mehetabel seemed older than her years, so fully developed was her frame, so swelling her bosom, so set were her features. Usually the girl wore a high color, but of late this had faded out of her face, which had been left of an ashen hue. Her pallor, however, only gave greater effect to the lustre and profusion of her dark hair and to the size and to the velvet depth and softness of her hazel eyes. The girl had finely-moulded eyebrows, which, when she frowned through anger, or contracted them through care, met in one band, and gave a lowering expression to her massive brow. An urchin in the rear nudged a ploughboy, and said in a low tone, " Jim ! The old harnet out o' the 'ollow tree be in luck to-day. Wot'll he do with her, now he's ketched a butterfly? " *' Wot be he like to do ? " retorted the bumpkin. " A proper spiteful twoad such as he — why, he'll rumple all the color and booty out o' her wings, and sting her till her blood runs pison.*' Then from the tower pealed the bells. Jonas pressed the arm of Mehetabel, and leering into her face, said : " Come, say a word o' thanks. Better late than never. At the last, through me, you've gotten a surname." THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 77 CHAPTER XII. UNEXPECTED. The wedding party was assembled at the Ship, which for this day concerned itself not with outsiders, but provided only for such as were invited to sit and drink, free of charge, to the health and happiness of bride and bridegroom. The invitation had been extended to the kinsfolk of Jonas in the Punch-Bowl, as a matter of course ; but none had accepted, one had his farm, another his business, and a third could not go unless his wife let him. Consequently the bridegroom was badly supported. He was not the man to make friends, and such ac- quaintances of his as appeared did so, not out of friend- ship, but in expectation of eating and drinking at the landlord's table. This angered Jonas, who, in church, on looking around, had noticed that his own family had failed to attend, but that they should fail also at the feast was what surprised him. " It don't matter a rush," scoffed he in Mehetabel's ear, '' we can get along without 'em, and if they won't come to eat roast duck and green peas, there are others who will and say * Thank'y.' '* The announcement of Jonas's engagement had been indeed too bitter a morsel for his sister to swallow. She resented his matrimonial project as a personal wrong, as a robbery committed on the Rocliffes. Her husband was not in good circumstances ; in fact, the family had become involved through a marriage, to which allusion has already been made ; and had not thereafter been able to recover from it. 78 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. She had felt the pressure of debt, and the struggle for existence. It had eaten into her flesh like a canker, and had turned her heart into wormwood. In her pinched circumstances, even the pittance paid by her brother for doing his cooking and washing had been a consideration. This now was to be withdrawn. Sarah Rocliffe had set her ambition on the acqui- sition of her brother's estate, by which means alone, as far as she could see, would the family be enabled to shake off the incubus that oppressed it. Content in her own lifetime to drudge and moil, she would have gone on to the end, grumbling and fault-finding, in- deed, but satisfied with the prospect that at some time in the future her son would inherit the adjoining farm and be lifted thereby out of the sorry position in which was his father, hampered on all sides, and without cheeriness. But this hope was now taken from her. Jonas was marrying a young and vigorous wife, and a family was certain to follow. The woman had not the command over herself to veil her feelings, and put on a semblance of good humor, not even the grace to put in an appearance at the wedding. The story must now be told which accounts for the embarrassed circumstances of the Rocliffe family. This shall be done by means of an extract from a periodical of the date of the event which clouded the hitherto flourishing condition of the Rocliffes. The periodical from which the quotation comes is ** The Royal Magazine, or Gentleman's Monthly Companion " for 1765. " A few weeks ago a gentlewoman, about twenty- five years of age, applied to a farmer and broom-maker, near Hadleigh, in Hants "* for a lodging, telling them that she was the daughter of a nobleman, and forced from her father's house by his ill-treatment. Her * Not really in Hants, but in Surrey, adjoining the County demarca- tion. THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 79 manner of relating the story so affected the farn^er that he took her in, and kindly entertained her. *' In the course of conversation, she artfully let drop that she had a portion of ;^90,cxx), of which she should be possessed as soon as her friends in London knew where she was. After some days' stay she told the farmer the best return in her power for this favor would be to marry his son, Thomas (a lad about eighteen), if it was agree- able to him. The poor old man was overjoyed at the proposal, and in a short time they were married ; after which she informed her father-in-law she had great interest at Court, and if he could for the present raise money to equip them in a genteel manner, she could procure a colonel's commission for her husband. " The credulous farmer thereupon mortgaged his little estate for ;^ICX), and everything necessary being bought for the new married couple, they took the rest of the money and set out for London, accompanied by three of the farmer's friends, and got to the Bear Inn, in the Borough, on Christmas eve ; where they lived for about ten days in an expensive manner ; and she went in a coach every morning to St. James's end of the town, on pretence of soliciting for her husband's com- mission, and to obtain her own fortune. But it was at length discovered that the woman was an impostor ; and the poor country people were obliged to sell their horses by auction towards defraying the expenses of the inn before they could set out on their return home, which they did on foot, last Saturday morning." If the hundred pounds raised on mortgage had covered all the expenses incurred, the Rocliffes might have been satisfied. Unhappily they got further involved. They fell into the hands of a lawyer in Portsmouth, who under- took to see them righted, but the only advantage they gained from his intervention was the acquisition of certain information that the woman who had married Thomas had been married before. Accordingly Thomas was free, and he used his free- 8o THE BROOM-SQUIRE. dom some years later, when of a ripe age, to marry Sarah Kink, the sister of Bideabout. Rocliffe had never been able to shake himself free of the ridicule that attended to him, after the expedi- tion to London, and what was infinitely more vexatious and worse to endure was the burden of debt that had then been incurred, and which was more than doubled through the activity of the lawyer by whom he had been inveigled into submitting himself and his affairs to him. As the eating and drinking proceeded, the Broom- Squire drank copiously, became noisy, boastful, and threw out sarcastic remarks calculated to hit those who ate and drank with him, but were mainly directed against those of his own family who had absented themselves, but to whose ears he was confident they would be wafted. Mehetabel, who saw that he was imbibing more than he could bear without becoming quarrelsome lost her pallor, and a hectic flame kindled in her cheek. Mrs. Verstage looked on uneasily. She was familiar with the moods of Bideabout, and feared the turn matters would take. Presently he announced that he would sing a song, and in harsh tones began : — " A cobbler there was, and he lived in a stall, But Charlotte, my nymph, had no lodging at all. And at a Broom-Squire's, in pitiful plight, Did pray and beseech for a lodging one night, Derry-down, derry-down. " She asked for admittance, her story to tell, Of all her misfortunes, and what her befel. Of her parentage high, — but so great was her grief. She'd never a comfort to give her relief, Derry-down, derry-down.* " Now, look here," said Simon Verstage, interrupt- ing the singer, " We all of us know that there ballet, pretty well. It's vastly long, if I remembers aright, something like fourteen verses ; and I think we can do * This is the beginning of a long ballad based on the incidents above mentioned, which is still current in the neighborhood. THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 8i very well wi'out it to-night. I fancy your brother-in- law, Thomas, mightn't relish it." " He's not here," said the Broom-Squire. " But I am here," said the landlord, " and I say that the piece is too long for singing, 'twill' make you too hoarse to say purty speeches and soft things to your new missus, and it's a bit stale for our ears." " It's an ill bird that befouls its own nest," said a young fellow present. Bideabout overheard the remark. " What do you mean by that ? Was that aimed at me ? " he shouted and started to his feet. A brawl would have inevitably ensued, but for a timely interruption. In the door stood a well-dressed, good-looking young man, surveying the assembled company with a smile. Silence ensued. Bideabout looked round. Then, with a cry of joy, mingled with pain, Mrs. Verstage started from her feet. *' It is Iver ! my Iver ! " In another moment mother and son were locked in each other's arms. The guests rose and looked questioningly at their host, before they welcomed the intruder. Simon Verstage remained seated, with his glass in his hand, gazing sternly into it. His face became mottled, red spots appeared on the temples, and on the cheekbones ; elsewhere he was pale. Mehetabel went to him, placed her hand upon his, and said, in a trembling voice, " Dear father, this is my wedding day. I am about to leave you for good. Do- not deny me the one and only request I make. For- give Iver." The old man's lips moved, but he did not speak. He looked steadily, somewhat sternly, at the young man and mustered his appearance. Meanwhile Iver had disengaged himself from his mother's embrace, and he came towards his father with extended hand. " See," said he cheerily, " I am free to admit, and do 6 82 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. it heartily, that I did wrong, in painting over the stern of the vessel, and putting it into perspective as far as my lights went. Father ! I can remove the coat of paint that I put on, and expose that outrageous old stern again. I will do more. I will violate all the laws of perspective in heaven and earth, and turn the bows round also, so as to thoroughly show the ship's head, and make that precious vessel look like a dog curling itself up for a nap. Will that satisfy you ? " All the guests were silent, and fixed their eyes anxiously on the taverner. Iver was frank in speech, had lost all provincial dia- lect, was quite the gentleman. He had put off the rustic air entirely. He was grown a very handsome fellow, with oval face, full hair on his head, somewhat curling, and his large brown eyes were sparkling with pleasure at being again at home. In his whole bearing there was self-confidence. " Simon ! " pleaded Mrs. Verstage, with tears in her voice, " he's your own flesh and blood ! " He remained unmoved. ** Father ! " said Mehetabel, clinging to his hand, ** Dear, dear father ! for my sake, whom you have loved, and whom you lose out of your house to-day." " There is my hand," said the old man. "And you shall have the ship again just as suits your heart," said Iver. " I doubt," answered the taverner, " it will be easier to get the Old Ship to look what she ort, than it will be to get you to look again like a publican's son." The reconciliation on the old man's side was without cordiality, yet it was accepted by all present with cheers and handshakings. It was but too obvious that the modish appearance of his son had offended the old man. " Heaven bless me ! " exclaimed Iver, when this commotion was somewhat allayed. He was looking with undisguised admiration and surprise at Mehetabel. "Why," asked he, pushing his way towards her, " What is the meaning of all this ? " THE BROOM-SQUIRE. Bs "That is Matabel, indeed," explained his mother. "And this is her wedding day." " You married ! You, Matabel ! And, to-day ! The day of my return! Where is the happy man? Show him to me." His mother indicated the bridegroom. Mehetabel's heart was too full to speak ; she was too dazed with the new turn of affairs to know what to do. Iver looked steadily at Jonas. " What ! " he exclaimed, '* Bideabout ! Never, surely ! I cannot mistake your face nor the look of your eyes. So, you have won the prize — you ! " Still he looked at Jonas. He refrained from ex- tending his hand in congratulation. Whether thought- lessly or not, he put it behind his back. An expres- sion passed over his face that the bride observed, and it sent the blood flying to her cheek and temples. " So," said Iver, and now he held out both hands, " Little Matabel, I have returned to lose you ! " He wrung her hands, both, — he would not let them " I wish you all joy. I wish you everything, every- thing that your heart can desire. But I am surprised. I can't realize it all at once. My little Matabel grown so big, become so handsome — and, hang me, leaving the Old Ship ! Poor Old Ship ! Bideabout, I ought to have been consulted. I gave Matabel her name. I have certain rights over her, and I won't surrender them all in a hurry. Here, mother, give me a glass, 'tis a strange day on which I come home." Dissatisfaction appeared in his face, hardly to be ex- pected in one who should have been in cloudless radi- ance on his return after years of absence, and with his quarrel with the father at an end. Now old acquaintances crowded about him to ask questions as to how he had lived during his absence, upon what he had been employed, how the world had fared with him, whether he was married, and if so, how many children he had got, and what were their re- spective ages and sexes, and names and statures. 84 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. For a while bride and bridegroom were outside the circle, and Iver was the centre of interest and regard. Iver responded good-humoredly and pleaded for patience. He was hungry, he was thirsty, he was dusty and hot. He must postpone personal details till a more convenient season. Now his mind was taken up with the thought, not of himself, but of his old playmate, his almost sister, his — he might dare to call her, first love — who was stepping out of the house, out of his reach, just as he stepped back into it, strong with the anticipation of finding her there. Then raising his glass, and looking at Matabel, he said : " Here's to you, Matabel, and may you be very happy with the man of your choice." " Have you no good wish for me ? " sneered the Broom-Squire. " For you, Bideabout," answered Iver, " I do not express a wish. I know for certainty that you, that any man, not may, but must be happy with such a girl, unless he be a cur." THE BROOM-SQUIRE^ 85 CHAPTER XIII. HOME. BiDEABOUT was driving his wife home. Home ! There is no word sweeter to him who has created that reality to which the name belongs ; but there is no word more full of vague fears to one who has it to create. Home to Bideabout was a rattle-trap farmhouse built partly of brick, mainly of timber, thatched with heather, at the bottom of the Punch-Bowl. It was a dwelling that served to cover his head, but was without pleasant or painful associations — a place in which rats raced and mice squeaked ; a place in which money might be made and hoarded, but on which little had been spent. It was a place he had known from childhood as the habitation of his parents, and which now was his own. His childhood had been one of drudgery without cheerfulness, and was not looked back on with regret. Home was not likely to be much more to him in the future than it was in the present. More comfortable perhaps, certainly more costly. But it was other with Mehetabel. She was going to the unknown. As we shudder at the prospect of passing out of this world into that beyond the veil, so does many a girl shrink at the prospect of the beyond seen through the wedding ring. She had loved the home at the Ship. Would she learn to love the home in the Punch-Bowl ? She had understood and made allowance for the humors of the landlord and landlady of the tavern ; did she know those of her future associate in the farm ? To many a maid, the great love that swells her heart 86 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. and dazzles her brain carries her into the new con- dition on the wings of hope. Love banishes fear. Confidence in the beloved blots out all mistrust as to the future. But in this case there was no love, nothing to inspire confidence ; and Mehetabel looked forward with vague alarm, almost with a premonition of evil. Jonas was in no mood for meditation. He had im- bibed freely at the inn, and was heavy, disposed to sleep, and only prevented from dozing by the necessity he was under of keeping the lazy cob in movement. For if Jonas was in no meditative mood, the old horse was, and he halted at intervals to ponder over the load he was drawing, and ask why on this oc- casion he had to drag uphill two persons instead of one. The sun had set before the couple left the Ship. The road ascended, at first gradually, then at a more rapid incline. The cob could not be induced to trot by word or whip ; and the walk of a horse is slower than that of a man. " It's bostall (a steep ascent, in the Wealden dia- lect) till we come to the gallows,** muttered Jonas ; " then we have the drove-road down into the Punch- Bowl." Mehetabel tightened her shawl about her shoulders and throat. The evening was chilly for the time of the year. Much rain had fallen, and the air was charged with moisture, that settled in cold dew on the cart, on the harness, on Bideabout's glazed hat, on the bride's clothing, bathing her, all things, as in the tears of silent sorrow. *' One of us must get out and walk," said the bride- groom. " Old Clutch — that's the 'oss — is twenty-five, and there's your box and bundle behind." He made no attempt to dismount, but looked side- ways at the bride. *' If you'll pull up I'll get out and walk," she an- swered. " I shall be glad to do so. The dew falls like rain, and I am chilled to the marrow." THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 87 " Right then," assented the Broom-Squire, and drew the rein. Mehetabel descended from her seat in the cart. In so doing something fell on the road from her bosom. She stooped and picked it up. " Wot's that?" asked Jonas, and pointed to the article with his whip, that was flourished with a favor of white ribbons. " It is a present father has made me," answered Mehetabel. '' I was in a hurry — and not accustomed to pockets, so I just put it into my bosom. I ought to have set it in a safer place, in the new pocket made to my gown. I'll do that now. It's money." " Money ! " repeated Bideabout. *' How much may it be?" *' I have not looked." " Then look at it, once now (at once)." He switched the whip with its white favor about, but kept his eye on Mehetabel. " What did he give it you for ? " " As a wedding present." "Gold, is it?" " Gold and notes." " Gold and notes. Hand 'em to me. I can count fast enough." " The sum is fifteen pounds — dear, kind, old man." "Fifteen pounds, is it ? You might ha' lost it wi* your carelessness." " I'll not be careless now." " Good, hand it me." " I cannot do that, Jonas. It is mine. Father said to me I was to keep it 'gainst a rainy day." " Didn't you swear in church to endow me with all your worldly goods ? " asked the Broom-Squire. •' No, it was you who did that. I then had nothing." " Oh, was it so ? I don't remember that. If you'd had them fifteen pounds then, and the passon had knowed about it, he'd ha' made you swear to hand it over to me — your lord and master." " There's nothing about that in the Prayer-book," 88 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. " Then there ort to be. Hand me the money. You was nigh on losing the lot, and ain't fit to keep it. Fifteen pounds ! " " I cannot give it to you, Bideabout ; father told me it was to be my very own, I was not to let it go out of my hands, not even into yours, but to husband it " " Ain't I your husband ? " " I do not mean that, to hoard it against an evil day. There is no saying when that may come. And I passed my word it should be so." He growled and said, "Look here, Matabel. It'll be a bostall road with you an' me, unless there's give on one side and take on the other." " Is all the give to be on my side, and the take on yours ? " " In coorse. Wot else is matrimony ? The sooner you learn that the better for peace." He whipped the cob, and the brute moved on. Mehetabel walked forward an4 outstripped the con- veyance. Old Clutch was a specially slow walker. She soon reached that point at which moorland began, without hedge on either side. Trees had ceased to stud the heathy surface. Before her rose the ridge that culminated where rose the gallows, and stood inky black against the silvery light of declining day behind them. To the north, in the plain gleamed some ponds. Cuilew were piping sadly. Mehetabel was immersed in her own thoughts, glad to be by herself. Jonas had not said much to her in the cart, yet his presence had been irksome. She thought of the past, of her childhood along with Iver, of the day when he ran away. How handsome he had become ! What an expression of contempt had passed over his countenance when he looked at Bide- about, and learned that he was the bridegroom — the happy man who had won her ! How earnestly he had gazed into her eyes, till she was compelled to lower them ! Was Iver going to settle at the Ship ? Would he THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 89 come over to the Punch-Bowl to see her ? Would he come often and talk over happy childish days? There had been a little romance between them as children : long forgotten : now reviving. Her hand trembled as she raised it to her lips to wipe away the dew that had formed there. She had reached the highest point on the road, and below yawned the great crater-like depression, at the bottom of which lay the squatter settlement. A little higher, at the very summit of the hill, stood the gibbet, and the wind made the chains clank as it trifled with them. The bodies were gone, they had mouldered away, and the bones had fallen and were laid in the earth or sand beneath, but the gallows remained. Clink ! clink ! clank ! Clank ! clink ! clink ! There was rhythm and music, as of far-away bells, in the clashing of these chains. The gibbet was on Mehetabel's left hand ; on the right was the abyss. She looked down into the cauldron, turning with dis- gust from the gallows, and yet was inspired with an almost equal repugnance at the sight of the dark void below. She was standing on the very spot where, eighteen years before, she had been found by Iver. He had taken her up, and had given her a name. Now she was taken up by another, and by him a new name was conferred upon her. " Come ! " said Jonas ; " it's all downhill, henceforth." Were the words ominous? He had arrived near her without her hearing him, so occupied had her mind been. As he spoke she uttered a cry of alarm. " Afraid ? " he asked. " Of what ? " She did not answer. She was trembling. Perhaps her nerves had been overwrought. The Punch-Bowl looked to her like the Bottomless Pit. " Did you think one of the dead men had got up from under the gallows, and had come down to talk with you ? " 90 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. She did not speak. She could not. " It's all a pass'l o' nonsense," he said. " When the dead be turned into dust they never come again except as pertaties or the like. There was Tim Wingerlee growed won'erful fine strawberries ; they found out at last he took the soil in which he growed 'em from the churchyard. I don't doubt a few shovelfuls from under them gallows 'ud bring on early pertaties — famous. Now then, get up into the cart." " I'd rather walk, Jonas. The way down seems crit- ical. It is dark in the Bowl, and the ruts are deep." " Get up, I say. There is no occasion to be afraid. It won't do to drive among our folk, to our own door, me alone, and you trudgin', totterin' behind. Get up, I say." Mehetabel obeyed. There was a fragrance of fern in the night air that she had inhaled while walking. Now by the side of Bideabout she smelt only the beer and stale tobacco that adhered to his clothes. " I am main glad," said he, ** that all the hustle-bustle is over. I'm glad I'm not wed every day. Fust and last time I hopes. The only good got as I can see, is a meal and drink at the landlord's expense. But he'll take it out of me someways, sometime. Folks ain't liberal for nuthin*. 'Tain't in human nature." " It is very dark in the Punch-Bowl," said Mehet- abel. " I do not see a glimmer of a light anywhere." ** That's becos the winders ain't looking this way. You don't suppose it would be a pleasure to have three dead men danglin' in the wind afore their eyes all day long. The winders look downward, or else there's a fold of the hill or trees between. But I know where every house is wi'out seeing 'em. There's the Nashes', there's the Boxalls', there's the Snellings', there's my brother-in-law's, Thomas Rocliffe's, and down there be I." He pointed with his whip. Mehetabel could dis- tinguish nothing beyond the white favor bound to his whip. THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 91 " We're drivin' to Paradise," said Jonas. And as to this remark she made no response, he explained — ** Married life, you know." She said nothing. "It rather looks as if we were going down to the other place," he observed, with a sarcastic laugh. ** But there it is, one or the other — all depends on you. It's just as you make it ; as likely to be one as the other. Give me that fifteen pounds — and Paradise is the word." ** Indeed, Jonas, do you not understand that I cannot go against father's will and my word ? " The road, or rather track, descended along the steep side of the Punch-Bowl, notched into the sand falling away rapidly on the left hand, on which side sat Mehetabel. At first she had distinguished nothing below in the blackness, but now something like a dead man's eye looked out of it, and seemed to follow and observe her. " What is that yonder? " she asked. " Wot is wot ? " he asked in reply. " That pale white light — that round thing glimmerin* yonder? " " There's water below,"' was his explanation of the phenomenon. In fact that which had attracted her attention and somewhat alarmed her, was one of the patches of water formed in the marshy bottom of the Punch-Bowl by the water that oozes forth in many springs from under the sandstone. The track now passed under trees. A glimpse of dull orange light, and old Clutch halted, unbidden. '* Here we be, we two," said Jonas. " This is home. And Paradise, if you will." 92 THE BROOM-SQUIRE, CHAPTER XIV. NOT PARADISE. At the moment that the cart halted, a black dog burst out of the house door, and flew at Mehetabel as she attempted to descend. " Ha, Tartar ! " laughed Jonas. " The rascal seems to know his reign is over. Go back, Tartar. I'll thrash you till the favor off my whip is beat into your hide, if you don't be quiet. Hitherto he has guarded my house, when I have been from home. Now that will be your duty, Matabel. Can't keep a wife and a dog. 