Nathan bowed, but made no reply.

"To-day," continued the squire, "though my visit has to do with the same circ.u.mstances, I should not wish you to think or hope that my views on the former matter have undergone any change."

"Pardon me," said Nathan, "I neither hope so nor think so, and have no wish--indeed I must ask you not to refer to that subject again. My daughter knows her duty as I know mine, and you need be under no apprehension that"----

"Don't be angry, if you please," said the squire, in a strangely humble and deprecating voice, for Nathan had spoken with some degree of spirit. "I have no such suspicion. Let me come to the point, Nathan Blyth. My only son is dangerously ill,"--here his voice faltered, and his face a.s.sumed a deathly pallor--"and I have a thousand fears for his life. He has had a malignant attack of brain fever, and though, thanks to the skill of Dr. Jephson, the fever has subsided, it has left him at the very door of death." Again the agonising truth was too much for the speaker, and he laid his white head in his hands in silent grief.

Nathan's heart was always near his lips; with a swimming in his eyes he said with deep feeling, "From my heart, I'm sorry."

"Dr. Jephson," said the squire, recovering his self-command, "declares that medical skill is powerless to do more for him, and he commands me to ask that your daughter, who, he says, is the most effective sick-nurse in the district, will come and help to bring him back to life."

"My daughter, Squire Fuller? You must know that that is impossible.

How can she, how can he, be subjected to a test and trial like this, after all that they have done to show their filial obedience--after all that we have done to keep them apart? It cannot be. Besides, think what would be said by those who are only too ready to impute motives and suspect evil. The fair fame of my girl is dearer to me than life.

Mr. Fuller, n.o.body esteems Master Philip more than I; n.o.body can pray for his recovery more earnestly than will I. But the thing you ask is quite impossible, and can't be done."

"I know it all, Nathan Blyth. I feel the force of all that you have said. On the other hand, my boy is dying. Like a drowning man I am catching at a straw; and I beseech you, I who never asked a favour of a living man, I beseech you do not deny me my request. If you can trust your daughter, I can trust my son, and as for the gossip of little minds, that will die away as soon as it is born. Nathan Blyth, for the sake of a life more precious than my own, grant me my request."

Nathan Blyth was in a quandary, he was grievously perplexed, and could not see his way out of the difficulty. Then the thought suddenly struck him that, after all, this was a case in which Lucy herself ought to be consulted.

"If you will excuse me a few moments," said he, "I will consult my daughter."

"Let me see her, Nathan Blyth!" said the squire, eagerly, and stretching out his hands in strong entreaty.

Nathan went and told Lucy all that had transpired, and if that honest man had nursed the delusion that his darling had succeeded in, even partially, dislodging Philip Fuller from her heart, the pitiful yearning, the longing look that flashed from her bright hazel eye, the blood-forsaken cheek and lip, as he told of her lover's danger, drove the fond delusion away for ever.

"The squire asks to see you, Lucy. But you can decline it, if you like, my darling."

Lucy thought for a moment, and then, with a woman's quick intuition as to what is best, said, "I'll see him."

Casting aside her ap.r.o.n, in which she had been attending to household duties and standing a little--was there ever a woman that did not?--before the kitchen looking-gla.s.s to a.s.sure herself that she was not a perfect fright, Lucy entered the parlour, and for the first time Squire Fuller saw the fairy who had so bewitched his son that the effect of her glamour was his only hope of life. He rose to his feet, stepped back a pace or two, and bowed as respectfully as he had ever done in royal drawing-room to lady of high degree. Habited in a light morning dress of printed calico, with collar and cuffs of purest white, and a small crimson bow beneath her throat, her piquant beauty and grace were quite sufficient to excuse either Philip Fuller, or anybody else, for plunging head over ears in love so deeply that emerging again was an impossibility.

"Good-morning, Miss Blyth," said the squire. "Your father has informed you of my errand."

"Is Master Philip _very_ ill, sir?" and tone and eye and cheek betrayed how much the question meant.

