SABRINA WARHAM
THE STORT OF HER YOUTH
BY
LAURENCE HOUSMAN
AUTHOR 01 "BETHLEHEM," ETC., ETC.
gork
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1904
All rights reserved
PR
if So 9
COPYRIGHT, 1904,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published August, 1904.
J. S. Cushing & Co. Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
TO ROBERT HOLDEN HOUSMAN
DEAR ROBERT, The story which, in ways other
than literary, you have helped me to write, now
comes to roost at your door. I know that you will
rate what I offer at more than its true value; but
poor is the pride which can never welcome a lenient
judgment, or be grateful for unreasonable lengths
of credit generously accorded.
It is time, indeed, that the book should be tested
by a judgment less darkly prejudiced than my own,
for there comes a stage when writer's cramp enters
the brain, making it blind as to results; and if an
author cannot then choose to lay aside his work,
and come back to it after years with eyes freshened
by absence, he must let it go in the form it has
reached at the stale end of his labours.
Every book that is written, if it holds life,
becomes true to the writer before he has done,
though it may show but a maimed form at the last.
And at a very early stage this story came to have
for me all the interest of an experience in real life,
growing, as it were, out of the soil of its locality.
There, as I walked and planned, fate nattered me,
VI
PREFACE
so that often invention was but the coming upon
things already prepared. The landscape became
sympathetic, everything grew, or stood rocky in
its place, even the right faces moved briefly across
the stage. So, if I mistake not, Sabrina and her
lovers have all been before me in the flesh long
enough to come true ; and perhaps it is only through
having to search back thirty years that I have found
my story pass out of history into the realm of
fiction.
Some day I hope you will visit the fields where
I have gleaned, and see for yourself the Monastery
Farm, East Gill Castle with its woods, and the
broad downs where in very deadly earnest rabbits
rattled their chains by twilight, and were for once
released from a night of brute neglect. Only the
other day I found, with a pang of bereavement,
that Thomas Hardy had used a similar incident in
one of his stories. That is the danger of raising
fiction from fact : others have been over the ground
before, and the lonely furrow has been turned
often by stronger hands, and has yielded better
harvests.
Yet my acknowledgment remains due less to
them than to the " genius of place " which guided me
to all I might otherwise have missed. Snail-delicacies
are still to be had for the gathering on the slopes
of the Roman Camp ; far out to sea the light-ship
swings on "the spool," which in rough weather
small boats must avoid ; and if you travel with the
PREFACE
vii
local carrier, perhaps Tarn George is the gossip who
lightens the hours of your journey.
West Gill, alas ! is no more : red villas have
become the tombstones of its perished simplicity.
But over East Gill a wise landowner's arm still
extends ; and beneath thatched roofs, where out-
siders can find no lodging, it sleeps as it did a
hundred years ago.
May its quiet unchangeableness last out the lives
of those who have made it the home of my story,
and found in it the contentment at which our modern
world does not aim.
L. H.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. ENVIRONMENT
II. RETROSPECT AND FORECAST
III. A DIVIDED HOUSEHOLD .
IV. LIKINGS AND DISLIKINGS .
V. AT THE CASTLE ARMS
VI. A DRIVE TO WARRINGFORD
VII. SUNDAY AND MONDAY
VIII. A MEETING
IX. A VISITATION
X. FARMER LORRY LAYS DOWN THE REINS
XI. AN ARRIVAL AND A DEPARTURE
XII. MOTH AND RUST ....
XIII. THE PAINTED PARLOUR .
XIV. A CHAPTER OF NATURAL HISTORY .
XV. THE CARRIER'S CART
XVI. VALENTINE'S DAY ....
XVII. "LOVE MY DOG" ....
XVIII. WORDS AND DEEDS .
PAGE
I
6
20
. 2 9
37
. 52
. 62
. 78
85
97
. 104
. 114
. 123
. 132
. 146
155
. 160
. 165
x CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
XIX. POINTS OF VIEW 172
XX. THE WAY OF THE WIND . . . .185
XXI. LOVE AND MORALS 192
XXII. A SURRENDER 203
XXIII. THE DAY AFTER 217
XXIV. CREATURE COMFORTS 226
XXV. A PREDICAMENT 238
XXVI. SABRINA REDDIE 247
XXVII. SABRINA'S MOON 254
XXVIIL IN WHICH ONE CHARACTER REAPPEARS . 260
XXIX. A BOND OF UNION 267
XXX. NEW LIGHT 274
XXXI. THE TUG OF WAR 280
XXXII. UNDER ONE ROOF 291
XXXIII. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER .... 298
XXXIV. WHICH MARKS TIME 305
XXXV. SABRINA FINDS HERSELF USEFUL . .314
XXXVI. THE ETERNAL FEMININE . . . .319
XXXVII. LOTTIE EXPLAINS 325
XXXVIII. LEADING-STRINGS 331
XXXIX. ILICET 336
XL. LAST OFFICES 345
XLI. AN INTRUSION 350
XLII. AN ONLOOKER 356
XLIII. A QUARREL BETWEEN FRIENDS . , . 363
CONTENTS
XI
CHAPTER PAGE
XLIV. WEAK WOMAN 369
XLV. VALENTINE PAYS HIS DEBT . . . 376
XLVI. VALENTINE AND LOTTIE JOIN HANDS . . 381
XLVII. A LINK WITH THE PAST . . . .389
XLVIII. FARMER LORRY'S LAST WORD . . . 397
XLIX. LADY BERRERS TELLS A TALE . . . 403
L. LUTWORTH GIVES 413
LI. THE MIST CLEARS 428
SABRINA WARHAM
CHAPTER I
ENVIRONMENT
FEW who depend on the railroad for knowledge of
our English coast will be familiar with the locality
here told of. Excursionists may have stepped ashore
for a few hours at West Gill, where a weekly
steamer comes disturbing its quiet during the sum-
mer months ; yachtsmen may have sought a night's
shelter under the rugged cob which rounds to com-
pleteness its natural harbour, but few will have gone
further than the small fishing-village pent between
high downs, which here abruptly divide and give
access to the sea. Only, maybe, from off shore,
have they seen East Gill with its prim Georgian
castle set like a brooch amid twin-breasting woods ;
or Amesbay, whose steep shingle frets soundingly
behind the jagged rocks and archways of its ruined
shore-line.
For many miles along that part of the coast
the land has something akin in character to the
rude practical energy of the race it has bred. In
one long heave of down it puts shoulder to the
plough, and gets sharply to work at the business
of the field. Behind this broad barrier all is
typical of slow rural life : and save for a touch of
the fisherman in the garb of the field-labourer, a
few trees with wried and weather-beaten heads
B I
2 SABRINA WARHAM
bowed permanently to the course of south-western
gales or the occasional dropping inland of white
sea-birds from over the downs, one might not
guess the close proximity of an element which
hardly fails in any year to mark its record in the
local burial-grounds.
A visitor to these parts must turn a mile or
so inland and look back from the higher ridges
thus gained, before the general formation of the
coast becomes apparent to the eye. Then the two
extremities of a broad open bay may be seen : to
the west Tort Point, thrusting its long neck far out
from the mainland ; to the east Herm's Head, blunt
and high, round which, twice a day, scours the tide-
race, known locally as " the spool," one of the
fiercest currents which wear down our English
coast.
From the bleak aspect of this inhospitable stretch
of shore, dotted with the black and white of lonely
coastguard stations, the eye falls pleasantly upon
the richer colouring of the country as it rolls in-
land. Above West Gill rise fields bare and wide
over the curve of broad downs, with no other fea-
ture to their surface than low, treeless hedgerows
bleaked by the wind ; but round about East Gill,
two miles distant from its neighbour, woods begin
to variegate the view. Along bossy knoll and
pastoral hollow the broad sheltering covers ridge
and dip between low mounds of arable country, and
find their limit only in the great flats of bronze
and purple heath, which stretch thence eastward to
Warringford, a town resting slothfully on the neck
of an estuary now grown trafficless through the
diversion of trade.
Viewed in this direction, the landscape, with the
decorous towers of East Gill Castle rising from
the thickly wooded foreground, has something of
Italian grace in its flowing contours and luxuriant
tones. Landlocked waters of the distant estuary
lie very blue in their dark setting of rusted heath;
ENVIRONMENT 3
high clusters of red-stemmed pine crown woods
where chestnut and ilex share a place with native
beech and oak ; and, for a curious finish, the tall
white chimney of a pottery on the outskirts of the
town shows out above the low roofs surrounding
it like some solitary campanile.
The resemblance comes perhaps but transiently
with hour and season, dependent on sunshine or
clear air. Scarcely could it have been said to hold
under the grey heavens of an October afternoon
which rendered more vivid the red beginnings of
decay already marking the flanks of the Castle
beech wood ; nor did it lend warmth of colour to
the thoughts of one solitary pedestrian traversing
the long rise which, through a junction with the
West Gill road, leads on to the Hone highway, and
so to direct communication with the outer world.
If face gave any indication of mood, pleasure in
her surroundings formed no link between this
woman and the fair prospect broadening beneath
her. She moved forward with an eye that seemed
to ignore all outward objects, her fair face betoken-
ing a mood of aimless yet settled despondency.