'Twould be too extravagant. Tartar ! Down ! This is your mistress — till I get rid of you." The dog withdrew reluctantly, continuing to growl and to show his fangs at Mehetabel. In the doorway stood Sally Rocliffe, the sister of Jonas. Though not so openly resentful of the intru- sion as was Tartar, she viewed the bride with ill-dis- guised bad humor ; indeed, without an affectation of cordiality. *' I thought you was never coming," was Sarah's salutation. " Goodness knows, I have enough to do in my own house, and for my own people, not to be kept dancin' all these hours in attendance, because others find time for makin' fools of themselves. Now, I hope I shall not be wanted longer. My man needs his meals as much as others, and if he don't get 'em reglar, who suffers but I ? Dooty begins at home. You might have had more consideration, and come earlier, Jonas." The woman accorded to Mehetabel but a surly greeting. The young bride entered the house. A single tallow dip was burning on the table, with a long dock to it, unsnuffed. The hearth was cold. THE BROOM-SQUIRE. ' 93 " I didn't light a fire," said Mrs. Rocliffe ; '' you see it wouldn't do. Now you have come as mistress, it's your place to light the fire on the hearth. I've heard tell it's unlucky for any other body to do it. Not as I knows." She shrugged her should'ers. It seemed that this was a mere excuse put forward to disguise her indolence, or to veil her malevolence. Mehetabel looked around her. There were no plates. There was nothing to eat prepared on the kitchen table. No cloth ; nothing whatever there, save the guttering candle. '' I didn't lay out nuthin'," said Mrs. Rocliffe; " you see, how was I to say you'd want vittles? I suppose you have had as much as is good for you away where you come from — at the Ship. If you are hungry — there's cold rabbit pie in the larder, if it ain't gone bad. This weather has been bad for keepin' meat. There's bread in the larder, if you don't mind the rats and mice havin' been at it. That's not my fault. Jonas, he had some for his break'us, and never covered up the pan, so the varmin have got to it. There's ale, too, in a barrel, I know, but Jonas keeps the key to that lest I should take a sup. He begrudges me that, and ex- pects me to work for him like a galley-slave." Then the woman was silent, looking moodily down. The floor was strewn with flakes of whitewash as though snow had fallen over it. " You see," said Mrs. Rocliffe, "Jonas would go to the expense of whitenin' the ceilin', just because you was comin.' It had done plenty well for father and mother, and I don't mind any time it were whitened afore, and I be some years the elder of Jonas. The ceiling was that greasy wi' - smoke, that the white- washin' as it dried 'as pealed off, arid came down just about. You look up — the ceilin' is ten. times worse than afore. It looks as if it were measly. I. wouldn't sweep up the -flakes, as fell off just .to let Jonas see what comes of his foolishness.. ' I told him' it would be so, but he wouldn't believe rriej"and ndwlet hini see for him- self— there it is," - - . 94 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. With a sort of malignant delight the woman ob- served Mehetabel, and saw how troubled and un- happy she was. Again a stillness ensued. Mehetabel could hear her heart beat. She could hear no other sound. She looked through the room towards the clock. It was silent. "Ah, now there," said Sarah Rocliffe. "There be that, to be sure. Runned down is the weight. It wasn't proper for me now to wind up the clock. As you be the new mistress in the house, it is your place and dooty. I suppose you know that." Then from without Mehetabel heard the grunts of the sow in the stye that adjoined the house, and im- parted an undesirable flavor to the atmosphere in it. " That's the sow in the pen," said Mrs. Rocliffe ; " she's wantin' her meat. She hain't been galliwantin', and marry in', and bein' given in marriage. I'm not the mistress, and I've not the dooty to provide ran- dans and crammins for other folks' hogs. She'll be goin' back in her flesh unless fed pretty smart. You'd best do that at once, but not in your weddin' dress. You must get acquainted together, and the sooner the better. She's regular rampagous wi' hunger." " Would you help me in with my box, Mrs. Rocliffe?" asked Mehetabel. " Jonas set it down by the door, and if I can get that upstairs I'll change my dress at once, and make the fire, clean the floor, wind up the clock, and feed the hog." " I've such a terrible crick in my back, I dussn't do it," answered Sarah Rocliffe. " Why, how much does that there box weigh? I wonder Jonas had the face to put it in the cart, and expect Clutch to draw it. Clutch didn't like it now, did he ? " " But how can I get my box in and carried up ? Jonas is with the horse, I suppose ? " "Oh, yes, he is minding the horse. Clutch must be made comfortable, and given his hay. I'll be bound you and Jonas have been eatin' and drinkin' all day, and never given Clutch a mouthful, nor washed his teeth with a pail o* >yater/' THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 95 " I'm sure Joe Filmer looked to the horse at the Ship. He is very attentive to beasts." " On ordinary days, and when nuthin' is goin* on, I dare say — not when there's weddin's .and ducks and green peas goin' for any who axes for 'em." The report that ducks and green peas were to form an element of the entertainment had been told every- where before the day of the marriage, and it was bit- terness to Mrs. Rocliffe to think that '* on principle," as she put it, she had been debarred from eating her share. " Ducks and green peas ! " repeated she. " I s'pose you don't reckon on eating that every day here, no, nor on Sundays, no, not even at Christmas. 'Taint such as we in the Punch-Bowl as can stuff ourselves on ducks and green peas. Green peas and ducks we may grow — but we sells 'em to the quality." After some consideration Mrs. Rocliffe relented sufficiently to say, " I don't know but what Samuel may be idlin' ; he mostly is. I'll go and send my son Sam- uel to help you with the box." Then with a surly " Good-night " the woman with- drew. After a couple of minutes, she returned : " I've come back," she said, " to tell you that if old Clutch is off his meat — and I shouldn't wonder if he was — wi* neglect and wi' drawing such a weight — then you'd best set to work and make him gruel. Jonas can't afford to lose old Clutch, just becos he's got a wife." Then she departed again. Jonas was indeed in the stable attending to the horse. He had, moreover, to run the cart under shelter. Mehetabel put out a trembling hand to snuff the candle. Her hand was so unsteady that she ex- tinguished the light. Where to find the tinder box she knew not. She felt for a bench, and in the dark- ness when she had reached it, sank on it, and burst into tears. Such was the welcorhe to her new home. For some time she sat with as little light iii her heart as there was without. 96 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. She felt some relief in giving way to her surcharged heart. She sobbed and knitted her fingers together, unknitted them, and wove them together again in con- vulsions of distress — of despair. What expectation of happiness had she here ? She was accustomed at the Ship to have everything about her neat and in good order. The mere look round that she had given to the room, the principal room of the house she had entered, showed how ramshackle it was. To some minds it is essential that there should be propriety, as essential as that the food they con- sume should be wholesome, the water they drink should be pure. They can no more accommodate themselves to disorder than they can to running on hands and feet like apes. It was quite true that this house would be given up to Mehetabel to do with it what she liked. But would her husband care to have it other than it was? Would he not resent her attempts to alter every- thing ? And for what purpose would she strive and toil if he disapproved of her changes ? She had no confidence that in temper, in character, in mind, he and she would agree, or agree to differ. She knew that he was grasping after money, that he commended no man, but had a disparaging word for every one, and envy of all who were prosperous. She had seen in him no sign of generosity of feeling, no spark of honor. No positive evil was said of him ; if he were inclined to drink he was not a drunkard ; if he stirred up strife in himself he was not quarrelsome. He over-reached in a bargain, but never did anything actually dishonest. He was not credited with any lightness in his moral conduct towards any village maid. That he was frugal, keen witted, was about all the good that was said, and that could be said of him. If he had won no one's love hitherto, was it likely that there was anything lovable in him ? Would he secure the affec- tions of his wife ? Thoughts rose and fell, tossed and broke in Mehet- THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 97 abel's brain ; her tears fell freely, and as she was alone in the house she was able to sob without restraint. Jonas had chained up Tartar, and the dog was howl- ing. The pig grunted impatiently. A /at raced across the floor. Cockroaches came out in the darkness and stirred, making a strange rustling like the pattering of fine rain. Mehetabel could hear the voice of her husband in the yard. He was thrusting the cart under a roof. He would be in the house shortly, and she did not wish that he should find her in tears, that he should learn how weak, how hopeless she was. She put her hand into her pocket for a kerchief, and drew forth one, with which she staunched the flow from her eyes, and dried her cheeks. She put her knuckle to her lips to stay their quivering. Then, when she had recovered some composure, she drew a long sigh and replaced the sodden kerchief in her pocket. At that moment she started, sprang to her feet, searched her pocket in the darkness with tremulous alarm, with sickness at her heart. Then, not finding what she wanted, she stooped and groped along the floor, and found nothing save the flakes of fallen whitewash. She stood up panting, and put her hand to her heart. Then Jonas entered with a lantern, and saw her as she thus stood, one hand to her brow, thrusting back the hair, the other to her heart ; he was surprised, raised his lantern to throw the light on her face, and said : — "Wot'sup?" " I have been robbed ! My fifteen pounds have been taken from me." " Well ! " " Jonas ! " she said, " I know it was you. It was you who robbed me, where those men robbed my father. Just as I got into the cart you robbed me." He lowered the lantern. " Look here, Matabel, mind wot I said. In matri- mony it's all give and take, and if there ain't give on one side, then there's take, take on the tother. I ain't going to have this no Paradise if I can help it." 7 93 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. CHAPTER XV. IVER. Next day was bright ; but already some rime lay in the cold and marshy bottom of the Punch-Bowl. Mehetabel went round the farm with Bideabout, and with some pride he showed her his possessions, his fields, his barn, sheds and outhouses. Amongst these was that into which she had been taken on the night of her father's murder. She had often heard the story from Iver. She knew how that every door had been shut against her except that of the shed in which the heather and broom steels were kept that belonged to Jonas, and which served as his workshop. With a strange sense, as though she were in the hands of Fate thrusting her on, she knew not whither, with remorseless cogency, the young wife looked into the dark shed which had received her eighteen years before. It was wonderful that she should have begun the first chapter of her life there, and that she should return to the same spot to open the second chapter. She felt relieved when Jonas left her to herself. Then she at once set to work on the house, in which there was much to be done. She was ambitious to get it into order and comfort before Mrs. Verstage came to visit her in her new quarters. As she worked, her mind reverted to the Ship. Would she be missed there? Would the new maid engaged be as active and attentive as she had been ? Her place in the hearts of the old couple was now occupied by Iver. However much the innkeeper might pretend to be hard of reconciliation, yet he must yearn after his own son ; he must be proud of him now that THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 99 Iver was grown so fine and independent, and had carved for himself a place in the world. When the first feeling of regret over her departure was passed away, then all their thoughts, their aspira- tions, their pride would be engrossed by Iver. Mehetabel was scouring a saucepan. She lowered it, and her hands remained inactive. Iver ! — she saw him, as he stood before her in the Ship, extending his hands to her. She almost felt his grasp again. Mehetabel brushed back the hair that had fallen over her face ; and as she did so a tear ran down her cheek. Then she heard her husband's voice ; he was speak- ing with Samuel Rocliffe, his nephew ; and it struck her as never before, how harsh, how querulous was his intonation. During the day, Mrs. Rocliflfe came in, looked about inquisitively, and pursed up her lips when she saw the change effected, and conjectured that more was likely to follow. ** I suppose nuthin* is good enough as it was — but you must put everything upside down ? ** " On the contrary, I am setting on its feet everything I have found topsy-turvy." To the great surprise of all, on the following Sun- day, Bideabout, in his best suit, accompanied Mehet- abel to church. He had never been a church-goer. He begrudged having to pay tithes. He begrudged having to pay something for his seat in addition to tithes to the church, if he went to a dissenting chapel. If religious ministrations weren't voluntary and gratui- tous, **then," said Jonas, "he didn't think nuthin' of 'em." Jonas had been disposed to scoff at religion, and to work on Sundays, though not so openly as on other days of the week. He went to church now because he was proud of his wife ; not out of devotion, but vanity. Some days later arrived a little tax-cart driven by Iver, with Mrs. Verstage in it. The hostess had already discovered what a difference loo THE BROOM-SQUIRE, it made in her establishment to have in it a raw and dull-headed maid in the room of the experienced and intelligent daughter. She did not regret what she had done — she had removed Mehetabel out of the reach of Iver, and had no longer any anxiety as to the disposal of his property by Simon. For her own sake she was sorry, as she plainly saw that her life was likely to run less smoothly in the future in her kitchen and with her guests. Now that Mehetabel was no longer dangerous, her heart unfolded towards her once more. The young wife received Mrs. Verstage with pleasure. The flush came into her cheeks when she saw her, and for the moment she had no eyes, no thoughts, no welcome for Iver. The landlady was not so active as of old, and she had to be assisted from her seat. As soon as she reached the ground she was locked in the embrace of her daugh- ter by adoption. Then Mehetabel conducted the old woman over the house, and showed her the new arrangements she had made, and consulted her on certain projected altera- tions. Jonas had come to the door when the vehicle arrived ; he was in his most gracious mood, and saluted first the hostess and then her son, with unwonted cor- diality. " Come now, Matabel," said Mrs. Verstage, when both she and the young wife were alone together, " I did well to push this on, eh ? You have a decent house, and a good farm. All yours, not rented, so none can turn you out. What more could you desire ? I dare be sworn Bideabout has got a pretty nest egg stuck away somewhere, up the chimney or under the hearth. Has he shown you what he has ? There was the elder Gilly Cheel was a terrible skinflint. When he died his sons hunted high and low for his money and couldn't find it. And just as they wos goin' to bury him, the nuss said she couldn't make a bootiful corpse of him, he were that puffed in his mouth. What do you think, Matabel ? The old chap had stuffed his THE BROOM-SQUlR^i '" iM' money into his mouth when he knew he was dyin'. Didn't want nobody to have it but himself. Don't you let Bideabout try any of them games." " Have you missed me greatly, dear mother ? " asked Mehetabel, who had heard the story 'of Giles Cheel before. Mrs. Verstage sighed. ** My dear, do you know the iron-stone bowl as belonged to my mother. The girl broke it, and hadn't the honesty to say so, but stuck it together wi' yaller soap, and thought I wouldn't see it. Then one of the customers made her laugh, and she let seven pewters fall, and they be battered outrageous. And she has been chuckin' the heel taps to the hog, and made him as drunk as a Christian. She'll driv« me out of my seven senses." " So you do miss me, mother? " " My dear — no — Tm not selfish. It is all for your good. There wos Martha Lintott was goin' to a dance, and dropped her bustle. Patty Pickett picked it up, and thinkin' she couldn't have too much of a good thing, clapped it on a top of her own and cut a fine figure wi* it — wonderful. And Martha looked curious all up and down wi'out one. But she took it reason- able, and said, * What's one woman's loss is another woman's gain.' O, my dear life ! If Iver would but settle with Polly Colpus I should die content." " Is not the match agreed to yet?" " No ! " Mrs. Verstage sighed. " I've got my boy back, but not for long. He talks of remaining here awhile to paint — subjects, he calls 'em, but he don't rise to Polly as I should like. Polly is a good girl. Master Colpus was at your weddin', and was very civil to Iver. I heard him invite the boy to come over and look in on him some evening — Sunday, for instance, and have a bite of supper and a glass. But Iver hasn't been nigh the Colpuses yet ; and when I press him to go he shrugs his shoulders and says he has other and better friends he must visit first.*' Mrs. Verstage sighed again. lo^^ THE. BROOM-SQUIRE. '' Well, perhaps he doesn't fancy Polly," said Mehetabel. " Why should he not fancy her? She will have five hundred pounds, and old James Colpus's land adjoins ours. I don't understand Iver's ways at all." Mehetabel laughed. " Dear mother, you cannot expect that ; he did not think with his father's head when a boy. He will think only with his own head now he is a man." " Look here, Matabel. I'll leave Iver to you for half-an-hour. Show him the cows. I'll make Bide- about take me to his sister. I want to have it out with her for not coming to the wedding. I'm not the person to let these things pass. Say a word to Iver about Polly, there is a dear. I cannot bring them to- gether, but you may, you are so clever." Meanwhile Iver and Jonas had been in conversation. The latter had been somewhat contemptuous about the profession of an artist, and was not a little aston- ished when he heard the prices realized by pictures. Iver told the Broom-Squire that he intended making some paintings of the Punch-Bowl, and that he had a mind to draw Kink's farm. In that case, said Bideabout, a percentage of the money such a picture fetched would be due to him. He didn't see that anyone had a right to take a por- trait of his house and not pay him for it. If Iver were content to draw his house, he must, on no account, in- clude that of the Rocliffes, for there was a mort- gage on that, and there might be trouble with the lawyers. Mrs. Verstage proposed to Bideabout that she should go with him to his sister's house, and he consented. " Look here, Matabel," said he, " there is Mister Iver thinks he can make a pictur* of the spring, if you'll get a pitcher and stand by it. I dare say if it sells, he'll not forget us." " I wish I could take Mehetabel and her pitcher off your hands, and not merely the portrait of both," laughed Iver, to cover the confusion of the girl, who THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 103 reddened with annoyance at the grasping meanness of Jonas. When Iver was alone with her, as they were on their way to the spring, he said, " Come, this will not do at all. For the first time we are free to chat together, as in the old times when we were inseparable friends. Why are you shy now, Matabel ? " " You must be glad to be home again with the dear father and mother,'* she said. " Yes, but I miss you ; and I had so reckoned on finding you there." " You will remain at the Ship now,** urged she. " I don't know that. I have my profession. I have leisure during part of the summer and fall, making studies for pictures — but I take pupils ; they pay." "You must consider the old folk." " I do. I will visit them occasionally. But art is a mistress, and an imperious one. When one is married one is no longer independent." " You are married ? ** asked Mehetabel, with a flush in her cheeks. " Yes, to my art." " Oh ! to paints and brushes ! Tell me true, Iver ! Has no girl won your heart whilst you have been from home?'* " I have found many to admire, but my heart is free. I have had no time to think of girls' faces — save as studies. Art is a mistress as jealous as she is exact- ing." Mehetabel drew a long breath. There went up a flash of light in her mind, for which she did not attempt to account. " You are free — that is famous, and can take Polly Colpus." Then she laughed, and Iver laughed. They laughed long and merrily together. " This is too much," exclaimed Iver. *' At home father is at me to exchange the mahl-stick for an ox- goad, and mother wearies me with laudation of Polly Colpus. I shall revolt and run away, as I did not ex- pect you to lend a hand with Polly." 104 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. ** You must not run away," said Mehetabel, earnestly. " Iver ! I was all those years at the Ship, with mother, after you went, and I have seen how her heart has ached for you. She is growing old. Let her have consolation during the years that remain for the sorrow of those that are past." " I cannot take to farming, nor turn publican, and I will not have Polly Colpus." " Here is the spring,** said Mehetabel. She set the pitcher beside the water, leaned back in the hedge, musing, with her finger to her chin, her eyes on the ground, and her feet crossed. "■ Stand as you are. That is perfect. Do not stir. I will make a pencil sketch.'* The spring gushed from under a bank, in a clear and copious jet. It had washed away the sand, and had buried itself in a nook among ferns and moss. On the top of the bank was a rude shed, open at the side, with a cart at rest in it. Wild parsnips in full flower nodded before the water. " I could desire nothing better,** said Iver, *' and that pale blue skirt of yours, the white stockings, the red kerchief round your head — in color as in arrange- ment everything is admirable.** " You have not your paints with you.*' *' I will come another day and bring them. Now I will only sketch in the outline." Presently Iver laughed. " Matabel ! If I took Polly she would be of no use to me whatever, not even as a model." Presently the Broom-Squire returned with Mrs. Verstage, and looked over the shoulder of the artist. *' Not done much," he said. " I shall have to come again and yet again, to put in the color," said Iver. " Come when and as often as you like," said Bide- about. Neither of the men noticed the shrinking that affected the entire frame of Mehetabel, as Jonas said these words, but it was observed by Mrs. Verstage, and a shade of anxiety swept over her face. THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 105 CHAPTER XVI. AGAIN-IVER. A FEW days after this first visit, Iver was again at the Kinks' farm. The weather was fine, and he protested that he must take advantage of it to proceed with his picture. Mehetabel was reluctant to stand. She made excuses that were at once put aside. ^' If you manage to sell pictures of our place," said Bideabout, " our Punch-Bowl may get a name, and folk come here picnicking from Godalming and Guild- ford and Portsmouth ; and I'll put up a board with * Refreshments — Moderate,' over the door, and Matabel shall make tea or sell cake, and pick up a trifle towards housekeeping." A month was elapsed since Mehetabel's marriage, the month of honey to most — one of empty comb with- out sweetness to her. She had drawn no nearer to her husband than before. They had no interests, no tastes in common. They saw all objects through a different medium. It was not a matter of concern to Mehetabel that she was left much alone by Jonas, and that her sister-in- law and the rest of the squatters treated her as an in- terloper. As a child, at the Ship, without associates of her own age, after Iver's departure, she had lived much to herself, and now her Soul craved for solitude. And ■yet, when she was alone the thoughts of her heart troubled her. • Jonas was attached, in his fashion, to his beautiful wife ; he joked, and was effusive in his expressions of io6 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. affection. But she did not respond to his jokes, and his demonstrations of affection repelled her. Jonas was too dull, or vain, to perceive this, and he attributed her coldness to modesty, real or affected, probably the latter. Mehetabel shrank from looking full in the face, the thought that she must spend the rest of her life with this man. She was well aware that she could not love him, could hardly bring herself to like him, the utmost she could hope was that she might arrive at enduring him. Whilst in this condition of unrest and discourage- ment, Iver appeared, and his presence lit up the desola- tion in which she was. The sight of him, the sound of his voice, aroused old recollections, helped to drive away the shadows that environed her, and that clouded her mind. There was no harm in this, and yet she was un- easy. Cheerful as she was when he was present, there was something feverish in this cheerfulness, and it left her more unhappy than before when he was gone, and more conscious of the impossibility of accommodating herself to her lot. The visit on one fine day was followed by another when the rain fell heavily. Iver entered the house, shook his wet hat and cloak, and with a laugh, exclaimed — '* Here I am — to continue the picture." " In such weather ? '* " Little woman ! When I started the wind was in the right quarter. All at once it veered round and gave me a drenching. What odds ? You can stand at the window, and I can proceed with the figure. It was tedious at the Ship. Between you and me and the post, I cannot get along with the fellows who come there to drink. You are the only person in Thursley with whom I can talk and be happy." " Bideabout is not at home.