You may not think this a melancholy picture; but the canary, and
the cat, and the white mouse that she had for a while, and that
died, were all indications of the want that ate into her heart.  I
think I know a little of what that old woman felt; and I am as sure
as if I had seen her, that she sat many an hour in silent tears,
with the big Bible open before her clouded eyes.

If you could look back upon her life, and feel the great chain that
had linked her to one child after another, sometimes to be wrenched
suddenly through, and sometimes, which is infinitely worse, to be
torn gradually off through years of growing neglect, or perhaps
growing dislike!  She had, like the mother, overcome that natural
repugnance--repugnance which no man can conquer--towards the infirm
and helpless mass of putty of the earlier stage.  She had spent her
best and happiest years in tending, watching, and learning to love
like a mother this child, with which she has no connection and to
which she has no tie.  Perhaps she refused some sweetheart (such
things have been), or put him off and off, until he lost heart and
turned to some one else, all for fear of leaving this creature that
had wound itself about her heart.  And the end of it all--her
month's warning, and a present perhaps, and the rest of the life to
vain regret.  Or, worse still, to see the child gradually
forgetting and forsaking her, fostered in disrespect and neglect on
the plea of growing manliness, and at last beginning to treat her
as a servant whom he had treated a few years before as a mother.
She sees the Bible or the Psalm-book, which with gladness and love
unutterable in her heart she had bought for him years ago out of
her slender savings, neglected for some newer gift of his father,
lying in dust in the lumber-room or given away to a poor child, and
the act applauded for its unfeeling charity.  Little wonder if she
becomes hurt and angry, and attempts to tyrannise and to grasp her
old power back again.  We are not all patient Grizzels, by good
fortune, but the most of us human beings with feelings and tempers
of our own.

And so, in the end, behold her in the room that I described.  Very
likely and very naturally, in some fling of feverish misery or
recoil of thwarted love, she has quarrelled with her old employers
and the children are forbidden to see her or to speak to her; or at
best she gets her rent paid and a little to herself, and now and
then her late charges are sent up (with another nurse, perhaps) to
pay her a short visit.  How bright these visits seem as she looks
forward to them on her lonely bed!  How unsatisfactory their
realisation, when the forgetful child, half wondering, checks with
every word and action the outpouring of her maternal love!  How
bitter and restless the memories that they leave behind!  And for
the rest, what else has she?--to watch them with eager eyes as they
go to school, to sit in church where she can see them every Sunday,
to be passed some day unnoticed in the street, or deliberately cut
because the great man or the great woman are with friends before
whom they are ashamed to recognise the old woman that loved them.

When she goes home that night, how lonely will the room appear to
her!  Perhaps the neighbours may hear her sobbing to herself in the
dark, with the fire burnt out for want of fuel, and the candle
still unlit upon the table.

And it is for this that they live, these quasi-mothers--mothers in
everything but the travail and the thanks.  It is for this that
they have remained virtuous in youth, living the dull life of a
household servant.  It is for this that they refused the old
sweetheart, and have no fireside or offspring of their own.

I believe in a better state of things, that there will be no more
nurses, and that every mother will nurse her own offspring; for
what can be more hardening and demoralising than to call forth the
tenderest feelings of a woman's heart and cherish them yourself as
long as you need them, as long as your children require a nurse to
love them, and then to blight and thwart and destroy them, whenever
your own use for them is at an end.  This may be Utopian; but it is
always a little thing if one mother or two mothers can be brought
to feel more tenderly to those who share their toil and have no
part in their reward.



CHAPTER V--A CHARACTER



The man has a red, bloated face, and his figure is short and squat.
So far there is nothing in him to notice, but when you see his
eyes, you can read in these hard and shallow orbs a depravity
beyond measure depraved, a thirst after wickedness, the pure,
disinterested love of Hell for its own sake.  The other night, in
the street, I was watching an omnibus passing with lit-up windows,
when I heard some one coughing at my side as though he would cough
his soul out; and turning round, I saw him stopping under a lamp,
with a brown greatcoat buttoned round him and his whole face
convulsed.  It seemed as if he could not live long; and so the
sight set my mind upon a train of thought, as I finished my cigar
up and down the lighted streets.

He is old, but all these years have not yet quenched his thirst for
evil, and his eyes still delight themselves in wickedness.  He is
dumb; but he will not let that hinder his foul trade, or perhaps I
should say, his yet fouler amusement, and he has pressed a slate
into the service of corruption.  Look at him, and he will sign to
you with his bloated head, and when you go to him in answer to the
sign, thinking perhaps that the poor dumb man has lost his way, you
will see what he writes upon his slate.  He haunts the doors of
schools, and shows such inscriptions as these to the innocent
children that come out.  He hangs about picture-galleries, and
makes the noblest pictures the text for some silent homily of vice.
His industry is a lesson to ourselves.  Is it not wonderful how he
can triumph over his infirmities and do such an amount of harm
without a tongue?  Wonderful industry--strange, fruitless,
pleasureless toil?  Must not the very devil feel a soft emotion to
see his disinterested and laborious service?  Ah, but the devil
knows better than this:  he knows that this man is penetrated with
the love of evil and that all his pleasure is shut up in
wickedness:  he recognises him, perhaps, as a fit type for mankind
of his satanic self, and watches over his effigy as we might watch
over a favourite likeness.  As the business man comes to love the
toil, which he only looked upon at first as a ladder towards other
desires and less unnatural gratifications, so the dumb man has felt
the charm of his trade and fallen captivated before the eyes of
sin.  It is a mistake when preachers tell us that vice is hideous
and loathsome; for even vice has her Horsel and her devotees, who
love her for her own sake.