This spirit appeared also to affect her pace : at
times she would step out quickly, as though sloth
of movement had brought weariness to a body
framed for energy; then, as if recognizing the
unreasonableness of haste, she would fall back
into the loitering step she had just abandoned.
Evidently she was employed in that least profit-
able of all occupations known in poor sporting
phrase as the killing of time; and little success
appeared to attend her efforts.
Presently, a short distance ahead, the silhouette
of a large open vehicle protected by a canvas
awning came into view: under this awning could
be seen the heads of a group of passengers ; in
front rose a pile of luggage, amid which the driver
sat invisible. Its course for the moment was along
the high level of the road, which from that point
4 SABRINA WARHAM
descended to the Hone valley, and the railway
station four miles beyond. For an instant the
ear might catch the distancing sound of voices and
laughter; then, almost as suddenly as a descending
parachute, the white-topped waggonette disappeared
from view over the farther brow of the hill.
To the solitary woman following its track, the
departure of this heavily laden vehicle had a sig-
nificance. West Gill was now rid of its last handful
of visitors ; the season was over : thenceforth, for
three full quarters, the place, empty of strangers,
would fall back into that companionship of solitude
which nature imposed: late autumn, winter, spring,
and early summer, must all pass before West Gill
meant anything again to the outside world.
Five minutes later, the pedestrian, reaching in
turn the summit of the hill, could see, far down in
the lane below, a travelling spot of bright colours
making fast for Hone, now visible in the distance, a
cluster of red roofs under a faint curtain of smoke.
As her eye followed the brake's course her lips
moved, making words audible : " There goes life ! "
she murmured in a tone of reverie. Her look
seemed to add more eloquently than speech, " I
am left behind."
The woman whose solitary thoughts thus found
utterance had that distinction of form and feature
which gives to youth a foreshadowing of age ; girl-
hood could no longer define the charm of her
personality. The gay buoyancy of life was here
already veiled in a reserve which belongs as a rule
only to matrons or the middle-aged : she seemed
in her goings to be moved by thought rather than
by the springs of health ; yet one would judge from
the warm glow of flesh which bore the delicately
ingrained influences of sun and air, as well as from
the ease and confidence of her gait, that health
had come to her as much by practice as by birth-
right. But the face showed a gravity, both of
expression and feature, which the entire figure
ENVIRONMENT 5
seemed to reflect ; the eyes were dark and regard-
ful under low arched brows prone to knit as
though in controversy with thought. The finely
formed lips curved a little disdainfully, with a
touch of satire easily changeable to bitterness
when, as now, despondency was the dominant
mood. Refinement and strength, intellect and feel-
ing, seemed to be working together here in an
ill-balanced relationship ; while the firm and rather
high carriage of the head gave an air of defiance
to a face which many would have owned to possess
both beauty and nobility, but which few would have
called a happy one.
Some faces, even in youth, give indications of an
inevitable portion of sadness due to fall upon their
owners, as a debt owed to nature for the ominous
lines in which their beauty has been cast. The
woman's face now described was one of these.
How far by her own fault, how far through cir-
cumstances beyond her control, she fulfilled those
indications, the pages which follow are to show.
Here, reader, is Sabrina Warham : and when you
have heard all that may be said for her, as well
as what must be urged against her, you may not
think it amiss that some one has tried to put her
story upon record.
CHAPTER II
RETROSPECT AND FORECAST
THAT constitutional fear of the future which arises
from the sorrowful experiences of the past had
taken an early hold upon Sabrina Warham's mind.
Her father had been one of those men of brilliant
attainment but faulty performance whose lot it
seems to be to lay their mark more deeply upon
womankind than upon the world at large. In his
youth he had wrecked by deliberate folly and ex-
travagance a University career, which at one time
had pointed to distinction. Debarred from a life
of scholarship, after some years spent in literary
hack-work and the teaching of classics at Middle-
class seminaries, he secured an appointment as
librarian and private tutor to that branch of the
Lutworth family which owns and occupies East
Gill Castle and its domains. During his brief
tenure of that office he succeeded in battering
himself into a passion for a woman his senior in
years, his inferior in station, a certain Martha
Lorry, niece to the .Castle bailiff and humble
companion to the beautiful Miss Janet Lutworth,
afterwards more widely known in society by her
two married titles of Lady John Homing and Lady
Berrers. To the lowly companion, whose beauty
many accounted a fair match for that of her young
mistress-friend, Scholar Warham lost such rags of
a heart as he possessed ; and with a certain gen-
erosity, at a moment when some breath of scandal
had gone out against the blameless reputation
6
RETROSPECT AND FORECAST 7
of the woman he loved, fell into the desperate
expedient of a marriage, which his wife, at all
events, had in after years sufficient reason to
deplore.
It is little use for men with tarnished morals to
take hot sides with the angels in this world's war
against wrong : as often as not they only succeed
in doing the Devil's work for him in quarters where
he would not otherwise have secured a footing.
Sabrina Warham's earliest memories were of a
household divided against itself, not indeed by
open recrimination and strife, but none the less
by an incompatibility of tempers which reduced to
desolation the comforts of home. She saw her
mother, one capable of many complaints about
small things, suffering without a word the ever-
increasing neglect of the man whose life she had
in the world's eyes to share. For several years
after their marriage George Warham's restless dis-
position and infirmity of purpose caused a periodical
break-up and shifting of the home, with the result
that no single locality ever had for Sabrina those
associations which count for so much in retrospect.
At a later date any pretence that his wife's society
was necessary for his happiness ceased to appear
reasonable to a man in whom the petty economies
and shabby gentility of domestic life roused nothing
but disgust ; leaving his wife and daughter to shape
out their own existence in the mean surroundings
of a London suburb, he adopted a roving life of
lecturing and journalism, in which his wayward
abilities found a better outlet than in the fixed
routine of home life.
With eyes fully open to his faults, Sabrina had
loved her father, and had found in his brief returns
to domestic duty the only intellectual companion-
ship of her youth. All her mental equipment seemed
to have derived from him, her capacity, her tastes,
and the acquired convictions which developed with
growth; and when Mrs. Warham began to find in
8 SABRINA WARHAM
the spiritual teachings of the ChurcH of Rome a
solace for the afflictions of her married life, there
came about a further division of thought and
interest between Sabrina and one to whom she
felt all moral sympathy to be due.
Mrs. Warham's reception into the Roman Church
was but one of many causes which decided Sabrina,
at the age of seventeen, to strike out a line for
herself holding in it some prospect of indepen-
dence. Study and reading were her natural bent,
and she trusted to find in teaching scope for her
abilities as well as the means to be of service to
her mother in a day which she began apprehen-
sively to foresee. Away from his family George
Warham led a life of which little good could be
spoken ; gradually the home ties slackened, news
of him came more seldom ; remittances, always
tardy and irregular, at last became so intermittent
and scanty that they could no longer be counted
on. It seemed that Mrs. Warham, with health fast
breaking, would soon be left entirely dependent
on a small inherited annuity, enough to provide
her with bare sustenance, but not to maintain a
home for herself and Sabrina.
Circumstances had reached this pass when news
of disgrace and impending disaster brought revela-
tion of much that had only been guessed by the two
women who loved him as to the life into which
Mr. Warham had fallen. The daughter answered
the call which the wife could not : she found her
father a fugitive from justice, desperately hastening
his own end by means which the law still allows
to a man weary of existence. During the days that
followed the young girl faced a scene of physical
horror, and learned from the sick man's ravings
things of the past no less terrible, which stamped
indelibly upon her mind an unexplained sense of
the wrong underlying the whole structure of mod-
ern society. In the face of all that she then
dimly gathered of matters with regard to which the
RETROSPECT AND FORECAST 9
law called for no account, more endurable seemed
the discovery that her father, like the patriarchs of
old, had been the husband of two wives. Scholar
Warham accomplished his end before justice had
traced him to his hiding-place. In a lucid interval
when final dissolution was near, he looked fondly
into his daughter's face, and spoke in the kindly
manner of former years. " Well, lassie," he said,
"it will please your mother that we've kept it out
of the papers. I shan't be worth a paragraph when
I'm dead." And he said it as though it were a
good thought, comfortable to reflect on. Sabrina
afterwards, when recounting to her mother all that
was done and said in those last days, felt bound to
communicate what had actually proved to be her
father's last words. She repeated them with shame,
and saw with surprise the widow's face change and
grow tender. Gathering up her hands to her breast
as though something worth holding lay there, " Ah,
he thought of me at the last, then ! " she said. " God
rest his soul! "
These events had taken place nearly five years
before the time at which our story opens. Mrs.
Warham, at the crabbed invitation of her half-
brother, James Lorry, farmer, went back to live in
her native place, under the same roof which had
sheltered her childhood. Sabrina followed the
course which she had chosen, only gradually to
realize that the love of learning did not imply
also the love of teaching, or the power to make
it effectual in submission to the dictates of others.
Furthermore her lack of definite conviction on
religious matters had made her position difficult
as a teacher of the young among that class where
orthodoxy remains the stamp of respectability ;
and it was for this very cause that she was now
thrown out of employment, with small prospect
of finding another post.