** " I didn't come through the rain to see Bideabout, but you." '* Will you have anything to eat or drink?" THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 107 " Anything that you can give me. But I did not come for that. To tell the truth, I don't think I'll venture on the picture. The light is so bad. It is of no consequence. We can converse. , I am sick of public-house talk. I ran away to be with you. We are old chums, are we not, dear Matabel ? " A fire of peat was on the hearth. She threw on skin- turf that flamed up. Iver was damp. His hands were clammy. His hair ends dripped. His face was running with water. He spread his palms over the flame, and smiled. " And so you were tired of being at home ? " she said, as she put the turves together. " Home is no home to me, now you are gone," was his answer. Then, after a pause, during which he chafed his hands over the dancing flame, he added : *' I wish you were back in the old Ship. The old Ship ! It is no longer the dear old Ship of my recollections, now that you have deserted. Why did you leave ? It is strange to me that my mother did not write and tell me that you were going to be married. If she had done that " He continued drying his hands, looking dreamily into the flame, and left the sentence incomplete. " It is queer altogether," he pursued. '' When I told her I was at Guildford, and proposed returning, she put me off, till my father was better prepared. She would break the news to him, see how he took it, and so on. I waited, heard no more, so came unsummoned, for I was impatient at the delay^ She knew I wished to hear about you, Mattee, dear old friend and playmate. I asked in my letters about you. You know you ceased to write, and mother labored at the pen herself, finally. She answered that you were well — nothing further. Why did she not tell me of your engagement ? Have you any idea, Matabel ? " She bowed over the turf, to hide her face, but the leaping flame revealed the color that mantled cheek, and throat, and brow. Her heart was beating furi- ously. io8 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. " That marriage seems to me to have been cobbled up precious quickly. Were you so mighty impatient to have the Broom-Squire that you could not wait till you were twenty ? A girl of eighteen does not know her own mind. A pretty kettle of fish there will be if you discover, when too late, that you have made a mis- take, and married the wrong man, who can never make you happy." Mehetabel started upright, and went with heaving bosom to the window, then drew back in surprise, for she saw the face of Mrs. Rocliffe at the pane, her nose applied to and flattened against the glass, and looking like a dab of putty. She was offended at the woman's inquisitiveness, and went to the door to inquire if she needed any- thing. '* Nuthin' at all," answered Sarah, with a laugh, " except to see whether my brother was home. It's early days beginning this, I call it." " What do you mean ? " " Oh, nuthin'." " Iver is here," said Mehetabel, controlling herself. " Will you please to come in ? " " But Jonas is not, is he ? " *' No ; he has gone to Squire Mellers about a load of stable-brooms." " I wouldn't come in on no account," said Mrs. Ro- cliffe. " Two's company, three's none," and she turned and departed. After she had shut the door Mehetabel went hastily through the kitchen into the scullery at the back. Her face was crimson, and she trembled in all her joints. Iver called to her ; she answered hastily that she was engaged, and presently, after she had put bread and cake and butter on the table, she fled to her own room upstairs, seated herself on a chair, and hid her burning face in her apron. . . The voice of her husband below afforded sensible relief to her in her mortification. He was speaking with THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 109 Iver ; cursing the weather and his bad luck. His long tramp in the rain had been to no purpose. The Squire, to whose house he had been, was out. She washed her face, combed and smoothed her hair, and slowly de- scended the stairs. On seeing her Jonas launched forth in complaints, and showed himself to be in an evil temper. He must have ale, not wish-wash tea, fit only for old women. He would not stuff himself with cake like a school child. He must have ham fried for him at once. He was in an irritable mood, and found fault with his wife about trifles, or threw out sarcastic remarks that wounded, and made Iver boil with indignation. Jonas did not seem to bear the young artist a grudge ; he was, in fact, pleased to see him, and proposed to him to stay the evening and have a game of cards. It was distressing to Mehetabel to be rebuked in public, but she made no rejoinder. Jonas had seized on the opportunity to let his visitor see that he was not tied to his wife's apron string, but was absolute master in his own house. The blood mounted to Iver's brow, and he clenched his hands under the table. To relieve the irksomeness of the situation Iver pro- ceeded to undo a case of his colored sketches that he had brought with him. These water-colors were charming in their style, a style much affected at that period ; the tints were stippled in, and every detail given with minute fidelity. The revolution in favor of the blottesque had not yet set in, and the period was happily far removed from that of the impressionist, who veils his incapacity under a term — an impression, and calls a daub a picture. Nature never daubs, never strains after effects. She is painstaking, delicate in her work, and reticent. Whilst Mehetabel was engaged frying ham, Iver showed his drawings to the Broom-Squire, who treated them without perception of their beauty, and valued -them solely as merchandise. But when supper was ready, and whilst Jonas was eating, he had a more in- terested and appreciative observer. in Mehetabel, to no THE BROOM-SQUIRE. whom the drawings afforded unfeigned pleasure. In her delight she sat close to Iver ; her warm breath played over his cheek, as he held up the sketches to the light, and pointed out the details of interest. Once when these were minute, and she had to look closely to observe them, in the poor light afforded by the candle, without thinking what he was about, Iver put his hand on her neck. She started, and he with- drew it. The action was unobserved by Bideabout, who was engrossed in his rasher. When Jonas had finished his meal, he thrust his plate away, produced a pack of cards, and said — " Here, Mr. Iver, are pictures worth all of yours. Will you come and try your luck or skill against me ? We'll have a sup of brandy together. Matabel, bring glasses and hot-water." Iver went to the door and looked out. The rain descended in streams ; so he returned to the table, drew up his chair and took a hand. When Mehetabel had washed the plates and dishes used at the meal, she seated herself where she could see by the candle-light, took up her needlework, and was prepared to snuff the wick as was required. Iver found that he could not fix his attention on the game. Whenever Mehetabel raised her hand for the snuffers, he made a movement to forestall her, then sometimes their eyes met, and she lowered hers in con- fusion. The artistic nature of Iver took pleasure in the beau- tiful ; and the features, coloring, grace of the young Broom-Squiress, were such as pleased him and engaged his attention. He made no attempt to analyze his feelings towards her. He was not one to probe his own heart, nor had he the resolution to break away from temptation, even when recognized as such. Easy- going, good-natured, impulsive, with a spice of his mother's selfishness in his nature, he allowed himself to follow his inclinations without consideration whither they might lead him, and how they might affect others. Iver's eyes, thoughts, were distracted from the game. THE BROOM-SQUIRE. iii He lost money — five shillings, and Jonas urged him to play for higher stakes. Then Mehetabel laid her needlework in her lap, and said — ** No, Iver, do not. You have played Sufficiently, and have lost enough. Go home." Jonas swore at her. ** What is that to you ? We may amuse ourselves without your meddling. What odds to you if he loses, so long as I win. I am your husband and not he." But Iver rose, and laughingly said : — "■ Better go home with a wet jacket than with all the money run out of my pocket. Good-night, Bide- about." " Have another shot ? " " Not another." " She put you up to this," with a spiteful glance at Mehetabel. " Not a bit, Jonas. Don't you think a chap feels he's losing blood, without being told he is getting white about the gills." The Broom-Squire sulkily began to gather up the cards. " What sort of a night is it, Mehetabel ? Go to the door and see," said he. The girl rose and opened the door. Without, the night was black as pitch, and in the light that issued the raindrops glittered as they fell. In the trees, in the bushes, on the grass, was the rustle of descending rain. " By Jove, it's worse than ever," said Iver: "lend me a lantern, or I shall never reach home." " I haven't one to spare," replied Bideabout ; " the hogs and calves must be tended, and the horse. Old Clutch, littered down. Best way that you have another game with me, and you shall stay the night. We have a spare room and bed." '' I accept with readiness," said Iver. '' Go— get all ready, Matabel Now, then ! you eut, I deal." lu THE BROOM-SQUIRE. CHAPTER XVII. DREAMS. IVER remained the night in the little farm-house. He thought nothing as he lay in bed of the additional shillings he had lost to Jonas, but of the inestimable loss he had sustained in Mehetabel. The old childish liking he had entertained for her revived. It did more than revive, it acquired strength and heat. As a boy he had felt some pride and self- consequence because of the child whom he had intro- duced into the Christian Church, and to whom he had given a name. Now he was elated to think that she was the most beautiful woman he had seen, and angry with the consciousness that she was snatched from him. Why had he not returned to Thursley a day, half a day, earlier ? Why had Fate played such a cruel game with him ? What a man this Jonas Kink was who had won the prize. Was he worthy of it ? Did he value Mehetabel as he should ? A fellow who could not perceive beauty in a landscape and see the art in his drawings was not one to know that his wife was lovely, or if he knew it did so in a stupid, unappreciative man- ner. Did he treat Mehetabel kindly ; with ordinary civility? Iver remembered the rebukes, the slights put on her in his own presence. Iver's bedroom was neat, everything in it clean. The bed was one of those great tented fourposters which were at the time much affected in Surrey, composed of covering and curtains of striped — or pranked — cotton, blue and white. Mehetabel, in the short while she had been in the Punch-Bowl, had put the spare room in order. She had found it used as. a place for lumber, every article of furniture deep in dust, and every cur- tain rent. The corners of the room had been giv-en over for twenty years as the happy hunting-ground of THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 113 spiders. Although Bideabout had taken some pains to put his house in order before his marriage, repairs had been executed only on what was necessary, and in a parsimonious spirit. The spare room had been passed over, as not likely to be needed. To that as to every other portion of the house, Mehetabel had turned her attention, and it was now in as good condition to re- ceive a guest as the bedrooms in the Ship Inn. Presently Iver went to sleep, lulled by the patter of the rain on the roof, on the leaves, and the sobbing of the moist wind through the ill-adjusted casement. As he slept he had a dream. He thought that he heard Thursley Church bells ringing. He believed he had been to church to be married. He was in his hoHday attire, and was holding his bride by the hand. He turned about to see who was his partner, and recognized Mehetabel. She was in white, but whiter than her dress and veil was her bloodless face, and her dark brows and hair marked it as with mourning. There was this strange element in his dream, that he could not leave the churchyard. He endeavored to follow the path to the gate, out- side which the villagers were awaiting them with flowers and ready to cheer ; but he was unable to reach it. The path winded in and out among the grave- stones, and round and round the church, till at length it reached the tomb of the murdered sailor. All the while the ringers were endeavoring to give the young bridal pair a merry peal, and failed. The ropes slid from their hands, and only the sexton succeeded in securing one, and with that he tolled. Distinctly Iver saw the familiar carving of the three murderers robbing and killing their victim. He had often laughed over the bad drawing of the figures — he laughed now, in sleep. Then he thought that he heard Mehetabel reproach him for having returned, to be her woe. And that be- tween each sentence she sobbed. Thereupon he again looked at her. She was beautiful, more beautiful than ever — a 8 114 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. beauty sublimated, rendered almost transparent. As he looked she became paler, and the hand he held grew colder. Now ensued a strange phenomenon. She was sinking. Her feet disappeared in the spongy turf, that oozed with water after the long rain. Her large dark eyes were fixed on him entreatingly, re- proachfully. Then she was enveloped to her knees, and as she v/ent down, the stain of the wet grass and the soil of the graveyard clay rose an inch up her pure white gar- ment. She held his hand tenaciously, as the only thing to which she could cling to save her from being wholly engulfed. Then she was swallowed up to her waist, and he be- came aware that if he continued to clasp her hand, she would drag him under the earth. In his dream he reasoned with her. He pointed out to her that it was impossible for him to be of any service to her, and that he was jeopardizing his own self, unless he disengaged himself from her. He endeavored to release his hand. She clung the more obstinately, her fingers were deadly cold and numbed him, yet he was resolute in self-defence, and finally freed his hand. Then she sank more rapidly, with despair in the upturned face. He tried to escape her eyes, he could not. It was a satisfaction to him when the rank grass closed over them and got between the lips that were opened in appeal for help. Then ensued a gulp. The earth had swallowed her up, and in dream, he was running for his pallet and canvas to make a study of the spot where she had sunk, in a peculiarly favorable light. He woke, shivering, and saw that the gray morning was looking in at his window between the white curtains. His hand, that had felt so chill, was out of the bed, and the coverlet had sHd off him, and was heaped on the floor. The wind had shifted, and now pressed the clouds together, rolled them up and swept them into the lumber-house of clouds below the horizon. He dressed THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 115 leisurely, shook himself, to shake off the impression produced by his dream, and laughed at himself for having been disturbed by it. When he came downstairs he found, that both Mehet- abel and Jonas were ajready on their feet, and that the former was preparing breakfast. Her eyes were red, as if she had been crying. " How did you sleep ? " she asked, with a faint smile — *' and what were your dreams ? " " They say that the first dream in new quarters comes true," threw in the Broom-Squire ; " but this is the idle chatter of old wives. I make no count of it." Mehetabel observed that Iver started and seemed disconcerted at this question relative to his dream. He evaded an answer, and she saw that the topic was unpleasant, and to reply inconvenient. She said no more ; and Jonas had other matters to think about more substantial than dreams. Yet Mehetabel could not fail to perceive that their guest was out of tune. Was he annoyed at having lost money, or was he in reality troubled by something that had occurred dur- ing the night ? An hour later Iver prepared to leave. " Come with me a little way," he pleaded with the hostess, " see me safe off the premises." She did as was desired, though not without inner reluctance. And yet, at the same time she felt that with his departure a something would be gone that could not be replaced, a light out of her sky, a strain of music out of her soul. The white fog lay like curd at the bottom of the Punch-Bowl. Here and there a tree-top stood above the vapor, but only as a bosky islet in the surface of mist, dense and chill. The smoke from the chimneys of the squatter houses rose like steaming springs, but the brick chimneys were submerged. So dense was the fog that it muffled all sound, impeded the breath, struck cold to the marrow. It smelt, for the savors of hog- pen and cowstall were caught and not allowed to dis- sipate. A step, and those ascending the side of the great basin were out of the mist, and in sunshine, but it still held ii6 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. their feet to the knees ; another step and they were clear, and then their shadows were cast, gigantic, upon the white surface below, and about each head was a halo of light and rainbow tints. Every bush was twinkling as hung with diamonds of the purest water. Larks were trilling, pouring forth in song the ecstasy that swelled their hearts. The sky was blue as a nemophyla, and cloudless. As soon as Iver and Mehetabel had issued from the fog and were upon the heath, and in the sunshine, she stayed her feet. " I will go no further,'* she said. " Look," said he, '*how the fog Hes below at the bot- tom of the Punch-Bowl, as though it were snow. Above, on the downs all is sunshine." ** Yes, you go up into the light and warmth," an- swered she. " I must back and down into the cold vapors, cold as death." He thought of his dream. There was despondency in her tone. ** The sun will pierce and scatter the vapors and shine over and warm you below." She shook her head. " Iver," she said, ** you may tell me now we are alone. What was your dream ? " Again he appeared disconcerted. " Of what, of whom did you dream ? " " Of whom else could I dream but you — when under your roof," said he with a laugh. " Oh, Iver ! and what did you dream about me? " " Arrant nonsense. Dreams go by contraries." " Then what about me ?" " I dreamt of your marriage." " Then that means death." He caught her to him, and kissed her lips. " We are brother and sister," he said, in self-excul- pation. ** Where is the harm ? " She disengaged herself hastily. She heard a cough and looked round, to see the mocking face of Sarah Rocliffe, who had followed and had just emerged from the curdling fog below. THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 117 CHAPTER XVIII. REALITIES. IVER was gone. The light that had sparkled in Mehetabel's eyes, the flush, like a carnation in her cheek, faded at once. She was uneasy that Mrs. Rocliffe had surprised her and Iver, whilst he gave her that ill-considered though innocent parting salute. What mischief she might make of it ! How she might sow suspicion of her in the heart of Jonas, and Iver would be denied the house ! Iver denied the house ! Then she would see him no more, have no more pleasant conversations with him. Indeed, then the cold, clammy fog into which she descended was a figure of the life hers would be, and it was one that no sun's rays could dissipate. After she had returned to the house she sank in a dark corner like one weary after hard labor, and looked dreamily before her at the floor. Her hands and her feet were motionless. A smile that every moment became more bitter sat on her lips. The muscles of her face became more rigid. What if through jealousy, open discord broke out between her and Jonas? Would it make her condition more miserable, her outlook more desperate? She revolved in thought the events that were past. She ranged them in their order — the proposal of Jonas, her refusal, the humiliation to which she had been subjected by Mrs. Verstage which had driven her to accept the man she had just rejected, the precipitation with which the marriage had been hurried on, then the appearance of Iver on her wedding day. She recalled the look that passed over his face when ii8 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. informed that she was a bride, the clasp of his hands, and now — now — his kiss burned on her lips, nay, had sunk in as a drop of liquid fire, and was consuming her heart with anguish and sweetness combined. Was the kiss that of a brother to a sister ? Was there in it, as Iver said, no harm, no danger to herself ? She thought of the journey home from the Ship on her wedding evening, of the fifteen pounds of which she had been robbed by her husband, the money given her by ** father " against the evil day. She had been deceived, defrauded by the man she had sworn to hon- or, love, and obey. She had not acquired love for him. Had he not by this act forfeited all claim to both love and honor ? She thought again of Iver, of his brown, agate-like eyes, but eyes in which there was none of the hardness of a stone. She contrasted him with Jonas. How mean, how despicable, how narrow in mind and in heart was the latter compared with the companion of her youth. Mehetabel's face was bathed in perspiration. She slid to her knees to pray ; she folded her hands, and found herself repeating. "Genesis, fifty chapters; Exodus, forty ; Leviticus, twenty-seven ; Numbers, thirty-six ; Deuteronomy, thirty-four ; these are the books that constitute the Pentateuch. The Book of Joshua " Then she checked herself. In her distress, her neces- sity, she was repeating the lesson last acquired in Sun- day-school, which had gained her a prize. This was not prayer. It brought her no consolation, it afforded her no strength. She tried to find something to which to cling, to stay her from the despair into which she had slipped, and could only clearly figure to herself that " the country of the Gergesenes lay to the southeast of the Sea of Tiberias and that a shekel weighed ten hundred- weights and ninety-two grains, Troy weight, equal to in avoirdupois " her brain whirled. She could not work out the sum. She could not pray. She could recall no prayer. She could look to nothing beyond the country of the Gergesenes. And yet, never in her THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 119 life had she so needed prayer, strength, as now, when this new guilty passion was waking in her heart. Shuddering at the thought of revolt against her duty, unable altogether to abandon the hope, the longing to see Iver again, filled with vague terror of what the future might bring forth, she remained as struck with paralysis, kneeling, speechless, with head bowed, hands fallen at her side, seeing, hearing, knowing nothing ; and was roused with a start by the voice of Jonas who entered, and asked, " Wot's up now ? ** She could not answer him. She sprang to her feet and eagerly flew to the execution of her domestic duties. Iver returned from his visit to the Punch-Bowl with a mind occupied and ill at ease. He had allowed himself, without a struggle, to give way to the impression produced on him by the beauty of Mehetabel. He enjoyed her society — found pleas- ure in talking of the past. Her mind was fresh ; she was intelligent, and receptive of new ideas. She alone of all the people of Thursley, whom he had encoun- tered, was endowed with artistic sense — was able to set the ideal above what was material. He did not ask himself whether he loved her. He knew that he did, but the knowledge did not trouble him. After a fash- ion, Mehetabel belonged to him as to none other. She was associated with his earliest and sunniest recollec- tions. Mehetabel could sympathize with him in his love for the beautiful in Nature. She had ever been linked with his mother in love for him. She had been the vehicle of communication between him and his mother till almost the last moment ; it was through her that all tidings of home had reached him. When his father had refused to allow Iver's name to be mentioned in his presence, for hours daily the thoughts of him had been in the hearts of his mother and this girl. With united pity and love, they had followed his struggles to make his way. I20 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. There was much obstinacy in Tver. Resolution to have his own way had made him leave home to follow an artistic career, regardless of the heartache he would cause his mother, and the resent- ment he would breed in his father. Thus, without consideration of the consequences to himself, to Mehetabel, to Jonas, he allowed his glowing affection for the young wife to gather heat, without attempt to master or extinguish it. There is a certain careless happiness in the artistic soul that is satisfied with the present, and does not look into the future. The enjoyment of the hour, the ban- quet off the decked table, the crown of roses freshly blown, suffice the artist's soul. It has no prevision of the morrow — makes no provision for the winter. That the marriage of Mehetabel with Jonas had raised barriers between them was hardly considered. That the Broom-Squire might resent having him hover round his young flower, did not enter into Tver's cal- culations; least of all did it concern him that he was breaking the girl's heart, and forever making it impos- sible for her to reconcile herself to her position. As Iver walked home over the common, and enjoyed the warmth and brilliancy of the sun, he asked himself again, why his mother had not prepared him for the marriage of Mehetabel. Mehetabel had certainly not taken Jonas because she loved him. She was above sordid considerations. What, then, had induced her to take the man ? She had been happy and contented at the Ship ; why, then, did she leave it ? On reaching home, he put the question to his mother. " It is a puzzle to me, which I cannot unravel, why has Matabel become Bideabout's wife ? " "Why should she not?" asked his mother in re- turn. '' It was a catch for such as she — a girl without a name, and bare of a dower. She has every reason to thank me for having pushed the marriage on." Iver looked at his mother with surprise. " Then you had something to do with it ?** THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 121 " Of course 1 had," answered she. " I did my duty. I am not so young as I was. I had to think for Mata- bel's future. She is no child of mine. She can expect nothing from your father nor from m^. When a good offer came, then I told her to accept and be thankful. She is a good girl, and has been useful in the house, and some people think her handsome. But young men don't court a girl who has no name, and has had three men hanged because of her." " Mother! what nonsense! The men were executed because they murdered her father." *' It is all one. She is marked with the gallows. Ill- luck attaches to her. There has been a blight on her from the beginning. I mind when her father chucked her down all among the fly-poison. Now she has got the Broom-Squire, she may count herself lucky, and thank me for it." " Good heavens ! " exclaimed Iver. " Then this marriage is your doing? " '' Yes — I told her that, before you came here, I must have her clear out of the house." ''Why?" A silence ensued. Mrs. Verstage looked at her son — into his great, brown eyes — and what she saw there alarmed her. Her lips moved to speak, but she could utter no words. She had let out her motive without consideration — in the frankness that was natural to her. " I ask, mother, why did you stop Matabel from writing, and take up the correspondence yourself at last ; and then, when you did write to me at Guildford, you said not one word about Mehetabel being prom- ised to the Broom-Squire?" '* I could not put all the news of the parish into my letter. How should I know that this concerned you ? " " We were together as children. If ever there were friends in the world, it was we." " I am a bad writer. It takes me five minutes over one word, just about. I said what I had to say, and no more, and I were a couple o' days over that." **Why did you ask me to postpone my coming 122 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. home ? — why seek to keep me away till after Mehet- abel's marriage ? " " There was a lot to do in the house, preparation for the weddin' — her gownds — I couldn't have you here whilst all the rout was on. I wanted to have you come when all was quiet again, and I could think of you. What wi' preparations and schemin' my head was full." ** Was that the only reason, mother ? " She did not answer. Her eyes fell. Iver threw his hat on the table, and went to his room. He was incensed against his mother. He guessed the reason why she had urged on the marriage, why she had kept him in ignorance of the engagement, why she had delayed his return to Thursley. She had made her plans. She wished to marry him to Polly Colpus, and she dreaded his association with Mehetabel as likely to be prejudicial to the success of her cherished scheme, now that the girl was in the ripeness of her beauty and to Iver invested with the halo of young associations, of boy romance. If his mother had told him ! If she had not bidden him postpone his coming home ! Then all would have turned out well. Mehetabel would not have been linked to an undesirable man, whom she could not love ; and he would have been free to make her his own. His heart was bitter as wormwood. Mrs. Verstage saw but too plainly that her son was estranged from her ; and she could form a rough esti- mate of the reason. He addressed her indeed with a semblance of love, and showed her filial attention, but her maternal instinct assured her that something stood between them, something which took the reality and spontaneity out of his demonstrations of affection. Iver occupied himself with the picture of Mehetabel at the fountain. It was his great pleasure to work thereon. If he was not engaged at his canvas in the tavern, he was wandering in the direction of the Punch- Bowl to make studies for pictures, so he said. His mother saw that there was no prospect of retaining her son at the Ship for long. What held him there was THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 123 not love for her, desire to recover lost ground with his father, not a clinging to his old home, not a desire to settle and take up his father's work ; it was something else — she feared to give utterance to th^ thought haunt- ing her mind. " You are a fool, old woman," said her husband to her one night. ** You and I might have been easy and happy in our old age had you not meddled and made mischief. You always was a great person for lecturin* about Providence, and it's just about the one thing you won't let alone." " What do you mean, Simon ? " she asked, and her heart beat fast with presage of what he would say. " Why, Susan, if you had not thrust Mehetabel into the Broom-Squire's arms when she didn't want to be there no more nor among brimbles, then Iver would have taken her and all would have been peace." " What makes you say that ? " she asked, in a flutter of terror. " Oh, I'll be bound it would have been so. Iver has been asking all manner of questions about Matabel, and why she took Jonas. I sed it was agin my wishes, but that you would have it, so Matabel had to give in." " Simon, why did you say that ? You set the boy against me." " I don't see that, Sanna. It is you who have put the fat in the fire. If you try to turn a stream to run up- hill, you will souse your own field, and won't get the water to go where you drive it. It's my belief that all the while he has been away, Iver has had his mind set upon Matabel. I'm not surprised. You may go through Surrey, and won't find her match. Now he comes home and finds that you have spoiled his chance, with your meddlesomeness — and there'll be the devil to pay, yet. That's my opinion." The old man turned on his side and was asleep, but self-reproach for what was past and doubt as to the future kept his wife awake all night. 124 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. CHAPTER XIX. BACK AGAIN. Fever boiled in the heart of Mehetabel. A mill- race of ideas rushed through her brain. She found no rest in her household work, for it was not possible for her to keep her mind upon it. Nor was there sufficient employment to be found in the house to engage all her time. Do what she would, make for herself occupation, there was still space in which to muse and to torment herself with her thoughts. Whilst her hands were en- gaged she craved for leisure in which to think ; when unemployed, the ferment within rendered idleness in- tolerable. When the work of the house was accomplished, she went to the fountain where she had been drawn by Iver, and there saw again the glowing brown of his eyes fixed on her, and reheard the tones of his voice addressing her. Then she would start as though stung by a wasp and go along the track up the Punch-Bowl, recalling every detail of her walk with Iver, and feeling again his kiss upon her lips. She tried to forget him ; with a resolution of which she was capable she shut against his entry every door of her heart. But she found it was impossible to exclude the thoughts of him. Had she not looked up to him from early childhood, and idolized him ? She had been accustomed to think of him, to talk of him daily to his mother, after he had left the Ship. That mother who had forcibly separated her from him had herself ingrafted Iver into her inmost thoughts, made of him an integral portion of her mind- She had been taught by Mrs. Verstage to bring hiiljs^' into all her dreams of the future, as a factor without*' which that future would be void and valuelc^ij. Sn^ THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 125 had, indeed, never dreamed of him as a lover, a husband ; nevertheless to Mehetabel the future had always been associated in a vague, yet very real, manner with Iver. His return was to inaugurate the epoch of a new and joyous existence. It was not practicable for her to pluck out of her heart this idea, which had thrust its fibres through every layer and into every corner of her mind. Those fibres were now thrilling with vitality, asserting a vigorous life. She asked herself the same question that had pre- sented itself to his mind, what if Iver had returned one day, one hour, before he actually did ? Then her marriage with Jonas would have been made impossible. The look into his eyes, the pressure of his hand would have bound her to him for evermore. ** Why, why, and oh why ! " with a cry of pain, ** had he not returned in time to save her? " " Why, why, and oh why ! " with blood from her heart, " did he return at all when too late to save her ? " Mehetabel had a clear and sound understanding. She was not one to play tricks with her conscience, and to reason herself into allowing what she was well aware was wrong. She nourished herself in no delusion that her marriage with Jonas was formal and devoid of the sanction of a spiritual bond. She took her Prayer Book, opened the marriage service, and re-read the vows she had made. She had been asked, " Wilt thou have this man, Jonas, to thy wedded husband, to live together after God's ordinance . . . and forsaking all other keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live ? " and thereto, in the sight of God and of the congregation, she had promised. There was no escape from this. She had said — " I, Mehetabel, take thee, Jonas, to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish and obey, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance, and thereto I give thee my troth." There was no proviso inserted, as a means of escape ; 126 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. nothing like : I will be true to thee unless Iver return ; unless, thou, Bideabout, prove unworthy of my love and obedience ; unless there be incompatibility of temper; unless I get tired of thee, and change my mind. Mehetabel knew what the words meant, knew that she had been sincere in intent when she said them. She knew that she was bound, without proviso of any kind. She knew that she could not love Iver and be guilt- less. But she was aware also, now, when too late, that she had undertaken towards Jonas what was, in a measure, impossible. Loyal to Jonas as far as outward conduct could make her, that she was confident she would remain, but her heart had slipped beyond her control, and her thoughts were winged and refused to be caged. " I say, Matabel ! " The young wife started, and her bosom contracted. Her husband spoke. He had come on her at a mo- ment when, lost in day-dreams, she least expected, desired, his presence. ** What do you want with me, Jonas? " she asked as she recovered her composure. *' I want you to go to the Ship. The old woman there has fallen out with the maid, and there are three gentlemen come for the shooting, and want to be at- tended to. The old woman asked if you would help a bit. I said * Dun know : * but after a bit we agreed for a shilling a day." " Never ! " gasped Mehetabel. " I tried to screw more out of her necessity, but could not. Besides, if you do well, you'll get half-a- crown from each of the gents, and that'll be seven and six ; and say three days at the Inn, half-a-guinea all in all. I can spare you for that." "Jonas, I do not wish to go." " But I choose that you shall." " I pray you allow me to remain here." " There's Mr. Iver leaves to-day for his shop at Guild- THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 127 ford, and I reckon the old woman is put about over that, too." After some hesitation Mehetabel yielded. The thought that Iver would not be at the Ship alone in- duced her to consent. She was hurt and angry that her husband had stipulated for payment for her services. After the kindness, the generosity with which she had been treated, this seemed ungracious in the extreme. She said as much. ** I don't see it," answered Jonas. ** When you wos a baby she made the parish pay her for taking you. Now she wants you, it is her turn to pay." Bideabout did not allow his wife much time in which to make her preparations. He had business in Godal- ming with a lawyer, and was going to drive old Clutch thither. He would take Mehetabel with him as far as Thursley. On reaching the tavern Mrs. Verstage met her with effusion, and Iver, hearing his mother's exclamation, ran out. Mehetabel was surprised and confused at seeing him. He caught her by the hand, helped her to descend from the cart, and retained his hold of her fingers for a minute after it was necessary. He had told his mother that he must return to Guild- ford that day ; and when she had asked for Mehetabel's help she had calculated on the absence of her son, who had been packing up his canvas and paints. To him she had not breathed a word of the likelihood that Mehetabel would be coming to her aid. ** I daresay Bideabout will give you a lift, Iver," she said. " I don't know that I can," said Jonas. " I've prom- ised to pick up Lintott, and there ain*t room in the trap for more than two." Then the Broom-Squire drove away. " See, Matabel," said Iver, pointing to the signboard, "I've redaubed the Old Ship, quite to my father's satisfaction. By Jove, I told mother I should return 128 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. to Guildford to-day — but now, hang me, if I do not defer my departure for a day or two." Mrs. Verstage looked reproachfully at her son. " Mother," said he in self-exculpation. " I shall take in ideas, a model costs me from a shilling to half-a- crown an hour, and here is Matabel, a princess of models, will sit for nothing." " I shall be otherwise employed," said the girl, in confusion. " Indeed, I shan't spare her for any of that nonsense," said Mrs. Verstage. The hostess was much perplexed. She had reckoned on her son's departure before Mehetabel arrived. She would not have asked for her assistance if she had not been convinced that he would take himself off. She expostulated. Iver must not neglect his busi- ness, slight his engagements. He had resolved to go, and had no right to shilly-shally, and change his mind. She required his room. He would be in the way with the guests. To all these objections Iver had an answer. In fine, said he, with Mehetabel in the house he could not and he would not go. What was Mehetabel to do ? Jonas had locked up his house and had carried away the key with him ; moreover, to return now was a confession of weakness. What was Mrs. Verstage to do ? She had three visitors, real gentlemen, in the house. They must be made comfortable ; and the new servant, Polly, accord- ing to her notion, was a hopeless creature, slatternly, forgetful, impudent. There was no one on whom the landlady could fall back, except Mehetabel, who understood her ways, and was certain to give satisfaction. Mrs. Verstage was not what she had once been, old age, and more than that, an internal complaint, against which she had fought, in which she had refused to believe, had quite recently asserted itself, and she was breaking down. There was consequently no help for it. She resolved THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 129 to keep a sharp lookout on the young people, and em- ploy Mehetabel unremittingly. But of one thing she was confident. Mehetabel was not a person to forget her duty and self-respect. The agitation produced by finding that Iver purposed remaining in the house passed away, and Mehetabel faced the inevitable. Wherever her eye rested, memories of a happy girl- hood welled up in her soft and suffering breast. The geraniums in the window she had watered daily. The canary — she had fed it with groundsel. The brass skillets on the mantelshelf — they had been burnished by her hand. The cushion on " father's " chair was of her work. Everything spoke to her of the past, and of a happy past, without sharp sorrows, without carking cares. Old Simon was rejoiced to see Mehetabel again in the house. He made her sit beside him. He took her hand in his, and patted it. A pleasant smile, like a sunbeam, lit up his commonplace features. " Mother and I have had a deal to suffer since you've been gone," said Simon. " The girl Polly be that stupid and foreright (awkward) we shall be drove mad, both of us, somewhen." " Do you see that window-pane ? " he asked, pointing to a gap in the casement. ** Polly put her broom- handle through. There was not one pane broke all the time you was with us, and now there be. three gone, and no glazier in the village to put *em to rights. You mind the blue pranked (striped) chiney taypot ? Mother set great store on that. Polly's gone and knocked the spout off. Mother's put about terrible over that taypot. As for the best sheets, Polly's burnt a hole through one, let a cinder fly out on it, when air- ing. Mother's in a pretty way over that sheet. I don't know what there'll be to eat, Polly left the larder open, and the dog has carried off a leg of mutton. It has been all cross and contrary ever since you went." Simon mused a while, holding Mehetabel's hand, and said after a pause, '* It never ort to a' been.. You 9 130 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. was well placed here and never ort to a* left. It was all mother's doing. She drove you into weddin' that there Broom-Squire. Women can't be easy unless they be hatchin* weddin's ; just like as broody hens must be sittin' on somethin'. If that had never been brought about, then the taypot spout would not have been knocked off, nor the winder-pane broken, nor the sheet riddled wi' a cinder, nor the dog gone off wi' the leg o* mutton." Mehetabel was unable to suppress a sigh. "Winter be comin' on," pursued the old man, " and mother's gettin' infirm, and a bit contrary. When Polly worrits her, then I ketches it. That always wos her way. I don't look forward to winter. I don't look forward to nuthin' now " He became sorrow- ful. " All be gone to sixes and sevens, now that you be gone, Matabel. What will happen I dun' know, I dun* know." " What may happen," said Mehetabel, " is not al- ways what we expect. But one thing is certain — lost happiness is past recovery." THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 131 CHAPTER XX. GONE. During the evening Iver was hardly able to take his eyes off Mehetabel, as she passed to and fro in the kitchen. She knew where was every article that was needed for the gentlemen. She moved noiselessly, did every- thing without fuss, without haste. He thought over the words she had uttered, and he had overheard : Lost happiness is past recovery. Not only was she bereft of happiness, but so was he. His father and mother, when too late, had found that they also had parted with theirs when they had let Mehetabel leave the house. She moved gracefully. She was slender, her every motion merited to be sketched. Iver's artistic sense was excited to admiration. What a girl she was! What a model ! Oh, that he had her as his own ! Mehetabel knew that she was watched, and it dis- concerted her. She was constrained to exercise great self-control ; not to let slip what she carried, not to forget what tasks had to be discharged. In her heart she glowed with pride at the thought that Iver loved her — that he, the prince, the idol of her childhood, should have retained a warm place in his heart for her. And yet, the thought, though sweet, was bitter as well, fraught with foreshadowings of danger. Mrs. Verstage also watched Mehetabel, and her son likewise, with anxious eyes. The old man left the house to attend to his cattle ; and one of the gentlemen came to the kitchen-door to invite Iver, whose acquaintance he had made during i3« THE BROOM-SQUIRE. the day, to join him and his companions over a bowl of punch. The young man was unable to refuse, but left with reluctance manifest enough to his mother and Mehet- abel. Then, when the hostess was alone with the girl, she drew her to her side, and said, " There is now nothing to occupy you. Sit by me and tell me about yourself and how you get on with Bideabout. You have no notion how pleased I am to have you here again." Mehetabel kissed the old woman, and a tear from her eye fell on the withering cheek of the landlady. " I dare be bound you find it lonely in the new home," said Mrs. Verstage. ** Here, in an inn, there is plenty of life ; but in the farm you are out of the world. How does the Broom-Squire treat you?" She awaited an answer with anxiety, which she was unable to disguise. After a pause Mehetabel replied, with heightened color, "Jonas is not unkind." " You can't expect love-making every day," said the hostess. " It's the way of men to promise the sun, moon, and planets, till you are theirs, and after that, then poor women must be content to be given a spark off a fallen star. There was Jamaica Cheel runn'd away with his Betsy because he thought the law wouldn't let him have her ; she was the wife of an- other, you know. Then he found she never had been proper married to the other chap, and when he dis- covered he was fast tied to Betsy he'd a run away from her only the law wouldn't let him. Jonas ain't beauti- ful and young, that I allow." " I knew what he was when I married him," answered Mehetabel. "I cannot say I find him other than what I expected." " But is he kind to you ? " " I said he was not unkind." Mrs. Verstage looked questioningly at her adopted child. " I don't know," she said, with quivering lips. '* I suppose I was right. I acted for the best. God THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 133 knows I sought your happiness. Do not tell me that you are unhappy." '* Who is happy ? " asked Mehetabel, and turned her eyes on the hostess, to read alarm and distress in her face. ** Do not trouble yourself about me, mother. I knew what I was doing when I took Jonas. I had no expectation of finding the Punch-Bowl to be Paradise. It takes a girl some time to get settled into fresh quar- ters, and to feel comfortable among strangers. That is mainly my case. I was perhaps spoiled when here, you were so kind to me. I thank you, mother, that you have not forgotten me in your great joy at getting Iver home again." " There was Thomasine French bought two penn'orth o' shrimps, and as her husband weren't at home thought to enjoy herself prodigious. But she came out red as a biled lobster. With the best intentions things don't always turn out as expected," said Mrs. Verstage, " and the irritation was like sting nettles and — wuss." Then, after a pause, *' I don't know how it is, all my life I have wished to have Iver by me. He went away because he wanted to be a painter ; he has come back, after many years, and is not all I desire. Now he is goyn away. I could endure that if I were sure he loved me. But I don't think he does. He cares more for his father, who sent him packin' than he does for me, who never crossed him. I don't understand him. He is not the same as he was." " Iver is a child no longer," said Mehetabel. " You must not expect of him more than he can give. What you said to me about a husband is true also of a child. Of course, he loves you, but he does not show it as fully as you desire. He has something else now to fill his heart beside a mother." " What is that ? " asked Mrs. Verstage, nervously. " His art," answered Mehetabel. " Oh, that ! " The landlady was not wholly satisfied, she stood up and said with a sigh, " I fancy life be much like one o' them bran pies at a bazaar. Some pulls out a pair of braces as don't wear trousers, and 134 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. others pull out garters as wears nuthin' but socks. 'Tis a chance if you get wot's worth havin'. Well, I must go look out another sheet in place of that Polly has burnt." " Let me do that, mother.'