I was busy tightening my girths, and fumbled over the job more than was necessary. Brotherton was several yards ahead, and she was walking the mare slowly after him. I made her no answer, but mounted, and rode in the opposite direction; It was rude of course, but I did it. I could not have gone with them, and was afraid, if I told her so, she would dismount and refuse the mare.

In a tumult of feeling I rode on without looking behind me, careless whither--how long I cannot tell, before I woke up to find I did not know where I was. I must ride on till I came to some place I knew, or met some one who could tell me. Lane led into lane, buried betwixt deep banks and lofty hedges, or pa.s.sing through small woods, until I ascended a rising ground, whence I got a view of the country. At once its features began to dawn upon me: I was close to the village of Aldwick, where I had been at school, and in a few minutes I rode into its wide straggling street. Not a mark of change had pa.s.sed upon it.

There were the same dogs about the doors, and the same cats in the windows. The very ferns in the c.h.i.n.ks of the old draw-well appeared the same; and the children had not grown an inch since first I drove into the place marvelling at its wondrous activity.

The sun was hot, and my horse seemed rather tired. I was in no mood to see any one, and besides had no pleasant recollections of my last visit to Mr Elder, so I drew up at the door of the little inn, and having sent my horse to the stable for an hour's rest and a feed of oats, went into the sanded parlour, ordered a gla.s.s of ale, and sat staring at the china shepherdesses on the chimney-piece. I see them now, the ugly things, as plainly as if that had been an hour of the happiest reflections. I thought I was miserable, but I know now that, although I was much disappointed, and everything looked dreary and uninteresting about me, I was a long way off misery. Indeed, the pa.s.sing vision of a neat unbonneted village girl on her way to the well was attractive enough still to make me rise and go to the window. While watching, as she wound up the long chain, for the appearance of the familiar mossy bucket, dripping diamonds, as it gleamed out of the dark well into the sudden sunlight, I heard the sound of horse's hoofs, and turned to see what kind of apparition would come. Presently it appeared, and made straight for the inn. The rider was Mr Coningham! I drew back to escape his notice, but his quick eye had caught sight of me, for he came into the room with outstretched hand.

'We are fated to meet, Mr c.u.mbermede,' he said. 'I only stopped to give my horse some meal and water, and had no intention of dismounting. Ale?

I'll have a gla.s.s of ale too,' he added, ringing the bell. 'I think I'll let him have a feed, and have a mouthful of bread and cheese myself.'

He went out, and had I suppose gone to see that his horse had his proper allowance of oats, for when he returned he said merrily:

'What have you done with my daughter, Mr c.u.mbermede?'

'Why should you think me responsible for her, Mr Conningham?' I asked, attempting a smile.

No doubt he detected the attempt in the smile, for he looked at me with a sharpened expression of the eyes, as he answered--still in a merry tone--

'When I saw her last, she was mounted on your horse, and you were on my father's. I find you still on my father's horse, and your own--with the lady--nowhere. Have I made out a case of suspicion?'

'It is I who have cause of complaint,' I returned--'who have neither lady nor mare--unless indeed you imagine I have in the case of the latter made a good exchange.'

'Hardly that, I imagine, if yours is half so good as she looks. But, seriously, have you seen Clara to-day?'

I told him the facts as lightly as I could. When I had finished, he stared at me with an expression which for the moment I avoided attempting to interpret.

'On horseback with Mr Brotherton?' he said, uttering the words as if every syllable had been separately italicized.

'You will find it as I say,' I replied, feeling offended.

'My dear boy--excuse my freedom,' he returned--'I am nearly three times your age--you do not imagine I doubt a hair's breadth of your statement! But--the giddy goose!--how could you be so silly? Pardon me again. Your unselfishness is positively amusing! To hand over your horse to her, and then ride away all by yourself on that--respectable stager!'

'Don't abuse the old horse,' I returned. 'He _is_ respectable, and has been more in his day.'

'Yes, yes. But for the life of me I cannot understand it. Mr c.u.mbermede, I am sorry for you. I should not advise you to choose the law for a profession. The man who does not regard his own rights will hardly do for an adviser in the affairs of others.

'You were not going to consult me, Mr Coningham, were you?' I said, now able at length to laugh without effort.

'Not quite that,' he returned, also laughing. 'But a right, you know, is one of the most serious things in the world.'

It seemed irrelevant to the trifling character of the case. I could not understand why he should regard the affair as of such importance.

'I have been in the way of thinking,' I said, 'that one of the advantages of having rights was that you could part with them when you pleased. You're not bound to insist on your rights, are you?'

'Certainly you would not subject yourself to a criminal action by foregoing them, but you might suggest to your friends a commission of lunacy. I see how it is. That is your uncle all over! _He_ was never a man of the world.'

'You are right there, Mr Coningham. It is the last epithet any one would give my uncle.'