Weeks had stretched into months, till the time
for the beginning of autumn terms had passed,
io SABRINA WARHAM
leaving her to the outlook of an unemployed winter,
and of all the terrible weariness which inactivity
and lonely environment would produce. Added to
this, there now arose in her mind a dread, not to be
stifled, that fate was grimly deciding for her a point
of duty about which she had hitherto been in
doubt. For several years she and her mother
had been but little together; and as long as Mrs.
Warham could travel, it had been her own choice
that their brief meetings should take place away
from the spot which had again become her home.
The daughter did not find that the long separation
had made an assimilation of ideas and interests
more possible ; but the habit of filial affection was
strong in her, and the memory of the past had left
on her mind a sense of indebtedness, and a wish to
give compensation, that was almost an obsession on
her conscience. The call for a return to domestic
duty during the remainder of her mother's life
would have been accepted by her the moment she
recognized it ; but she dreaded it more than she
could say ; and for that dread reproached herself
no less acutely because she saw its reasonable
side. She could not be rid of the fear that the
effort would fail of its purpose. " If I could only
be sure that she really wished for me ! " was the
conditional conclusion at which she always arrived ;
and the vital point remained unsettled.
It was between three and four o'clock in the
afternoon, when Sabrina, after watching the brake
disappear, sat down to rest on a bank by the
roadside. Casting aside the broad-brimmed and
unadorned straw-hat which had hitherto shadowed
her features, she drew out from her pocket a still
unsealed letter, whose brevity hardly warranted
the time she now gave in its perusal. As she
read, holding the missive in one hand, she began
with the other to make slow passes over her face,
a movement which had evidently become a habit.
With the tips of her fingers she traced lightly the
RETROSPECT AND FORECAST n
lower line of the cheek as far as the ear ; thence
following its outer curve upward, her fingers
rested on the smooth tresses which flowed back
from the temple, till, encountering a stray lock
of short wavy growth, they drew it down into
momentary conformity with the rest and slid back
by the way they had come. This unconscious
movement in perpetual repetition gave to her face
as she read a singular air of abstraction and rev-
erie, yet at the same time of doubtfulness. Much
as the pendulum of a clock lends evidence by its
mechanical motion of the more complicated work-
ings within, so did these chafing fingers seem to
indicate the inner workings of a mind not at rest.
Suddenly the hand's movement was checked.
Putting the letter aside, she held her face for a
moment between her two palms ; then rose abruptly
and walked on towards Hone at a resolute pace.
Within the hour she had reached the post-office,
which was also the chief shop of the village. There,
purchasing a money order, she enclosed it in her
letter, and having posted it, set out on her return
journey with the relieved sense of something done
which would yet leave her free before making
decision final. Arrived at the outskirts of the
village, a uniform sobering of light in the sky over-
head and a deadness in its reflection upon the
distant landscape reminded her how quickly the
days were now shortening ; it would be dusk before
she could reach home. She was now at the foot of
the long, winding descent down which about two
hours before she had watched the covered wag-
gonette making its way to Hone railway station.
Hearing an approach of wheels, she looked back,
and saw the same conveyance now returning empty.
Doubtful whether to avail herself of the oppor-
tunity which chance had thrown in her way, she
stood still ; a nearer view of the driver's crab-apple
face, and the friendliness of his salute, decided her
to claim the boon.
12 SABRINA WARHAM
" Will you give me a lift ? " she said. " I am
going partly your way."
" To West Gill, miss ? " inquired the man.
" You be very welcome."
" I am for East Gill ; it will do quite well if you
put me down where the roads divide."
The driver got down to open the door of his
waggonette. Sabrina, then remembering that her
purse was nearly empty, asked what the fare
would be.
"Oh, anything," said the man, eyeing the wind
as one not stiff at a bargain. " It's all in the going;
we've got to get back anyway."
As they started he threw a sociable look over
his shoulder, to remark, " So happens I go a bit
more your way to-day than ordinary ; I've some-
thing to leave down at Falkner's lodge; that's
how we manage when anything's wanted in a
hurry over to East Gill ; they sends up and fetches
'em." He added, as a matter of more real interest,
that it had been a warm day for the time of year.
"This must often be a hot road for you in the
summer," remarked Sabrina; "there is so little
shade."
" Shade, you say ? "
" No trees, I mean ; down in East Gill we are
much better off."
" Ah, so you belong to East Gill, do you, miss ?
You be come from the Castle, I'm thinking."
" No ; the Monastery Farm is where I live."
" Never heard tell of that place," said the driver,
searching his memory of the locality. m
" Perhaps you know of it as Lorry's Farm,"
said the girl, in a half -shy embarrassment at having
to explain ; "but it is the Monastery Farm really."
"Ah," said the old man, accepting her explana-
tion as a reassertion of his statement, "now you
speaks what I can understand, miss. It's been
Lorry's Farm a hundred years and more. I never
heard it called Monastery Farm before."
RETROSPECT AND FORECAST 13
" It was a monastery in old days ; what is the
big barn now was once a chapel, and part of the
garden was its graveyard. They say monks have
been buried there ; but there is nothing to show it
now except a stone cross which still stands in the
centre of the wall."
" Oh yes ; I recognize the place well enough as
you tells it. That's Lorry's Farm, that is." He
added, after a pause, " So you be staying at Lorry's
Farm, be you, miss ? "
" I am Farmer Lorry's niece."
11 Oh, his niece ? Yet surely you be a stranger in
these parts ? "
" I have not been here since I was quite a child ;
I can only just remember the place and recognize
a few faces. You, I suppose, have lived here all
your life ? "
" So far as I can remember."
"You Hve at West Gill? I suppose it will be
very empty now for a good while."
" Well, not empty, so to speak ; but quiet,
mortal quiet."
" Except for storms ; you get those, don't you ? "
" Storms ? Lord, what don't we have ! Why,
last winter there was all the boats draw'd up along
the road for a quarter of a mile and more, ten
weeks on end ; and even so I see'd some on 'em
down toward the quay pitching over each other
like boys playing leap-frog. Ah, there ain't much
goes on then, neither sea nor land; why, this road
was snowed up three weeks on end last winter;
not a letter or a newspaper to be got through
except a man rode over for 'em across country."
" It must be very dismal ! " said Sabrina, feeling
a mental chill at the prospect.
" Well, it ain't what you'd call a rollicking time
what we gets then," agreed her informant; "but it's
what we must expect."
The fact was enough for his simple philosophy ;
life indeed had provided him with no comparison
I 4 SABRINA WARHAM
since the road between West Gill and Hone, with
perhaps as much country as the eye could take
in from its highest point, measured the full round
of his universe. As it was the nature of winter
roads to become impassable, of winter seas to
storm, of freezing hurricanes to blow, so it was
man's lot to accommodate himself to these visita-
tions of the higher powers and to lead a sealed-up
existence till their forces were beaten back into
calm. Sabrina felt as though she had descended
upon a region where for a portion of each year
the inhabitants went down to live in tombs; and
she wondered, studying the shrewd weather-beaten
face, what chance vegetable or mineral entering
into the human spirit could so steel or mould
it as to make such a life endurable. Her own
mood was autumnal indeed as she came once more
within sight of the fast shredding woodlands round
East Gill, now sombre under the uniform fall of a
dusk that held no western gleams.
Wrapt in her own thoughts she paid small heed
to her companion's talk ; conversation grew slack as
they neared the parting of the ways.
" It is here, then, that I get down," she said at last.
" No, no," answered the man. " I tell 'ee I'm
going on to Falkner's lodge."
" But are you not doing it merely to oblige me ?
I don't see any parcels."
"Well, it's just a bottle of medicine for a body
that lives away down your end."
" Some one who is ill ? "
"Ay, been ill a long time, too. It's that
Mrs. Gage who lives off the village, the last cottage
toward the heath, Warringford way."
" Oh yes, I know the cottage well ; why not let
me take it? "
" No, now that would be troubling you too
much, miss. If I leave it at the lodge it's safe to
be fetched ; being special, and immediate, they
must know it's coming."
RETROSPECT AND FORECAST 15
"But if I take it," persisted the girl, "they
will get it all the quicker. Please, I would
like to."
She refused to have it otherwise: dismounting
where the roads branched, she took possession of
the parcel, and bidding the man a kindly farewell,
turned off along the East Gill lane. The small
errand with which she had been thus quick to
charge herself measured to her mind the sort of
relief which she must now always be seeking to
fill up the emptiness of her days. Yet she was
even then advancing step by step to a meeting the
consequences of which were to change before long
the whole aspect and colour of her life ; and the
drug of the local chemist which she carried was
to have in her hands a virtue as effectual for the
mingling of fates as had any hate or love-potion
in the days when credulity gave magic its power.
A quarter of an hour's walk brought her to the
cottage ; it was then already middle-dusk. In the
doorway a young girl stood looking anxiously
along the footpath which led from the village and
thence to the open heath. Only when Sabrina
stopped to deliver her charge did the other heed
her approach. A half-shy smile, timid and winning,
then lit up a fair and rather foolish face. The
look brought sudden recollection to Sabrina.
"What, can this be Lottie?" she exclaimed,
and reached out a friendly hand in greeting.
"Why," she went on, "you were such a little
thing when I last saw you ; yet you have not
changed much. And where have you been hiding
yourself, that I have not seen you all this time?"