* " No, as you may remember, I have always managed the linen myself." A few minutes later, after she had left the room, Iver returned. He had escaped from the visitors on some excuse. His heart was a prey to vague yearnings and doubts. With pleasure he observed that his mother was no longer in the kitchen. He saw Mehetabel hastily dry her eyes. He knew that she had been crying, and he thought he could divine the cause. " You are going to Guildford to-morrow morning, are you not ? " she asked hastily. *' I don't know." Iver planted himself on a stool before the fire, where he could look up into Mehetabel's face, as she sat in the settle. " You have your profession to attend to," she said. " You do not know your own mind. You are change- ful as a girl." " How can I go — with you here ? " he exclaimed, vehemently. She turned her head away. He was looking at her with burning eyes. " Iver," she said, " I pray you be more loving to your mother. You have made her heart ache. It is cruel not to do all you can now to make amends to her for the past. She thinks that you do not love her. She is failing in health, and you must not drip drops of fresh sorrow into her heart during her last years." Iver made a motion of impatience. " I love my mother. Of course I love her." " Not as truly as you should, Iver," answered Mehet- abel. " You do not consider the long ache " ** And I, had not I a long ache when away from home ? " THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 135 " You had your art to sustain you. She had but one thought — and that of you." " She has done me a cruel wrong/* said he, irritably. " She has never done anything to you but good, and out of love," answered the girl vehemently. " To me ; that is not it." Mehetabel raised her eyes and looked at him. He was gazing moodily at the fire. " She has stabbed me through you," exclaimed Iver, with a sudden outburst of passion. " Why do you plead my mother's cause, when it was she — I know it was she, and none but she — who thrust you into this hateful, this accursed marriage." " No, Iver, no ! " cried Mehetabel in alarm. " Do not say this. Iver ! talk of something else." " Of what ? " " Of anything." " Very well," said he, relapsing into his dissatisfied mood. " You asked me once what my dream had been, that I dreamt that first night under your roof. I will tell you this now. I thought that you and I had been married, not you and Jonas, you and I, as it should have been. And I thought that I looked at you, and your face was deadly pale, and the hand I held was clay cold." A chill ran through Mehetabel's veins. She said, " There is some truth in it, Iver. You hold a dead girl by the hand. To you, I am, I must be, forever — dead." " Nonsense. All will come right somehow." " Yes, Iver," she said ; " it will so. You are free and will go about, and will see and love and marry a girl worthy of you in every way. As for me, my lot is cast in the Punch-Bowl. No power on earth can separate me from Bideabout. I have made my bed and must lie on it, though it be one of thorns. There is but one thing for us both — we must part and meet no more." " Matabel ' " he put forth his hand in protest. " I have spoken plainly," she said, '' because there is 136 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. no good in not doing so. Do not make my part more difficult. Be a man — go." " Matabel ! It shall not be, it cannot be ! My love ! My only one." He tried to grasp her. She sprang from the settle. A mist formed before her eyes. She groped for something by which to stay herself. He seized her by the waist. She wrenched herself free. ** Let me go ! " she cried. ** Let me go ! " She spoke hoarsely. Her eyes were staring as if she saw a spirit. She staggered back beyond his reach, touched the jambs of the door, grasped them with a grasp of relief. Then, actuated by a sudden thought, turned and fled from the room, from the house. Iver stood for a minute bewildered. Her action had been so unexpected that he did not know what to think, what to do. He went to the porch and looked up the road, then down it, and did not see her. Mrs. Verstage, came out. "Where is Matabel?" she asked, uneasily. " Gone ! " said Iver. " Mother— gone ! " THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 137 CHAPTER XXI. THOR'S STONE. Mehetabel ran, neither along the way that led in the direction of Portsmouth, nor along that to Godal- ming, but to the Moor. '' The Moor," is the marsh land that lies at the roots of the sandstone heights that culminate in Hind Head. Leith Hill, and the Devil's Jumps. As already said, the great mass of Bagshot sand lies upon a substratum of clay. The sand drinks in every drop of rain that falls on the surface. This percolates through it till it reaches the clay, which refuses to absorb it, or let it sink through to other beds. Thereupon the accumu- lated water breaks forth in springs at the base of the hills, and forms a wide tract of morass, interspersed with lagoons that teem with fish and wild fowl. This region is locally known as " Moor," in contradistinc- tion to the commons or downs, which are the dry sandy upland. " The Moor " is in many places impassable, but the blown sand has fallen upon it, and has formed slight elevations, has drifted into undulations, and these strips of rising ground, kept moist by the water they absorb, have become covered with vegetation. It is, more- over, possible by their means to penetrate to the heart of, and even thread, the intricacies, and traverse the entire region of the Moor. But it is, at best, a wild and lonesome district, to be explored with caution, a labyrinth, the way through which is known only to the natives of the sandhills that dominate the marshy plain. About thirty years ago a benevolent and beneficent landlord, in a time of agricultural distress, gave em- 138 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. ployment to a large number of men out of work in the construction of a causeway across the Thursley '* Moor." But the work was of no real utility, and it is now overgrown with weeds, and only trodden by the sports- man in pursuit of game and the naturalist in quest of rare insects and water plants. A considerable lake, Pudmere, or Pug — Puckmere, lies in the Thursley marsh land, surrounded with dwarf willows and scattered pines. These latter have sprung from the wind-blown seeds of the plantations on higher ground. Throughout this part of the country an autumn gale always results in the upspringing of a for- est of young pines, next year, to leeward of a clump of cone-bearing trees. In the Moor such self-sown woods come to no ripeness. The pines are unhealthy and stunted, hung with gray moss, and eaten out with canker. The excessive moisture and the impenetrable subsoil, and the shallowness of the congenial sand that encouraged them to root make the young trees decay in adolescence. An abundant and varied insect world has its home in the Moor. The large brown hawkmoth darts about like an arrow. Dragon flies of metallic blue, or striped yellow and brown, hover above the lanes of water, lost in admiration of their own gorgeous selves reflected in the still surface. The great water-beetle booms against the head of the intruder, and then drops as a stone into the pool at his feet. Effets, saffron yellow bellied, with striped backs, swim in the ponds or crawl at their bottom. The natterjack, so rare elsewhere, differing from a toad in that it has a yellow band down its back, has here a paradise. It may be seen at eve perched on a stock of willow herb, or running — it does not hop — round the sundew, clearing the glutinous stamens of the flies that have been caught by them, and calling in a tone like the warning note of the nightingale. Sleeping on the surface the carp lies, and will not be scared save by a stone thrown into the still water in which it dreams away its life. THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 139 The sandy elevations are golden with tormintilla; a richer gold is that which lies below, where the marsh glows with bog asphodel. The flowering rush spreads its pale pink blossoms ; a deeper crirtison is the marsh orchis showing its spires among the drooping clusters of the waxy-pink, cross-leaved heath, and the green or pale and rosy-tinted bog-mosses. Near Pudmoor Pool stands a gray block of ironstone, a solitary portion of the superincumbent bed that has been washed away. It resembles a gigantic anvil, and it goes by the name of Thor's Stone. The slopes that dip towards it are the Thor's-lea, and give their name to the parish that includes it and them. At one time there was a similar mass of iron at the summit of Borough Hill, that looks down upon the morasses. To this many went who were in trouble or necessity, and knocking on the stone made known their require- ments to the Pucksies, and it was asserted, and gener- ally believed, that such applicants had not gone away unanswered, nor unrelieved. It was told of a certain woman who one evening sought to be freed by this means from the husband who had made her life unendurable, that that same night — so ran the tale — he was returning from the tavern, drunk, and stumbling over the edge of a quarry fell and broke his neck. Thereupon certain high moralists and busybodies had the mass of stone broken up and carted away to mend the roads, with the expec- tation thereby of putting an end to what they were pleased to term '* a degrading superstition." To some extent the destruction of the Wishing Block did check the practice. But there continued to be persons in distress, and women plagued with drunken husbands, and men afflicted with scolding wives. And when the pilgrimage of such to Borough Hill ceased, because of the destruction of the stone on it, then was it diverted, and the current flowed instead to Thor's Stone — a stone that had long been regarded with awe, and which now became an object of resort, as it was I40 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. held to have acquired the merits of the block so wantonly demolished on Borough Hill. Nevertheless, the object of the high moralists and busybodies was partially attained, inasmuch as the difficulties and dangers attending a visit to Thor's Stone reduced the number of those seeking super- human assistance in their difficulties. Courage was requisite in one who ventured to the Moor at night, and made a way to the iron-stone block, over tracts of spongy morass, among lines of stagnant ooze, through coppices of water-loving willows and straggling brier. This, which was difficult by day, was dangerous in a threefold degree at night. Moreover, the Moor was reputed to be haunted by spirits, shadows that ran and leaped, and peered and jabbered ; and Puck wi' the lantern flickered over the surface of the fester- ing bog. If, then, the visits to Thor's Stone were not so many as to the stone on Borough Hill, this was due less to the waning of superstition than to the difficulties attending an expedition to the former. Without considering what she was doing, moved by a blind impulse, Mehetabel ran in the direction of Puck's Moor. And yet the impulse was explicable. She had often thought over the tales told of visits to the habitation of the " Good Folk " on Borough Hill, and the trans- fer of the pilgrimage to Thor's Stone. She had, of late, repeatedly asked herself whether, by a visit thither, she might not gain what lay at her heart — an innocent desire — none other than that Iver should depart. ; Now that he had made open show of his passion, that all concealment was over between them, every veil and disguise plucked away — now she felt that her strength was failing her, and it would fail completely if subjected to further trial. One idea, like a spark of fire shooting through her brain, alone possessed her at this moment. Her safety depended on one thing — the removal of Iver. Let THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 141 him go ! Let him go ! then she could bear her lot. Let her see him no more ! then she would be able to bring her truant heart under discipline. Otherwise her life would be unendurable, her tortured brain would give way, her overtaxed heart would break. She found no stay for her soul in the knowledge where was situated the country of the Gergesenes, no succor in being well drilled in the number of chapters in Genesis. She turned desperately, in her necessity, to Thor's Stone, to the spirits — what they were she knew not — who aided those in need, and answered petitions addressed to them. The night had already set in, but a full golden moon hung in the sky, and the night was in no way dark and dreadful. When she reached the Moor, Mehetabel ran among sheets of gold, leaped ribbons of shining metal, danced among golden filagree — the reflection of the orb in the patches, channels, frets of water. She sprang from one dark tuft of rushes to another ; she ran along the ridges of the sand. She skipped where the surface was treacherous. What mattered it to her if she missed her footing, sank, and the ooze closed over her ? As well end so a life that could never be other than long- drawn agony. Before leaving the heath, she had stooped and picked up a stone. It was a piece of hematite iron, such as frequently occurs in the sand, liver-shaped, and of the color of liver. She required a hammer, wherewith to knock on Thor's anvil, and make her necessities known, and this piece of iron would serve her purpose. Frogs were croaking, a thousand natterjacks were whirring like the nightjar. Strange birds screamed and rushed out of the trees as she sped along. White moths, ghostlike, wavered about her, mosquitoes piped. Water-rats plunged into the pools. As a child she had been familiar with Pudmoor, and instinctively she walked, ran, only where her foot could rest securely. 142 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. A special Providence, it is thought, watches over children and drunkards. It watches also over such as are drunk with trouble, it holds them up when unable to think for themselves, it holds them back when they court destruction. To this morass, Mehetabel had come frequently with Iver, in days long gone by, to hunt the natterjack and the dragon-fly, to look for the eggs of water fowl, and to pick marsh flowers. As she pushed on, a thin mist spread over portions of the " Moor." It did not lie everywhere, it spared the sand, it lay above the water, but in so delicate a film as to be all but imperceptible. It served to diffuse the moonlight, to make a halo of silver about the face of the orb, when looked up to by one within the haze, otherwise it was scarcely noticeable. Mehetabel ran with heart bounding and with fevered brain, and yet with her mind holding tenaciously to one idea. After a while, and after deviations from the direct course, rendered necessary by the nature of the country she traversed, Mehetabel reached Thor's Stone, that gleamed white in the moonbeam beside a sheet of water, the Mere of the Pucksies. This mere had the mist lying on it more dense than elsewhere. The vapor rested on the surface as a fine gossamer veil, not raised above a couple of feet, hardly ruffled by a passing sigh of air. A large bird floated over it on expanded wings, it looked white as a swan in the moonlight, but cast a shadow black as pitch on the vaporous sheet that covered the face of the pool. It was as though, like Dinorah, this bird were dancing to its own shadow. But unlike Dinorah, it was silent. It uttered no song, there was even no sound of the rush of air from its broad wings. When Mehetabel reached the stone she stood for a moment palpitating, gasping for breath, and her breath passing from her lips in white puffs of steam. The haze from the mere seemed to rise and fling its long streamers about her head and blindfold her THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 143 eyes, so that she could see neither the lake nor the trees, not even the anvil-stone. Only was there about her a general silvery glitter, and a sei\se of oppression lay upon her. Mehetabel had escaped from the inn, as she was, with bare arms, her skirt looped up. She stood thus, with the lump of ironstone resting on the block, the full flood of moonlight upon her, blind- ing her eyes, but revealing her against a background of foliage, like a statue of alabaster. Startled by a rustle in the bulrushes and willow growth behind her, Mehetabel turned and looked, but her eyes were not clear enough for her to discern anything, and as the sound ceased, she recovered from her momentary alarm. She had heard that a deer was in Pudmoor that was supposed to have escaped from the park at Peperharow. Possibly the creature was there. It was harmless. There were no noxious beasts there. It was too damp for vipers, nothing in Pudmoor was hurtful save the gnats that there abounded. Then, with her face turned to the north, away from the dazzling glory of the moon, Mehetabel swung the lump of kidney iron she had taken as hammer, once from east to west, and once from west to east. With a third sweep she brought it down upon Thor's Stone and cried : " Take him away ! Take him away ! " 144 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. CHAPTER XXII. IVER! COME. She paused, drew a long breath. Again she swung the hammer-stone. And now she turned round, and passed the piece of iron into her left hand. She raised it and struck on the anvil, and cried : " Save me from him. Take him away." A rush, all the leaves of the trees behind seemed to be stirring, and all the foliage falling about her. A hand was laid on her shoulder roughly, and the stone dropped from her fingers on the anvil. Mehet- abel shrank, froze, as struck with a sudden icy blast, and cried out with fear. Then said a voice : ** So ! you seek the Devil's aid to rid you of me." At once she knew that she was in the presence of her husband, but so dazzled was she that she could not discern him. His fingers closed on her arm, as though each were an iron screw. " So! " said he, in a low tone, his voice quivering with rage, ** like Karon Wyeth, you ask the Devil to break my neck." ** No," gasped Mehetabel. " Yes, Matabel. I heard you. * Save me from him. Take him away.* " " No— no — Jonas." She could not speak more in her alarm and confusion. " Take him away. Snap his spine — send a bullet through his skull ; cast him into Pug's mere and drown him ; do what you will, only rid me of Bideabout Kink, whom I swore to love, honor, and to obey." He spoke with bitterness and wrath, sprinkled over, THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 145 nay, permeated, with fear ; for, with all his professed rationalism, Jonas entertained some ancestral super- stitions— and belief in the efficacy of^ the spirits that haunted Thor's Stone was one. . " No, Jonas, no. I did not ask it.*' " I heard you." " Not you." , " What," sneered he ; " are not these ears mine ? " " I mean — I did not ask to have you taken away." ** Then whom ? " She was silent. She trembled. She could not answer his question. If her husband had been at all other than he was, Mehetabel would have taken him into her confidence. But there are certain persons to whom to commit a confidence is to expose yourself to insult and outrage. Mehetabel knew this. Such a confidence as she would have given would be turned by him into a means of torture and humiliation. " Now listen to me," said Jonas, in quivering tones of a voice that was suppressed. " I know all now. I did not. I trusted you. I was perhaps a fool. I be- lieved in you. But Sarah has told me all — how he — that painting ape — has been at my house, meeting you, befooling you, pouring his love-tales into your ears, and watching till my back was turned to kiss you." She was unable to speak. Her knees smote to- gether. ** You cannot answer," he continued. " You are unable to deny that it was so. Sarah has kept an eye on you both. She should have spoken before. I am sorry she did not. But better late than never. You encouraged him to come to you. You drew him to the house." " No, Jonas, no. It was you who invited him." " Ah ! for me he would not come. Little he cared for my society. The picture-making was but an ex- cuse, and you all have been in a league against me." "Who— Jonas?" "Who? Why, Sanna Verstaee and all. Did not 10 146 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. she ask to have you at the Ship, and say that the painting fellow was going or gone ? And is he not there still ? She said it to get you and him together there, away from me, out of the reach of Sarah's eyes." " It is false, Jonas!" exclaimed Mehetabel with in- dignation, that for a while overcame her fear. " False ! " cried Bideabout. " Who is false but you ? What is false but every word you speak ? False in heart, false in word, and false in act." He had laid hold of the bit of ironstone, and he struck the anvil with it at every charge of falsehood. " Jonas," said Mehetabel, recovering self-control un- der the resentment she felt at being misunderstood, and her action misinterpreted. " Jonas, I have done you no injury. I was weak. God in heaven knows my integrity. I have never wronged you ; but I was weak, and in deadly fear." " In fear of whom ? " " Of myself — my own weakness.*' " You weak ! " he sneered. " You — strong as any woman." " I do not speak of my arms, Jonas — my heart — my spirit " " Weak ! " he scoffed. " A woman with a weak and timorous soul would not come to Thor's Stone at night. No — strong you are — in evil, in wickedness, from which no tears will withhold you. And — that fellow — that daub-paint " Mehetabel did not speak. She was trembling. " I ask — what of him ? Was not he in your thoughts when you asked the Devil to rid you of me — your husband?" " I did not ask that, Jonas." " What of him ? He has not gone away. He has been with you. You knew he was not going. You wanted to be with him. Where is he — this dauber of canvas — now ?" Then, through the fine gauze of condensing haze, came a call from a distance — " Matabel ! Where are you?" THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 147 " Oh, ho ! *' exclaimed the Broom-Squire. ** Here he comes. By appointment you meet him here, where you least expected that I would be." " It is false, Jonas. I came here to escape." ''And pray for my death?" *' No, Jonas, to be rid of him." Bideabout chuckled, with a sarcastic sneer in the side of his face. " Come now," said he ; *' I should dearly like to wit- ness this meeting. If true to me, as you pretend, then obey me, summon him here, and let me be present, unobserved, when you meet. If your wish be, as you say, to be rid of him, I will help you to its fulfilment." " Jonas ! " ** I will it. So alone can you convince me." She hesitated. She had not the power to gather her thoughts together, to judge what she should do, what under the circumstances would be best to be done. " Come now," repeated Jonas. " If you are true and honest, as you say, call him." She put her trembling hand to her head, wiped the drops from her brow, the tears from her eyes, the dew from her quivering lips. Her brain was reeling, her power of will was paralyzed. " Come, now," said Jonas once more, " answer him — here am I." Then Mehetabel cried, " Iver, here am I ! " " Where are you, Mehetabel ? " came the question through the silvery haze and the twinkling willow- shoots. " Answer him, by Thor's Stone," said Jonas. Again she hesitated and passed her hand over her face. " Answer him," whispered Jonas. ** If you are true, do as I say. If false, be silent." " By Thor's Stone," called Mehetabel. Then all the sound heard was that of the young man brushing his way through the rushes and willow boughs. In the terror, the agony overmastering her, she had lost all independent power of will. She was as a piece uS THE BROOM-SQUIRE. of mechanism in the hands of Jonas. His strong, masterful mind dominated her, beat down for a time all opposition. She knew that to summon Iver was to call him to a fearful struggle, perhaps to his death, and yet the faculty of resistance was momentarily gone from her. She tried to collect her thoughts. She could not. She strove to think what she ought to do, she was un- able to frame a thought in her mind that whirled and reeled. Bideabout stooped and picked up a gun he had been carrying, and had dropped on the turf when he laid hold of his wife. Now he placed the barrel across the anvil stone, with the muzzle directed whence came the sound of the advance of Iver. Jonas went behind the stone and bent one knee to the ground. Mehetabel heard the click as he spanned the trigger. " Stand on one side," said Jonas, in a low tone, in which were mingled rage and exultation. " Call him again." She was silent. Lest she should speak she pressed both her hands to her mouth. " Call him again," said Jonas. " I will receive him with a dab of lead in his heart." She would not call. " On your obedience and truth, of which you vaunt," persisted Jonas. Should she utter a cry of warning ? Would he com- prehend ? Would that arrest him, make him retrace his steps, escape what menaced? Whether she cried or not he would come on. He knew Thor's Stone as well as she. They had often visited it together as children. " If false, keep silence," said Jonas, looking up at her from where he knelt. ** If true, bid him come — to his death, that I may carry out your wish, and rid you of him. If the spirits won't help you, I will." Then she shrilly cried, *' Iver, come ! " THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 149 CHAPTER XXIII. A SHOT. After Bideabout had done his business in Godal- ming he had returned to the Punch-Bowl. The news had reached his ears that a deer had been seen on the Moor, and he knew that on the following day many guns would be out, as every man in Thursley was a sportsman. With characteristic cunning he re- solved to forestall his fellows, go forth at night, which he might well do when the moon was full, and secure the deer for himself. As he left the house, he encountered his sister. " Where are you going off to ? " she inquired. " And got a gun too." He informed her of his intention. " Ah ! you'll give us some of the venison," said she. " I'm not so sure of that," answered the Broom- Squire, churlishly. " So you are going stag-hunting ? That's purely," laughed she. " Why not ? " " I should have thought you'd best a' gone after your own wife, and brought her home." '' She is all right— at the Ship." " I know she is at the Ship — just where she ought not to be ; just where you should not let her be." " She'll earn a little money." "Oh, money!" scoffed Sarah Rocliffe. "What fools men be, and set themselves up as wiser than all the world of women. You've had Iver Verstage here ; you've invited him over to paint your Matabel ; and here he has been, admiring her, saying soft things to her, and turnin' her head. Sometimes you've been 150 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. present. Most times you've been away. And now you Ve sent her to the Ship, and you are off stag huntin'.** Then with strident voice, the woman sang, and looked maHciously at her brother. " Oh, it blew a pleasant gale, As a frigate under sail, Came a-bearing to the south along the strand, With her swelling canvas spread, But without an ounce of lead. And a signalling, alack ! she was ill-manned." With a laugh, and a snap of her fingers in Bide- about's face, she repeated tauntingly : — " And a-signalling, alack ! she was ill-manned." Then she burst forth again : — " She was named the Virgin Dove, With a lading, all of love. And she signalled, that for Venus (Venice) she was bound, But a pilot who could steer. She required, for sore her fear. Lest without one she should chance to run aground." " Be silent, you croaking raven," shouted the Broom- Squire. " If you think to mock me, you are wrong. I know well enough what I am about. As for that painting chap, he is gone — gone to Guildford." " How do you know that ? " " Because the landlady said as much." '* What— to you ? " " Yes, to me." Mrs. Rocliffe laughed mockingly. ** Oh, Bideabopt," she said, " did not that open your eyes ? What did Sanna Verstage mean when she asked you to allow your wife to go to the inn ! What did she mean but this ? " she mimicked the mistress, " * Please, Master Bideabout, may Matabel come to me for a day or two — that naughty boy of mine is away now. So don't be frightened. I know very well that if he were at the Ship you might hesitate to send Matabel there.* " Then in her own tones Sarah Rocliffe said. " That is the meaning of it. But I don't believe that he is gone." " Sanna Verstage don't tell lies." THE BROOM-SQUIRK. 