The Pillars of the House; Or, Under Wode, Under Rode, Vol. 1 (of 2)

He was as kind as possible, assuring her that he should have been hurt if she had not come to him. And then, in his blandest way, he thought it right to hint that 'Young people were sometimes a little unguarded.' She was prepared for the story of the loss of Stella, but she was not prepared to hear of a gossipping intercourse over the newly arrived Punches, &c., carried on in the early morning with Redstone, not only by Bernard but Angela. She was but eleven years old, so it was no worse than the taste of childish underhand coquetry and giggling; there was no fear of its continuance after Felix's return, and, indeed, good old Mr. Froggatt had kept guard by coming in two hours earlier ever since the discovery; but the propensity dismayed Wilmet more than all that had yet happened, and on this head she thought it right to reprove Angela seriously.

'Dear me, Wilmet, you are always telling us not to think ourselves above our station. Mr. Redstone is just as fit to speak to as Felix was before he was a partner.'

'Should you like Felix to have found you gossipping in the reading-room?'

'Well,' said audacious Angela, 'half the fun in things is the chance of being caught.'

'My dear, you don't know what you are saying,' replied Wilmet dejectedly, as if exhausted beyond the power of working out her reproof! and Angela had to fight hard against any softening, telling Bernard that W. W. was a tremendous old maid, who had no notion of a lark.

Robina, who stood in the peculiar position of neither accusing nor being accused, would not add her voice to the chorus of welcome, and did not wonder that every hour wore off something from the radiance of the beautiful bloom brought from the Bailey. Indeed, the unusual gravity and reserve of the younger sister struck Cherry's observant eyes, and made her think at first that she had been much pained by having to part with Lance in his weak half-recovered state; but when at tea-time the whole history of the illness was inquired into in detail by the assembled family, the downcast eyes and cheeks with which Robin encountered every mention of Captain Harewood's good offices led to the inference that she had in her excitement forgotten the bounds where the brook and river meet, and was in an anguish of shame; Wilmet meantime looking flushed with the fag of her vexatious day, and speaking plentifully of this same Captain, proving to herself all the while that she was doing so with ordinary gratitude and composure.

Robina was quartered upon Geraldine in the holiday crowding of the house; and somewhere about four o'clock on the summer morning, Cherry, wakening as usual, and reaching for her book, heard a voice from the corner asking if she wanted anything. 'No, thank you, Bobbie. Go to sleep again.'

'I can't; I've been thinking about it all night. I think he's coming to-day.'

'Who?'

'Captain Harewood. He promised to come and tell us how Lance and Felix are.'

'I am very glad; but Wilmet never said so.'

'No, but—O Cherry, I wish we could contrive some nice quiet place, but nothing is ever quiet in this house.'

'No,' said Geraldine, who was but too well aware of the fact, 'though I can't imagine that any Harewood can be distressed on that score.'

'Oh, but—' said Robina, to whom the communication began to feel so momentous, that she could not help toying round it before coming to the point—'I know; at least, I am sure he will want to see her particularly.'

'You Robin, what have you got into your head?' said Cherry, trying to misunderstand, but feeling a foreboding throb of consternation.

'It is not my head. Willie told me.' And as she detected a sigh of relief, 'And it is no nonsense of his either. He did it on Sunday evening by the river-side.'

'He did it?' repeated Geraldine, willing to take a moment's refuge in the confusion of antecedents, though too well aware what must be coming.

'You know what I mean. He—Jack—John—Captain Harewood, had it out with her when we were all walking together.'

'My dear, impossible!'

'I mean, we were out of hearing, but we saw them at it, and walked up and down till Lance got tired out, and Willie and I stayed to make it proper.'

Geraldine relieved herself by a little laugh, and said, in a superior tone of elderly wisdom, 'But, my dear, there might be a walk even without what you call doing it.'

'Yes,' reiterated Robina; 'but I know, for the Captain shut himself up with Mr. Harewood when we came in, and Bill heard his father telling his mother about it at night through the wall.'

'For shame, Robin!'

'Oh! he told them long ago that he could hear, and they don't care; besides, Mrs. Harewood told him himself when he went in to wish her good morning, and she kissed me and Lance too about it, and said they hadn't their equals. And poor Mettie thinks no one knows of it but their two selves, and maybe Mr. Harewood!'

'But, Robin, I don't know how to understand it. I think she would have told Alda, at least.'

