Wych Hazel.

by Susan and Anna Warner.

CHAPTER I.

MR. FALKIRK.

"We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing That skies are clear and gra.s.s is growing."

When one has in charge a treasure which one values greatly, and which, if once made known one is pretty sure to lose, I suppose the impulse of most men would be towards a hiding- place. So, at any rate, felt one of the men in this history.

Schools had done their secluding work for a time; tutors and governors had come and gone under an almost Carthusian vow of silence, except as to their lessons; and now with seventeen years of inexperience on his hands, Mr. Falkirk's sensations were those of the man out West, who wanted to move off whenever another man came within twenty miles of him.

Thus, in the forlorn hope of a retreat which yet he knew must prove useless, Mr. Falkirk let the first March winds blow him out of town; and at this present time was snugly hid away in a remote village which n.o.body ever heard of, and where n.o.body ever came.

So far so good: Mr. Falkirk rested and took breath.

Nevertheless the spring came, even there; and following close in her train, the irrepressible conflict. Whoever succeeded in running away from his duties--or his difficulties? There was a flutter of young life within doors as without, and Mr. Falkirk knew it: there were a hundred rills of music, a thousand nameless flowers to which he could not close his senses. There was a soft, indefinable stir and sweetness, that told of the breaking of Winter bonds and the coming of Summer glories; and he could not stay the progress of things in the one case more than in the other.

Mr. Falkirk had always taken care of this girl--the few years before his guardianship were too dim to look back to much.

From the day when she, a suddenly orphaned child, stood frightened and alone among strangers, and he came in and took her on his knee, and bade her "be a woman, and be brave." That was his ideal of womanhood,--to that combination of strength and weakness he had tried to bring Wych Hazel.

Yet though she had grown up in Mr. Falkirk's company, she never thoroughly understood him: nature and circ.u.mstances had made him a reserved man,--and her eyes were young. Of a piece with his reserve was the peculiar fence of separation which he built up between all his own concerns and those of his ward.

He was poor--she had a more than ample fortune; yet no persuading would make him live with her. Had he been rich, perhaps she might have lived with him; but as it was, unless when lodgings were the rule, they lived in separate houses; only his was always close at hand. Even when his ward was a little child, living at Chickaree with her nurses and housekeeper, Mr. Falkirk never spent a night in the house. He formally bought and paid for a tiny cottage on the premises, and there he lived: nothing done without his knowledge, nothing undone without his notice. Not a creature came or went unperceived by Mr. Falkirk. And yet this supervision was generally pleasant. As he wrought, nothing had the air of espionage--merely of care; and so I think, Wych Hazel liked it, and felt all the more free for all sorts of undertakings, secured against consequences. Sometimes, indeed, his quick insight was so astonishing to the young mischief-maker, that she was ready to cry out treachery!--and the suspected person in this case was always Gotham. Yet when she charged upon Gotham some untimely frost which had nipped her budding plans, Gotham always replied--

'No, Miss 'Azel. I trust my 'onor is sufficient in his respect.'

She and Gotham had a singular sort of league,--defensive of Mr.

Falkirk, offensive towards each other. She teased him, and Gotham bore it mastiff-wise; shaking his head, and wincing, and when he could bear it no longer going off. Wych Hazel?-- yes, she was that.

And how did she win her name? Well, in the first place, "the nut-browne mayd" and she were near of kin. But whether her parents, as they looked into the baby's clear dark eyes, saw there anything weird or elfish,--or whether the name 'grew,'--of that there remains no record. She had been a pretty quiet witch hitherto; but now--

"Once git a scent o' musk into a drawer, And it clings hold, like precerdents in law!"

--not Mr. Falkirk could get it out.

CHAPTER II.

BEGINNING A FAIRY TALE.

'Mr. Falkirk, I _must_ go and seek my fortune!'

Wych Hazel made this little remark, sitting on a low seat by the fire, her arms crossed over her lap.

'Wherefore?' said her guardian.

'Because I want to, sir. I have no other than a woman's reason.'

'The most potent of reasons!' said Mr. Falkirk. 'The rather, because while professing to have no root, it hath yet a dozen.

How long ago did Jack show his lantern, my dear?'

'Lantern!' said the girl, rather piqued,--adding, under her breath, 'I'm going to follow--Jack or no Jack! Why, Mr.

Falkirk, I never got interested a bit in a fairy tale, till I came to--"And so they set out to seek their fortune." It's my belief that I belong in a fairy tale somewhere.'

'Like enough,' said her guardian shortly.

'So you see it all fits,' said Wych Hazel, studying her future fortunes in the fire.

'What fits?'

'My going to seek what I am sure to find.'

'That will ensure your missing what is coming to find you.'

'People in fairy tales never wait to see what will come, sir.'

'But, my dear, there is a difficulty in this case. Your fortune is made already.'

'Provokingly true, sir. But after all, Mr. Falkirk, I was not thinking of money.'

'A settlement, eh?' said Mr. Falkirk. 'My dear, when the prince is ready, the fairy will bring him.'

'Now, Mr. Falkirk,' said the girl, with her cheeks aglow, 'you know perfectly well I was not thinking of _that_.'

'Will you please to specify of what you were thinking, Miss Hazel?'

Miss Hazel leaned her head on her hand and reflected.

'I don't believe I can, sir. It was a kind of indefinite fortune,--a whole windfall of queer adventures and people and things.'

Mr. Falkirk at this turned round from his papers and looked at the girl. It was a pretty vision that he saw, and he regarded it somewhat steadily; with a little break of the line of the lips that yet was not merriment.

'My dear,' he said gravely, 'such birds seldom fly alone in a high wind.'

'Well, sir, never mind. Could you be ready by Thursday, Mr.

Falkirk?'

'For what, Miss Hazel?'

'Dear me!' said the girl with a soft breath of impatience. 'To set out, sir. I think I shall go then, and I wanted to know if I am to have the pleasure of your company.'

'Do _I_ look like a fairy tale?' said Mr. Falkirk.

He certainly did not! A keen eye for practical realities, a sober good sense that never lost its foothold of common ground, were further unaccompanied by the graces and charms wherewith fairy tales delight to deck their favourites.

Besides which, Mr. Falkirk probably knew what his fortune was already, for the grey was abundantly mingled with the brown in his eyebrows and hair. However, to do Miss Hazel's guardian justice, if his face was not gracious, it was at least in some respects fine. A man always to be respected, easily to be loved, sat there at the table, at his papers.