151 " If he were gone, Matabel would not be so keen to go there." " Matabel was not keen. She did not wish to go." "She did wish it ; but she made 'a pretence before you that she did not." ** Hold your slanderous tongue," shouted Jonas. '' I'll not hear another word," " Then you must shut your ears to what all the parish is saying." Thereupon she told him what she had seen, with amplifications of her own. She was glad to have the opportunity of angering or wounding her brother ; of sowing discord between him and his wife. When he parted from her, she cast after him the re- mark— " I believe he is still at the Ship." In a mood the reverse of cheerful, angry with Mehet- abel, raging against Iver, cursing himself, and overflow- ing with spite against his sister Jonas went to the Moor in quest of the strayed deer. He knew very well that his sister bore Mehetabel a grudge ; he was sufificiently acquainted with her rancorous humor and unscrupulous tongue to know that what she said was not to be relied on, yet discount as he might what she had told him, he was assured that a substratum of truth lay at the bottom. Before entering the morass Jonas halted, and leaning on his gun, considered whether he should not goto the tavern, reclaim his wife and reconduct her home, in- stead of going after game. But he thought that such a proceeding might be animadverted upon ; he relied upon Mrs. Verstage's words, that Iver was departing to his professional work, and he was eager to secure the game for himself. Accordingly he directed his course to the Moor, and stole along softly, listening for the least sound of the deer, and keeping his eye on the alert to observe her. He had been crouching in a bush near the pool when he was startled by the apparition of Mehetabel. At first he had supposed that the sound of steps proceeded from the advancing deer, for which he was 152 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. on the watch, and he lay close, with his barrel loaded, and his finger on the trigger. But in place of the deer his own wife approached, indistinctly seen in the moon- light, so that he did not recognize her. And his heart stood still, numbed by panic, for he thought he saw a spirit. But as the form drew near he knew Mehetabel. Perplexed, he remained still, to observe her further movements. Then he saw her approach the stone of Thor, strike on it with an extemporized hammer, and cry, " Save me from him ! Take him away ! " Perhaps it was not unreasonable that he at once con- cluded that she referred to himself. He knew that she did not love him. Instead of each day of married life drawing more closely the bonds that bound them together, it really seemed to relax such as did exist. She became colder, withdrew more into herself, shrank from his clumsy amiabilities, and kept the door of her heart resolutely shut against all intrusion. She went through her household duties perfunctorily, as might a slave for a hated master. If she did not love him, if her married life was be- coming intolerable, then it was obvious that she sought relief from it, and the only means of relief open to her lay through his death. But there was something more that urged her on to desire this. She not merely disliked him, but loved another, and over his coffin she would leap into that other man's arms. As Karon Wyeth had aimed at and secured the death of her husband, so did Mehetabel seek deliverance from him. Bideabout sprang from his lurking-place to check her in the midst of her invocation, and to avert the danger that menaced himself. And now — he saw the very man draw nigh who had withdrawn the heart of his wife from him, and had made his home miserable; the man on behalf of whom Mehetabel had summoned supernatural aid to rid her of himself. Kneeling behind Thor's Stone, with the steel barrel of his gun laid on the anvil, and pointed in the direction whence came Iver's voice, he waited till his THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 153 rival should appear, and draw within range, that he might shoot him through the heart. " Summon him again," he whispered. " Iver — come ! ' called Mehetabel. Then through the illuminated haze, like an atmos- phere of glow-worm's light, himself black against a background of shining water, appeared the young man. Jonas had his teeth clenched ; his breath hissed like the threat of a serpent, as he drew a long inspiration through them. "You are there!" shouted Iver, joyously, and ran forward. She felt a thrill run through the barrel, on which she had laid her hand ; she saw a movement of the shoulder of Jonas, and was aware that he was preparing to fire. Instantly she snatched the gun to her, laid the muzzle against her own side, and said : '* Fire ! " She spoke again. *' So all will be well." Then she cried in piercing tones, " Iver ! run ! run ! he is here, and he seeks to kill you." Jonas sprang to his feet with a curse, and endeav- ored to wrest the gun from Mehetabel's hand. But she held it fast. She clung to it with tenacity, with the whole of her strength, so that he was unable to pluck it away. And still she cried, '* Run, Iver, run ; he will kill you ! " " Let go ! " yelled Bideabout. He set his foot against Thor's Stone ; he twisted the gun about, he turned it this way, that way, to wrench it out of her hands. *' I will not ! " she gasped. " It is loaded ! It will go off ! " " I care not." " Oh, no ! so long as it shoots me." " Send the lead into my heart ! " " Then let go. But no ! the bullet is not for you. Let go, I say, or I will brain )/ou with the butt end, and then shoot him ! " '' I will not ! Kill me if you will ! " Strong, athletic, lithe in her movements, Mehetabel 154 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. was a match for the small muscular Jonas. If he suc- ceeded for a moment in twisting the gun out of her hands it was but for an instant. She had caught the barrel again at another point. He strove to beat her knuckles against Thor's Stone, but she was too dexterous for him. By a twist she brought his hand against the block instead of her own. With an oath he cast himself upon her, by the im- pact, by the weight, to throw her down. Under the burden she fell on her knees, but did not relinquish her hold on the gun. On the contrary she obtained greater power over it, and held the barrel athwart her bosom, and wove her arms around it. Iver was hastening to her assistance. He saw that some contest was going on, but was not able to discern either with whom Mehetabel was grappling nor what was the meaning of the struggle. In his attempt to approach, Iver was regardless where he trod. He sank over his knees in the mire, and was obliged to extricate himself before he could advance. With difficulty, by means of oziers, he succeeded in reaching firm soil, and then, with more circumspec- tion, he sought a way by which he might come to the help of Mehetabel. Meanwhile, regardless of the contest of human pas- sion, raging close by, the great bird swung like a pen- dulum above the mere, and its shadow swayed below it. " Let go ! I will murder you, if you do not ! " hissed Jonas. " You think I will kill him. So I will, but I will kill you first." " Iver ! help ! " cried Mehetabel ; her strength was abandoning her. The Broom-Squire dragged his kneeling wife for- ward, and then thrust her back. He held the gun by the stock and the end of the barrel. The rest was grappled by her, close to her bosom. He sought to throw her on her face, then on her back. So only could he wrench the gun away. " Ah, ah ! " with a shout of triumph. THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 155 He had disengaged the barrel from her arm. He turned it sharply upward, to twist it out of her hold she had with the other arm. Then — suddenly — an explosion, a 'flash, a report, a cry ; and Bideabout staggered back and fell. A rush of wings. The large bird that had vibrated above the water had been alarmed, and now flew away. 156 THE BROOM-SQUIRE, CHAPTER XXIV. THE IRON-STONE HAMMER. For a couple of minutes complete, death-like silence ensued. Mehetabel, panting, everything swimming, turning before her eyes, remained motionless on her knees, but rested her hands on Thor's Stone, to save herself from falling on her face. What had happened she hardly knew. The gun had been discharged, and then had fallen before her knees. Whom had it injured ? What was the injury done? She was unable to see, through the veil of tears that covered her eyes. She had not voice wherewith to speak. Iver, moreover, stood motionless, holding to a willow. He also was ignorant of what had occurred. Was the shot aimed at him, or at Mehetabel? Who had fired ? Crouching against a bush, into which he had staggered and then collapsed, was the Broom-Squire. A sudden spasm of pain had shot through him at the flash of the gun. That he was struck he knew, to what extent in- jured he could not guess. As he endeavored to raise one hand, the left, in which was the seat of pain, he became aware that his arm was stiff and powerless. He could not move his fingers. The blood was coursing over his hand in a warm stream. A horrible thought rushed through his brain. He was at the mercy of that woman who had invoked the Devil against him, and of the lover on whose account she had desired his death. She had called, and in THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 157 part had been answered. He was wounded, and in- capable of defending himself. This guilty pair would complete the work, kill him ; blow out his brains, beat his head with the stock of the ^un, and cast his body into the marsh. Who would know how he came by his death ? His sister was aware that he had gone to the moor to stalk deer. What evidence would be producible against this couple should they complete the work and dispose of him? Strangely unaccountable as it may seem, yet it was so, that at the moment, rage at the thought that, should they kill him, Mehetabel and Iver would escape punishment, was the prevailing thought and predomi- nant passion in Jonas's mind, and not by any means fear for himself. This made him disregard his pain, indifferent to his fate. " I have still my right hand and my teeth," he said. " I will beat and tear that they may bear marks that shall awake suspicion." But his head swam, he turned sick and faint, and became insensible. When Jonas recovered consciousness he lay on his back, and saw faces bowed over him — that of his wife and that of Iver, the two he hated most cordially in the world, the two at least he hated to see together. He struggled to rise and bite, like a wild beast, but was held down by Iver. " Curse you ! will you kill me so ? " he yelled, snap- ping with his great jaws, trying to reach and rend the hands that restrained him. '' Lie still, Bideabout," said the young painter, " are you crazed ? We will do you no harm. Mehetabel is binding up your arm. As far as I can make out the shot has run up it and is lodged in the shoulder." " I care not. Let me go. You will murder me." Mehetabel had torn a strip from her skirt and was making a bandage of it. " Jonas," she said, '' pray lie quiet, or sit up and be reasonable. I must do what I can to stay the blood." 158 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. As he began to realize that he was being attended to, and that Iver and Mehetabel had no intention to hurt him, the Broom-Squire became more composed and patient. His brows were knit and his teeth set. He avoided looking into the faces of those who attended to him. Presently the young painter helped him to rise, and offered his arm. This Jonas refused. " I can walk by myself," said he, churlishly ; then turning to Mehetabel, he said, with a sneer, " The devil never does aught but by halves." " What do you mean ? " " The bullet has entered my arm and not my heart, as you desired." *' Go," she said to the young artist ; " I pray you go and leave me with him. I will take him home." Iver demurred. '* I entreat you to go," she urged. ** Go to your mother. Tell her that my husband has met with an accident, and that I am called away to attend him. That is to serve as an excuse. I must, I verily must go with him. Do not say more. Do not say where this happened." ''Why not?" She did not answer. He considered for a moment and then dimly saw that she was right. " Iver," she said in a low tone, so that Jonas might not hear, "you should not have followed me; then this would never have happened." " If I had not followed you he would have been your murderer, Matabel." Then, reluctantly, he went. But ever and anon turned to listen or to look. When he was out of sight, then Mehetabel said to her husband, " Lean on me, and let me help you along." " I can go by myself," he said bitterly. " I would not have his arm. I will have none of yours, Giv^ me my gun.*' " No, Jonas, I will carry that for you." THE BROOM-SQUIRK 159 Then he put forth his uninjured right hand, and took the kidney-iron stone from the anvil block, on which Mehetabel had left it. , *' What do you want with that ? " she asked. " I may have to knock also," he answered. " Is it you alone who are allowed to have wishes ? " She said no more, but stepped along, not swiftly, cautiously, and turning at every step, to see that he was following, and that he had put his foot on sub- stance that would support his weight. '* Why do you look at me ? " he asked captiously. "Jonas, you are in pain, and giddy with pain. You may lose your footing, and go into the water." " So — that now is your desire?" " Ipray you," she answered, in distress, " Jonas, do not entertain such evil thoughts." They attained a ridge of sand. She fell back and paced at his side. Bideabout observed her out of the corners of his eyes. By the moonlight he could see how finely, nobly cut was her profile ; he could see the glancing of the moon in the tears that suffused her cheeks. "You know who shot me?" he inquired, in a low tone. " I know nothing, Jonas, but that there was a struggle, and that during this struggle, by accident " " You did it." " No, Jonas. I cannot think it." " It was so. You touched the trigger. You knew that the piece was on full cock." " It was altogether an accident. I knew nothing. I was conscious of nothing, save that I was trying to prevent you from committing a great crime." "A great crime!" jeered he. "You thought only how you might save the life of your love." Mehetabel stood still and turned to him. " Jonas, do not say that. You cruelly, you wrong- fully misjudge me I will tell you all, if you will. I never would have hidden anything from you if I had not known how yoy would take and use what I saldi i6o THE BROOM-SQUIRE. Iver and I were child friends, almost brother and sister. I always cared for him, and I think he liked me. He went away and I saw nothing of him. Then, at our wedding, he returned home ; and since then I have seen him a good many times — you, yourself asked him to the Punch-Bowl, and bade me stand for him to paint. I cannot deny that I care for him, and that he likes me." " As brother and sister ? " ** No — not as brother and sister. We are children no longer. But, Jonas, I have no wish, no thought other than that he should leave Thursley, and that I should never, never, never see his face again. Of thought, of word, of act against my duty to you I am guiltless. Of thoughts, as far as I have been able to hold my thoughts in chains, of words, of acts I have nothing to reproach myself with, there have been none but what might be known to you, in a light clearer than that poured down by this moon. You will believe me, Jonas." He looked searchingly into her beautiful, pale face — now white as snow in the moonlight. After a long pause, he answered, " I do not believe you." " I can say no more," she spoke and sighed, and went forward. He now lagged behind. They stepped off the sand ridge, and were again in treacherous soil, neither land nor water, but land and water tossed together in strips and tags and tatters. " Go on," he said. " I will step after you." Presently she looked behind her, and saw him swinging his right hand, in which was the lump of ironstone. " Why do you turn your head ? " he asked. " I look for you." " Are you afraid of me ? " " I am sorry for you, Jonas." " Sorry— because of my arm ? ". ''Because you are unable to believe a true woman's .word." . THE BROOM-SQUIRE. i6i " I do not understand you." '^ No — I do not suppose you can." Then he screamed, " No, I do not believe." He leaped forward, and struck hef on the head with the nodule of iron, and felled her at his feet. " There," said he ; " with this stone you sought my death, and with it I cause yours." Then he knelt where she lay motionless, extended, in the marsh, half out of the water, half submerged. He gripped her by the throat, and by sheer force, with his one available arm, thrust her head under water. The moonlight played in the ripples as they closed over her face ; it surely was not water, but liquid silver, fluid diamond. He endeavored to hold her head under the surface. She did not struggle. She did not even move. But suddenly a pang shot through him, as though he had been pierced by another bullet. The bandage about his wound gave way, and the hot blood broke forth again. Jonas reeled back in terror, lest bis consciousness should desert him, and he sank for an instant insensible, face foremost, into the water. As it was, where he knelt, among the water-plants, they were yielding under his weight. He scrambled away, and clung to a distorted pine on the summit of a sand-knoll. Giddy and faint, he laid his head against the bush, and inhaled the invigorating odor of the turpentine. Gradually he recovered, and was able to stand un- supported. Then he looked in the direction where Mehetabel lay. She had not stirred. The bare white arms were exposed and gleaming in the moonlight. The face he did not see. He shrank from looking towards it. Then he slunk away, homewards. II i6» THE BROOM-SQUIRE. CHAPTER XXV. AN APPARITION. When Bideabout arrived in the Punch-Bowl, as he passed the house of the RocHffes, he saw his sister, with a pail, coming from the cow-house. One of the cattle was ill, and she had been carrying it a bran-mash. He went to her, and said, " Sally ! " " Here I be, Jonas, what now? " ** I want you badly at my place. There's been an accident." " What ? To whom ? Not to old Clutch ? " " Old Clutch be bothered. It is I be hurted terr'ble bad. In my arm. If it weren't dark here, under the trees, you'd see the blood." " I'll come direct. That's just about it. When she's wanted, your wife is elsewhere. When she ain't, she's all over the shop. I'll clap down the pail inside. You go on and I'll follow." Jonas unlocked his house, and entered. He groped about for the tinder-box, but when he had found it was unable to strike a light with one hand only. He seated himself in the dark, and fell into a cold sweat. Not only was he in great pain, but his mind was ill at ease, full of vague terrors. There was something in the corner that he could see, slightly stirring. A little moonlight entered, and a fold flickered in the ray, then disappeared again. Again something came within the light. Was it a foot? Was it the bottom of a skirt ? He shrank back against the wall, as far as possible from this mysterious, restless form. He looked round to see that the scullery door was open, through which to escape, should this thing move towards him. The sow was grunting and squealing in her stye, Jonas THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 163 hailed the sound ; there was nothing alarming in that. Had all been still in and about the house, there might have come from that undefined shadow in the corner a voice, a groan, a sigh — he knew not what. With an exclamation of relief he saw the flash of Sally Rocliffe's lantern pass the window. Next moment she stood in the doorway. ** Where are you, Jonas ? " " I am here. Hold up the lantern, Sarah. What's that in the corner there, movin' ? " " Where, Jonas ? " *' There — you are almost touchin' it. Turn the light." " That," said his sister ; ** why don'ty know your own old oilcloth overcoat as was father's, don'ty know that when you see it ? " " I didn't see it, but indistinct like," answered Jonas. His courage, his strength, his insolence were gone out of him. " Now, what's up ? " asked Sarah. " How have you been hurted ? " Jonas told a rambling story. He had been in the Marsh. He had seen the deer, but in his haste to get within range he had run, caught his foot in a bramble, had stumbled, and the gun had been discharged, and the bullet had entered his arm. Mrs. Rocliffe at once came to him to examine the wound. " Why, Jonas, you never did this up yourself. There's some one been at your arm already. Here's this band be off Matabel's petticoat. How came you by that ? " He was confounded, and remained silent. " And where is the gun, Jonas ? " "The gun!" He had forgotten all about it in his panic. Meheta- bel had been carrying it when he beat her down. He had thought of it no more. He had thought of noth- ing after the deed, but how to escape from the spot as speedily as possible. " I suppose I've lost it," he said. " Somewhere in i64 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. the Moor. You see when I was wounded, I hadn't the head to think of anything else." Mrs. Rocliffe was examining his arm. The sleeve of his coat had been cut. " I don't understand your tale a scrap, Jonas," she said. " Who used his knife to slit up your sleeve? And how comes your arm to be bandaged with this bit of Matabel's dress?" Bideabout was uneasy. The tale he had told was untenable. There was a necessity for it to be supple- mented. But his condition of alarm and pain made him unable readily to frame a story that would account for all, and satisfy his sister. ** Jonas," said Sarah, " Fm sure you have seen Mata- bel, and she did this for you. Where is she ? " Bideabout trembled. He thrust his sister from him, saying, irritably, " Why do you worrit me with ques- tions? My arm wants attendin' to." " I can't do much to that," answered the woman. " A doctor should look to that. I'll go and call Samuel, and bid him ride away after one." " I won't be left alone ! " exclaimed the Broom- Squire, in a sudden access of terror. Sarah Rocliffe deliberately took the lantern and held it to his face. " Jonas," she said, " I'll do nuthin' more for you till I know the whole truth. You've seen your wife and there's somethin' passed between you. I see by your manner that all is not right. Where is Matabel ? You haven't been after the deer on the Moor. You have been to the Ship." " That is a lie," answered Bideabout. " I have been on the Moor. 'Tis there I got shot, and, if you will have it all out, it was Matabel who shot me." " Matabel shot you ? " " Yes, it was. She shot me to prevent me from killin' him." "Whom?' " You know — that painter fellow." ' *' So that is the truth ? Then where is she ? " THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 165 The Broom-Squire hesitated and moved his feet un- easily. " Jonas/* said his sister, ** I will know all." " Then know it," he answered angrily. *' Somehow, as she was helpin* me along, her foot slipped and she fell into the water. I had but one arm, and I were stiff wi* pains. What could I do ? I did what I could, but that weren't much. I couldn't draw her out o' the mire. That would take a man wi' two good arms, and she was able to scramble out if she liked. But she's that perverse, there's no knowing, she might drown herself just to spite me." "Why did you not speak of that at once?" " Arn't I hurted terr'ble bad ? Arn't I got a broken arm or somethin' like it ? When a chap is in racks o' pain he han't got all his wits about him. I know I wanted help, for myself, first, and next, for her ; and now I've told you that she*s in the Moor somewhere. She may ha' crawled out, or she may be lyin' there. I run on, so fast as possible, in my condition, to call for help." " Where is she? Where did you leave her? " ** Right along between here and Thor's Stone. There's an old twisted Scotch pine with magpies' nests in it — I reckon more nests than there be green stuff on the tree. It's just about there." " Jonas," said the sister, who had turned deadly white, and who lowered the lantern, unable longer to hold it to her brother's face with steady hand, " Jonas, you never ort to ha' married into a gallus family ; you've ketched the complaint. It's bad enough to have men hanged on top o' Hind Head. We don't want another gibbet down at the bottom of the Punch- Bowl, and that for one of ourselves." Then voices were audible outside, and a light flick- ered through the window. In abject terror the Broom-Squire screamed " Sally, save me, hide me ; it's the constables ! " He cowered into a corner, then darted into the back kitchen, and groped for some place of concealment. 