"Unto death, I fear!" The words were a wail. The proud lips quivered, and a couple of tears forced their way, in spite of him, and both Nathan Blyth and his daughter saw something of the all-absorbing love he bore for his only son.

"Did he--does he know that you have come?"

"He knows nothing of it, and scarce of any other thing," said the troubled father. "He lies almost unconscious, and as though he had already done with time. Dr. Jephson says there is but one hope. My dear young lady, his father asks you with a breaking heart, 'Come and help to save my boy!'"

A consent was about to leap from her sympathetic heart, but still, mindful of honour, truth and duty to the last, she only said, "Send Dr. Jephson here."

Both the squire and her father read decision in her face; the former bowed and took his departure. He owned to himself that he had been in presence of a grace and beauty such as he had never seen since those days long gone by, when his own first and only love, to whom he saw a strong resemblance in the radiant form before him, was yet untorn from his young heart by the unpitying hand of Death.

In a little while, for there was no time to be lost, Dr. Jephson drove up to the Forge in a little low phaeton belonging to the Hall, and in which, with his usual prompt.i.tude and energy, he intended to spirit off Lucy, bag and baggage, to the side of the helpless invalid who lay in the last degree of weakness, moaning out the name of Lucy so constantly that all could see how strong a hold she had upon his life and love.

"Well, Miss Lucy," said the genial doctor, "are you ready? My horse will not stand long, and," said he, with great seriousness, "every hour is a dead loss to us in a hand-to-hand fight between life and death."

Lucy was about to repeat the self-evident objections before mentioned, but the doctor interposed,--

"Look here, my dear. You did quite right, and acted with your usual wit and wisdom in sending for me. I have two things to say that, if I know you aright, will help you to decision in a moment. First, Philip Fuller, without your presence and aid, will die. I say it solemnly and truly. Second, _with_ your presence and aid there is another chance, a hope that he may recover. Is that chance to be denied him?"

"I must go, father. Here is a plain duty to do," said she, as she kissed his anxious and dubious face, and clasped her arms lovingly around his neck, "and duty must be done. Consequences must be left with G.o.d, and you and I are used to leaving them there, aren't we?"

"Go, my darling, and G.o.d be with you," said Nathan Blyth.

Hastily gathering together such needful articles of personal attire as were requisite for a brief visit, Lucy took her seat beside her good friend, the doctor, and in a few minutes was far on her way to Waverdale Hall.

"I do not know," said the doctor, as they rode through the frosty air, "whether you are aware that the squire told me of Master Philip's attachment to yourself. If I had not known of it I should many days ago have sent for you, simply as a most skilful and all-effective nurse for despondent invalids. The awkward revelation made me defer it for your sake; but my deliberate conclusion is that he is pining away under the influence of a hopeless pa.s.sion or some bitter grief. I do not think the matter of Black Morris has much to do with it; he never mentions it, neither do I apprehend much difficulty in proving him innocent of that charge. Hence, though it is a sad strain to put upon you, Miss Lucy, I am bound to bring the only physician that understands the patient's case."

"Thank you, Dr. Jephson, for your thought for me," said Lucy. "G.o.d knows I would rather have been spared this new and cruel test; but I know where to go for help, and my father's G.o.d and mine will help me through."

There was a sweet resignation, coupled with a brave resolve to fight the trouble of the moment, which went straight to the doctor's heart.

The phaeton was pulled up at the princ.i.p.al entrance to the mansion.

The old squire was at the door to bid her welcome, and Lucy Blyth, the blacksmith's daughter, crossed the threshold of Waverdale Hall.

CHAPTER XXVI.

DR. JEPHSON'S PRESCRIPTION WORKS WONDERS.

"She is coming, my own, my sweet!

Were it ever so airy a tread, My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthly bed: My dust would hear her and beat, Had I lain for a century dead, Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red."