THE GREAT NORTH ROAD




CHAPTER I--NANCE AT THE 'GREEN DRAGON'



Nance Holdaway was on her knees before the fire blowing the green
wood that voluminously smoked upon the dogs, and only now and then
shot forth a smothered flame; her knees already ached and her eyes
smarted, for she had been some while at this ungrateful task, but
her mind was gone far away to meet the coming stranger.  Now she
met him in the wood, now at the castle gate, now in the kitchen by
candle-light; each fresh presentment eclipsed the one before; a
form so elegant, manners so sedate, a countenance so brave and
comely, a voice so winning and resolute--sure such a man was never
seen!  The thick-coming fancies poured and brightened in her head
like the smoke and flames upon the hearth.

Presently the heavy foot of her uncle Jonathan was heard upon the
stair, and as he entered the room she bent the closer to her work.
He glanced at the green fagots with a sneer, and looked askance at
the bed and the white sheets, at the strip of carpet laid, like an
island, on the great expanse of the stone floor, and at the broken
glazing of the casement clumsily repaired with paper.

'Leave that fire a-be,' he cried.  'What, have I toiled all my life
to turn innkeeper at the hind end?  Leave it a-be, I say.'

'La, uncle, it doesn't burn a bit; it only smokes,' said Nance,
looking up from her position.

'You are come of decent people on both sides,' returned the old
man.  'Who are you to blow the coals for any Robin-run-agate?  Get
up, get on your hood, make yourself useful, and be off to the
"Green Dragon."'

'I thought you was to go yourself,' Nance faltered.

'So did I,' quoth Jonathan; 'but it appears I was mistook.'

The very excess of her eagerness alarmed her, and she began to hang
back.  'I think I would rather not, dear uncle,' she said.  'Night
is at hand, and I think, dear, I would rather not.'

'Now you look here,' replied Jonathan, 'I have my lord's orders,
have I not?  Little he gives me, but it's all my livelihood.  And
do you fancy, if I disobey my lord, I'm likely to turn round for a
lass like you?  No, I've that hell-fire of pain in my old knee, I
wouldn't walk a mile, not for King George upon his bended knees.'
And he walked to the window and looked down the steep scarp to
where the river foamed in the bottom of the dell.

Nance stayed for no more bidding.  In her own room, by the glimmer
of the twilight, she washed her hands and pulled on her Sunday
mittens; adjusted her black hood, and tied a dozen times its cherry
ribbons; and in less than ten minutes, with a fluttering heart and
excellently bright eyes, she passed forth under the arch and over
the bridge, into the thickening shadows of the groves.  A well-
marked wheel-track conducted her.  The wood, which upon both sides
of the river dell was a mere scrambling thicket of hazel, hawthorn,
and holly, boasted on the level of more considerable timber.
Beeches came to a good growth, with here and there an oak; and the
track now passed under a high arcade of branches, and now ran under
the open sky in glades.  As the girl proceeded these glades became
more frequent, the trees began again to decline in size, and the
wood to degenerate into furzy coverts.  Last of all there was a
fringe of elders; and beyond that the track came forth upon an
open, rolling moorland, dotted with wind-bowed and scanty bushes,
and all golden brown with the winter, like a grouse.  Right over
against the girl the last red embers of the sunset burned under
horizontal clouds; the night fell clear and still and frosty, and
the track in low and marshy passages began to crackle under foot
with ice.

Some half a mile beyond the borders of the wood the lights of the
'Green Dragon' hove in sight, and running close beside them, very
faint in the dying dusk, the pale ribbon of the Great North Road.
It was the back of the post-house that was presented to Nance
Holdaway; and as she continued to draw near and the night to fall
more completely, she became aware of an unusual brightness and
bustle.  A post-chaise stood in the yard, its lamps already
lighted:  light shone hospitably in the windows and from the open
door; moving lights and shadows testified to the activity of
servants bearing lanterns.  The clank of pails, the stamping of
hoofs on the firm causeway, the jingle of harness, and, last of
all, the energetic hissing of a groom, began to fall upon her ear.
By the stir you would have thought the mail was at the door, but it
was still too early in the night.  The down mail was not due at the
'Green Dragon' for hard upon an hour; the up mail from Scotland not
before two in the black morning.

Nance entered the yard somewhat dazzled.  Sam, the tall ostler, was
polishing a curb-chain wit sand; the lantern at his feet letting up
spouts of candle-light through the holes with which its conical
roof was peppered.

'Hey, miss,' said he jocularly, 'you won't look at me any more, now
you have gentry at the castle.'

Her cheeks burned with anger.

'That's my lord's chay,' the man continued, nodding at the chaise,
'Lord Windermoor's.  Came all in a fluster--dinner, bowl of punch,
and put the horses to. For all the world like a runaway match, my
dear--bar the bride.  He brought Mr. Archer in the chay with him.'

'Is that Holdaway?' cried the landlord from the lighted entry,
where he stood shading his eyes.

'Only me, sir,' answered Nance.

'O, you, Miss Nance,' he said.  'Well, come in quick, my pretty.
My lord is waiting for your uncle.'

And he ushered Nance into a room cased with yellow wainscot and
lighted by tall candles, where two gentlemen sat at a table
finishing a bowl of punch.  One of these was stout, elderly, and
irascible, with a face like a full moon, well dyed with liquor,
thick tremulous lips, a short, purple hand, in which he brandished
a long pipe, and an abrupt and gobbling utterance.  This was my
Lord Windermoor.  In his companion Nance beheld a younger man,
tall, quiet, grave, demurely dressed, and wearing his own hair.
Her glance but lighted on him, and she flushed, for in that second
she made sure that she had twice betrayed herself--betrayed by the
involuntary flash of her black eyes her secret impatience to behold
this new companion, and, what was far worse, betrayed her
disappointment in the realisation of her dreams.  He, meanwhile, as
if unconscious, continued to regard her with unmoved decorum.