1 66 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. He heard thence the voices more distinctly. There was a tramp of feet in his kitchen ; a flare of fuller light than that afforded by Mrs. Rocliffe's lantern ran in through the door he had left ajar. The sweat poured over his face and blinded his eyes. Bideabout's anxiety was by no means diminished when he recognized one of the voices in his front kitchen as that of Iver. Had Iver watched him instead of returning to the Ship? Had he followed in his track, spying what he did ? Had he seen what had taken place by the twisted pine with the magpies' nests in it ? And if so, had he hasted to Thursley to call out the constable, and to arrest him as the murderer of his wife. Trembling, gnawing the nails of his right hand, cowering behind the copper, he waited, not knowing whither to fly. Then the door was thrust open, and Sally Rocliffe came in and called to him : " Jonas ! here is Master Iver Verstage — very good he is to you — he has brought a doctor to attend to your arm." The wretched man grasped his sister by the wrist, drew her to him, and whispered — " That is not true ; it is the constable." " No, Jonas. Do not be a fool. Do not make folk suspect evil," she answered in an undertone. " There is a surgeon staying at the Ship, and this is the gentle- man who has come to assist you." Mistrustfully, reluctantly, Jonas crept from his hid- ing place, and came behind his sister to the doorway, where he touched his forelock, looked about him sus- piciously, and said — " Your servant, gentlemen. Sorry to trouble you ; but I've met with an accident. The gun went off and sent a bullet into my arm. Be you a doctor, sir?" he asked, eyeing a stranger, who accom- panied Iver. ** I am a surgeon ; happily, now lodging at the Ship, and Mr. Verstage informed me of what had occurred, so I have come to offer my assistance." Jonas was somewhat reassured, but his cunning eyes THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 167 fixed on Iver observed that the young painter was look- ing around, in quest, doubtless, of Mehetabel. ** I must have hot water. Who will attend to me? " asked the surgeon. " I will do what is necessary,'* said Mrs. Rocliffe. " Will you go to bed ? " asked the surgeon. " I can best look to you then." Jonas shook his head. He would have the wound examined there, as he sat in his arm-chair. Then came the inquiry from Iver — " Where is your wife, Jonas? I thought she had returned with you." " My wife ? She has lagged behind." " Not possible. She was to assist you home." " I needed no assistance." " She ought to be here to receive instructions from the doctor." " These can be given to my sister." " But, Bideabout, where is she ? " Jonas was silent, confused, alarmed. Iver became uneasy. " Bideabout, where is Matabel. She must be sum- moned." " It's nort to you where she be," answered the Broom- Squire savagely. Then Mrs. Rocliffe stepped forward. " I will tell you," she said. *' My brother is that mad wi' pain, he don't know what to think, and say, and do. As they was coming along together, loving-like, as man and wife, she chanced to slip and fall into the water, and Jonas, having his arm bad, couldn't help her out, as he was a-minded, and he runned accordin* here, to tell me, and I was just about sendin* my Samuel to find and help her." " Matabel in the water — drowned ! " " Jonas did not say that. She failed in." " Matabel— fell in ! " Iver looked from Mrs. Rocliffe towards Jonas. There was something in the Broom-Squire's look that did not satisfy him. It was not pain alone that so dis- turbed his face, and gave it such ghastly whiteness. i68 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. " Bideabout," said he, gravely, " I must and will have a proper explanation. I cannot take your sister's story. Speak to me yourself. After what I had seen between you and Matabel, I must necessarily feel un- easy. I must have a plain explanation from your own lips." Jonas was silent ; he looked furtively from side to side. " I will be answered," said Iver, with vehemence. " Who is to force me to speak ? " asked the Broom- Squire, surlily. " If I cannot, I shall fetch the constable. I say — where did you leave Mehetabel ? *' " My sister told you — under the tree." " What — not in the water ? " *' She may have fallen in. I had but one arm, and that hurting terrible." ** Good heavens ! "exclaimed Iver. " You came home whining over your arm — leaving her in the marsh ! " ** You don't suppose I threw her in ? " sneered Jonas. " Me — bad of an arm." " I don't know what to think," retorted Iver. " But I will know where Mehetabel is." In the doorway, with her back to the moonlight, stood a female figure. The first to see it was Jonas, and he uttered a gasp — he thought he saw a spirit. The figure entered, without a word, and all saw that it was Mehetabel. THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 169 CHAPTER XXVI. A SECRET. It was indeed Mehetabel. She entered quietly, without a word, carrying Bide- about's gun, which she placed in the corner, by the fireplace. Jonas and his sister looked at her, at first terror- struck, as though they beheld a ghost, then with un- rest, for they knew not what she would say. She said nothing. She was deadly pale, and Iver, looking at her, was reminded of the Mehetabel he had seen in his dream. At once she recognized that her husband's arm was being dressed, and leisurely, composedly, she came forward to hold the basin of water, and do whatever was required of her by the surgeon. The first to speak was Iver, who said, *' Matabel ! We have just been told you had fallen into the water." " Yes. My dress is soaked." ** And you managed to get out? " *' Yes, when I fell I had hold of my husband's gun — and that was caught in a bush ; it held me up." " But — how came you to fall ? " *' I believe I was unconscious — perhaps a faint." Nothing further could be elicited from her, then or later. Had she any suspicion that she had been struck down ? This was a question that, later, Jonas asked himself. But he never knew till, — but we must not anticipate. A day or two after that eventful night he made some allusion to a blow on her head, when she appeared with a bandage round it. . "Yes," she said : ''I fell, and hurt myself." For some days Bide.abput was in much pain and dis- I70 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. comfort. His left shoulder had been injured by the ball that had lodged in it, and it was probable that he would always be stiff in that arm, and be unable to raise it above the breast. He was irritable and morose. He watched Mehetabel suspiciously and with mis- trust of her intentions. What did she know? What did she surmise ? If she thought that he had attempted to put an end to her life, would she retaliate? In his suspicion he preferred to have his sister attend to him, and Sarah consented to do for him, in his sickness, what he required, not out of fraternal affection, but as a means of slighting the young wife, and of observing the relations that subsisted between her and Jonas. Sarah Rocliffe was much puzzled by what had taken place. Her brother's manner had roused her alarm. She knew that he had gone forth with his jealousy lashed to fury. She had herself kindled the fire. Then he had come upon Mehetabel and Iver on the Moor, she could not doubt. How otherwise explain the knowledge of the accident which led Iver to bring the surgeon to the assistance of her brother ? But the manner in which the accident had occurred and the occasion of it, all of this was dark to her. Then the arrival of Jonas alone, and his reticence relative to his wife, till she had asked about her ; also his extraordinary statement, his manifest terror ; and the silence of Mehetabel on her reappearance, all this proved a mystery involving the events of the night, that Sarah Rocliffe was desirous to unravel. She found that her every effort met with a rebuff from Jonas, and elicited nothing from Mehetabel, who left her in the same uncertainty as was Bideabout, whether she knew anything, or suspected anything beyond the fact that she had fallen insensible into the water. She had fallen grasping the gun, which had be- corhe entangled in some bushes, and this together with the water weeds had sustained her. When she re- covered consciousness she had drawn herself out of the marsh by means of the gun^ and had seated herself under an old pine tree, till her senses were sufficiently THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 171 clear. Thereupon she had made the best of her way homeward. What did she think of Jonas for having left her in the water ? asked Mrs. RoclifTe. Mehetabel answered, simply, that she had not thought about it. Wet, cold, and faint, she had possessed no idea save how to reach home. There was much talk in the Punch-Bowl as well as throughout the neighborhood relative to what had taken place, and many forms were assumed by the rumor as it circulated. Most men understood well enough that Jonas had gone after the Peperharow deer, and was attempting to forestall others — therefore, serve him right, was their judgment, however he came by his accident. Iver left Thursley on the day following and returned to Guildford. The surgeon staying at the Ship Inn continued his visits to the Punch-Bowl, as long as he was there, and then handed his patient over to the local practitioner. Mrs. Verstage was little better informed than the rest of the inhabitants of Thursley, for her son had not told her anything about the accident to Jonas, more than was absolutely necessary ; and to all her inquiries returned a laughing answer that as he had not shot the Broom-Squire he could not inform her how the thing was done. She was too much engaged so long as the visitors were in the house, to be able to leave it ; and Mehet- abel did not come near her. As soon, however, as she was more free, she started in her little trap for the Punch-Bowl, and arrived at a time when Jonas was not at home. This exactly suited her. She had Mehetabel to her- self, and could ask her any questions she liked without restraint. " My dear Matabel," she said, *^ I've had a trying time of it, with the house full, and only Polly to look to for everything. Will you believe me — on Sunday I gaid I would give the gentlemen a little plum-pudding. 172 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. I mixed it myself, and told Polly to boil it, whilst I went to church. Of course, I supposed she would do it properly, but with those kind of people one must take nothing for granted." ** Did she spoil the pudding, mother ? " '* Oh, no — the pudding was all right." ** Then what harm was done ? " " She spoiled my best nightcap." " How so?" ** Boiled the puddin' in it, because she couldn't find a bag. I'll never get it proper white again, nor the frills starched and made up. And there is the canary bird, too." " What of that, mother ? " " My dear, I told Polly to clean out the cage." " And did she not do it ? " *' Oh, yes — only too well. She dipped it in a pan of hot water and soda — and the bird in it." " What — the canary — is it dead ? " ** Of course it is, and bleached white too. That girl makes the water so thick wi' soda you could stand a spoon up in it. She used five pounds in two days." *' Oh, the poor canary ! " Mehetabel was greatly troubled for her pet. *' I don't quite understand the ways o' Providence," said Mrs. Verstage. '' I don't suppose I shall till the veil be lifted. I understand right enough why oysters ain't given eyes — lest they should see those who are opening their mouths to eat 'em. And if geese were given wings like swallows, they wouldn't bide with us over Michaelmas. But why Providence should ha' denied domestic servants the gift of intelligence where- with we, their masters and mistresses, be so largely endowed — that beats me. Well," in a tone of resigna- tion, '' one will know that some day, doubtless." After a bit of conversation about the progress of Jonas to convalescence, and the chance of his being able to use his arm, Mrs. Verstage approached the topic uppermost in her mind. "I should like to hear all about it, from your own THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 173 mouth, Matabel. There is such a number of wonder- ful tales going round, all contradictory, and so, of course, all can't be true. Some even tell that you fired the gun and wounded Jonas. But that is ridiculous, as I said to Maria Entiknap. And actually one story is that my Iver was in it somehow. Of course, I knew he heard there was an accident. You told him when you was fetched away. Who fetched you from the Ship? I left you in the kitchen." '* Oh, mother," said Mehetabel, '* all the events of that terrible night are confused in my head, and I don't know where to begin — nor what is true and what fancy, so I'd as lief say nothing about it." "If you can't trust me " said Mrs. Verstage, somewhat offended. '' I could trust you with anything," answered Mehet- abel hastily. " Indeed, it is not that, but somehow I fell, and I suppose with fright, and a blow I got in falling, every event got so mixed with fancies and follies that I don't know where truth begins and fancy ends. For that reason I do not wish to speak." " Now look here," said Mrs. Verstage, " I've brought you a present such as I wouldn't give to any one. It's a cookery book, as was given me. See what I have wrote, or got Simon to write for me, on the fly-leaf. " * Susanna Verstage, her book, Give me grace therein to look. Not only to look, but to understand, For learning is better than houses and land. When land is gone, and money is spent. Then learning is most excellent.' And the reason why I part with this Matabel, is because of that little conversation we had together the other day at the Ship. I don't beHeve as how you and Bideabout get along together first rate. Now I know men, their ins and outs, pretty completely, and I know that the royal road to their affections is through their stomachs. You use thfs book of receipts, they're not extravagant ones, but they are all good, and in six months Jonas will just about worship you." ^ * 174 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. " Mother," said Mehetabel, after thanking her, " you are very kind." " Not at all. Fve had experience in husbands, and you're, so to speak, raw to it. They are humorous persons, are men, you have to give in a little here and take a good slice there. If you give up to them there's an end to all peace and quietness. If you don't give in enough the result is the same. What all men want is to make their wives their slaves. You know, I suppose, how Gilly Cheel, the younger, got his name of Jamaica ? " " I do not think I do." "Why he and his Bessy are always quarrelling. Neither will yield to the other. At last, by some means, Gilly got wind that in West Indies, there are slaves, and he thought, if he could only get out there with Bess that he'd be able to enslave her and make her do what he wished. So he pretended that he'd got a little money left him in Jamaica, and must needs go out there and settle. She said she wouldn't go, and he had no call to go there, except just for the sake of getting her under control. Then he talked big of the beautiful climate, and all the cooking done by the sun, and no washing needed, because clothing are unneces- sary, and not only no washing, but no mending neither, no stockings to knit, no buttons to put on — a Paradise for wimen, said Gilly — but still he couldn't get Bessy to hear of going out to the West Indies. At last, how it was, I can't say, but she got wind of the institootion of slavery there, and then she guessed at once what was working in Gilly's mind. Since that day he's always gone by the name of Jamaica, and fellows that want to tease him shout, ** Taken your passage yet for you and Bessy to Jamaica?" " My dear mother," said Mehetabel, " I should not mind being a slave in my husband's house, and to him, if there were love to beautify and sanctify it. But it would not be slavery then, and now I am afraid that you, mother, have perhaps took it unkind that I did not tell you more about that shot. If so, let me make THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 175 all good again between us by telling you a real secret. There's no one else knows it." " What is that ? *' asked the. hostess eagerly. Mehetabel was nervous and colored. " May I tell you in your ear ? " Mrs. Verstage extended an ear to her, she would have applied both to Mehetabel's mouth had that been feasible. The young wife, with diffidence, whispered some- thing. A beam of satisfaction lit up the old woman's face. " That's famous. That's just as it ort. With that and with the cookery book, Jonas'll just adore you. There's nuthin* like that for makin' a home homely." " And you'll come to me ? " " My dear, if alive and well, without fail." 176 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. CHAPTER XXVll. POISON. The Broom-Squire did not recover from his wound with the rapidity that might have been expected. His blood was fevered, his head in a whirl. He could not forget what his sister had said to him relative to Mehetabel and Iver. Jealousy gnawed in his heart like a worm. That the painter should admire her for her beauty — that was nothing — who did not admire her? Had she not been an object of wonder and praise ever since she had bloomed into womanhood at the Ship ? That he was envied his beautiful wife did not surprise him. He valued her because begrudged him by others. He looked at himself in a broken glass he had, and sneered and laughed when he saw his own haggard face, and contrasted it with that of the artist. It was true that he had seen nothing to render him suspicious, when Iver came to his house, but he had not always been present. He had actually forced his wife against her wishes to go to the tavern where Iver was, had thrust her, so to speak, into his arms. He remembered her call in the Marsh to the spirits to rid her of some one, and he could not believe her ex- planation. He remembered how that to save Iver, she had thrust the muzzle of the gun against her own side, and had done battle with him for mastery over the weapon. Incapable of conceiving of honor, right feel- ing, in any breast, he attributed the worst motives to Mehetabel — he held her to be sly, treacherous, and false. Jonas had never suffered from any illness, and he made a bad patient now. He was irritable, and he spared neither his wife, who attended to him with self- THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 177 denying patience, nor his sister, who came in occasion- ally. Mehetabel hoped that his pain and dependence on her might soften his rancorous spirit, and break down his antagonism towards her and every one. The longer his recovery was delayed, the more unrestrained became his temper. He spared no one. It seemed as though his wife's patience and attention provoked into virulent activity all that was most venomous and vicious in his nature. Possibly he was aware that he was un- worthy of her, but could not or would not admit this to himself. His hatred of Iver grew to frenzy. He felt that he was morally the inferior of both the artist and of his own wife. When he was at their mercy they had spared his life, and that life of his lay between them and happiness. Had he not sought both theirs ? Would he have scrupled to kill either had one of them been in the same helpless position at his feet ? He had come forth in sorry plight from that strug- gle, and now he was weakened by his accident, and unable to watch Mehetabel as fully as he would have wished. The caution spoken by the surgeon that he should not retard his recovery by impatience and restlessness was unheeded. He was wakeful at night, tossing on his bed from side to side. He complained of this to the surgeon, who, on his next visit, brought him a bottle of laudanum. *' Now look here," said he ; "I will not put this in your hands. You are too hasty and unreHable to be en- trusted with it. Your wife shall have it. It is useful, if taken in small quantities, just a drop or two, but if too much be taken by accident, then you will fall into a sleep from which there is no awaking. I can quite fancy that you in your irritable mood, because you could not sleep, would give yourself an overdose, and then — there would be the deuce to pay." " And suppose that my wife were to overdose me ? " asked the sick man suspiciously. " That is not a suspicion I can entertain," said the surgeon, with a bow of his head in the direction of 12 1 78 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. Mehetabel. " I have found her thoughtful, exact, and trustworthy. And so you have found her, I will swear, Mr. Kink, in all your domestic life ? " The Broom-Squire muttered something unintelligible, and turned away. When the laudanum arrived, he took the bottle and examined it. A death's head and crossbones were on the label. He took out the cork, and smelt the con- tents of the phial. Though worn out with want of sleep he refused to touch any of the sedative. He was afraid to trust Mehetabel with the bottle, and afraid to mix his own portion lest in his nervous excitement he might overdo the dose. Neither would he suffer the laudanum to be admin- istered to him by his sister. As he said to her with a sneer, " A drop too much would give you a chance of my farm, which you won't have so long as I live." " How can you talk like that ? " said Sally. '* Haven't you got a wife ? Wouldn't the land go to her ? " The land, the house — to Mehetabel, and with his re- moval, then the way would be opened for Iver as well. The thought was too much for Jonas. He left his bed, and carried the phial of opium to a little cupboard he had in the wall, that he kept constantly locked. This he now opened, and within it he placed the bottle. " Better endure my sleepless nights than be rocked to sleep by those who have no wish to bid me a good- morrow." Seeing that Mehetabel observed him he said, " The key I never let from my hands." He would not empty the phial out of the window, because — he thought on the next visit of the surgeon he might get him to administer the dose himself, and he would have to pay for the laudanum, consequently to waste it would be to throw away two shillings. It chanced one day, when the Broom-Squire was somewhat better, and had begun to go about, that old Clutch was taken ill. The venerable horse was off his feed, and breathed heavily. He stood with head down, looking sulky. THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 179 Bideabout was uneasy. He was attached to the horse, even though he beat it without mercy. Perhaps this attachment was mainly selfish. He knew that if old Clutch died he would have to replace him, and the purchase of a horse would be a serious expense. Ac- cordingly he did all in his power to recover his steed, short of sending for a veterinary surgeon. He hastened to his cupboard in the upper chamber, and unlocked it, to find a draught that he might administer. When he had got the bottle, in his haste, being one-handed, he forgot to re-lock and remove the key. Possibly he did not observe that his wife was seated in the window, engaged in needlework. Indeed, for some time she had been very busily engaged in the making of certain garments, not intended for herself nor for her husband. She worked at these in the upper chamber, where there was more light than below in the kitchen, where, owing to the shade of the trees, the room was somewhat dark, and where, moreover, she was open to interruption. When Bideabout left the room, Mehetabel looked up, and saw that he had not fastened the cupboard. The door swung open, and exposed the contents. She rose, laid the linen she was hemming on the chair, and went to the open press, not out of inquisitiveness, but in order to fasten the door. She stood before the place where he kept his articles of value, and mustered them, without much interest. There were bottles of drenches for cattle, and pots of ointment for rubbing on sprains, and some account books. That was all. But among the bottles was one that was small, of dark color, with an orange label on it marked with a boldly drawn skull and crossbones, and the letters printed on it, '* Poison." This was the phial containing the medicine, the name of which she could not recall, that the doctor had given to her husband to take in the event of his sleeplessness continuing to trouble him. The word " poison " was frightening, and the death's head still more so. But she recalled what the surgeon had said, that the result of taking a small dose would be to encourage sleep, i8o THE BROOM-SQUIRE. and of an overdose to send into a sleep from which there would be no awaking. Mehetabel could hardly repress a smile, though it was a sad one, as she thought of her husband's suspi- cions lest she should misuse the draught on him. But her bosom heaved, and her heart beat as she continued to look at it. She needed but to extend her hand and she had the means whereby all her sorrows and aches of heart would be brought to an end. It was not as if there were any prospect before her of better times. If sickness had failed to soften and sweeten the temper of the Broom- Squire, then nothing would do it. Before her lay a hideous future of self-abnegation, or daily, hourly misery, under his ill-nature ; of continuous torture caused by his cruel tongue. And her heart was not whole. She still thought of Iver, recalled his words, his look, the clasp of his arm, his kiss on her lips. Would the time ever arrive when she could think of him without her pulse bounding, and a film forming over her eyes ? Would it not be well to end this now? She had but to sip a few drops from this bottle and then lay her weary head, and still more weary heart, on the bed, and sleep away into the vast oblivion ! She uncorked the bottle and smelt the laudanum. The odor was peculiar, it was unlike any other with which she was acquainted. She even touched the cork with her tongue. The taste was not unpleasant. Not a single drop had been taken from the phial. It was precisely in the condition in which it had arrived. If she did not yield to the temptation, what was it that stayed her? Not the knowledge that the country of the Gergesenes lay southeast of the Lake of Tiberias, otherwise called the Sea of Galilee ; nor that the " lily of the field *' was the Scarlet Martagon ; nor that the latitude and longitude of Jerusalem were ^i°4/ by 53^15', all which facts had been acquired by her in the Sunday-school ; but that which arrested her hand and made her replace the cork and bottle was the sight of THE BROOM-SQUIRE. i8i a little white garment lying on the chair from which she had risen. Just then she heard her husband's voice, and startled and confused by what had passed through her mind, she locked the cupboard, and without consideration slipped the key into her pocket. Then gathering up the little garment she went into another room. Bideabout did not miss the key, or remember that he had not locked up the cupboard, for three days. The bottle with drench he had retained in the stable. When the old horse recovered, or showed signs of convalescence, then Bideabout took the bottle, went to his room, and thrust his hand into his pocket for the key that he might open the closet and replace the drench. Then, for the first time, did he discover his loss. He made no great disturbance about it when he found out that the key was gone, as he took for granted that it had slipped from his pocket in the stable, or on his way through the yard to it. In fact, he discovered that there was a hole in his pocket, through which it might easily have worked its way. As he was unable to find any other key that would fit the lock, he set to work to file an odd key down and adapt it to his purpose. Living as did the squatters, away from a town, or even a large village, they had learned to be independent of tradesmen, and to do most things for themselves. Nor did Mehetabel discover that she was in posses- sion of the key till after her husband had made another that would fit. She had entirely forgotten having pocketed the original key. Indeed she never was con- scious that she had done it. It was only when she saw him unlock the closet to put away the bottle of horse medicine that she asked herself what had been done with the key. Then she hastily put her hand into her pocket and found it. As Jonas had another, she did not think it necessary for her to produce the original and call down thereby on herself a torrent of abuse. She retained it, and thus access to the poison was possible to those two individuals under one roof. i8j the BROOM-SQUIRE. CHAPTER XXVIII. A THREAT. One Sunday, the first snow had fallen in large flakes, and as there had been no wind it had covered all things pretty evenly — it had laden the trees, many of which had not as yet shed their leaves. Mehetabel had not gone to church because of this snow ; and Jonas had been detained at home for the same reason, though not from church. If he had gone anywhere it would have been to look for holly trees full of berries which he might cut for the Christmas sale of evergreens. Towards noon the sun suddenly broke out and re- vealed a world of marvellous beauty. Every bush and tree twinkled, and as the rays melted the snow the boughs stooped and shed their burdens in shining avalanches. Blackbirds were hopping in the snow, and the track of hares was distinguishable everywhere. As the sun burst in at the little window it illumined the beautiful face of Mehetabel and showed the deli- cate rose in her cheeks, and shone in her rich dark hair, bringing out a chestnut glow not usually visible in it. Jonas, who had been sitting at his table working at his accounts, looked up and saw his wife at the window contemplating the beauty of the scene. She had her hands clasped, and her thoughts seemed to be far away, though her eyes rested on the twinkling white world before her. Jonas, though ill-natured and captious, was fond of his wife, in his low, animal fashion, and had a coarse appreciation of her beauty. He was so far recovered from his accident that he could sleep and eat heartily, and his blood coursed as usual through his veins. THE BROOM-SQUIRE, 183 The very jealousy that worked in him, and his hatred of Iver, and envy of his advantages of youth, good looks, and ease of manner, made him eager to assert his proprietorship over his wife. He stepped up to her, without her noticing his ap- proach, put his right arm round her waist and kissed her. She started, and thrust him back. She was far away in thought, and the action was unintentional. In very truth she had been dreaming of Iver, and the embrace chimed in with her dream, and the action of shrinking and repulsion was occasioned by the recoil of her moral nature from any undue familiarity attempted by Iver. But the Broom-Squire entirely misconceived her action. With quivering voice and flashing eyes, he said — " Oh, if this had been Iver, the daub-paint, you would not have pushed me away. Her eyebrows contracted, and a slight start did not pass unnoticed. ** I know very well," he said, " of whom you were thinking. Deny it if you can ? Your mind was with Iver Verstage." She was silent. The blood rushed foaming through her head ; but she looked Bideabout steadily in the face. *' It is guilt which keeps you silent," he said, bitterly. " If you are so sure that I thought of him, why did you ask? " she replied, and now the color faded out of her face. Jonas laughed mockingly. " It serves me right," he said in a tone of resentment against himself. " I always knew what women were ; that they were treacherous and untrue ; and the worst of all are those who think themselves handsome ; and the most false and vicious of all are such as have been reared in public-houses, the toast of drunken sots." *' Why, then, did you take me ? " " Because I was a fool. Every man commits a folly once in his life. Even Solomon, the wisest of men, iS4 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. committed that folly ; aye, and many a time, too, for of wives he had plenty. But then he was a king, and folly such as that mattered not to him. He could cut off the head of, or shoot down any man who even looked at or spoke a word to any of his wives. And if one of these were untrue to him, he would put her in a sack and sink her in the Dead Sea, and — served her right. To think that I — that I — the shrewd Broom-Squire, should have been so bewitched and bedeviled as to be led into the bog of marriage ! Now I suffer for it." He turned savagely on his wife, and said : " Have you forgotten that you vowed fidelity to me ? " " And you — did you not swear to show me love? " He broke into a harsh laugh. " Love ! That is purely ! And just now, when I attempted to snatch a kiss, you struck me and thrust me off, because I was Jonas Kink, and not the lover you looked for ? " " Jonas ! " said Mehetabel, and a flame of indigna- tion started into her cheek, and burnt there on each cheek-bone. " Jonas, you are unjust. I swore to love you, and Heaven can answer for me that I have striven hard to force the love to come where it does not exist naturally. Can you sink a well in the sand-hill, and compel the water to bubble up ? Can you drain away the moor and bid it blossom like a garden ? I cannot love you — when you do everything to make me shrink from you. You esteem nothing, no one, that is good. You sneer at everything that is holy; you disbelieve in everything that is honest ; you value not the true, and you have no respect for suffering. I do not deny that I have no love for you — that there is much in you that makes me draw away — as from something hideous. Why do not you try on your part to seek my love? Instead of that, you take an ingenious pleasure in stamping out every spark of affection, in driving away every atom of regard, that I am trying so hard to ac- quire for you. Is all the strivin' to be on my side ? — all the thought and care to be with me ? A very little THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 185 pains on your part, some small self-control, and we should get to find common ground on which we could meet and be happy. As to Iver Verstage, both he and I know well enough that we can never belong to each other." " Oh, I stand between you ? " " Yes — you and my duty.'