'Perhaps she has to-night,' said Robina; 'but, you see, she didn't accept him.'

'Oh! then it doesn't signify.'

'Not out and out, I mean; and it is only because of us. At least, we are sure she likes him.'

'We! You and Willie!'

'And Lance. He saw it all the time he was getting well. Besides, the Captain told his father that she wouldn't listen to him, and would have hindered his going to Felix if Lance had been fit to travel alone.'

'Then it is not an engagement now?'

'No, she won't let it be.'

'And he is coming to-day?'

'Yes, after he has seen Felix. O Cherry! he is so nice, kind and bright, like all the Harewoods, and not ridiculous; and Lance does like him so!'

'Does Wilmet?'

'We are almost sure. As Lance says, she has never looked so bright, or so sweet, or so pretty. Do you think it is love, Cherry?'

'We shall see,' said Cherry. 'If she tells us nothing, we can judge; and if—if—'

Her voice died away into contemplation; and after waiting in vain for more, Robina somewhat resentfully decided that 'she had fallen asleep in her very face.'

No more was said till dressing-time, when there were a few speculations whether Alda knew; and Cherry could not help auguring that something had opened Wilmet's eyes to her twin's possible deficiencies. Sister Constance came, and seeing her patient's paleness, accused the sisters of untimely bedroom colloquies; and as they pleaded guilty, Robin was struck by the air of fixed resolution on Cherry's thin white face.

There was no sign of any confidence having been made to Alda. Wilmet plunged into her long-deferred holiday task of inspecting the family linen; and when she came back with a deep basket, an announcement that every one must mend and adapt, and portions of darning and piecing for Geraldine and Robina, they began to feel as if the morning's conversation was a dream.

But just as dinner was near its close, there were steps on the stairs; the drawing-room door was opened and shut, and Sibby, unnecessarily coming through the folding leaves, announced over the head of Clement, 'Captain Harewood.'

'Come to tell about Lance!' cried Angela, leaping up, and followed by Bernard, Alda, and even Mr. Froggatt; indeed, in the existing connection of chairs, tables, and doors, a clearance of that side of the table was needful before any one else could stir. Wilmet moved after them, and Clement was heard exclaiming, 'You are pinning me down, Bobbie!'

'I know! Oh, shut the door! There are more than enough there already.'

'True,' said Sister Constance, signing to Clement to obey. 'I meant to go to my room, but Cherry wants to hear of her brothers.'

'No, she doesn't!' cried Robina. 'At least— Oh! will nobody get the others out, and leave them to themselves!'

'Why, Bobbie, what nonsense is this?' said Clement. 'One would think you took them for Ferdinand and Alda.'

'It is all the same!—Stella, you run out to the garden—by that door, you child!' And then it all came out to the two fresh auditors, who listened with conviction. 'And now,' concluded Robina, 'there is not a place where he can so much as speak to her! What shall we do to get them away?'

'You do not know yet that she wishes it,' said Sister Constance, who had been a wife before she was a Sister, and saw that it was matronly tact and tenderness that the crisis needed; 'but I'll tell you what you can safely and naturally do. Go in and fetch Cherry's folding chair, and call the children to carry her appurtenances down to the garden. That will make a break, and Wilmet can take advantage of it if she sees fit.'

'Alda is worse than ten children,' said Clement; 'she has an inordinate appetite for captains in the absence of her own.'

'It can't be helped. Better do too little than too much.'

And finding Robina shy and giggling, and Clement shy and irresolute, Sister Constance herself made the diversion by opening the door, when Wilmet's nervous look and manner was confirmation strong. 'Lady Herbert Somerville—Captain Harewood,' was Alda's formal introduction in her bad taste; while the Sister, after shaking hands, bade Bernard take Geraldine's chair to the lawn.

'Oh, are we to go out?' said Alda. 'A good move. Of all things I detest in summer, a town house is the worst. I'll just fetch a hat, I want to show my pet view.—Our brothers are always fighting about their churches, Captain Harewood.'

The thing was done; Mr. Froggatt was already gone, and as Alda's trappings were never quickly adjusted, it needed very little contrivance to leave a not unwilling pair on one side of the doors, and cut off the rest. Robina, too much excited to stand still, flew about the stairs till Alda appeared in a tiny hat fluttering with velvet tails.

'Are they gone out?'