'O, a man of wood,' thought Nance.

'What--what?' said his lordship.  'Who is this?'

'If you please, my lord, I am Holdaway's niece,' replied Nance,
with a curtsey.

'Should have been here himself,' observed his lordship.  'Well, you
tell Holdaway that I'm aground, not a stiver--not a stiver.  I'm
running from the beagles--going abroad, tell Holdaway.  And he need
look for no more wages:  glad of 'em myself, if I could get 'em.
He can live in the castle if he likes, or go to the devil.  O, and
here is Mr. Archer; and I recommend him to take him in--a friend of
mine--and Mr. Archer will pay, as I wrote.  And I regard that in
the light of a precious good thing for Holdaway, let me tell you,
and a set-off against the wages.'

'But O, my lord!' cried Nance, 'we live upon the wages, and what
are we to do without?'

'What am I to do?--what am I to do?' replied Lord Windermoor with
some exasperation.  'I have no wages.  And there is Mr. Archer.
And if Holdaway doesn't like it, he can go to the devil, and you
with him!--and you with him!'

'And yet, my lord,' said Mr. Archer, 'these good people will have
as keen a sense of loss as you or I; keener, perhaps, since they
have done nothing to deserve it.'

'Deserve it?' cried the peer.  'What?  What?  If a rascally
highwayman comes up to me with a confounded pistol, do you say that
I've deserved it?  How often am I to tell you, sir, that I was
cheated--that I was cheated?'

'You are happy in the belief,' returned Mr. Archer gravely.

'Archer, you would be the death of me!' exclaimed his lordship.
'You know you're drunk; you know it, sir; and yet you can't get up
a spark of animation.'

'I have drunk fair, my lord,' replied the younger man; 'but I own I
am conscious of no exhilaration.'

'If you had as black a look-out as me, sir,' cried the peer, 'you
would be very glad of a little innocent exhilaration, let me tell
you.  I am glad of it--glad of it, and I only wish I was drunker.
For let me tell you it's a cruel hard thing upon a man of my time
of life and my position, to be brought down to beggary because the
world is full of thieves and rascals--thieves and rascals.  What?
For all I know, you may be a thief and a rascal yourself; and I
would fight you for a pinch of snuff--a pinch of snuff,' exclaimed
his lordship.

Here Mr. Archer turned to Nance Holdaway with a pleasant smile, so
full of sweetness, kindness, and composure that, at one bound, her
dreams returned to her.  'My good Miss Holdaway,' said he, 'if you
are willing to show me the road, I am even eager to be gone.  As
for his lordship and myself, compose yourself; there is no fear;
this is his lordship's way.'

'What? what?' cried his lordship.  'My way?  Ish no such a thing,
my way.'

'Come, my lord,' cried Archer; 'you and I very thoroughly
understand each other; and let me suggest, it is time that both of
us were gone.  The mail will soon be due.  Here, then, my lord, I
take my leave of you, with the most earnest assurance of my
gratitude for the past, and a sincere offer of any services I may
be able to render in the future.'

'Archer,' exclaimed Lord Windermoor, 'I love you like a son.  Le'
's have another bowl.'

'My lord, for both our sakes, you will excuse me,' replied Mr.
Archer.  'We both require caution; we must both, for some while at
least, avoid the chance of a pursuit.'

'Archer,' quoth his lordship, 'this is a rank ingratishood.  What?
I'm to go firing away in the dark in the cold po'chaise, and not so
much as a game of ecarte possible, unless I stop and play with the
postillion, the postillion; and the whole country swarming with
thieves and rascals and highwaymen.'

'I beg your lordship's pardon,' put in the landlord, who now
appeared in the doorway to announce the chaise, 'but this part of
the North Road is known for safety.  There has not been a robbery,
to call a robbery, this five years' time.  Further south, of
course, it's nearer London, and another story,' he added.

'Well, then, if that's so,' concluded my lord, 'le' 's have t'other
bowl and a pack of cards.'

'My lord, you forget,' said Archer, 'I might still gain; but it is
hardly possible for me to lose.'

'Think I'm a sharper?' inquired the peer.  'Gen'leman's parole's
all I ask.'

But Mr. Archer was proof against these blandishments, and said
farewell gravely enough to Lord Windermoor, shaking his hand and at
the same time bowing very low.  'You will never know,' says he,
'the service you have done me.'  And with that, and before my lord
had finally taken up his meaning, he had slipped about the table,
touched Nance lightly but imperiously on the arm, and left the
room.  In face of the outbreak of his lordship's lamentations she
made haste to follow the truant.



CHAPTER II--IN WHICH MR. ARCHER IS INSTALLED



The chaise had been driven round to the front door; the courtyard
lay all deserted, and only lit by a lantern set upon a window-sill.
Through this Nance rapidly led the way, and began to ascend the
swellings of the moor with a heart that somewhat fluttered in her
bosom.  She was not afraid, but in the course of these last
passages with Lord Windermoor Mr. Archer had ascended to that
pedestal on which her fancy waited to instal him.  The reality, she
felt, excelled her dreams, and this cold night walk was the first
romantic incident in her experience.

