'My Aunt Catharine says so?'

'As far as she can blame anything. Your mother was a sweet blossom in a cold wind. She loved and pitied her with all her heart. Your aunt was talking, this very evening, of your father having carried her sister to Ormersfield, away from all her family, and one reason of her desire to go to Northwold is to see those who were with her at last.'

Louis was confounded. 'Yes! I see,' he said. 'How obtuse not to read it in his own manner! How much it explains!' and he silently rested his brow on his hands.

'Depend upon it, there are two sides to the story. I would not be a pretty, petted, admired girl in his keeping.'

'Do you think it mends matters with me to fasten blame on either?' said Louis, sadly. 'No; I was realizing the perception of such a thread of misery woven into his life, and thinking how little I have felt for him.'

'Endowing him with your own feelings, and then feeling for him!'

'No. I cannot estimate his feeling. He is of harder, firmer stuff than I; and for that very reason, I suspect, suffering is a more terrific thing. I heard the doctors saying, when I bore pain badly, that it would probably do the less future harm: a bad moral, but I believe it is true of the mental as of the physical const.i.tution.'

Answering something between a look and a shrug of James, he mused on, aloud--'I understand better what the wreck of affection must have been.'

'For my part,' said James, 'I do not believe in the affection that can tyrannize over and blight a woman.'

'Nay, James! I cannot doubt. My very name--my having been called by it, are the more striking in one so fond of usage and precedent. Things that pa.s.sed between him and Mrs. Ponsonby while I was ill--much that I little regarded and ill requited--show what force of love and grief there must have been. The cold, grave manner, is the broken, inaccessible edge of the cliff rent asunder.'

'If romance softens the rough edge, you are welcome to it! I may as well go to bed!'

'Not romance--the sad reality of my poor father's history. I trust I shall never treat his wishes so lightly--'

Impatient of one-sided sympathy, James exclaimed, 'As if you did not give way to him like a slave!'

'Yes, like a slave,' said Louis, gravely. 'I wish to give way like a son who would try to comfort him for what he has undergone.'

'Now, I should have thought your feeling would have been for your mother!'

'If my mother could speak to me,' said Louis, with trembling lips, 'she would surely bid me to try my utmost, as far as in me lies, to bring peace and happiness to my father. I cannot tell where the errors may have been, and I will never ask. If she was as like to me as they say, I could understand some of them! At least, I know that I am doubly bound to give as little vexation to him as possible, and I trust that you will not make it harder to me. You lost your father so early, that you can hardly estimate--'

'The trial?' said James, willing to give what had pa.s.sed the air of a joke.

'Exactly so--Good night.'

CHAPTER XIV.

NEW INHABITANTS.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad-- Sometimes a curly shepherd lad, Or long-haired page in crimson clad, Goes by to towered Camelot; And sometimes, through the mirror blue, The knights come riding two and two.

She hath no loyal knight and true-- The Lady of Shalott.

TENNYSON.

'Oakstead, Oct. 14th, 1847.

'My Dear Aunt,--I find that Fitzjocelyn is writing to you, but I think you will wish for a fuller account of him than can be obtained from his own letters. Indeed, I should be much obliged if you would kindly exercise your influence to persuade him that he is not in a condition to be imprudent with impunity. Sir Miles Oakstead was absolutely shocked to see the alteration in his appearance, as well as in his spirits; and although both our kind host and hostess are most solicitous on his account, it happens unfortunately that they are at this juncture quite alone, so that he is without companions of his own age. I must not, however, alarm you. The fact is, that circ.u.mstances have occurred which, though he has acted in the most exemplary manner, have hara.s.sed and distressed him a good deal, and his health suffers from the difficulty of taking sufficient exercise. James will triumph when he hears that I regret having shortened his stay by the sea-side; for neither the place nor the weather seems to agree with him: he has had a recurrence of wakeful nights, and is very languid. Poor boy!

yesterday he wandered out alone in the rain, lost his way, and came home so fatigued that he slept for three hours on the sofa, but to-day he seems better--has more colour, and has been less silent. We go to Leffingham Castle from Monday till Thursday, when I shall take him to London for Hastings to decide whether it be fit for him to return to Christchurch after the vacation, according to his own most anxious wish. With my love to Mary Ponsonby and her daughter, and best remembrances to James,

'Your affectionate nephew, 'ORMERSFIELD.'

