CHAPTER VI.

"Yon bosky dingle still the rustics name; 'Twas there the blushing maid confessed her flame.

Down yon green lane they oft were seen to hie, When evening slumbered on the western sky.

That blasted yew, that mouldering walnut bare, Each bears mementos of the fated pair."

KIRKE WHITE.

Wilderness Gate was the most picturesque, although not the princ.i.p.al entrance to the park of Pendarrel. The enclosing wall, formed of rough gray stones, and coloured with mosses and ferns, there swept inwards from the public road, leaving a s.p.a.ce of turf, usually occupied by the geese of the neighbouring cottagers. The gate was in the centre of the recess, and opened on a long winding avenue of Scotch firs, the branches of which met overhead, and made the path slippery with their fallen spines. On either hand the eye might glance between their straight stems to some open ground beyond, of uneven surface, mostly covered with tall ferns, and chequered with birch-trees. A streamlet might be heard, but not seen, rippling along not far from the walk.

Here and there the antlers of a stag would rise above the herbage, and a hare or rabbit might be occasionally seen to bound across an exposed plot of gra.s.s. The scene wore an air of neglect. The dead leaves were not swept from the paths; the brambles extended their long shoots at pleasure; the ruggedness of the ground was the work of nature. But the avenue wound gently up an eminence; the wood on each side became deeper, until, on arriving at the summit of a ridge, the visitor emerged suddenly from the dark firs, and gazed down upon the trim plantations and nicely-shorn lawns immediately surrounding the Hall.

The portion of the park through which he had pa.s.sed was called the Wilderness, and gave its name to the gate by which he entered.

Beside this gate, and close to the park-wall, was the lodge which Mrs.

Pendarrel a.s.signed as a dwelling to Maud Ba.s.set and Michael Sinson.

They had previously resided at the farm-house occupied by the young man's father, the brother-in-law of the hapless Margaret. But the gloomy firs of Wilderness Lodge were more congenial to the disposition of the old woman than the cheerful garden of the Priory Farm, and the idle life of a gatekeeper suited Michael's habits better than the activity of his father's employment. The instructions also, which he received from Mrs. Pendarrel, raised vague ideas of future consequence in the young man's mind, and revived the hopes which had originally sprung from his connection with the family of Trevethlan. His new mistress discovered that he possessed some education, the abiding result of Polydore's teaching, and desired him to improve it, and to attend to his appearance, hinting at the same time rather than saying, that he might un.o.btrusively watch the proceedings at Trevethlan Castle, and report any changes he detected. These orders gratified his vanity, suited his meanness, and raised his expectations.

But the departure of the orphans seemed to deprive him of his occupation; nothing transpired to contradict the newspaper account of their intentions; and, indeed, these appeared so entirely natural, that a suspicion of incorrectness could hardly arise. None, at least, was likely to be suggested in the country. But only a brief s.p.a.ce had elapsed, when a summons from Mrs. Pendarrel, requiring young Sinson to repair immediately to the metropolis, disturbed the serenity of Wilderness Lodge. His grandmother exulted in the news. Her only reading was in that fanatical literature, the study of which is apt either to find men mad, or to leave them so; and she was, besides, deeply versed in all the local superst.i.tions of the district. Such lore had given her mind a sombre hue, and inclined her to indulge in the practice of vaticination. She had foretold a career of distinction for her grandson, and she fancied that he was now about to enter upon it. On the eve of his departure, his mother Cicely came to Wilderness Lodge to bid him farewell. She did not share in Maud's gratification.

"So," she said, sitting under the thatched verandah, "Mercy Page may suit herself now, I suppose; and Edward Owen need not fear another fall?"

"Mercy should know her own mind better," said Michael. "She might have had me long ago, if she pleased; 't is her own fault if it's too late now. But I don't think Owen'll win her, if I never try a fall with him again."

"Let her 'bide," muttered Maud; "let her 'bide. What want we with the folks of Trevethlan?"

"And what seeks my lady with you in London, Michael?" Cicely asked.

"I shall know when I get there, I dare say," he answered. "My lady's secrets are mine."

Cicely sighed.

"I thought you might let us know," she said.

"What I know not myself. Some office, my lady speaks of, I am to fit myself for."

"Ah! my son," continued his mother, "I do hope you'll not forget the country as well as Mercy Page. Life is wild in London, they say.

Think of the poor squire."

"Think of my winsome Margaret," Maud exclaimed fiercely. "Think of her that the squire murdered! Wild! Na, na; he'll see the light."