It was the rule in these days to see gentlemen unsteady after
dinner, yet Nance was both surprised and amused when her companion,
who had spoken so soberly, began to stumble and waver by her side
with the most airy divagations.  Sometimes he would get so close to
her that she must edge away; and at others lurch clear out of the
track and plough among deep heather.  His courtesy and gravity
meanwhile remained unaltered.  He asked her how far they had to go;
whether the way lay all upon the moorland, and when he learned they
had to pass a wood expressed his pleasure.  'For,' said he, 'I am
passionately fond of trees.  Trees and fair lawns, if you consider
of it rightly, are the ornaments of nature, as palaces and fine
approaches--'  And here he stumbled into a patch of slough and
nearly fell.  The girl had hard work not to laugh, but at heart she
was lost in admiration for one who talked so elegantly.

They had got to about a quarter of a mile from the 'Green Dragon,'
and were near the summit of the rise, when a sudden rush of wheels
arrested them.  Turning and looking back, they saw the post-house,
now much declined in brightness; and speeding away northward the
two tremulous bright dots of my Lord Windermoor's chaise-lamps.
Mr. Archer followed these yellow and unsteady stars until they
dwindled into points and disappeared.

'There goes my only friend,' he said.  'Death has cut off those
that loved me, and change of fortune estranged my flatterers; and
but for you, poor bankrupt, my life is as lonely as this moor.'

The tone of his voice affected both of them.  They stood there on
the side of the moor, and became thrillingly conscious of the void
waste of the night, without a feature for the eye, and except for
the fainting whisper of the carriage-wheels without a murmur for
the ear.  And instantly, like a mockery, there broke out, very far
away, but clear and jolly, the note of the mail-guard's horn.
'Over the hills' was his air.  It rose to the two watchers on the
moor with the most cheerful sentiment of human company and travel,
and at the same time in and around the 'Green Dragon' it woke up a
great bustle of lights running to and fro and clattering hoofs.
Presently after, out of the darkness to southward, the mail grew
near with a growing rumble.  Its lamps were very large and bright,
and threw their radiance forward in overlapping cones; the four
cantering horses swarmed and steamed; the body of the coach
followed like a great shadow; and this lit picture slid with a sort
of ineffectual swiftness over the black field of night, and was
eclipsed by the buildings of the 'Green Dragon.'

Mr. Archer turned abruptly and resumed his former walk; only that
he was now more steady, kept better alongside his young conductor,
and had fallen into a silence broken by sighs.  Nance waxed very
pitiful over his fate, contrasting an imaginary past of courts and
great society, and perhaps the King himself, with the tumbledown
ruin in a wood to which she was now conducting him.

'You must try, sir, to keep your spirits up,' said she.  'To be
sure this is a great change for one like you; but who knows the
future?'

Mr. Archer turned towards her in the darkness, and she could
clearly perceive that he smiled upon her very kindly.  'There spoke
a sweet nature,' said he, 'and I must thank you for these words.
But I would not have you fancy that I regret the past for any
happiness found in it, or that I fear the simplicity and hardship
of the country.  I am a man that has been much tossed about in
life; now up, now down; and do you think that I shall not be able
to support what you support--you who are kind, and therefore know
how to feel pain; who are beautiful, and therefore hope; who are
young, and therefore (or am I the more mistaken?) discontented?'

'Nay, sir, not that, at least,' said Nance; 'not discontented.  If
I were to be discontented, how should I look those that have real
sorrows in the face?  I have faults enough, but not that fault; and
I have my merits too, for I have a good opinion of myself.  But for
beauty, I am not so simple but that I can tell a banter from a
compliment.'

'Nay, nay,' said Mr. Archer, 'I had half forgotten; grief is
selfish, and I was thinking of myself and not of you, or I had
never blurted out so bold a piece of praise.  'Tis the best proof
of my sincerity.  But come, now, I would lay a wager you are no
coward?'

'Indeed, sir, I am not more afraid than another,' said Nance.
'None of my blood are given to fear.'

'And you are honest?' he returned.

'I will answer for that,' said she.

'Well, then, to be brave, to be honest, to be kind, and to be
contented, since you say you are so--is not that to fill up a great
part of virtue?'

'I fear you are but a flatterer,' said Nance, but she did not say
it clearly, for what with bewilderment and satisfaction, her heart
was quite oppressed.

There could be no harm, certainly, in these grave compliments; but
yet they charmed and frightened her, and to find favour, for
reasons however obscure, in the eyes of this elegant, serious, and
most unfortunate young gentleman, was a giddy elevation, was almost
an apotheosis, for a country maid.

But she was to be no more exercised; for Mr. Archer, disclaiming
any thought of flattery, turned off to other subjects, and held her
all through the wood in conversation, addressing her with an air of
perfect sincerity, and listening to her answers with every mark of
interest.  Had open flattery continued, Nance would have soon found
refuge in good sense; but the more subtle lure she could not
suspect, much less avoid.  It was the first time she had ever taken
part in a conversation illuminated by any ideas.  All was then true
that she had heard and dreamed of gentlemen; they were a race
apart, like deities knowing good and evil.  And then there burst
upon her soul a divine thought, hope's glorious sunrise:  since she
could understand, since it seemed that she too, even she, could
interest this sorrowful Apollo, might she not learn? or was she not
learning?  Would not her soul awake and put forth wings?  Was she
not, in fact, an enchanted princess, waiting but a touch to become
royal?  She saw herself transformed, radiantly attired, but in the
most exquisite taste:  her face grown longer and more refined; her
tint etherealised; and she heard herself with delighted wonder
talking like a book.