The girl explained that she was in service at
the Castle, but had leave during her aunt's illness
to pay her a daily visit. She thanked Sabrina
gratefully for the trouble she had taken, but her
manner showed flutter and agitation. The woman
who attended on Mrs. Gage had not returned on
time, and Lottie professed anxiety to get back to
16 SABRINA WARHAM
the Castle, since the housekeeper's orders were strict
for her to be in before dark.
Sabrina bade her go. " I can quite well stay,"
she said, "till some one comes;" and to the girl's
protestations, " Oh no, don't thank me ; remember
we were once playmates. I ought to have found
you out before. We shall meet again : waste no
time now."
Lottie showed herself light of foot. Sabrina,
left to find her own way in, entered and knocked
lightly at the door of the inner room.
" Who is that ? " asked the sick woman from her
bed, in a complaining tone.
" I am Sabrina Warham," answered her visitor.
" Perhaps you used to know me once, though I
cannot remember you."
" What are you here for ? " the other bluntly
demanded.
" I have brought your medicine ; the doctor has
directed it for immediate delivery."
" Oh ! Did he tell you to come ? "
" I happened to be passing."
" Where's Lottie ? Why didn't she go for it ? "
" She was obliged to get back. I am here till
some one else comes."
There was a pause, the woman making no further
comment.
"Well, as you are here," she said fretfully, at
length, " you might as well give me my medicine."
Sabrina measured and administered the dose.
The invalid screwed up her eyes and clawed feebly
for something that she missed.
"Why haven't you the sugar ready?" she
cried.
The sugar was found for her. "Who did you
say you were ? " she inquired again when the bitter
taste had been got rid of.
Sabrina repeated her name.
"Ah! I never liked you," was the sour re-
joinder.
RETROSPECT AND FORECAST 17
" There was no reason why you should," answered
the girl, a little amused ; " what was I to you,
or you to me ? "
" They used to send for Lottie to go down and
play with you, always just when she was most
wanted."
" That was years ago : was she so much wanted,
then ? She must have been quite a small thing."
" There was others smaller : she was old enough
to mind the two little ones ; but she always would be
off playing."
Wishing to draw the poor woman from her griev-
ance, " Where are the others now ? " Sabrina asked,
and was answered ; " Where I shall be before
long."
" Do you mean they are dead ? "
" What else should I mean. Don't you see I'm
dying ? "
" I hope you are mistaken ; that is, if you wish to
live. Is your niece, then, the only one left ? "
" There's the boy; but he never comes now: he
stays with his father."
" Away from here ? "
" Over at Wood End. Why do you pretend not
to know anything ? All the people about here know
that I am a deserted woman. Isn't your mother the
same ? There was talk of it."
Sabrina flushed deeply. " Such talk, then," she
said, "was untrue. My mother has been a widow
for nearly five years."
" Ah, that's what she gives out! "
" It is merely the truth. I, at least, ought to know,
for I was with my father when he died." To pre-
vent further discussion of the subject, she asked if
there was anything she might do while waiting.
" Is your bed easy ? Will you let me shake up
your pillows ? "
" No," answered the woman, shortly, " I don't like
strangers to touch me : I'll wait and let it be seen
how they neglect me. Oh, I am left cruelly alone !
c
i8 SABRINA WARHAM
It's a dog's death I'm dying hours and hours
on my back and can't move a limb. That all come
of the way my husband treated me. I'd have
been dead before now if I'd lived with him much
longer."
Sabrina felt a sensitive shrinking ; she said gently,
" I will come in any day, if you will let me. If I can
be of use I need not always be a stranger."
" You'll do as you like about that," answered the
sick woman ; " the gentry always do. Times they
come meddling so one's no peace from 'em; then
they forget all about one. It's always the one thing
or the other ! "
" Well," said Sabrina, colouring slightly, " I am
not 'gentry,' so you need not be afraid of me. If
you want me, I can come in ; if you don't want me,
I can go away. What time is your niece generally
with you ? "
" Mostly towards evening ; but they don't let me
have her for more than an hour, and that not all
days. Not that I need mind it so much, for it's
little comfort to me she is. She was always gay
and gadding in her ways ; and when she's here
she mostly stands looking out of door or window
as if she couldn't abide having to stay. Ah, well,"
added the sick woman, after a pause, " I shan't live
long enough to see her end, I suppose. I'm saved
that ! "
The neighbour whom Lottie had spoken of at this
moment entered, and Sabrina, having no further
reason to stay, rose, glad to escape ; with a brief
promise to come again she made her way out into
the open air.
Twilight was now in its last shades toward
nightfall, deepening over the tract of heath, which
here lay within shadow of the long down. As
Sabrina advanced by the field-path, which was now
her shortest way home, the vast wall, uniform and
smooth, of this sombre mound, immediately con-
fronted her, lifting its barren outline against a
RETROSPECT AND FORECAST 19
wannish sky. Toward its western declivity the
monotony of the ridge was broken by three blunt
toothlike cuttings, whose angles grew sharper and
more defined as the oblique point of view became
the direct. These indentations marked the ramparts
of an ancient camp, once British, then Roman, now
seeming almost geological in their significance, so
pastorally welded had they become with the earth
of their origin. Immediately below these mounds
of once strategical importance lay the Monastery
Farm, with low thatched outhouses and garden en-
closed in a straggling girdle of trees. As Sabrina
crossed the last field she saw the windows beginning
to light up and blinds drawn. Over the opposite
steep of down, moving fast, came a man's figure in
a white coat, dropping directly toward the track
which led from Amesbay to Warringford.
CHAPTER III
A DIVIDED HOUSEHOLD
SKIRTING the outbuildings, Sabrina made her way
to the front, where the central door stood flanked
by a low, broad fa$ade of windows, irregular in
size and setting. At the far end a wooden flight
of steps, boarded windows, a horizontally divided
door, and overhead a crane projecting from the
eaves, gave evidence of the mixture of domestic
and farm purposes for which the building was
used. The house door stood open, showing a
broad flagged passage which, passing from front
to back, led out again to a flower-bordered lawn,
from the enclosing wall of which rose the small
stone cross marking the site of the old monk's
cemetery.
Entering this passage, Sabrina ascended a small
flight of stairs upon the left leading into a short
corridor, at the farther end of which a similar stair
descended to the kitchens and other living-rooms of
the establishment. Between these two staircases
lay the rooms which mother and daughter occupied
attended by their own servant.
Opening the first door she came to, Sabrina
entered the sitting-room. Though its window
faced directly west, it was now deeply shrouded
in gloom. Between the window and the fireplace
could be discerned the outline of a still, seated
figure with head slightly bowed.
No movement of welcome or recognition met
Sabrina upon her entry, nor was any word spoken.
20
A DIVIDED HOUSEHOLD 21
In the ensuing moments a faint click falling at
regular intervals suggested some occupation in
which quiet hands were mechanically engaged.
The girl threw off her hat, and sitting down,
waited till a process with which she was familiar
should be at an end. More than five minutes
passed thus ; then, having said the last bead of
her rosary, Mrs. Warham raised her head and
spoke.
" You have been out a long time, my dear."
" I went far."
" You should not have let it make you so late."
" On my way back I undertook an errand which
detained me."
She told briefly the circumstances of her visit,
ending with the remark, " Mrs. Gage is not an
agreeable character, mother ; so the penance was
good for me."
Mrs. Warham smiled faintly, but made no direct
answer. A few minutes later, on her daughter's
proposal to light the lamp,
" Do not light it for me," she said, " I am tired of
sitting up ; it may be best if I go to bed at once.
Will you call Betty to me ? "
Sabrina rose to give a helping hand, for the
widow, in addition to other bodily ills, suffered
from a weakness of vision which obliged her to
wear a shade.
" No, no, my dear," she said, mildly rejecting the
proffered aid, " I can see clearly enough ; leave me
to walk alone. You can come and say good night
to me later."
Sabrina watched her mother pass through the
communicating door to her bedroom ; then, having
summoned Betty, she lighted the lamp, and taking
some volumes from a small tightly packed book-
case, sat down to fill up with reading the four
hours which had still to elapse before her own
bedtime.
These few shelves of books formed her whole
22 SABRINA WARHAM
library. A glance at their titles would have re-
vealed to any casual observer that they were works
of study rather than of relaxation ; yet their owner
found in them almost the only means of recreation
that never failed.
An hour passed over a mind happily absent from
its surroundings. Then Betty entered, bringing sup-
per on a tray, and set it down at Sabrina's elbow.
It was the signal to her of a routine to be gone
through.
" Is my mother ready for me ? " she asked.
" I dare say you may go in now," replied the
other, in a tone of guarded concession.
Entering the adjoining room, Sabrina approached
the bed where her mother lay.
" Can I do anything for you, mother ? " she
inquired gently.
"No, my dear; Betty has given me everything
I want."
" You don't wish to be read to ?"
" Betty has read to me."
Sabrina hesitated, and after an effort spoke :
" Do you prefer her reading to mine ? "
" My dear, I am accustomed to her : if you did
it, when you went away I should miss you. One
placed as I am should avoid making new ties; my
dependence on the help of one need not make me
a burden to others. There is also a reason which
I need not name: you can read to me at other
times."