_Tennyson._

Lucy Blyth was conducted with softened footfall and bated breath into the darkened chamber of the helpless invalid. She bent over him and heard the monotonous and untiring moan. She was more shocked than words can express to see how the fine stalwart youth had been laid low. His hair was close shaven, and his lackl.u.s.tre eyes were sunk far into his head, while the cheekbones stood prominent as those of a skeleton, and the poor thin hands, that were clutching nervously at the coverlet, were bloodless as a stone. Lucy's heart sank within her; the doctor, the nurse, and the squire softly turned away; sinking on a chair by the bedside she burst into a flood of silent tears. The precious relief to her pent-up soul was of infinite value to her.

After her grief had spent its force, she rose, bathed her face and hands in cold water, and turning to the bed, took the poor listless fingers of her lover in her own.

"Philip! dear Philip!" she said, softly. The fingers closed convulsively; a sigh, which sounded like a gasp, broke from his lips.

Fixing wondering eyes on her, he whispered, "Lucy! dear Lucy!" and this with a smile of rapturous content. What cared she in that moment who were lookers-on? What cared she that the stately squire was standing on tiptoe by the door, looking with the eyes of his soul for the crisis? What would she have cared had all Waverdale been standing by? Love, imperial love, a.s.serted its unequalled rights. That ebbing life was flowing back beneath her royal power! That soul upon the wing was re-folding its pinions at her command! Stooping down she signed his reprieve upon his parched lips. If any of my readers object to this, they have my full permission to close these pages and go their way. I write not for those behind whose vest and beneath whose bodice there beats no human heart, but only the tick of a machine; but for those who hold that pure and true affection has rights which may not be invaded, and that in a case like this "Love is lord of all."

In the course of another day or two, Dr. Jephson reported a stronger pulse and a brighter eye, and bade the grateful father hope for the best. The old man listened in silence, scarcely daring to believe.

"What is your opinion, Miss Blyth?" said the doctor.

"By G.o.d's blessing he will recover," Lucy said; and strange to say, Squire Fuller felt her verdict to be more a.s.suring than the dictum of the experienced man of skill.

Nor did her judgment prove without warrant. Slowly, O how slowly! inch by inch, point by point, the fell destroyer Death was beaten back, and Philip Fuller obtained an even stronger lease of life. When he had so far recovered as to be able to converse, his father would sit for hours by his side, holding his boy's hand in his own, and drinking in his words as though they were some pleasant music falling on his ear.

True, the princ.i.p.al topic was one for which he had never any favour.

On the contrary, he had scoffed at and hated it with all the energy of his intellectual pride. But from the lips of his boy, his handsome, manly, high-principled boy--given back to him from an open grave--he heard it with patience, nay, for the speaker's sake, with unspeakable delight. There was no longer any cloud between these two, and it did not need that the father should unsay the rash words which had half-broken his son's true and faithful heart. All had vanished like the morning dew, and sire and son were one again in heart and soul.

"Father," said Philip, on one occasion, as he was propped up with pillows, while the squire occupied his seldom vacant seat by his side, "do you know that when I was so weak and ill that I could not speak to you, I knew all that was going on around me; and when I saw your sorrow and your love I did so want to tell you of the sweet peace that filled my soul. My Saviour was so inexpressibly precious to me that I longed to be with Him, and heaven was so near, that I saw its glories, the gleam of angels' wings, and heard the sound of harpers harping with their harps. I really thought that I was dying, but death had no terrors for me. The one thing that seemed to pull me back to life was my great love to you and Lucy, and the yearning wish, dear father, to tell you of my Saviour's boundless love. Father, I know that you have learned to look upon religion with doubt, and even with dislike. But now that I have come back--for I feel like one who has taken a long journey--come back from the very borders of the eternal world--come back, after sensibly breathing the very atmosphere of heaven--I tell you that of all the things in this vain shadowy world, Jesus and His love are the only realities; and dreadful as the struggle for life has been, I would gladly go through it all again to see you, my father, bending at the Saviour's feet."

Nor was this the only way in which the reserved and thoughtful squire was brought face to face with simple Christian experience. Lucy Blyth, who had gained all her usual self-command, was able to comply with Mr.