'Yes;' for quite enough to constitute a 'they' were gone; and when Alda reached them, they sedulously set themselves to detain her, and thereby betrayed the reason.

'Nonsense! How absurd! That horrid little fright of a red-haired man! No doubt poor dear Wilmet only wants me to go and put an end to it.'

Strictly speaking, this was self-assertion. She had not the assurance to intrude, and she contented herself with keeping Cherry on thorns by threatening to go in, and declaring that the whole must be untrue, since Wilmet had not told her.

Time went on very slowly; and at last Wilmet, about four o'clock, was seen advancing, with Theodore in one hand and her great basket of mending in the other. And before Alda had time to rise from her chair, Robina darted across the grass, with flaming cheeks and low, hurried, frightened confession—'Wilmet, please, it is honest to tell you; Willie Harewood knows, and told me, and I couldn't help it; I told them to keep away.'

'It always happens so,' said Wilmet, less discomposed than Robina expected, though she had evidently been shedding tears. 'Not that there is anything to tell.'

'Nothing!' cried Robina, looking blank.

'Of course not. He came to bring me a note from Felix. I hope no one knows but those three.'

'And Sister Constance.'

'Then take care no one does.'

'But, O Wilmet, please! You have not put an end to it all?'

'No,' said Wilmet. 'They will not let me, though I think it would have been wiser. I do not know how it is to be, except that it is utterly impossible for the present.'

With this much from the fountain-head, Robina was forced to content herself; and she had tact enough not to join the trio under the tree, but to betake herself to Clement, who had gone off with his books.

'So,' said Alda lightly, 'you have cheated us of another view of your conquest, Mettie.'

'He wanted to catch the 3.45 train,' said Wilmet gravely.

'You must have been very unmerciful to despatch him so soon. I thought you must want me to come to your rescue, but those romantic children wouldn't let me.'

'Thank you,' said Wilmet.

'My dear! You don't mean that you are smitten? Well! I can't flatter you as to his beauty. And yet, after all, situated as you are, it is a catch—that is, if he has anything but his pay; but of course he hasn't.'

'Yes,' said Wilmet abstractedly, 'his father told me he had—what did he call it?—"a fair independent competence of his own." Oh! they are so kind!'

'Then, O Wilmet, is it really so?' asked Geraldine, with eager eyes, clasped hands, and quivering frame, infinitely fuller of visible emotion than either of the handsome twins.

'I—don't know.'

'My dear Wilmet,' cried Alda, excited, 'you can't surely have anything better in view!'

'No,' said Wilmet, even now keeping herself blind to the offensiveness of Alda's suggestion; 'but as it is utterly impossible for me to think of—leaving home, I did think it would have been wiser to put a stop to it while there wa—is time,' and the tears began to gather again.

'And have you?

'They won't let me.'

'Who?'

'He—and his father, and Felix,' said Wilmet, speaking steadily, but the tears rolling down her cheeks.

'Felix! Oh, what does he say?'

'You may see;' and she held out a letter, which Alda and Cherry read together, while she rested her elbow on her knee, her brow on her hand, and let fall the tears, which with her were always soft, free, and healthy outlets of emotion, not disabling, but rather relieving.

Mrs. Pettigrew's Lodgings,

North Beach, East Ewmouth,

20th July, 10 P.M.

MY DEAREST WILMET,

What I have heard to-day is a great satisfaction. I had hardly hoped that you could have been brought within the reach of any one so worthy of you. My only fear is that you are too scrupulous and self-sacrificing to contemplate fairly, and without prejudice, what is best for us all. You will imagine yourself blinded by inclination, and not attend to common sense. Harewood tells me he trusts you have no objection on personal grounds. (I hope this does not sound as if he were presuming; if so, it is my fault. Remember, I am more used to writing 'summaries for the week' than letters on delicate subjects.) But at any rate, my Mettie, I see there is much worth and weight in his affection, and that you could not manage to snub him as entirely as you wanted to do. (Didn't you?) Now, it seems to me, that if you two are really drawn to one another, both being such as you are, it is the call of a Voice that you have no right to reject or stifle. I do not mean by this that anything immediate need take place; but granting your preference, I think it would be wrong not to avow it, or to refuse, because you scruple to keep him waiting while you may be necessary at home. If you imagine that by such rejection you would be doing better for the children and me, I beg leave to tell you it is a generous blunder. Remember that, as things have turned out, I am quite as much the only dependence for the others as I was seven years ago. I felt this painfully in the spring, when I was doubtful what turn my health would take; and the comfort of knowing you would all have such a man to look to would be unspeakable—indeed, he has already lightened me of much care and anxiety. Do not take this as pressing you. Between this and the end of his leave, there will be time for consideration. Nothing need be done in haste, least of all the crushing your liking under the delusion of serving us. So do not forbid him the house; and unless your objection be on any other score, do not make up your mind till you have seen me. I should of course have been with you instead of writing, if it were not for Lance. Till I saw the dear little fellow, I had no notion how very ill he has been. The five hours' journey had quite knocked him up, and he was fit for nothing but his bed when he came; but he revived in the evening. I only hope I shall take as good care of him as the first-rate nurses he describes so enthusiastically. That month must have been worth years of common acquaintance. I wish I knew what more to say to show you how glad I am of this day's work, and to persuade you to see matters as I do.