Sabrina seemed about to answer. Checking
herself, she said a little wistfully
"In a few days I may have something to tell
you about my own plans, I mean. You are ready
for sleep now, are you not ? "
" Yes, I get my best sleep early ; say good night,
my dear, your supper is waiting for you."
Thus mildly ordered, the girl leaned down her
face to be kissed; then turning, pressed her own
lips to her mother's forehead.
A DIVIDED HOUSEHOLD 23
It was one of Sabrina's leisurely sedate ways
not to give and take a kiss simultaneously. Ques-
tioned by a friend as to her reason, " I am then
sure," she replied, "of what I give, also of what
I get," incurring thereby the charge of allowing
a system of barter and exchange to be the guide
of her affections. Yet the kiss she laid upon her
mother's brow showed no lack of tenderness a
look dutiful and full of regret lingered upon her
face as she turned away.
Returning to the sitting-room, she resumed her
interrupted study, and as she read reached her
hand now and again to the provisions upon the
tray, contenting herself with the dry bread lying
already cut beside her plate.
Betty presently, choosing her own time, entered
and surveyed the finished repast with disapproval.
" Is there nothing I can cook to please ye ? " she
inquired gruffly.
" Nothing, dear Betty," answered Sabrina, her
mind still fixed upon the page. Then, looking up
with half-collected thoughts, " Oh yes ! everything
I mean, everything."
" It looks like it ! " said the woman, sourly.
" Another day I won't let you have those crusts
you go asking for; then you'll eat what I give
you."
"Very well," assented the girl, still studiously
bent, " that will do nicely."
Betty stood and glowered at the culprit, but
Sabrina's head did not lift. After a few moments,
finding herself ignored, the waiting-woman fuffed,
and retired.
The banging of the door recalled Sabrina to her
senses. " Oh, Betty dear," she cried, all in a hurry,
" come and say good night ; you know I didn't mean
to be cross ! "
But Betty's own meaning had already carried
her beyond reach of her young mistress's tardy
apology.
24 SABRINA WARHAM
Left to herself Sabrina read on. Presently she
became aware of singing; the sound of an unac-
companied voice travelled clearly up from below.
Opening the door, she stepped out into the passage,
and could then by hard listening distinguish some-
thing of the words.
"He left me for a damsel dark, damsel dark/'
was what first fell upon her ear with any meaning.
Each Friday night ..."
gave the beginning of the second line; what fol-
lowed was lost to her. In another moment the
swelling notes rang clear, carrying the words along
with them
" And now he takes that damsel on his knee,
And never, never thinks of me ! "
The sentiments were evidently a woman's : a
man's voice sang them. A tripping chorus, plaintive
and gay, in which other voices joined, followed.
Sabrina stood undecided, trying to complete her
resolve.
Then the song ended; no other seemed to be
following. She re-entered the sitting-room, shut
the door, and sat down. But her mood had passed
now from reading into reverie. " I wonder why I
cannot be easy and natural like other people," she
murmured to herself. " Why cannot I do the
things I wish to do ? It always has to be by an
effort of will and then it doesn't succeed." She
knew that the singer must be David Lorry, her
cousin, and that now in the big hall below-stairs
the real life of the establishment was going on.
Betty had told her of the old-world air of com-
munism, with its underlying distinction of grades,
which ruled during the evening hour upon Lorry's
Farm ; but while longing to come into touch with
a custom that bore out her social theories, she was
A DIVIDED HOUSEHOLD
25
aware of something in her blood which made the
advance difficult. " I am my mother's daughter, I
suppose," was the explanation she gave herself
when, as now, the fit of introspection was on her,
without thereby at all lessening her discontent.
Mrs. Warham, indeed, though a gentle and
charitable-minded woman, had acquired, through
the circumstances of her life, habits of thought and
feeling which kept her stiffly aloof from all below
her in the social scale. Between herself and the
relative whose roof she shared there was little
intercourse and no familiarity. The line of de-
marcation had been early established ; and " Brother
Lorry " and " Sister Warham " had, by persistence
on her part, come to be the formal terms of their
relationship. To others she spoke of him only
as Mr. Lorry, and when in her hearing Sabrina
referred to him as Uncle James, she dropped the
advisory remark that toward one who was but a
half-uncle, use of the surname would be more
appropriate.
The farmer had given his widowed sister free
house-room ; and though he had been prompted
thereto by family pride rather than by affection, its
acceptance was in Sabrina's view a re-knitting of
family ties which would otherwise have little con-
cerned her. James Lorry had from the first been
bitter over his sister's union with a man above
herself in station ; and when after years of trouble
and final estrangement she had been left a widow
almost without means, he had welcomed the event
as a justification of his sarcasms. The house was
larger than his needs required; since his wife's
death, petty love of domestic rule had caused him
to take in hand all the reins of household govern-
ment, while the increasing disabilities of age with-
drew him more and more from actual labour upon
the farm. In that department young David Lorry
was steward, dutifully carrying out the will of his
father, and receiving for payment the prospect of
26 SABRINA WARHAM
one day becoming owner of all. This adjustment
of things suited old Lorry's temper to a nicety,
and was accepted by the son with an indifference
and a docile serenity which nothing seemed able
to disturb.
Perhaps some notion of patronizing his sister in
her downfallen gentility had led to the farmer's
proposal of an arrangement that had now lasted
for some years. But the widow had come, and
by an obstinately retiring policy had evaded the
patronage while accepting the relief.
" Brother Lorry," she said on entering his domain,
" I am grateful to you for offering me a home ; but
I should not have come had I not known that the
accommodation at your command made it possible
for me to be here without interference on either
side. I have been a lonely woman for many years,
and it is my wish to remain so."
The farmer then for the first and only time spoke
to her of her husband.
"You might have come here from the begin-
ning," said he, "when your rascal first left you;
but you wouldn't."
"When my husband was alive," the widow
replied in state, "had I at that time allowed myself
to be beholden to you, it might have been my duty
to let you speak of him. Now that he is dead there
is no longer any occasion." Brother Lorry, with
a restive tongue ready to discharge the pent-up
bitterness of years, was made to understand that
certain conditions accompanied his sister's con-
tinued sojourn under his roof; it was not too
late for him to say " Go," if the terms troubled
him.
James Lorry, from that day and after that speech,
had treated his sister Warham with an ironic cere-
mony and a snarling surface-civility, the import of
which was entirely lost on her; but upon Sabrina
it had made a painful impression at this her first
visit to her mother under her uncle's ropf,
A DIVIDED HOUSEHOLD 27
Mrs. Warham was conscious only that she con-
ferred gentility on her brother's domicile. Though
during her matrimonial troubles she had been drawn
to the Church of Rome, the vicar, ay, and the vicar's
wife, had visited her upon her return to the neigh-
bourhood. Brother Lorry might be a churchwarden,
but no such thing as a card had ever been left on him
or on his late wife. To the daughter in turn had this
social recognition been tendered ; she had not wel-
comed it.
" You must go and call at once, my dear ! " said
Mrs. Warham, when Sabrina showed relief at having
missed her visitors ; and there had been trouble at
her leisurely fulfilment of the obligation.
" If I call," she complained, " they will expect me
to teach in the Sunday school."
" It is a pity, my dear, that you should have any
objection," was the pious mother's comment.
"Ah, that is the old question," said the girl,
wearily. " You ought to be glad that I am so little
attached to the heresy I was baptized in. As you
wish me to go, I will to call, I mean ; but I should
only be relieved if I found that they were out. It
would be so much more convenient."
Sabrina had more feeling about the matter than
she showed ; from the beginning a vague sense that
she stood in a false position weighed on her. It may
be remembered that, in speaking to Mrs. Gage, she
disclaimed being one of the gentry ; yet in her inter-
course with other members of the household of
which she now formed a part, the imputation was
constantly thrust at her. Until quite lately, believ-
ing herself to be merely a visitor, she had given
small heed to the cause of her discomfort ; but
news recently received had told her that she was
without employment, and the thought that her posi-
tion in these uncongenial surroundings was threat-
ening to become permanent, led, as she sat that
evening over her books, to reflections full of despond-
ency,
28 SABRINA WARHAM
It was now after nine o'clock ; once again the
sound of singing below caught her ear. She rose
on a sudden impulse, went quickly out, along the
corridor, and descended the stairs. Here she found
herself in a small dark lobby, with only a door now
to pass. Laying her hand on the latch, she waited
for the finish of the song; but when it came her
courage failed. The short time afforded for reflec-
tion had become fatal to action ; a dozen objections
and scruples held her back ; she was too shy to
make the advance. Slowly and hesitatingly she
withdrew her hand, and stole silently upstairs to her
own solitude.
CHAPTER IV
LIKINGS AND DISLIKINGS
THE passing of a flock of sheep, with its accom-
panying jangle of sheep-bells, along the lane lead-
ing from Amesbay up to Lorry's Farm was to those
within earshot as sure an indication of certain hours
as, under the old monkish dispensation, had been
the periodic ringing of the Angelus. At half-past
seven each morning, and again between four and five
in the afternoon, the flock was driven into change
of pasture. A slowly moving cloud of dust rising
above the hedgerows might, in dry weather, then
be observed accompanying the meek rabble on its
directed course like the cloud which followed the
Israelites of old.