The same envelope contained another letter of many sheets, beginning in a scrawl:--

'Scene--Rose-coloured Pastor's Nest. Tables, chairs, books, papers, despatch-boxes. The two ex-ministers writing and consulting. Viscount F. looking on like a colt running beside its parent at plough, thinking that harness leaves deep marks, and that he does not like the furrow.

'October 13th, 1847.--That correct date must be a sign that he is getting into harness.

'Well, dear Aunt Kitty, to make a transition from the third to the first person, like Mrs. Norris, you have in this short scene an epitome of the last fortnight. Lady Oakstead is an honourable matron, whom I pity for having me in her way; a man unable to be got rid of by the lawful exercises of shooting and riding, and with a father always consulting her about him, and watching every look and movement, till the blood comes throbbing to my temples by the mere attraction of his eyes. To be watched into a sense of impatience and ingrat.i.tude, is a trial of life for which one is not prepared. My father and Sir Miles are very busy; I hang here an anomaly, sitting with them as being less in their way than in Lady Oakstead's, and wondering what I shall be twenty years hence. I am sick of the only course of life that will content my father, and I can see no sunshine likely to brighten it.

But, at least, no one's happiness is at stake but my own. Here is a kind, cordial letter from Lady Conway, pressing me to join her at Scarborough, make expeditions, &c. My father is in such a state about me, that I believe I could get his consent to anything, but I suppose it would not be fair, and I have said nothing to him as yet. On Monday we go to Leffingham, which, I hear, is formality itself. After that, more state visits, unless I can escape to Oxford. My father fancies me not well enough; but pray unite all the forces of the Terrace to impress that nothing else will do me any good. Dragging about in this dreary, heartless way is all that ails me, and reading for my degree would be the best cure. I mean to work hard for honours, and, if possible, delude myself with hopes of success. Work is the need.

Here, there is this one comfort. There is no one to talk to, no birds in last year's nest, sons absent, daughters disposed of, but, unluckily, the Pastoress, under a mistaken sense of kindness, has asked the Vicar's son to walk with me, and he is always lying in wait,--an Ensign in a transition state between the sheepish schoolboy and the fast man, with an experience of three months of depot. Having roused him from the pristine form, I regret the alternative.

'Did I ever write so savage a letter? Don't let it vex you, or I won't send it. What a bull! There is such a delectable Scotch mist, that no one will suspect me of going out; and I shall actually cheat the Ensign, and get a walk in solitude to hearten me for the dismal state dinner party of the evening.

'October 14th.--Is it in the book of fate that I should always treat this rose-coloured pastor like a carrion crow? I have done it again!

And it has but brought out more of my father's marvellous kindness and patience.

'I plunged into the Scotch mist unsuspected and unpursued. The visible ebullition of discontent had so much disgusted me that I must needs see whether anything could be done with it, and fairly face the matter, as I can only do in a walk. Pillow counsel is feverish and tumultuous; one is hardly master of oneself. The soft, cool, mist-laden air, heavy but incense-breathing, was a far more friendly adjunct in the quiet decay of nature--mournful, but not foul nor corrupt, because man had not spoilt it. It suited me better than a sunny, glaring day, such as I used to revel in, and the brightness of which, last spring, made me pine to be in the free air. Such days are past with me; I had better know that they are, and not strive after them. Personal happiness is the lure, not the object, in this world. I have my Northwold home, and I am beginning to see that my father's comfort depends on me as I little imagined, and sufficiently to sweeten any sacrifice. So I have written to refuse Scarborough, for there is no use in trying to combine two things, pleasing my father and myself. I wish the determination may last; but mine have never been good for much, and you must help me.