'And the first any one would give _me_, you imply, Mr c.u.mbermede.'

'I had no such intention,' I answered. 'That would have been rude.'

'Not in the least. _I_ should have taken it as a compliment. The man who does not care about his rights, depend upon it, will be made a tool of by those that do. If he is not a spoon already, he will become one.

I shouldn't have _iffed_ it at all if I hadn't known you.'

'And you don't want to be rude to me.'

'I don't. A little experience will set _you_ all right; and that you are in a fair chance of getting if you push your fortune as a literary man. But I must be off. I hope we may have another chat before long.'

He finished his ale, rose, bade me good-bye, and went to the stable. As soon as he was out of sight, I also mounted and rode homewards.

By the time I reached the gate of the park, my depression had nearly vanished. The comforting power of sun and shadow, of sky and field, of wind and motion, had restored me to myself. With a side glance at the windows of the cottage as I pa.s.sed, and the glimpse of a bright figure seated in the drawing-room window, I made for the stable, and found my Lilith waiting me. Once more I shifted my saddle, and rode home, without even another glance at the window as I pa.s.sed.

A day or two after, I received from Mr Coningham a ticket for the county ball, accompanied by a kind note. I returned it at once with the excuse that I feared incapacitating myself for work by dissipation.

Henceforward I avoided the park, and did not again see Clara before leaving for London. I had a note from her, thanking me for Lilith, and reproaching me for having left her to the company of Mr Brotherton, which I thought cool enough, seeing they had set out together without the slightest expectation of meeting me. I returned a civil answer, and there was an end of it.

I must again say for myself that it was not mere jealousy of Brotherton that led me to act as I did. I could not and would not get over the contradiction between the way in which she had spoken _of_ him, and the way in which she spoke _to_ him, followed by her accompanying him in the long ride to which the state of my mare bore witness. I concluded that, although she might mean no harm, she was not truthful. To talk of a man with such contempt, and then behave to him with such frankness, appeared to me altogether unjustifiable. At the same time their mutual familiarity pointed to some foregone intimacy, in which, had I been so inclined, I might have found some excuse for her, seeing she might have altered her opinion of him, and might yet find it very difficult to alter the tone of their intercourse.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

IN LONDON.

My real object being my personal history in relation to certain facts and events, I must, in order to restrain myself from that discursiveness the impulse to which is an urging of the historical as well as the artistic Satan, even run the risk of appearing to have been blind to many things going on around me which must have claimed a large place had I been writing an autobiography instead of a distinct portion of one.

I set out with my ma.n.u.script in my portmanteau, and a few pounds in my pocket, determined to cost my uncle as little as I could.

I well remember the dreariness of London, as I entered it on the top of a coach, in the closing darkness of a late Autumn afternoon. The shops were not yet all lighted, and a drizzly rain was falling. But these outer influences hardly got beyond my mental skin, for I had written to Charley, and hoped to find him waiting for me at the coach-office. Nor was I disappointed, and in a moment all discomfort was forgotten. He took me to his chambers in the New Inn.

I found him looking better, and apparently, for him, in good spirits.

It was soon arranged, at his entreaty, that for the present I should share his sitting-room, and have a bed put up for me in a closet he did not want. The next day I called upon certain publishers and left with them my ma.n.u.script. Its fate is of no consequence here, and I did not then wait to know it, but at once began to fly my feather at lower game, writing short papers and tales for the magazines. I had a little success from the first; and although the surroundings of my new abode were dreary enough, although, now and then, especially when the Winter sun shone bright into the court, I longed for one peep into s.p.a.ce across the field that now itself lay far in the distance, I soon settled to my work, and found the life an enjoyable one. To work beside Charley the most of the day, and go with him in the evening to some place of amus.e.m.e.nt, or to visit some of the men in chambers about us, was for the time a satisfactory mode of existence.

I soon told him the story of my little pa.s.sage with Clara. During the narrative he looked uncomfortable, and indeed troubled, but as soon as he found I had given up the affair, his countenance brightened.

'I'm very glad you've got over it so well,' he said.

'I think I've had a good deliverance,' I returned.

He made no reply. Neither did his face reveal his thoughts, for I could not read the confused expression it bore.

That he should not fall in with my judgment would never have surprised me, for he always hung back from condemnation, partly, I presume, from being even morbidly conscious of his own imperfections, and partly that his prolific suggestion supplied endless possibilities to explain or else perplex everything. I had been often even annoyed by his use of the most refined invention to excuse, as I thought, behaviour the most palpably wrong. I believe now it was rather to account for it than to excuse it.

'Well, Charley,' I would say in such a case, 'I am sure _you_ would never have done such a thing.'

'I cannot guarantee my own conduct for a moment,' he would answer; or, taking the other tack, would reply: 'Just for that reason I cannot believe the man would have done it.'