Their shepherd on these occasions was a young
man of medium height, clad in a dark close-fitting
jersey, which set well with the fineness of his build.
Breeks of a nondescript hue, high leggings, and a
skipper's cap completed a costume which expressed
not so much the employ as the individual taste
of its wearer. From these lendings of civilization
there looked out a face of weather-stained youth :
the profile had more of the Roman than of the
Greek; the complexion was ruddy, like that of the
David of Scripture ; but though some touch of a
southern race lay stamped on the sharp-cut features,
the reserved bearing, the half-apathetic manner in
which this youth carried the burden of his strength,
were essentially English and yeoman. Too fit in
limb, too much of an athlete to appear ungainly, he,
29
30 SABRINA WARHAM
yet lacked that grace of movement which belongs
so naturally to the races of the sun. He was,
indeed, in curious congruity with the surrounding
landscape, one half of it rugged and stern, one half
mild and responsive to the hand of man ; in its
essential characteristics northern, but bearing Roman
remains. So also when viewed in relation to his
flock he seemed at once a part of it yet aloof ;
like an eastern shepherd he went before, leaving
his dog to follow at the rear; yet without cast-
ing a glance behind he appeared to have the
faculty of knowing what went on, giving new direc-
tions in a voice scarcely raised, now only by
gesture.
While he thus fulfilled the duties of his calling
his face wore an air less of absent-mindedness than
of a narrow absorption in the present : his thoughts
seemed always directed to the attainment of a
moving point on the road twenty yards ahead of
him, never actually reached. It was in fact the
reverie of the practical man, grave by nature, in-
tent on, but not to be disturbed by, the business in
hand.
On the morning following the events recorded in
our last chapter, the shepherd, having led his flock to
pasture, stood holding back the gate for the incom-
ing herd, when he perceived one not as a rule so
early a riser crossing the field toward him.
" Good morning, David ! " she called in friendly
tones, and drew aside not to hinder the entry of the
sheep.
The shepherd touched his cap, saying,
"Good morning, Miss Sabrina."
She took him up quickly. "David, why will
you not call me ' Sabra ' or ' Cousin ' as I have
asked you to ? Why do you go on calling me
' Miss ' ? "
"The word just came," replied the other; "came
natural like."
" But it is not to ! " she insisted.
LIKINGS AND DISLIKINGS 31
" Well, it shan't, then ; not when I think of it."
" Think of it more often, please. Do you know,
you make me feei a stranger."
David's face wore a look of calculation ; he was
counting his flock.
" I'd not have 'e feel that," he answered after
a while ; "not if the other way pleases 'e better."
" Of course it pleases me ; why should you doubt
it ? What have I done to make you think such a
thing?"
"I didn't think it; 'twas simply I didn't know."
" Well, then, you do know now ; and especially
that I want you to call me ' Sabra,' or ' Cousin
Sabra ' ; never ' Miss,' unless you wish to offend
me."
David's eye, meeting the challenge of hers, smiled
and resumed its gravity.
" Cousin Sabra, then," he responded ; " p'raps if
I say it a bit it'll come easier."
"Is it so difficult?"
"Not if I don't look at 'e, Cousin Sabra; when
I do I'm fairly put off."
"Why?"
" Because somehow it don't seem natural. You're
not like any of us ; 'twasn't likely : you've been
brought up different, and you've lived different.
Coming here you couldn't help being a bit of a
stranger not well."
All the while as he spoke he kept his eye fixed
on the backs of the entering herd. " Eighty-seven,"
he counted aloud as the last one passed in. Pick-
ing up some farm-implements which lay near, he
shouldered the gate and swung it to.
"Will you be kind enough to slip on the hasp
while I lift it?" he said, suiting the action to the
word. "This gate is always a bit awk'ard."
Sabrina complied.
"Well, there's a beginning of cousinly relations,"
he observed, smiling. "Ye can't say I treated 'e
like a stranger that time,"
32 SABRINA WARHAM
" But you needn't have said ' Will you be kind
enough ? ' " objected his cousin. " I am kind enough,
and you ought to know it."
The young man pushed up his cap, and gave a
rub to his forelock.
"It'll take a lot of thinking out, this will," he
remarked.
Sabrina glanced ahead to the point, now near, at
which they would be parting ; in another moment
the opportunity for sealing a friendly compact
would be over. Gathering courage she said, a
little breathlessly,
" David, will you some day, when it is quite
convenient to you, when you are going, perhaps,
on your own account, drive me into Warringford ? "
The thing was actually spoken ; she was surprised
at her own daring.
" In the cart ? " he inquired.
"In whatever is convenient."
David Lorry was ordinarily a man of short speech,
and he had explained himself more in the last five
minutes than he usually did in a day. Now he
relapsed into monosyllables.
"Ay," he answered, with a drawled intonation,
expressive neither of pleasure nor reluctance, but
merely of assent.
Sabrina found his manner discouraging: she
wished she had not spoken, and was ready, if she
heard no more, to abandon her project. She was
agreeably surprised therefore at receiving a message
from him the next morning : he was going over to
Warringford that afternoon, and she was welcome,
if she liked, to accompany him.
Before the hour arrived, however, the complexion
of the day changed ; a grey veil of rain descended
upon the downs, robbing of all pleasure the prospect
of a long drive over exposed country in the teeth of
a chill east wind.
Mrs. Warham, who had remained mute on re-
ceiving the news of Sabrina' s intended expedition,
LIKINGS AND DISLIKINGS
33
like
"is
not
hearing upon the window the press of rain, looked
out at the steady downpour to remark, with a
satisfaction her daughter could not fail to note,
" That settles it, then."
"I think," said Sabrina, "that I shall go all the
same."
" Indeed, I trust you will do no such thing ! "
her mother protested.
" Why should I not ? It won't harm me."
Mrs. Warham stated her own view of the case
decidedly.
" Tearing off with your cousin in weather
this just to do a few shoppings," said she,
hardly modest; certainly it is not becoming!"
Sabrina's colour burned ; but she could
look at her mother and be angry. Her momentary
resentment was changed to distress that such a
view could be possible.
" Do you really mean that ? " she asked.
" I mean it, my dear."
"Then, of course," said the
with a rebellious will, " I won't go.
a proviso, " Unless it clears : then I
Mrs. Warham showed a sense
was on her side.
" It is not in the least likely to,
and the event sufficiently proved her word.
Sabrina, too honest to excuse herself on the
score of the weather, sent word to her cousin that
she could not go, and saw him at the appointed
hour setting forth alone. Before another had
elapsed, disappointment changed to chagrin ; the
rain drew off its blinds from the downs, its long
streamers frayed into air, the formless grey of the
heavens became shaped into hurrying piles of
cloud, and actual sunlight shot out over the land-
scape. A burnished haze lay over wood and down,
folding the world in a shimmering sheath of gold.
The sudden brightness without awoke into song
a canary whose cage hung high in the window, and
D
girl, struggling
She added as
must."
that Providence
' she remarked :
34 SABRINA WARHAM
whose mission in life was to make a cheerful noise
to the widow in her solitude. The sitting-roorn
in which so many of Sabrina's hours were now
entombed contained two articles of absolute dis-
comfort to her soul ; and from the exaggerated
store set upon them by their owner they had
acquired a sort of symbolic significance represent-
ing in outward and visible form the malady of
environment that afflicted her : in a word, they got
upon her nerves. Of these the canary was one:
the other was a set of antimacassars. These para-
sites of gentility were to the person who reclined
against them adhesive as burrs ; from the chair-
backs they were meant to protect they slid like
water from a duck's back. When she leaned
against one, Sabrina could feel through her dress
the stamp of its network pattern ; when she rose
it sprawled after her and clung. Mrs. Warham's
retirement to her own chamber was, each night,
the signal for a clean sweep of these embodiments
of the Victorian age.
But if these stood to Sabrina Warham's mind
for all that was imbecile in domestic taste, the
canary stood for sheer lunacy. While the per-
petual click of its claws was a fretting discomfort,
its note was a dinning of the brain. The sound of
human speech was the target for its powers : at
a monosyllable it chirruped ; at a sentence it
chattered ; conversation was a challenge, and
brought it trilling to the charge. To reading aloud
it opposed a veritable torrent of sound ; and in
order to give her " Buddhie " encouragement the
widow took pleasure in being read to. As an
accompanist to his minstrelsy Sabrina was occa-
sionally of use ; but for more serious reading
requiring attention, when Buddhie had no longer to
be entertained, Betty's ministrations were preferred.
To keep her torment in health and happiness
Sabrina cleaned his cage daily, gave him his bath,
his seed, his drinking water, and the sand for his
LIKINGS AND DISLIKINGS 35
abominable little feet to scratch on. Shakespeare's
inquiry by the mouth of Shylock, whether any man
feels hate toward the thing he would not kill, she
would have met in the affirmative ; for while she
took pains to preserve to Buddhie his small miser-
able existence, she certainly disliked every sound
of life that came from him.
Because the heavens were dull, because while
his mistress lay in the retirement of her own room
Sabrina had not spoken to him, Buddhie had sat or
hopped mute during most of the afternoon. The
first gleam of sunlight took the stopper out of
him ; with a metallic gabble of notes, like the
first flourish of a piano-tuner, he broke into full
song.