Ever your loving brother,

F. C. UNDERWOOD.

P.S.—Lance is quite himself this morning, and was up to watch us bathing before six o'clock.

'Oh! what did Captain Harewood say of Felix?' was Cherry's cry, almost with shame and pain at not having asked before.

'You know, he had never seen him,' said Wilmet; 'but he said he did not seem to him in the least unwell—and he watched carefully, as I had begged him. He said he struck him as naturally delicate-looking; but that those blue veins in his temples do not show, and he has no cough at all, nor any difficulty in swimming, or walking up a steep cliff. He made me laugh, for he said he hardly believed his eyes when Lance tumbled himself out of the train on something so little bigger or older than himself. He says the way we all talk of "my eldest brother" made him expect something taller than Clement, and more imposing than the senior verger; but he understood it all when he saw him and Lance together. They have two very nice rooms; and Felix has put Lance into the bedroom, which is luckily cool, and sleeps on a sofa bed in the parlour; and the landlady will do anything for them.'

'But how is it to be?' broke in Alda crossly. 'You and Felix seem to be encouraging him to come dangling here, when we all agreed that Ferdinand must keep away in Felix's absence, though matters are in such a different state.'

'So I told him, dear Alda,' gently said Wilmet; 'but he declared he would bring his sisters, or poor Mrs. Harewood herself, if nothing else would satisfy me: and what could I do, after all their kindness?'

'Umph!' muttered Alda; 'they are a queer set.'

'Now, Alda,' said Wilmet earnestly, 'you must not talk without knowing. Till I went there, I never understood how much goodness and principle there could be without my stiffness and particularity. I know I have often been very unnecessarily disagreeable and disapproving, and I hope I am shaken out of it in time.'

'Dear Mettie, no one is like you,' cried Cherry, with a little effusion, stretching out her hand, and laying it on her sister's shoulder. 'Oh, if we had not all been so vile while you were away!'

'It would not have made any difference, my dear! It would be impossible to leave Felix without help. And think of Theodore!'

Alda muttered something, that no one would hear, about asylums; and the tell-tale tears coming again, Wilmet sprang up, and bending down to kiss Cherry, declared in her most authoritative voice that nothing should be said to the younger children, nor to any one out of the house; then picked up the tea-cups, and carried them in.

Excitements were, however, not yet over for the day. A telegram was put into Alda's hands, containing the words—

'A.T. is an unmitigated brute. I sail for N.Y. to-night. All will be right when I come back.'

The mysterious hint restored Alda at once to all the privileges of the reigning heroine!

CHAPTER XX
VALE LESTON

'The way to make thy son rich is to fill

His mind with rest before his trunk with riches;

For wealth without contentment climbs a hill,

To feel those tempests that fly over ditches,

But if thy son can make ten pounds his measure,

Then all thou addest may be called his treasure.'

George Herbert.

'I say, Felix, you've not told me about Vale Leston.'

The two brothers were established under the lee of an old boat, beneath the deep shadow of the red earth cliffs, festooned with ivy, wild clematis, everlasting pea, thrift, and samphire. Not far off, niched beneath the same cliff, were two or three cottage lodging-houses, two-storied, with rough grey slate roofs, glaring white walls, and green shutters to the windows that looked out over the shingly beach to the lazily rippling summer sea.