Meanwhile they had arrived at where the track comes out above the
river dell, and saw in front of them the castle, faintly shadowed
on the night, covering with its broken battlements a bold
projection of the bank, and showing at the extreme end, where were
the habitable tower and wing, some crevices of candle-light.  Hence
she called loudly upon her uncle, and he was seen to issue, lantern
in hand, from the tower door, and, where the ruins did not
intervene, to pick his way over the swarded courtyard, avoiding
treacherous cellars and winding among blocks of fallen masonry.
The arch of the great gate was still entire, flanked by two
tottering bastions, and it was here that Jonathan met them,
standing at the edge of the bridge, bent somewhat forward, and
blinking at them through the glow of his own lantern.  Mr. Archer
greeted him with civility; but the old man was in no humour of
compliance.  He guided the newcomer across the court-yard, looking
sharply and quickly in his face, and grumbling all the time about
the cold, and the discomfort and dilapidation of the castle.  He
was sure he hoped that Mr. Archer would like it; but in truth he
could not think what brought him there.  Doubtless he had a good
reason--this with a look of cunning scrutiny--but, indeed, the
place was quite unfit for any person of repute; he himself was
eaten up with the rheumatics.  It was the most rheumaticky place in
England, and some fine day the whole habitable part (to call it
habitable) would fetch away bodily and go down the slope into the
river.  He had seen the cracks widening; there was a plaguy issue
in the bank below; he thought a spring was mining it; it might be
to-morrow, it might be next day; but they were all sure of a come-
down sooner or later.  'And that is a poor death,' said he, 'for
any one, let alone a gentleman, to have a whole old ruin dumped
upon his belly.  Have a care to your left there; these cellar
vaults have all broke down, and the grass and hemlock hide 'em.
Well, sir, here is welcome to you, such as it is, and wishing you
well away.'

And with that Jonathan ushered his guest through the tower door,
and down three steps on the left hand into the kitchen or common
room of the castle.  It was a huge, low room, as large as a meadow,
occupying the whole width of the habitable wing, with six barred
windows looking on the court, and two into the river valley.  A
dresser, a table, and a few chairs stood dotted here and there upon
the uneven flags.  Under the great chimney a good fire burned in an
iron fire-basket; a high old settee, rudely carved with figures and
Gothic lettering, flanked it on either side; there was a hinge
table and a stone bench in the chimney corner, and above the arch
hung guns, axes, lanterns, and great sheaves of rusty keys.

Jonathan looked about him, holding up the lantern, and shrugged his
shoulders, with a pitying grimace.  'Here it is,' he said.  'See
the damp on the floor, look at the moss; where there's moss you may
be sure that it's rheumaticky.  Try and get near that fire for to
warm yourself; it'll blow the coat off your back.  And with a young
gentleman with a face like yours, as pale as a tallow-candle, I'd
be afeard of a churchyard cough and a galloping decline,' says
Jonathan, naming the maladies with gloomy gusto, 'or the cold might
strike and turn your blood,' he added.

Mr. Archer fairly laughed.  'My good Mr. Holdaway,' said he, 'I was
born with that same tallow-candle face, and the only fear that you
inspire me with is the fear that I intrude unwelcomely upon your
private hours.  But I think I can promise you that I am very little
troublesome, and I am inclined to hope that the terms which I can
offer may still pay you the derangement.'

'Yes, the terms,' said Jonathan, 'I was thinking of that.  As you
say, they are very small,' and he shook his head.

'Unhappily, I can afford no more,' said Mr. Archer.  'But this we
have arranged already,' he added with a certain stiffness; 'and as
I am aware that Miss Holdaway has matter to communicate, I will, if
you permit, retire at once.  To-night I must bivouac; to-morrow my
trunk is to follow from the "Dragon."  So if you will show me to my
room I shall wish you a good slumber and a better awakening.'

Jonathan silently gave the lantern to Nance, and she, turning and
curtseying in the doorway, proceeded to conduct their guest up the
broad winding staircase of the tower.  He followed with a very
brooding face.

'Alas!' cried Nance, as she entered the room, 'your fire black
out,' and, setting down the lantern, she clapped upon her knees
before the chimney and began to rearrange the charred and still
smouldering remains.  Mr. Archer looked about the gaunt apartment
with a sort of shudder.  The great height, the bare stone, the
shattered windows, the aspect of the uncurtained bed, with one of
its four fluted columns broken short, all struck a chill upon his
fancy.  From this dismal survey his eyes returned to Nance
crouching before the fire, the candle in one hand and artfully
puffing at the embers; the flames as they broke forth played upon
the soft outline of her cheek--she was alive and young, coloured
with the bright hues of life, and a woman.  He looked upon her,
softening; and then sat down and continued to admire the picture.

'There, sir,' said she, getting upon her feet, 'your fire is doing
bravely now.  Good-night.'

He rose and held out his hand.  'Come,' said he, 'you are my only
friend in these parts, and you must shake hands.'

She brushed her hand upon her skirt and offered it, blushing.

'God bless you, my dear,' said he.

And then, when he was alone, he opened one of the windows, and
stared down into the dark valley.  A gentle wimpling of the river
among stones ascended to his ear; the trees upon the other bank
stood very black against the sky; farther away an owl was hooting.
It was dreary and cold, and as he turned back to the hearth and the
fine glow of fire, 'Heavens!' said he to himself, 'what an
unfortunate destiny is mine!'

He went to bed, but sleep only visited his pillow in uneasy
snatches.  Outbreaks of loud speech came up the staircase; he heard
the old stones of the castle crack in the frosty night with sharp
reverberations, and the bed complained under his tossings.  Lastly,
far on into the morning, he awakened from a doze to hear, very far
off, in the extreme and breathless quiet, a wailing flourish on the
horn.  The down mail was drawing near to the 'Green Dragon.'  He
sat up in bed; the sound was tragical by distance, and the
modulation appealed to his ear like human speech.  It seemed to
call upon him with a dreary insistence--to call him far away, to
address him personally, and to have a meaning that he failed to
seize.  It was thus, at least, in this nodding castle, in a cold,
miry woodland, and so far from men and society, that the traffic on
the Great North Road spoke to him in the intervals of slumber.