For a while Sabrina endured him till his frenzy
got beyond bounds. The door into Mrs. Warham's
room stood ajar ; she might possibly be sleeping :
Sabrina rose softly, and taking up two of her aver-
sions from the backs of the nearest chairs threw
them over her other aversion in his cage.
Peace followed : but the relief was not destined
to last. In the silence that ensued a plaintive
voice called from the adjoining chamber
" What is the matter with my Buddhie-boy ? "
Sabrina took down the antimacassars, and shed
them once more into their places ; " Buddhie-boy "
was master of the situation. He sang uninter-
ruptedly till dusk. As Sabrina stood at the window
and watched the sun's last rays fail from the
crest of the down, rendering back earth to the
gloom of night, she saw again the light-clad figure
of a man coming at a fast pace along the slope that
descended upon Amesbay toward Warringford.
An unidentified form moving solitary over a
bare pathless expanse evokes in certain minds an
interest not accorded to one who travels by the
beaten track. Sabrina, as she watched the pale
figure descending the hill, wondered whether the
pedestrian followed by chance or habit a line of
36 SABRINA WARHAM
country so little traversed by other men. Then
her thoughts reverted to Mrs. Gage, in returning
from whose cottage she Iiad first taken note of the
stranger ; and she felt remiss at not having rounded
off a disagreeable day by paying a visit to that
disagreeable person.
CHAPTER V
AT THE CASTLE ARMS
THE Castle Arms, the one inn of the neighbour-
hood, stood, or rather lay, for its low walls and
broad thatched roof suggested more of a recum-
bent than a standing attitude, immediately on the
boundary of the Castle park. The boughs of the
great elms bordering the Lutworth domain here
seemed, as they hung across the road, to be extend-
ing their patronage to the small hostelry. Some
of the lower branches, indeed, had reach enough,
when the wind swayed them, to deliver admonitory
taps to the roof and windows as though reminding
those within of certain rules and regulations which
had here strictly to be observed ; and, as a matter
of fact, the inn, though free as regards the brewing
trade, was essentially a tied house, and the knot
was a fast one. To all who entered its walls,
whether for business or relaxation, the word of
Squire Lutworth was law ; and the law of that
worthy county magnate had a way of making itself
felt.
The only man of the neighbourhood who with-
stood his authority was Farmer Lorry ; and in
consequence the social life of the community was
divided. Labourers in the farmer's employ might
drop in occasionally and take a glass during the
day ; but for one of them to enter when the day's
work was over and the true hour of the village
gossips had begun, was a sure sign that terms
between master and man had run out, and that
37
38 SABRINA WARHAM
approaching quittance had brought independence.
Men at Lorry's got their evening beer free, but the
benefit contained a condition ; they were not to go
where the Squire's closing-hours held force. The
sound of the big Castle bell could be heard down
at the farm, but its jurisdiction was there flouted.
Farmer Lorry had a bell of his own, and used it.
Here, in fact, was a parish with two heads hold-
ing to contrary ways, a case of " pull, devil ; pull,
baker " ; hence the rival claims of the two houses
formed the general topic of conversation when
gossips met at the inn. Did Squire and farmer
pass each other on the road, or exchange words
across their boundaries, 'twas a reckoned or a dis-
puted score for one or the other. Farmer Lorry
had maintained a right of way which the Squire
was for closing ; the other had retaliated by send-
ing trespassers on to Lorry's acres; the Squire's
colours had carried the election against the Whig
candidate, whom Lorry, a Tory of Tories, had been
driven out of sheer contrariness to back. Lorry
had held his own as people's warden against the
Lutworth nominee; also he had his pew, out of
which powers could not oust him. These were
incidents of the past, forming an historic back-
ground for daily skirmishes. In the scapegrace
doings of certain members of the two families
there were also comparisons to be made : stories
that never grew old.
The inn parlour, where the muse of local history
held session, was a long low chamber, hung with
coloured prints representing the accession, corona-
tion, and marriage of Queen Victoria ; in the place
of honour over the chimney-piece was a large
mezzotint of Napoleon Buonaparte lying in state,
with the Duke of Wellington standing by in a
deferential attitude. This work, intended to sym-
bolize England's generous recognition of fallen
greatness, gave queer notions of actual events to
some of its local admirers ; but it supplied in the
AT THE CASTLE ARMS 39
main an accurate summary of twenty glorious
years in English history, and accounted for England
being the island which it was, and had always to
be. It helped, in fact, to mark time in a constituency
retrospective in its politics. So, in times later than
those we are now recording, has a picture of our
late Queen mourning over the tomb of Benjamin
Disraeli helped to win loyal votes to the honour of
his memory.
During the daytime there hung about this
chamber a smell evenly compounded of stale beer,
stale tobacco, and stale corduroys. This peculiar
fragrance, inseparable from its social uses, lay as
it were in a becalmed state over the walls and
furniture while daylight lasted. Toward six o'clock
each evening it freshened and blew to a gale ; the
smell of fresh beer, fresh tobacco, and fresh cordu-
roys then began to overpower the fumes of yester-
day. In this renewal of the elements the corduroys
were during the first hour the most active in cast-
ing their ozone to the atmosphere, in the second
hour beer predominated, in the third hour smoke.
It was not until the third hour, when with the late
comers the united intellects of the village were
assembled, that any really important topic was
broached. The signal for the larger discussion
was the arrival of Tarn George, the carrier from
Warringford, whose daily jaunts made him the
collector of all the gossip that straggled through
a sparsely inhabited district.
The three hours' rain of the afternoon of David
Lorry's lonely drive into Warringford had its after-
math in the steaming of the corduroys seated that
night in the Castle inn parlour; beeriness had but
just gained its ascendancy when, at eight o'clock,
the carrier entered, and, taking his accustomed
place, called for a pint of bitter. All waited while
he took his first draught, the draught of a thirsty
man, whose whole mind must be given to the
matter in hand.
40 SABRINA WARHAM
" Hast heard," said Tarn George then, addressing
the company in general, with his own idiomatic
use of the second person singular, " hast heard as
how Squire is to be down o' Sunday, and Farmer
Lorry, bedded with rheumatics though he be, do
mean to drive up to church for the occasion, and
sit before him and all the grand company ? "
"What? Will he come along of Widow War-
ham ? " inquired Sam Carter, whose name tallied
with his trade. " Sure, he's never done that before."
" Maybe not," replied Tam ; " but with her or
without, 'tis plain he means to come ; else why
have Will Hedges been set to clean up the old
pony-shay ? have made it almost like new, so he
tell me."
There was a general recognition that for Will
Hedges to be thus employed proved matters to be
stirring.
"For we do know," continued Tam, accepting
their assent to the reasonableness of his proposi-
tion, " that Farmer Lorry 'ud never 'a had the shay
smartened up in her honour. When the widow
first come, he let it be known to all he didn't
approve of no Papish church-goings from his door ;
and when she was for borrowing or hiring 'twas
take it or leave it, for all he cared, and no more
than a wipe round to clean off the cobwebs come
on it since the old missis died."
"Very true," remarked John Riddle, a long man,
whose head seemed to have been shaped with the
sole object of carrying out to the last extreme the
excessive length of the rest of his person, and
known accordingly to his associates as Long
John. " Sure, and very true it is ; for I've often
wondered how 'twas he allowed that there shay to
come up to the Castle looking so ramshackle and
forsaken like, and Mrs. Warham a real lady as you
might say. No, 't could never be for her he's had
it all done to rights. Did he say anything to Will
to show what his intentions might be ? "
AT THE CASTLE ARMS
" Nay ! " answered Tarn George. " Master David
he just come down and said to Will, 'Will, you put
the shay to rights, and be sharp about it?' says
he. And Will Hedges, having summat else to see
to, he says, ' By when ? ' and Master David says to
him, 'By Sunday,' and walks away; but he come
back afterwards to see he give it a thorough doing-
to, inside and out, no end of a polish."
"Ah well, then, if David said it, it come from his
father right enough," observed Long John. " It's
wonderful, now, what a settled character he have
become, decent and law-abiding, so to speak, since
his flight into foreign parts."
" Yes, David be as sober as a married man, now,"
declared one afflicted in that cause.
"As some married men," put in James Aubrey,
the village farrier. " We've known others ; eh,
neighbours ? "
" Ah, that's true," remarked Tarn George, gaz-
ing intently into the mug he held up to his lips,
as though untold things lay at the bottom of
it.
"'Tis so, indeed!" observed Long John, with a
face of melancholy retrospect ; " we married men
have our temptations like other folk; on'y we be
less showy with 'em than they young bachelors.
Eh, what do you say, Martin ? "
He addressed a meek-looking youth, who took
his ale in a half-pint measure, as though thereby to
disclaim equality with men of more seasoned ca-
pacity. The thrust apparently went home ; a
laugh arose, and the meek youth blushed. Tarn
George emerged from contemplation of his mug to
remark
" Talking of married men reminds me of that
little trouble our late constable had, Officer Dawson
I mean, the last time any one of this neighbour-
hood was took up for drunk and incapable. That
was before most of you young chaps remember,
I dare say ? "
42 SABRINA WARHAM
" Yes, Mr. George, you tell it us," replied one of
the youthful members thus addressed, who had all
heard the story before.