Cicely was the only one of the family exempt from that hatred of the Trevethlans, which darkened the hue of the old woman's otherwise harmless enthusiasm, and burnt sullenly in her grandson. She had not long said her parting words, when Michael threw on his hat, shook himself free from the detaining grasp of old Maud, and walked briskly away in the direction of Trevethlan. About a mile from the castle, a rugged strip of waste land skirted the edge of the cliff over the beach, and supported a number of aged thorns, stunted and bent by the sea-breezes. It was to this spot that Michael turned his steps. The landscape was growing gray when he reached it, but there was yet sufficient light to discover the object he sought. A few strides placed him by the side of a young girl.

"Mercy," he said, in a low voice, "the first at a tryst! It is something new."

"The days are short," replied the girl, with affected indifference: "I should not have waited. Besides, you are going away, so one does not care."

"Is that your farewell, Mercy?" Michael asked.

"And why not?" she said, tossing her head. "You are a fine gentleman: going to London: to forget Mercy Page."

"Yes," answered Michael--his companion started at the word--"to forget the Mercy of to-night, but to remember another--the Mercy of old days; to forget her conceited and wilful, to remember her kind and winsome.

You would not wish me remember the first--would you, Mercy?"

The maiden said nothing in reply; and Sinson, encouraged by her silence, drew her with gentle force to a seat on a bank of turf.

"Do you smell the wild thyme, Mercy?" he continued. "They call it a figure of love, rewarding with sweetness even what bruises it. It is so I have answered all your coldness. Mind you not the St. John's Eve, when the folks had caught you in the rope? Who fought his way to your help? And then you sat by my side on this very bank under the hawthorn; and when I asked, might I woo you?--you know what you said.

And have I ever failed in my suit? Did I ever court another? When you were cross, and would not dance with me, did I seek any one else?

Whose colours did I wear when I threw, one after another, all the best of Penwith? Yet, from that first evening, never could I win a civil word. And now I am called far away, Mercy will give me no hope. When I come back, she will be another's."

"No," said the maiden, and stopped short.

"Then why will she not be mine now?" asked Michael. "Why will she not go with me to London; there to be wed, and live together in happiness?

Shall it not be so, dear Mercy? Alone in the great town, I shall always be thinking of Mercy--be thinking that she may be listening to Edward Owen, whom he has often thrown for her sake----"

"And shalt throw him again," interrupted a manly voice. "Shalt throw him again, or take a fall thyself."

The individual whom Michael had named stood before the astonished pair. Sinson sprang to his feet. Was it the duskiness of the evening, or pa.s.sion, that made his face so dark?

"Owen," he said, in a fierce whisper, "thou wert best stand off now, or mayst get more than a fall."

"Come on!" cried his antagonist, without attempting to disguise his anger. "Come on, villain! I'm ready for you."

Fortunately perhaps for Michael, who was not in a mood to fight or wrestle fairly, Mercy interposed.

"Hoity-toity!" she cried; "pray, Master Edward, where did you learn to give such names to your betters? And where did you learn to follow honest people's steps, and watch them? And think you, my--do you hear?--my Michael is to fight with such as you? Go home, and learn manners."

"Oh, Mercy!" cried Owen, "you know not what you say. You know not what he means. But my part is done. Remember, Edward Owen's is not the only heart you'll break. And so, good-night."

He turned and walked steadily away. Michael endeavoured to resume the thread of his previous discourse. But his listener's mood was entirely changed.

"Saucy fellow!" she cried, laughing and looking after Owen; "he's a rare one to come and rate me. But do you know, Mr. Michael, I believe he's a better man than you. There, that will do. To London to be married! No, Mr. Michael, not quite so far, if you please. Oh, yes, of course. D'ye think I like fighting? There. Good-night, Mr. Michael.

No. If you follow me, I shall call him back."

She disengaged herself from her suitor, and tripped lightly through the gloom in the footsteps of Owen.

Michael watched her retreating form with a scowl darker even than that with which he rose to meet the intruder upon his courtship. "Shalt rue the day"--he muttered, "shalt rue the day that saw thee cross my wooing. A better man than me, did she say? Look to thyself, Master Edward Owen."

With a heaving breast and an irregular gait, Sinson paced to and fro for some time along the edge of the cliff, and then turned moodily to Wilderness Lodge. The next day he departed on his way to London.

CHAPTER VII.

"Il y a dans un mariage malheureux une force qui depa.s.se toutes les autres peines de ce monde."

MADAME DE STAeL.

The summons which called Michael Sinson from the far-west to the metropolis, was the result of impulse rather than of settled design on the part of his patroness. Quick in reading the characters of all who crossed her path, in her first brief colloquy with the rustic, Mrs.

Pendarrel detected his animosity towards Trevethlan; and in his sly but fierce countenance, in his well-built but cringing form, she saw the traits of one who would not be scrupulous in his mode of attacking an enemy. From the very first, she suspected that the announced continental tour of the orphans was a ruse, and the notion gained strength whenever it recurred to her mind. But if they were still in England, they were probably abiding in London. She caught at the idea, and thought suddenly it would be well to have some one at hand who knew them personally.