CHAPTER III-- JONATHAN HOLDAWAY



Nance descended the tower stair, pausing at every step.  She was in
no hurry to confront her uncle with bad news, and she must dwell a
little longer on the rich note of Mr. Archer's voice, the charm of
his kind words, and the beauty of his manner and person.  But, once
at the stair-foot, she threw aside the spell and recovered her
sensible and workaday self.

Jonathan was seated in the middle of the settle, a mug of ale
beside him, in the attitude of one prepared for trouble; but he did
not speak, and suffered her to fetch her supper and eat of it, with
a very excellent appetite, in silence.  When she had done, she,
too, drew a tankard of home-brewed, and came and planted herself in
front of him upon the settle.

'Well?' said Jonathan.

'My lord has run away,' said Nance.

'What?' cried the old man.

'Abroad,' she continued; 'run away from creditors.  He said he had
not a stiver, but he was drunk enough.  He said you might live on
in the castle, and Mr. Archer would pay you; but you was to look
for no more wages, since he would be glad of them himself.'

Jonathan's face contracted; the flush of a black, bilious anger
mounted to the roots of his hair; he gave an inarticulate cry,
leapt upon his feet, and began rapidly pacing the stone floor.  At
first he kept his hands behind his back in a tight knot; then he
began to gesticulate as he turned.

'This man--this lord,' he shouted, 'who is he?  He was born with a
gold spoon in his mouth, and I with a dirty straw.  He rolled in
his coach when he was a baby.  I have dug and toiled and laboured
since I was that high--that high.'  And he shouted again.  'I'm
bent and broke, and full of pains.  D' ye think I don't know the
taste of sweat?  Many's the gallon I've drunk of it--ay, in the
midwinter, toiling like a slave.  All through, what has my life
been?  Bend, bend, bend my old creaking back till it would ache
like breaking; wade about in the foul mire, never a dry stitch;
empty belly, sore hands, hat off to my Lord Redface; kicks and
ha'pence; and now, here, at the hind end, when I'm worn to my poor
bones, a kick and done with it.'  He walked a little while in
silence, and then, extending his hand, 'Now you, Nance Holdaway,'
says he, 'you come of my blood, and you're a good girl.  When that
man was a boy, I used to carry his gun for him.  I carried the gun
all day on my two feet, and many a stitch I had, and chewed a
bullet for.  He rode upon a horse, with feathers in his hat; but it
was him that had the shots and took the game home.  Did I complain?
Not I.  I knew my station.  What did I ask, but just the chance to
live and die honest?  Nance Holdaway, don't let them deny it to me-
-don't let them do it.  I've been as poor as Job, and as honest as
the day, but now, my girl, you mark these words of mine, I'm
getting tired of it.'

'I wouldn't say such words, at least,' said Nance.

'You wouldn't?' said the old man grimly.  'Well, and did I when I
was your age?  Wait till your back's broke and your hands tremble,
and your eyes fail, and you're weary of the battle and ask no more
but to lie down in your bed and give the ghost up like an honest
man; and then let there up and come some insolent, ungodly fellow--
ah! if I had him in these hands!  "Where's my money that you
gambled?" I should say.  "Where's my money that you drank and
diced?"  "Thief!" is what I would say; "Thief!"' he roared,
'"Thief"'

'Mr. Archer will hear you if you don't take care,' said Nance, 'and
I would be ashamed, for one, that he should hear a brave, old,
honest, hard-working man like Jonathan Holdaway talk nonsense like
a boy.'

'D' ye think I mind for Mr. Archer?' he cried shrilly, with a clack
of laughter; and then he came close up to her, stooped down with
his two palms upon his knees, and looked her in the eyes, with a
strange hard expression, something like a smile.  'Do I mind for
God, my girl?' he said; 'that's what it's come to be now, do I mind
for God?'

'Uncle Jonathan,' she said, getting up and taking him by the arm;
'you sit down again, where you were sitting.  There, sit still;
I'll have no more of this; you'll do yourself a mischief.  Come,
take a drink of this good ale, and I'll warm a tankard for you.
La, we'll pull through, you'll see.  I'm young, as you say, and
it's my turn to carry the bundle; and don't you worry your bile, or
we'll have sickness, too, as well as sorrow.'

'D' ye think that I'd forgotten you?' said Jonathan, with something
like a groan; and thereupon his teeth clicked to, and he sat silent
with the tankard in his hand and staring straight before him.

'Why,' says Nance, setting on the ale to mull, 'men are always
children, they say, however old; and if ever I heard a thing like
this, to set to and make yourself sick, just when the money's
failing.  Keep a good heart up; you haven't kept a good heart these
seventy years, nigh hand, to break down about a pound or two.
Here's this Mr. Archer come to lodge, that you disliked so much.
Well, now you see it was a clear Providence.  Come, let's think
upon our mercies.  And here is the ale mulling lovely; smell of it;
I'll take a drop myself, it smells so sweet.  And, Uncle Jonathan,
you let me say one word.  You've lost more than money before now;
you lost my aunt, and bore it like a man.  Bear this.'

His face once more contracted; his fist doubled, and shot forth
into the air, and trembled.  'Let them look out!' he shouted.
'Here, I warn all men; I've done with this foul kennel of knaves.
Let them look out!'

'Hush, hush! for pity's sake,' cried Nance.

And then all of a sudden he dropped his face into his hands, and
broke out with a great hiccoughing dry sob that was horrible to
hear.  'O,' he cried, 'my God, if my son hadn't left me, if my Dick
was here!' and the sobs shook him; Nance sitting still and watching
him, with distress.  'O, if he were here to help his father!' he
went on again.  'If I had a son like other fathers, he would save
me now, when all is breaking down; O, he would save me!  Ay, but
where is he?  Raking taverns, a thief perhaps.  My curse be on
him!' he added, rising again into wrath.