Ewmouth was a lazy place. Felix had felt half asleep through the earlier days of his stay, and Lance seemed to be lulled into a continual doze whenever he was unoccupied, and that was almost always. It had grieved his elder brother to see this naturally vivacious being so inert and content with inaction, only strolling about a little in early morning and late evening, and languid and weary, if not actually suffering, during the heat and glare of the day. He was now, with his air-pillow and a railway rug, lying on the beach, beside Felix, who with his safety ink-stand planted in the sand, was at work condensing the parliamentary debates for the Pursuivant, and was glad to perceive that he was so far alive as to be leaning on his elbow, slowly shovelling the sand or smaller pebbles with the frail tenement of a late crab; and it was another good sign to hear his voice in a voluntary inquiry about Vale Leston.

'I have not been there yet.'

'Not there?'

'No. Old Abednego Tripp comes over here every market day, and he's the only person I wanted to see.'

'I thought you came here because you wanted to see the place?'

'Yes; but I was not up to the walk when I came here; and while you were ill I never durst go out of reach of the telegraph, and latterly I waited for you. After all, I have not much mind to it. I don't see the good of setting oneself a coveting one's neighbour's house.'

'It wouldn't be my house, any way,' said Lance quaintly. 'How far is it?'

'Rather more than three miles. We'll get a boat some day and do it.'

'That will be jolly!' and after shovelling a little longer, Lance added, 'How came we to be turned out?'

'That's just what I can't tell. I was only seven, you know, and my father never would talk of it. Sibby used to revile the mane nagur, Misther Fulbert, till it was current in the nursery that he was a black man who expelled us vi et armis. One day, my father found four or five of us in a row slashing at an old black doll, by way of killing Misther Fulbert, and prohibited such executions. I think, too, that he quashed an attempt to call our own Fulbert by his other name.'

'I wonder what the nagur did?'

'By the light of maturer nature, I imagine that he may have succeeded as heir-at-law, and that his maneness may have consisted in not giving the living to my father; but I cannot tell. It always seemed my father's great desire to put it out of our minds. I remember before we left the place his catching me in a furious rage with some one who told me my pony was to be sold. He carried me off, and told me it was all true; and we were going away, and he trusted to me to be brave and make it as little hard to Mamma and the little girls as could be. He said the place had belonged to old Uncle Underwood, and that we had no right to stay there after his death. That was all the explanation he gave me, first or last; and I don't think we thought much about it after the neck of the change was broken.'

'You remember it, though.'

'I believe I know every step of the house and garden. I have never ceased to dream of them; and I am as much afraid of disturbing old impressions as of reviving wishes.'

'Holloa! what's up?' exclaimed Lance, as the landlady was seen coming in quest of them. 'I thought I saw a tidy little tiger going in there just now.'

'A note from Mr. Staples, if you please, Sir, and they wait for an answer.'

'I didn't know you had any acquaintance here.'

'Mr. Staples is the solicitor who did the business about Admiral Chester's legacy. He is retired now, and only holds some county office. He found me out last week, I believe, from some letters of mine going wool-gathering to the other F. Underwood. He called and said he knew my father, and was very civil and friendly. He sent to inquire after you the day you came. This is what he says:—

MY DEAR MR. FELIX UNDERWOOD,

Your relative at Vale Leston wishes me to dine with him to-morrow evening. If you and your brother would like to accompany me on the drive, meet me at six o'clock on the top of the cliff. If you would prefer to return earlier than I do, I can direct you to a boatman to take you down by the river.

Believe me, yours truly,

C. STAPLES.

'Hurrah! that's not half a bad fellow for an attorney,' cried Lance.

'Shall not you be tired? Will it not be too hot for you?'

'Not a bit of it. He,' indicating the sun, 'can only get at me asquint by that time, and I'm a match for him with my blue umbrella. Come, fire away, you tardy Norseman. Say we are good for it. Fancy boating back!'

And Lance whistled a few bars of 'The Hardy Norseman,' the liveliest thing he had done since his illness.

At the appointed hour, the brothers were standing on the top of the cliff, with a broad estuary before them; on the opposite side of which lay the town of Ewmouth at the foot of the old castle, with fresh modern fortifications towards the sea. The town, with its church towers and gas chimneys, sloped away from it; vessels thronged the harbour; and a long weird-looking thready suspension-bridge spanned the broad tide-river to East Ewmouth, the village fast growing into a suburb. There had not been more than time to point out the details to Lance before a waggonet drove up from one of the roads that branched among pleasant 'villa residences;' and in it appeared a white-haired but hearty-looking gentleman, prepossessing and merry, very unlike Lance's notion of attorneys, who shook hands with them warmly, and took care to put the boy under the shade of the driving-seat.