'Neither thinking nor fog conduced to seeing where I was going; and when my ankle began to give out, and I was going to turn, I ran into a hedge, which, looming through the mist, I had been taking for a fine range of distant mountains--rather my way of dealing with other objects. Being without a horse on whose neck to lay the reins, I could only coast the hedge, hoping it might lead me back to Oakstead Park, which I had abandoned in my craving for s.p.a.ce and dread of being dogged by the Ensign. But the treacherous hedge led me nowhere but to a horsepond; and when I had struggled out of the adjacent mire, and attained a rising ground, I could only see about four yards square of bare down, all the rest being grey fog. Altogether, the scene was worth something. I heard what I thought the tinkling of a sheep bell through the cloud, which dulled the sound like cotton wool; I pursued the call, when anon, the veil began to grow thin, and revealed, looking just like a transparency, a glimpse of a little village in a valley almost under my feet, trees, river, church-spire and all, and the bell became clearer, and showed me what kind of flock it was meant for. I turned that way, and had just found a path leading down the steep, when down closed the cloud--a natural dissolving view--leaving me wondering whether it had been mirage or imagination, till presently, the curtain drew up in earnest. Out came, not merely form, but colour, as I have seen a camera clear itself--blue sky, purple hills, russet and orange woods, a great elm green picked out with yellow, a ma.s.s of brown oaks, a scarlet maple, a beech grove, skirting a brilliant water meadow, with a most reflective stream running through it, and giving occasion for a single arched bridge, and a water mill, with a wheel draperied with white foam; two swans disporting on the water (I would not declare they were not geese), a few cottony flakes of mist hanging over damp corners, the hill rising green, with the bright whitewashed cottages of this district, on the side a rich, red, sandstone-coloured church, late architecture, tower rather mouldering--all the more picturesque; churchyard, all white headstones and ochreous sheep, surmounted by a mushroom-shaped dark yew tree, railed in with intensely white rails, the whole glowing in the parting coup-de-soleil of a wet day, every tear of every leaf glistening, and everything indescribably l.u.s.trous.

It is a picture that one's mental photograph ought to stamp for life, and the cheering and interest it gave, no one but you can understand. I wished for you, I know. It looks so poor in words.

'After the service, I laid hold of the urchin whose hearty stare had most reminded me of Tom Madison, and gave him a shilling to guide me back to Oakstead, a wise measure, for down came the cloud, blotting all out like the Castle of St. John, and by the time I came home, it was pitch dark and raining hard, and my poor father was imagining me at the foot of another precipice. I was hoping to creep up in secret, but they all came out, fell upon me, Lady Oakstead sent me tea, and ordered me to rest; and so handsomely did I obey, that when next I opened my eyes, and saw my father waiting, as I thought, for me to go down to dinner with him, I found he had just come up after the ladies had quitted the dining-room. So kind and so little annoyed did he seem, that I shook myself, to be certified that I had broken no more bones, but it was all sheer forbearance and consideration--enough to go to one's heart--when it was the very thing to vex him most. With great penitence, I went down, and the first person I encountered was the very curate I had seen in my _mist_erious village, much as if he had walked out of a story book. On fraternizing, I found him to be a friend of Holdsworth. Lady Oakstead is going to take me, this afternoon, to see his church, &c., thoroughly; and behold, I learn from him that she is a notable woman for doing good in her parish, never so happy as in trotting to cottages, though her good deeds are always in the background. Thereupon, I ventured to attack her this morning on cottage garniture, and obtained the very counsel I wanted about ovens and piggeries, we began to get on together, and she is to put me up to all manner of information that I want particularly. I must go now, not to keep her waiting, never mind the first half of my letter--I have no time to cancel it now. I find my father wants to put in a note: don't believe a word that he says, for I am much better to-day, body and mind.

Goosey, goosey gander, Where shall we wander,

Anywhere, everywhere, to remain still 'Your most affectionate, 'FITS GOSLING.'

Dear Aunt Kitty! One of her failings was never to be able to keep a letter to herself. She fairly cried over her boy's troubles; and Mrs.

Ponsonby would not have known whether to laugh or cry but for James's doleful predictions, which were so sentimental as to turn even his grandmother to the laughing party, and left him no sympathizer but Mary, who thought it very hard and cruel to deride Louis when he was trying so earnestly to be good and suffering so much. Why should they all--Aunt Catharine herself--be merry over his thinking the spring-days of his life past away, and trying so n.o.bly and patiently to resign himself?

'It is the way of the world, Mary,' said James. 'People think they are laughing at the mistaking a flock of sheep for the army of Pentapolin of the naked arm, when they are really sneering at the lofty spirit taking the weaker side. They involve the sublime temper in the ridiculous accident, and laugh both alike to scorn.'

'Not mamma and Aunt Catharine,' said Mary. 'Besides, is not half the harm in the world done by not seeing where the sublime is invaded by the ridiculous?'

'I see nothing ridiculous in the matter,' said James. 'His father has demanded an unjustifiable sacrifice. Fitzjocelyn yields and suffers.'

'I do believe Lord Ormersfield must relent; you see how pleased he is, saying that Louis's conduct is exemplary.'

'He would sacrifice a dozen sons to one prejudice!'

'Perhaps Miss Conway will overcome the prejudice. I am sure, if he thinks Louis's conduct exemplary, Louis must have the sort of happiness he used to wish for most, and his father would do his very best to gratify him.'