'Hush!' cried Nance, springing to her feet:  'your boy, your dead
wife's boy--Aunt Susan's baby that she loved--would you curse him?
O, God forbid!'

The energy of her address surprised him from his mood.  He looked
upon her, tearless and confused.  'Let me go to my bed,' he said at
last, and he rose, and, shaking as with ague, but quite silent,
lighted his candle, and left the kitchen.

Poor Nance! the pleasant current of her dreams was all diverted.
She beheld a golden city, where she aspired to dwell; she had
spoken with a deity, and had told herself that she might rise to be
his equal; and now the earthly ligaments that bound her down had
been tightened.  She was like a tree looking skyward, her roots
were in the ground.  It seemed to her a thing so coarse, so rustic,
to be thus concerned about a loss in money; when Mr. Archer, fallen
from the sky-level of counts and nobles, faced his changed destiny
with so immovable a courage.  To weary of honesty; that, at least,
no one could do, but even to name it was already a disgrace; and
she beheld in fancy her uncle, and the young lad, all laced and
feathered, hand upon hip, bestriding his small horse.  The
opposition seemed to perpetuate itself from generation to
generation; one side still doomed to the clumsy and the servile,
the other born to beauty.

She thought of the golden zones in which gentlemen were bred, and
figured with so excellent a grace; zones in which wisdom and smooth
words, white linen and slim hands, were the mark of the desired
inhabitants; where low temptations were unknown, and honesty no
virtue, but a thing as natural as breathing.



CHAPTER IV--MINGLING THREADS



It was nearly seven before Mr. Archer left his apartment.  On the
landing he found another door beside his own opening on a roofless
corridor, and presently he was walking on the top of the ruins.  On
one hand he could look down a good depth into the green court-yard;
on the other his eye roved along the downward course of the river,
the wet woods all smoking, the shadows long and blue, the mists
golden and rosy in the sun, here and there the water flashing
across an obstacle.  His heart expanded and softened to a grateful
melancholy, and with his eye fixed upon the distance, and no
thought of present danger, he continued to stroll along the
elevated and treacherous promenade.

A terror-stricken cry rose to him from the courtyard.  He looked
down, and saw in a glimpse Nance standing below with hands clasped
in horror and his own foot trembling on the margin of a gulf.  He
recoiled and leant against a pillar, quaking from head to foot, and
covering his face with his hands; and Nance had time to run round
by the stair and rejoin him where he stood before he had changed a
line of his position.

'Ah!' he cried, and clutched her wrist; 'don't leave me.  The place
rocks; I have no head for altitudes.'

'Sit down against that pillar,' said Nance.  'Don't you be afraid;
I won't leave you, and don't look up or down:  look straight at me.
How white you are!'

'The gulf,' he said, and closed his eyes again and shuddered.

'Why,' said Nance, 'what a poor climber you must be!  That was
where my cousin Dick used to get out of the castle after Uncle
Jonathan had shut the gate.  I've been down there myself with him
helping me.  I wouldn't try with you,' she said, and laughed
merrily.

The sound of her laughter was sincere and musical, and perhaps its
beauty barbed the offence to Mr. Archer.  The blood came into his
face with a quick jet, and then left it paler than before.  'It is
a physical weakness,' he said harshly, 'and very droll, no doubt,
but one that I can conquer on necessity.  See, I am still shaking.
Well, I advance to the battlements and look down.  Show me your
cousin's path.'

'He would go sure-foot along that little ledge,' said Nance,
pointing as she spoke; 'then out through the breach and down by
yonder buttress.  It is easier coming back, of course, because you
see where you are going.  From the buttress foot a sheep-walk goes
along the scarp--see, you can follow it from here in the dry grass.
And now, sir,' she added, with a touch of womanly pity, 'I would
come away from here if I were you, for indeed you are not fit.'

Sure enough Mr. Archer's pallor and agitation had continued to
increase; his cheeks were deathly, his clenched fingers trembled
pitifully.  'The weakness is physical,' he sighed, and had nearly
fallen.  Nance led him from the spot, and he was no sooner back in
the tower-stair, than he fell heavily against the wall and put his
arm across his eyes.  A cup of brandy had to be brought him before
he could descend to breakfast; and the perfection of Nance's dream
was for the first time troubled.

Jonathan was waiting for them at table, with yellow, blood-shot
eyes and a peculiar dusky complexion.  He hardly waited till they
found their seats, before, raising one hand, and stooping with his
mouth above his plate, he put up a prayer for a blessing on the
food and a spirit of gratitude in the eaters, and thereupon, and
without more civility, fell to.  But it was notable that he was no
less speedily satisfied than he had been greedy to begin.  He
pushed his plate away and drummed upon the table.

'These are silly prayers,' said he, 'that they teach us.  Eat and
be thankful, that's no such wonder.  Speak to me of starving--
there's the touch.  You're a man, they tell me, Mr. Archer, that
has met with some reverses?'

'I have met with many,' replied Mr. Archer.

'Ha!' said Jonathan.  'None reckons but the last.  Now, see; I
tried to make this girl here understand me.'

'Uncle,' said Nance, 'what should Mr. Archer care for your
concerns?  He hath troubles of his own, and came to be at peace, I
think.'

'I tried to make her understand me,' repeated Jonathan doggedly;
'and now I'll try you.  Do you think this world is fair?'

'Fair and false!' quoth Mr. Archer.

