"Well, love," he said, raising himself and speaking cheerfully, "we-- that is to say, the other purchasers and myself--dig a large drain, or ca.n.a.l, through our marsh pieces right to the Trent, and fit our drain with sluice-gates, so that at every high tide we flood our low tract of marsh with the thick, muddy waters loaded with the alluvial soil of Yorkshire and our own county, brought down by many a river and stream, which, after the fashion of the hill floods, by slow and almost imperceptible degrees, is deposited upon our peat and rushes, in a heavy, unctuous, wondrously rich mud, or warp, till, in the course of time, we have it two, three, and in places even four feet deep. Then comes the change: we cease flooding, and give all our attention to thoroughly draining our warp land, which now becomes, in place of marsh, fit only to grow water-plants, a rich and fertile soil. Nature has converted it for us; and twenty years hence, instead of marsh, Master Brace will have a couple of thousand acres of the best soil in England.

That is all I can do for him, and after all I don't think that it will be such a very mean heritage. Now, love, what do you say to that?"

Mrs Norton's answer was a cry of joy: for at that moment, free of step, bright and happy, in came Brace Norton, to be strained again and again to his mother's breast.

There was a grim smile of pride and pleasure upon Captain Norton's scarred face, as, after hastily rolling up his plans, he caught at his son's disengaged hand.

"My dear Brace, how well and hearty you look!" he exclaimed, as he scanned the broad chest and muscular limbs of his son.

"I Well? Ay! father, never better," was the reply. "And I don't know that I ever saw you look better."

"Oh! I'm well enough," said Captain Norton. "But, my dear boy, what a pity it is that you did not join our service! With that build of yours, you would have drilled as upright as a dart."

"And broken my heart over the pipe-clay, eh, father?" laughed the young man. "I'm right enough--make a tolerable sailor, perhaps, but I should have been a poor soldier. But, I say," said Brace, after half-an-hour's questioning and answering, "I have had quite an adventure coming over: came across a fine, fierce, grey old fellow, with--oh! mamma, the most lovely girl you ever saw in your life!"

"Pooh!" laughed the Captain, "the sailor's Poll. What a.s.ses you boys do make of yourselves!"

"All right, father; only let me bray in peace."

"Fell in love at first sight, and would have eloped, only the fierce, grey old fellow was watchful as a dragon, eh, Brace?" said Captain Norton, smiling.

"Belay, there, will you!" cried Brace. "How can I go on with my story?

Not quite so fast as that. But there, sir, we can spare you for the present. I'm talking to some one here who can sympathise. Really, you know," he continued, pa.s.sing his arm round his mother's waist, as she gazed at him fondly, and drawing her to the window, "she was about the sweetest girl I ever set eyes on. Quite an adventure: chaises pa.s.sing; theirs overset; sweet girl's temple cut; insensible; offering aid; received very haughtily by the old gentleman--quite a Spanish grandee!"

Ada Norton started, as those words seemed to carry her back five-and-twenty years, and the smile upon her lips slowly faded away.

"Well," continued Brace, lightly, "I spoiled my cap by fetching water in it from a pool, like a true knight-errant would have done with his casque, and bound up the bleeding temple with my handkerchief. Then, after a great deal of snubbing from the old gentleman, I was rewarded by a sweet smile of thanks from the lady as I prevailed upon the Don to take my chaise and come on. Got them in at last, after a great deal of ceremonious fencing, and they drove off, but only to stop directly. Old gentleman leaps out, drags sweet girl after him, and goes raging off; and all, I suppose, because he had seen my name upon my leather writing-case; while, for explanation, I have the young lady's handkerchief, bearing the sweet name of Isa Gernon. But, good heavens, my dear mother, how pale you look! Father, what is the matter?"

Captain Norton had risen from his seat and advanced to his wife, who, pale as death, stood gazing at him with a terrified expression upon her countenance.

"My dear father, what does all this mean?" exclaimed Brace, with real anxiety in his tones. "What mystery is there here? Of course I concluded that the elderly gentleman was Sir Murray Gernon; and I have some misty recollections of an old family quarrel, and Lady Gernon running away. There, I have arrived at my cable's end. What is it all?

I trust nothing wrong."

"Speak to him, Ada!" cried Captain Norton, hoa.r.s.ely. "There must be no more of this!"

And without another word he hurried from the room; while, perfectly astounded, Brace turned to his mother for some explanation of what was to him a profound mystery.

Book 2, Chapter V.

ON THE BYGONE.

"And where had my father been at the time?" said Brace Norton, after sitting with knitted brows listening to his mother's narrative of the past.

"France--abroad--to avoid arrest; for his affairs in connection with the mine were then in a sad state. It was his absence which made matters wear so suspicious an aspect."

"Suspicious? Yes," said Brace, angrily, "suspicious enough to base minds! How long was he away?"

"Five, nearly six, months," said Mrs Norton.

"But you never believed this charge, mother? You never thought my father guilty?"

"Guilty? No!" exclaimed Mrs Norton, proudly. "Your father, Brace, is the soul of honour, and above suspicion; but matters shaped themselves most cruelly against him."

"That Gurdon must have had the cross," said Brace, after a thoughtful pause; "and you say that he obtained his deserts--transported?"

Mrs Norton nodded her head.

"But Lady Gernon's disappearance--what could have become of her? Was it possible that she was deluded away out of revenge--perhaps with the cross for a bait--by some one or other of Gurdon's a.s.sociates, so that she fell into some trap?"