* " Much you value either." ** I know my duty and will do it. Iver Verstage and I can never belong to each other. We know it, and we have parted forever. I have not desired to be untrue to you in heart ; but I did not know what was possible and what impossible in this poor, unhappy heart of mine when I promised to love you. I did not know what love meant at the time. Mother told me it grew as a matter of course in married life, like chickweed in a garden." *' Am I gone crazed, or have you ? " exclaimed Bide- about, snorting with passion. " You have parted with Iver — quite so — but only till after my death, which you will compass between you. I know that well enough. It was because I knew that, that I would not suffer you to give me doses of laudanum. A couple of drops, where one would suffice, and this obstruction to your loves was removed.'* " No, never ! " exclaimed Mehetabel, with flashing eye. " You women are like the glassy pools in the Moor. There is a smooth face, and fair flowers floating thereon, and underneath the toad and the effet, the water-rat and festering poison. I shall know how to drive out of you the devil that possesses you — this spirit of rebellion and passion for Iver Verstage." '' You may do that," said Mehetabel, recovering her self-mastery, "if you will be kind, forbearing, and gentle." " It is not with kindness and gentleness that T shall do it,'* scoffed the Broom-Squire. '' The woman that will not bend must be broken; It is not I who will have to yield in this house — I, who have been master 1 86 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. here these twenty years. I shall know how to bring you to your senses." He was in foaming fury. He shook his fist, and his short hair bristled. Mehetabel shrank from him as from a maniac. "You have no need to threaten," she said, with sad- ness in her tone. ** I am prepared for anything. Life is not so precious to me that I care for it." *' Then why did you crawl out of the marsh ? " She looked at him with wide-open eyes. ** Make an end of my wretchedness if you will. Take a knife, and drive it into my heart. Go to your closet, and bring me that poison you have there, and pour it between my lips. Thrust me, if you will, into the Marsh. It is all one to me. I cannot love you unless you change your manners of thought and act and speech altogether." " Bah ! " sneered he, '* I shall not kill you. But I shall make you understand to fear me, if you cannot love me." He gripped her wrist. " Whether alive or dead, there will be no escape from me. I will follow you, track you in all you do, and if I go underground shall fasten on you, in spirit, and drag you underground as well. When you married me you became mine for- ever." A little noise made both turn. At the door was Sally Rocliffe, her malevolent face on the watch, observing all that passed. " What do you want here ? " asked the Broom- Squire. " Nuthin', Jonas, but to know what time it is. Our clock is all wrong when it does go, and now, with the cold and snow, I suppose, it has stopped altogether." Sally looked at the clock that stood in the corner, Jonas turned sharply on his heel, took his hat, and went forth into the backyard of his farm. " So," said Mrs. Rocliffe, " my brother is in fear of his life of you. I know very well how he got the shot in his elbow. It was not your fault that it did not lodge in his head. And now he dare not take his THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 187 medicine from your hands lest you should put poison into it. That comes of marrying into a gallows family." Then slowly she walked avv^y. Mehetabel sank into the window seat. However glorious the snow-clad, sunlit world might be without it was nothing to her. Within her was darkness and despair. She looked at her wrist, marked with the pressure of her husband's fingers. No tears quenched the fire in her eyes. She sat and gazed stonily before her, and thought on nothing. It was as though her heart was frozen and buried under snow ; as though her eyes looked over the moor, also frozen and white, but with- out the sun flooding it. Above hung gray and threat- ening clouds. Thus she sat for many minutes, almost without breathing, almost without pulsation. Then she sprang to her feet with a sob in her throat, and hastened about the house to her work. There was, as it were, a dark sea tumbling, foaming, clashing within her, and horrible thoughts rose up out of this sea and looked at her in ghostly fashion and filled her with terror. Chief among these was the thought that the death of Jonas could and would free her from this hopeless wretchedness. Had the bullet indeed entered his head then now she would have been enduring none of this insult, none of these indignities, none of this daily torture springing out of his jealousy, his suspicion, and his resentfulness. And at the same time appeared the vision of Iver Verstage. She could measure Jonas by him. How infinitely inferior in every particular was Jonas to the young painter, the friend of her childhood. But Mehetabel knew that such thoughts could but breed mischief. They were poison germs that would infect her own life, and make her not only infinitely wretched but degrade her in her own eyes. She fought against them. She beat them down as though she were battling with serpents that rose up out of the dust to lash themselves around her and sting her. The 1 88 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. look at them had an almost paralyzing effect. If she did not use great effort they would fascinate her, and draw her on till they filled her whole mind and lured her from thought to act. She had not been instructed in much that was of spiritual advantage when a child in the Sunday-school. The Rector, as has already been intimated, had been an excellent and kindly man, who desired to stand well with everybody, and who was always taking up one nostrum after another as a panacea for every spiritual ill. And at the time when Matabel was under instruc- tion the nostrum was the physical geography of the Holy Land. The only thing the parson did not teach was a definite Christian belief, because he had entered into a compromise with a couple of Dissenting farmers not to do so, and to confine the instruction to such matters as could not be disputed. Moreover, he was, himself, mentally averse to everything that savored of dogma in religion. He would not give his parishioners the Bread of Life, but would supply them with any amount of stones geographically tabulated according to their strata. However, Matabel had acquired a clear sense of right and wrong, at a little dame's school she had attended, as also from Mrs. Verstage ; and now this definite knowledge of right and wrong stood her in good stead. She saw that the harboring of such thoughts was wrong, and she therefore resolutely resisted them. " He said," she sighed, when the battle was over, '' that he would follow me through life and death, and finally drag me underground. But, can he be as bad as his word ? " THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 169 CHAPTER XXIX. A HERALD OF STRIFE. The winter passed without any change in the situa- tion. Iverdid not come home for Christmas, although he heard that his mother was faiUng in health and strength. There was much amusement in Guildford, and he reasoned that it would be advantageous to his business to take part in all the entertainments, and accept every invitation made him to the house of a pupil. Thursley was not so remote but that he could go there at any time. He was establishing him- self in the place, and must strike root on all sides. This was a disappointment to Mrs. Verstage. Re- luctantly she admitted that her health was breaking down, and that, moreover, whilst Simon remained tough and unshaken. The long-expected and hoped- for time when Iver should become a permanent in- mate of the house, and she would spend her declining years in love and admiration, had vanished to the region of hopes impossible of fulfilment. Simon Verstage took the decline of his wife*s powers very philosophically. He had been so accustomed to her prognostications of evil, and harangues on her difficulties, that he was case-hardened, and did not realize that there was actual imminence of a separation by death. *' It's all her talk,*' he would say to a confidential friend ; '' she's eighteen years younger nor me, and so has eighteen to live after I'm gone. There ain't been much took out of her : she's not one as has had a large family. There was Iver, no more ; and women are longer-lived than men. She talks, but it's all along of Polly that worrits her. Let Polly alone and she'll get into the ways of the house in time ; but Sanna be I90 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. always at her about this and about that, and it kinder bewilders the wench, and she don't know whether to think wi* her toes, and walk wi' her head." In the Punch-Bowl the relations that subsisted be- tween the Broom-Squire and his wife were not more cordial than before. They lived in separate worlds. He was greatly occupied with his solicitor in Godal- ming, to whom he was constantly driving over. He saw little of Mehetabel, save at his meals, and then con- versation was limited on his part to recrimination and sarcastic remarks that cut as a razor. She made no reply, and spoke only of matters necessary. To his abusive remarks she had no answer, a deepening color, a clouding eye showed that she felt what he said. And it irritated the man that she bore his insolence meekly. He would have preferred that she should have retorted. As it was, so quiet was the house that Sally Rocliffe sneered at her brother for living in it with Mehetabel, *' just like two turtle doves, — never heard in the Punch- Bowl of such a tender couple. Since that little visit to the Moor j^ouVe been doin' nothin' but billin* and cooin'." Then she burst into a verse of an old folks' song, singing in harsh tones — " A woman that hath a bad husband, I find By scolding won't make him the better. So let him be easy, contented in mind, Nor suffer his foibles to fret her. Let every good woman her husband adore, Then happy her lot, though 't be humble and poor, We live like two turtles, no sorrows we know, And, fair girl ! mind this when you marry." " What happens, in my house is no concern of yours, Sally," Jonas would answer sharply. " If some folk would mind their own affairs they wouldn't be all to sixes and sevens. You look out that you don't get into trouble yet over that foolish affair of Thomas and the Countess. I don't fancy you've come to the end of that yet." So the winter passed, and spring as well, and then came summer, and just before the scythe cut the green swath, for the hay harvest, Mehetabel became a mother. THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 191 The child that was born to her was small and deli- cate, it lacked the sturdiness of its father and of the mother. So frail, indeed, did the little life seem at first, that grave doubts were entertained whether the babe would live to be taken to church to be baptized. Mehetabel did not have the comfort of the presence of Mrs Verstage. During the winter that good woman's malady ad- vanced with rapid strides, and by summer she was con- fined to her room, and very generally to her bed. To Mehetabel it was not only a grief that she was deprived of the assistance of her " mother," but also that, owing to her own condition, she was unable to at- tend on the failing woman. Deprived of the help of Mrs. Verstage, Mehetabel was thrown on that of her sister-in-law, Sally Rocliffe. Occasions of this sort call forth all that is good and tender in woman, and Sally was not at bottom either a bad or heartless woman. She had been embittered by a struggle with poverty that had been incessant, and had been allowed free use of her tongue by a husband, all whose self-esteem had been taken out of him by his adventure with the '' Countess Charlotte," and the derision which had rained on him since. She was an envious and a spiteful woman, and bore a bitter grudge against Mehetabel for disappointing her ambition of getting her brother's farm for her own son Samuel. But on the occasion when called to the assistance of her sister-in-law, she laid aside her malevolence, and the true humanity in the depths of her nature woke up. She showed Mehet- abel kindness, though in ungracious manner. Jonas exhibited no interest in the accession to his family, he would hardly look at the babe, and refused to kiss it. At Mehetabel's request he came up to see her, in her room ; he stood aloof, and showed no token of kindliness and consideration. Sarah went downstairs. " Jonas," said the young mother, *' I have wished to have a word with you. You have been very much engaged, I suppose, and could not well spare time to 3ee me before," 192 THE BROOM-SQUIRR " Well, what have you to say ? Come to the point." " That is easily done. Let all be well between us. Let the past be forgotten, with its differences and mis- understandings. And now that this little baby is given to us, let it be a bond of love and reconciliation, and a promise of happiness to us both." The Broom-Squire looked sideways at his wife, and said, sulkily, ** You remind one of Sanna Verstage's story of Gilly Cheel. He'd been drinking and making a racket in the house, and was so troublesome that she had to turn him out into the street by the shoulders. What did he do, but set his back to the door, and kick with his heels till he'd stove in some of the panels. Then he went to the windows, and beat in the panes, and when he'd made a fine wreck of it all, he stuck in his head, and said, ' This is to tell you, Sanna Verstage, as how I forgive you in a Christian spirit.' " *' Bideabout ! What has that to do with me ? " '' Everything. Have you not wronged me, sought to compass my death, given your love away from me to another, crossed me in all my wishes ? " ** No, Jonas ; I have done none of this. I never sought your death, only the removal of one who made happiness to me in my home impossible. It was for you, because of you, that I desired his removal. As for my love, I have tried to give it all to you, but you must not forget that already from infancy, from the first moment that I can remember anything, Iver was my companion, that I was taught to look up to him, and to love him. But, indeed, I needed no teachin' in that. It came naturally, just as the buttercups in the meadow in spring, and the blush on the heather in July. I had not seen him for many years, and I did not forget him for all that. But I never had a thought of him other than as an old playmate. He returned home, the very day we were married, Jonas, as you remember. And since then, he often came to the Punch-Bowl. You had nothin' against that. I began to feel like the meadow when the fresh spring sun THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 193 shines on it, that all the dead or sleepin' roots woke up, and are strong again, or as the heather, that seemed dry and lifeless, the buds come once more. But I knew it must not be, and I fought against it ; and I went to Thor's Stone for that reason, and for none other." '' A likely tale," sneered Jonas. " Yes, Bideabout, it is a likely tale ; it is the only tale at all likely concerning an honest heart such as mine. If there be truth and uprightness in, you, you will believe me. That I have gone through a great fight I do not deny. That I have been driven almost to despair, is also true. That I have cried out for help — that you know, for you heard me, and I was heard." ''Yes — in that a lump of lead was sent into my shoulder." " No, Jonas, in that this little innocent was given to my arms. You need doubt me no more : you need fear for me and yourself no longer. I have no mis- trust in myself at all now that I have this." Lovingly, with full eyes, the mother held up the child, then clasped it to her bosom, and covered the little head and tiny hands with kisses. " What has that to do with all that has been between us?" asked Bideabout, sneeringly. " It has everything to do," answered Mehetabel. " It is a little physician to heal all our wounds with its gentle hand. It is a tiny sower to strew love and the seeds of happiness in our united lives. It is a little herald angel that appears to announce to us peace and goodwill." " I dun know," muttered Jonas. " It don't seem hke to be any of that." " You have not looked in the little face, felt the little hands, as I have. Why, if I had any ache and pain, those wee fingers would with their touch drive all away. But indeed, Jonas, since it came I have had no ache, no pain at all. All looks to me like sunshine and sweet summer weather. Do you know what mother said to me, many months ago, when first I told her what I was expecting?" 13 194 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. ** Dun know that I care to hear." ** She gave me a cookery book, and she said to me that when the little golden beam shone into this dark house it would fill it with light, and that, with the baby and me — cooking you nice things to eat, as wouldn't cost much, but still nice, then all would be right and happy, and after all — Paradise, Jonas." '* It seems to me as Sanna Verstage knows nuthin' about it." " Jonas," pleaded Mehetabel, " give the little one a kiss. Take it in your arms." He turned away. "Jonas," she said, in a tone of discouragement, after a pause, and after having held out the child to him in vain, and then taken it back to her bosom, " what are you stampin' for?" He was beating his foot on the flooring. ** I want Sally to come up. I thought you had something to say, and it seems there is nuthin'." " Nothing, Jonas ? Do not go. Do not leave me thus. This is the first time you have been here since this little herald of goodwill appeared in my sky. Do not go ! Come to me. Put your hand in mine, say that all is love and peace between us, and there will be no more mistrust and hard words. I will do my duty by you to the very best of my power, but, oh, Jonas, this will be a light thing to accomplish if there be love. Without — it will be heavy indeed." He continued stamping. " Will Sally never come ? " " Jonas ! there is one thing more I desired to say, What is the name to be given to the little fellow ? It is right you should give him one." "I!" exclaimed the Broom-Squire, making for the stairs. ** I ! Call him any name you will, but not mine. Call him," he turned his mean face round, full of rancor, and with his lip drawn up on one side, " as you like — call him, if it please you — Iver." He went down the stairs muttering. What words more he said were lost in the noise of his feet. " Oh, my babe ! my babe ! " sobbed Mehetabel ; " a herald not of goodwill but of wicked strife ! " THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 195 CHAPTER XXX. A BEQUEST. As Mehetabel became strong, the better feeling towards her in the heart of Sally Rocliffe sank out of sight, and the old ill-humor and jealousy took the upper hand once more. It was but too obvious to the young mother that the woman would have been well content had the feeble flame of life in the child been extinguished. This little life stood between her son Samuel and the inheritance of the Kink's farm. Whatever was necessary for the child was done, but done grudgingly, and Mehetabel soon learned that the little being that clung to her, and drew the milk of life from her bosom, was without a friend except herself, in the Punch-Bowl. Jonas maintained a cold estrange- ment from both her and the babe, its aunt would have welcomed its death. The knowledge of this rendered her infant only more dear to Mehetabel. Hers was a loving nature, one that hungered and panted for love. She had clung as much as was allowed to the hostess at the inn. She had been prepared with all her heart to love the man to whom she had promised love. But this had been rendered difficult, if not impossible, by his conduct. She would have forgiven whatever wrong he had done her, had he shown the smallest token of affection for his child. Now that he refused the poor, helpless creature the least particle of the love that was its due, her heart that had expanded towards him, turned away and poured all its warmth on the child. And in love for it she was satisfied. She could dis- pense with the love of others. She thought, cared for, lived but for this one little object which engrossed her entire horizon, filled every corner of her heart. 196 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. Marvellous is maternal love above every other love on earth, the most complete reflex of the love of the Creator for His creatures. In connubial love there is something selfish. It insists on reciprocity. In filial love there is ah admixture of gratitude for treatment in the past. In maternal love there is nothing self- seeking, it is pure benevolence, giving, continuous giving, of time, of thought, of body labor, of sleep, of everything. It asks for nothing in return, it expects nothing. Under the power of this mighty love Mehetabel rapidly became strong, and bloomed. The color returned to her cheek, the brightness to her eye, the smile to her lips, and mirth to her heart. Whatever seeds of love for Iver had sprung up in her were smothered under the luxuriance of this new love that left in her soul no space for any other. She thought no more of Iver, for she had no thought for any one other than her child. She who had never had any one of her own round whom to throw her arms, and to clasp to her heart, had now this frail infant ; and the love that might have been dispersed among many recipients was given en- tire to the child — a love without stint, a love without bounds, a love infinitely pure and holy as the love that reigns in Heaven. So completely absorbed was Mehet- abel in her love of the child, that the ill-humors of Sarah Rocliffe affected her not, nor did the callousness of her husband deeply wound her. So absorbed was she, that she hardly gave a thought to Simon Verstage and Susanna, and it was with a pang of self-reproach that she received an urgent appeal from the latter to visit her, sent through a messenger, along with a re- quest that she would bring her infant with her in the conveyance sent from the Ship Inn for the pur- pose. . With readiness and at once Mehetabel obeyed the summons. There was a bright flush of pleasure in her cheek as she mounted to her place in the little cart, as- sisted by Joe Filmer, the ostler at the Ship, and folded THE BROOM-SQUIRE. 197 her shawl about the living morsel that was all the world to her. " Well, upon my word," said Joe, " I think, Matabel, you've grown prettier thail ever, and if Bideabout bain't a happy man, he's different constituted from most of us." Joe might well express his admiration. The young mother was singularly lovely now, with sufficient of the delicacy of her late confinement still on her, and with the glow of love and pride glorifying her face. She was very pleased to go to the Ship, not so much because she wanted to see the hostess, as because she desired to show her the babe. " How is mother?" she asked of Joe Filmer. The ostler shook his head. " I should say she hain't long to live. She changed terrible last week. If it weren't for her stories about Gilly Cheel, and one or another, one wouldn't believe it was the same woman. And the master, he is that composed over it all — it is wonderful, wonderful." Mehetabel was shocked. She was not prepared for this news, and the