The old man laughed immoderately.  'Good,' said he, 'very good, but
what I mean is this:  do you know what it is to get up early and go
to bed late, and never take so much as a holiday but four:  and one
of these your own marriage day, and the other three the funerals of
folk you loved, and all that, to have a quiet old age in shelter,
and bread for your old belly, and a bed to lay your crazy bones
upon, with a clear conscience?'

'Sir,' said Mr. Archer, with an inclination of his head, 'you
portray a very brave existence.'

'Well,' continued Jonathan, 'and in the end thieves deceive you,
thieves rob and rook you, thieves turn you out in your old age and
send you begging.  What have you got for all your honesty?  A fine
return!  You that might have stole scores of pounds, there you are
out in the rain with your rheumatics!'

Mr. Archer had forgotten to eat; with his hand upon his chin he was
studying the old man's countenance.  'And you conclude?' he asked.

'Conclude!' cried Jonathan.  'I conclude I'll be upsides with
them.'

'Ay,' said the other, 'we are all tempted to revenge.'

'You have lost money?' asked Jonathan.

'A great estate,' said Archer quietly.

'See now!' says Jonathan, 'and where is it?'

'Nay, I sometimes think that every one has had his share of it but
me,' was the reply.  'All England hath paid his taxes with my
patrimony:  I was a sheep that left my wool on every briar.'

'And you sit down under that?' cried the old man.  'Come now, Mr.
Archer, you and me belong to different stations; and I know mine--
no man better--but since we have both been rooked, and are both
sore with it, why, here's my hand with a very good heart, and I ask
for yours, and no offence, I hope.'

'There is surely no offence, my friend,' returned Mr. Archer, as
they shook hands across the table; 'for, believe me, my sympathies
are quite acquired to you.  This life is an arena where we fight
with beasts; and, indeed,' he added, sighing, 'I sometimes marvel
why we go down to it unarmed.'

In the meanwhile a creaking of ungreased axles had been heard
descending through the wood; and presently after, the door opened,
and the tall ostler entered the kitchen carrying one end of Mr.
Archer's trunk.  The other was carried by an aged beggar man of
that district, known and welcome for some twenty miles about under
the name of 'Old Cumberland.'  Each was soon perched upon a settle,
with a cup of ale; and the ostler, who valued himself upon his
affability, began to entertain the company, still with half an eye
on Nance, to whom in gallant terms he expressly dedicated every sip
of ale.  First he told of the trouble they had to get his Lordship
started in the chaise; and how he had dropped a rouleau of gold on
the threshold, and the passage and doorstep had been strewn with
guinea-pieces.  At this old Jonathan looked at Mr. Archer.  Next
the visitor turned to news of a more thrilling character:  how the
down mail had been stopped again near Grantham by three men on
horseback--a white and two bays; how they had handkerchiefs on
their faces; how Tom the guard's blunderbuss missed fire, but he
swore he had winged one of them with a pistol; and how they had got
clean away with seventy pounds in money, some valuable papers, and
a watch or two.

'Brave! brave!' cried Jonathan in ecstasy.  'Seventy pounds!  O,
it's brave!'

'Well, I don't see the great bravery,' observed the ostler,
misapprehending him.  'Three men, and you may call that three to
one.  I'll call it brave when some one stops the mail single-
handed; that's a risk.'

'And why should they hesitate?' inquired Mr. Archer.  'The poor
souls who are fallen to such a way of life, pray what have they to
lose?  If they get the money, well; but if a ball should put them
from their troubles, why, so better.'

'Well, sir,' said the ostler, 'I believe you'll find they won't
agree with you.  They count on a good fling, you see; or who would
risk it?--And here's my best respects to you, Miss Nance.'

'And I forgot the part of cowardice,' resumed Mr. Archer.  'All men
fear.'

'O, surely not!' cried Nance.

'All men,' reiterated Mr. Archer.

'Ay, that's a true word,' observed Old Cumberland, 'and a thief,
anyway, for it's a coward's trade.'

'But these fellows, now,' said Jonathan, with a curious, appealing
manner--'these fellows with their seventy pounds!  Perhaps, Mr.
Archer, they were no true thieves after all, but just people who
had been robbed and tried to get their own again.  What was that
you said, about all England and the taxes?  One takes, another
gives; why, that's almost fair.  If I've been rooked and robbed,
and the coat taken off my back, I call it almost fair to take
another's.'

'Ask Old Cumberland,' observed the ostler; 'you ask Old Cumberland,
Miss Nance!' and he bestowed a wink upon his favoured fair one.

'Why that?' asked Jonathan.

'He had his coat taken--ay, and his shirt too,' returned the
ostler.

'Is that so?' cried Jonathan eagerly.  'Was you robbed too?'

'That was I,' replied Cumberland, 'with a warrant!  I was a well-
to-do man when I was young.'

'Ay!  See that!' says Jonathan.  'And you don't long for a
revenge?'

'Eh!  Not me!' answered the beggar.  'It's too long ago.  But if
you'll give me another mug of your good ale, my pretty lady, I
won't say no to that.'

'And shalt have!  And shalt have!' cried Jonathan.  'Or brandy
even, if you like it better.'

And as Cumberland did like it better, and the ostler chimed in, the
party pledged each other in a dram of brandy before separating.

As for Nance, she slipped forth into the ruins, partly to avoid the
ostler's gallantries, partly to lament over the defects of Mr.
Archer.  Plainly, he was no hero.  She pitied him; she began to
feel a protecting interest mingle with and almost supersede her
admiration, and was at the same time disappointed and yet drawn to
him.  She was, indeed, conscious of such unshaken fortitude in her
own heart, that she was almost tempted by an occasion to be bold
for two.  She saw herself, in a brave attitude, shielding her
imperfect hero from the world; and she saw, like a piece of heaven,
his gratitude for her protection.