"My son--my dear boy, pray do not talk of it any more," said Mrs Norton, sadly. "It is a rock upon which our happiness was nearly wrecked; but avoid it now. It was right that you should know all after the strange meeting of to-day; but you see now the reason for your father's--for my agitation, and for the strong emotion displayed by Sir Murray Gernon. It is quite impossible, as you must see, that the old intimacy should be renewed. Your fathers--my peace of mind depends upon our keeping at a distance--upon the past, Brace, being deeply buried.

You see that I am speaking freely--that I am keeping nothing back, in order that you may be upon your guard, and do nothing to endanger the happiness of what, my child, has been these many years a happy home."

"But," exclaimed Brace, impetuously, "if the mystery could be cleared up! I do not like that, even with Sir Murray Gernon, there should be a doubt of my father's honour."

"Brace, my dear boy," said Mrs Norton, laying her hand upon the young man's arm, "let the past rest; it is a subject that has brought white hairs into more than one head. It has been thought upon till left in despair. I pray to be forgiven if I am unjust, but I do not think that Sir Murray Gernon entertains a single suspicion against your father, whatever he may once have felt. Time must have removed old impressions; but for his own black conduct--There, I dare not say what I think, even to you, Brace!"

There was a contraction of the young man's features, as an inkling of the meaning of his mother's hastily-spoken words flashed across his mind. Then, rising, he began to pace the room with impatient strides, for there was a sense of disappointment at his heart which he could not overcome; and in spite of his efforts, there seemed to be continually before him the sweet, timid face and the reclining figure that he had for a few minutes supported; while, as he pondered upon his mothers words, again piecing together her long narrative, it seemed to him that he was every minute being removed further and further from one who had made what in another case he would have called an impression upon a susceptible nature. It was as though each moment a deep, black gulf was opening wider and wider between them--a gulf that it would be impossible for him ever to pa.s.s. Then, as Mrs Norton watched him anxiously, he stood gazing from the window, telling himself that it was absurd to treat matters in such a light; that he had seen Isa Gernon but for a few minutes; that he had barely spoken to her; that she might be engaged to another; that she might be in disposition unamiable, and in tastes utterly opposed to his; that, in short, he was making an utter a.s.s of himself. But, all the same, there were those two large, sad eyes ever before him, gazing reproachfully in his face from beyond that great gulf--ever widening more and more, more and more, till, impatiently stamping upon the floor, he made an angry effort to cast the "folly"

from him, and went and knelt down by his mother's side.

"I am sorry, Brace," she said, as her hand played, with all a proud mother's tenderness, amongst his fair, crisply-curling hair--"I am grieved that my words should have made so troublous an impression."

"It is not that--it is not that! There, what am I saying?" he exclaimed, with a.s.sumed cheerfulness. "I've come home in high spirits, brimful of happiness, and ready to enjoy myself; so, dear mother, don't let us trouble about the past--let it be buried."

"Yes, better so--far better so!" exclaimed Mrs Norton. "For our sakes, Brace, never refer to it before your father in any wise; for those incidents were so many shoals in the way of his happiness; but, Brace, I set myself to try and make his life happy, and sometimes I cannot help thinking that I have succeeded."

"Indeed, no happier home than this could ever have existed, I'm sure,"

cried Brace, smiling in his mother's pleasant face. "But," he added, as he kissed her, laughing, "it does seem hard that when you have cured a husband of a roving disposition, you should have a son turn out far worse."

Mrs Norton smiled, but a grave, sad expression swept the next moment over her face.

"Save for his business transactions, Brace, that was your father's last long absence from me--for I suffered deeply then. I think that on his return from France, when he had had some arrangements made by which he gained time to pay off every demand, he saw how I had felt his absence, and made a resolve to leave me no more, and he has kept to that determination."

"The mines nearly ruined him, then, in the first place?" said Brace.

"Very nearly; but he had such faith in them that for five years we lived almost in poverty that we might pay off debts; when, as his last creditor was satisfied, your father's faith met with its reward, and ever since the mines have gone on increasing their returns year by year.

But let us go to him now. You will be careful, though, Brace; you see now how necessary it is that not even a reference should be made to the bygone?"

"Yes--yes, mother--yes!" said Brace, with a troubled sigh; and they rose to leave the room, when, with the traces of his former emotion quite pa.s.sed away, Captain Norton entered, looking inquiringly at mother and son, and then entering into conversation upon indifferent topics, as if nothing had happened.

Book 2, Chapter VI.

RIGHT HONOURABLE.

"Now look here, Josh: it's of no use for you to come bothering me like this. Here have I been back from Italy only a few days, and you're down upon me like a leech--I mean like a hawk!"

"If your lordship had condescended to tell me that you were going abroad, and consulted me about the meeting of those little bills when they fell due, it would have been a different thing."

The scene was a heavily-furnished room in a fashionable London hotel, and the speakers were George Viscount Maudlaine, son and heir to the hampered estates and somewhat tarnished t.i.tle of the Right Honourable Valentine, twentieth Earl of Chiltern; and Joshua Braham, Esq., solicitor, of Drury Chambers, St Alban's Place, Regent Street. The former, as he lounged back in his purple dressing-gown, appeared to be a tall, well-made young man, with a somewhat dreamy or tobacco-contemplative cast of countenance, more remarkable for bone, and the prominence of the well-known Chiltern features, than anything particularly definite; the latter was a gentleman, very smooth, very swarthy, possessing a ruddy and Eastern development of lip, aquiline of--nose, hair short--black--spiky--of a texture, in short, that threatened, should a lock be sent for, to fly off in dangerous blinding showers of capillary stubble.