It was a pretty drive, through rich meadows, shut in by the sloping wooded hills which gradually closed nearer; and by-and-by over the shoulder of one looked a very tall church tower, whereat Felix started with a thrill of responsive recognition, and suddenly faltered in the political discussion Mr. Staples had started, but dropped at once, looking at the young man's face with kindly interest.

At the same time road and river both made a sudden turn into a much narrower and wilder valley, the hills beyond more rough and rocky; but the river still broad and smooth, and crossed by a handsome high-backed five-arched bridge, the centre arch grandly high and broad, the other two rapidly diminishing on either side. Over this the carriage turned; and from the crown Lance beheld an almost collegiate-looking mass of grey building, enclosing sunny lawns and flower-beds, and surrounded by park-like grounds and trees, all sloping towards the river, and backed by steep hills of wood and moorland, whence a little brook danced with much impetus down to the calm steady main stream of Ewe. The church and remnants of the old priory occupied the forefront of a sort of peninsula, the sweep of the Ewe on the south and east, and the little lively Leston on the north. There was slope enough to raise the buildings beyond damp, and display the flower-beds beautifully as they lay falling away from the house. The churchyard lay furthest north, skirted by the two rivers, and the east end with the lovely floriated window of the Lady Chapel rising some thirty yards from the bank of the Ewe, the outline a little broken by an immense willow tree that wept its fountain-like foliage into the river. The south transept was cloistered, and joined to the building beyond, a long low grey house with one row of windows above the sloping roof of the cloister, and this again connected with a big family mansion, built of the same grey stone with the rest, but in the style of the seventeenth century, and a good deal modernized upon that. A great plate-glass window looked out on the river in the east front, which projected nearly as far as did the Lady Chapel, the space between being, as before said, laid out in a formal parterre, with stone steps leading down to the river.

'Oh, what a place! what a place!' shouted Lance, starting up in the carriage. 'It's like the minster, and the jolly old river besides! Two of them! Oh! what fishing there must be!'

'I did not know it was really so beautiful,' said Felix in a low voice.

'You remember it?' said Mr. Staples.—'I suppose you can't?' to Lance.

'Oh no! I wasn't born! More's the pity! Do the salmon come up here, Sir?'

'Yes, since the fisheries have been protected; but young Mr. Underwood is a great fisherman, and I fear it is not easy to get a card.'

'Oh, I wasn't thinking about leave, Sir, thank you. I've got no tackle nor anything; but I am glad we have salmon,' said Lance, as though he had acquired an accession of dignity.

Descending from the bridge, they were in a road skirting the river, and on which presently opened the lodge gates of the Rectory. Here Mr. Staples got out, telling his servant to drive the young gentlemen round to the village.

'I say, Felix,' said Lance, as they were whirled on along the lane which swept round the long wall overhung by trees, 'that old party must know all about it.'

'Most likely,' said Felix; 'but if there had been any good in my hearing, my father could have told me himself. How well I remember his giving me my first ride along this lane! Do you smell the bean field? I don't believe I have thought of the scent since.'

Felix seemed absorbed in the pleasures of recognition; and Lance, amazed at the beauty and what seemed to him the splendour of the place, looked up at his brother with a kind of romantic feeling for a disinherited knight, as he contrasted the scene with the counter and printing-office.

The lane led to the village street, a very pretty one sloping upwards, and lying on each side of the Leston, which rippled along as clear as crystal, crossed every here and there by foot-bridges, some wooden, some a single stone; while the cottages on the opposite side were perched on a high shelf or terrace, and were approached by charming irregular flights of stairs with low walls or balustrades. Over the rail of one, smoking a pipe in summer evening enjoyment, was seen Abednego Tripp, with long nose, brown parchment cheeks, and lank hair not yet grey—one of the genuine almost extinct species of parish clerk. As the carriage stopped, he began to descend, keys in hand, for the church was a lion, and many carriages did stop there; but it was not till Felix jumped out and hailed him that he knew who were his visitors.

'Bless me, if it is not Master Felix after all! I did think you was never coming, Sir. And this is the young gentleman as has been so ill. You're kindly welcome, Sir. I think he'd favour poor Master Eddard if he didn't look so nesh.'

'I shall get well here,' said Lance. 'If it is not my native air, it ought to be.'