"Well," continued Tarn, "you see 'twas this
way : there'd always been a difficulty about taking
up drunks from these parts, because by the time
they reached Warringford they was generally sober,
and the constable had to answer for it that they
was reasonably convicted of drink before they
started. Most of our constables saw from the start
that the game wasn't worth handling, but Mr.
Dawson, when he first come, being new broom to
the job, was all for getting the place a bad name up
at head-quarters so as to recommend himself to his
superiors ; which to my mind wasn't a neighbourly
way o' doing things."
" Nor it wasn't, Mr. George," assented his hearers,
thus indirectly appealed to at a known point in the
narrative.
"Well, it so happened his wife was a jealous
woman, and suspected him of unlawful eyes on
another; and one day George Gage, who'd been
over at Hone cattle market, come back frisky as a
young bullock, bellowing down the village after
dark, but not doing no harm to no one. How-
somever Mr. Dawson extends his authority over
him, and takes him down to Warringford lock-up ;
and George Gage being a joyful, uproarious chap
in those days, not having been so long married,
it took the best part of three hours to get him
there ; so Mr. Dawson, thinking he'd sweated it
sufficient for one day, stays the night at least
that's his story. His wife, having particular parties
in her eye, thinks different. I don't say as I believe
myself there was any harm, but the long and the
short of it is, that was the last time any case o'
drunk went over to be dealt with at Warringford.
George Gage, poor fellow, was the on'y man in
these parts who ever got drunk o' purpose, and
Mrs. Dawson wouldn't have him touched."
AT THE CASTLE ARMS 43
The end of the story was a signal for the
replenishing of mugs. After a first draught of the
new measure, with a well-moistened voice Long
John remarked,
" George Gage, now, he be the curous' sort
I ever come across, though I'm not for saying he's
a bad man, but he have his imcleanness, so he have,
that /know."
" Ah ? and how do 'ee make that out, John ? "
inquired Giles, the quiet man of the company.
" I make it out this way," returned Long John.
"T'other day when I was carting manure up by
Wood End, George Gage come along and watch
me at work. * Ah,' says he, ' I reckon donkey litter
beats everything.' Well, that was natural enough,
seeing he keeps a donkey of his own, so I said
nothing agen it. Presently, when I was goin' to
have my lunch, he says to me, 'What 'a ye got
there?' So I told 'n bacon. Then he says to
me, ' I've got something over at home better than
bacon,' says he. ' What be that ? ' says I ; and he
says, ' Come and try a bit.' Well, I've knowed
George Gage to have pheasant before now, so
without asking questions I said I'd come. We
went in, and he took off a pot and he give me
something to eat; and I ate, and I couldn't say
what it was. I chawed it over front and back,
and I swallowed it down, and there's no doubt
I made the mistake of thinking it was good. Well,
when I'd done, and was going back to my work,
George he says to me, ' D'ye know what ye've
eaten ? ' ' I do not,' says I. ' D'ye think it good ? '
Well, I owned I did ; and then I says to him, ' What
is it ? "
Long John paused, and looked meditatively tow-
ard his pint mug preparatory to a 'second draught.
A waiting silence assured him that he had the ear of
the company.
" Then George he says to me, ' Hedge'og ! ' '
The narrator looked round upon his hearers to
44 SABRINA WARHAM
watch the effect of his words. He added with
relish, as of a thing creditably done, " I managed to
bring it all back again, neighbours."
" And well you did, and well you did ! " exclaimed
Tarn George, approvingly ; " but 'twas a wasteful
experience, man."
" Why, that reminds me," said Mr. Dufty, the
sexton, a small, important-looking individual, who
had come in just as Long John was starting on
his narrative, " that reminds me of what took place
between me and her ladyship last June, up at the
tea-giving, on the virtue of delicate digestions,
which she told me was the matter in my case.
You know how her ladyship do always the grand
neighbourly thing by we plain folk; so, knowing
as how she'd be thinking to speak to me, I'd been
posting myself up in the proper usage of all her
titles. ' Lady Berrers, Lady John, my lady, my
ladyship.' I'd gone over and over 'em all as I
walked up the park till I could do the changes
almost without thinking. So when I come up to
the tables where her ladyship was standing, and
she says to me, 'Good afternoon, Mr. Dufty,' I'd
got my first word in nicely. Then she asks me
if I'll have some tea. Well, as I never do take tea
I'd forgotten I should be asked the question, but
my courage didn't forsake me. ' No, I thank you,
my ladyship,' says I, speaking quite natural ; and
then, thinking that to give no reason was slighting
to her 'ospitality, I let her have the polite of it, ' If
I drinks tea, my lady,' says I, ' I gets sour belch-
ings, not unaccompanied by windy spasms.' Oh,
at that her ladyship, her laughed most affable,
quite as if we was on easy nodding terms, and she
says to me, ' See, Mr. Dufty, what comes of having
a delicate digestion ! ' Yes, and she was so pleased
with me I thought she would never have done
laughing. Surely, neighbours, it's a great con-
descension for one like her ladyship to tell me
my digestion was delicate, and it's been on my
AT THE CASTLE ARMS 45
conscience according ever since. Ah yes, I call it
grand neighbourly."
All seemed to agree with this testimonial to the
lady in question. The sexton was then appealed to
as one likely to know in what strength the Castle
party would be coming to church on the following
Sunday. He counted the Squire and Lady Berrers
for certain ; Master Ronald could be there, no doubt,
if he chose ; the house-party would in any case
be small. Miss Margaret Holning, Lady Berrers'
daughter by her first marriage, was reported to be
still abroad for reasons of health.
" Lor' now, she be a poorly one," remarked one
of the company ; " yet she didn't used to look so
when she first come. It must be three years now
that we've seed nothing of her in these parts."
"Ay, it's all that," said Tarn George; "'twas
the very same year as David Lorry returned from
his wanderings. She went away that summer, and
he come back the same autumn. After that we
heard she'd got to live abroad for her health's
sake."
"Well, it's to be hoped she may pull through,"
observed Long John, in a tone of settled conviction
to the contrary, "but they're a fast-dying family
when the fancy takes 'em, all but the old Squire,
that is. Ah, I'm afeared there be too much of her
uncle Ronald in Miss Margery for her to last proper ;
her always had the same scampering way o' going
about, like Master Ronald does now. His father
was the same sort always."
"Ay," said Tarn George, to whom by long
prescriptive right the story belonged. " He was
a hasty man, he was, and sudden in his actions ;
else he might have been with us to-day." Tarn
paused and drew on the anticipatory sadness of his
audience for inspiration. " 'Twas, I remember," he
went on, " the very day after Scholar Warham took
to him his bride. That next morning Mr. Ronald
was at his shaving, but ne'er a razor could he find
46 SABRINA WARHAM
as 'ud cut; strop how as he would that's how it
was explained afterwards 'twas all wooden edge,
so's you may say ; he might as well ha' been shaving
with the strop for all he could make of it. Well,
being a hasty man he loses his temper, and ' Be
danged to 'e,' says he, 'but 'e shall cut.' And
being so much a man of his word, no sooner
said, he was bleeding just as handsome as a stuck
pig."
" Did he kill himself, Mr. George ? " breathlessly
inquired the meek youth, who had known all the
circumstances from his childhood.
"Not just then, he didn't," explained Tam ; "but
an hour after his man come in and found 'un lying
in his senses just, but too weak to lift up a finger.
'James,' says he to him, 'James, I've been and
made a mess of it ! ' And afterwards, when he
was brought back to recovery, which wasn't for a
good long while, he give the true tale of how it
all come about, just as I've give it you : I ha'n't
changed a word of it."
" 'Twas a perilous near shave for him ! " said
Sam Carter. " I wonder he ever recovered."
"Ay, it was indeed, Sam," returned the other.
" Afterwards he went right away, and we never
saw or heard of him again till the Squire put up
a tablet in the church to say he had died away in
foreign parts; and then Master Ronald come. He
was already in knickers then ; and, believe me,
'twas the first news we got that his father had ever
been married."
"Yes," put in the sexton, "to a foreign wife,
I believe. 'Twas a rummy go, take it all round."
" Ah ! but that's been always the way with they
Lutworths," replied Tam George. " Quick court-
ing, quick marrying, here one day, and gone the
next; they was always a bobbety crew where matri-
mony was concerned ; ay, and sometimes too where
matrimony wasn't in the bargain."
"Well, yes," assented Long John, in extenuating
AT THE CASTLE ARMS
47
I
tone, "they've been always a bit flighty in such
matters, and it belongs to their station to be so."
" Now, that's a true thing said," remarked Tarn
George, " and you might see its truth from its
contrary in the case of all the Lorrys as we've
knowed 'em. Now, as a family, they be late marry-
ing ; Mrs. Warham, Miss Lorry as she was then,
she were nigh forty before she saw her way to the
business ; and no one could make out why she left
a position like hers, and the safety of a pension
for the rag-tagging of matrimony with a man so
much younger than she was. Then Farmer Lorry,
througn his father living on so long, and being so
close and jealous, was forty-five before he married.
And it seems as if it 'ud be the same way with
David now : if he have an eye for any maid he
don't show it. He be a mortal quiet man so far
as women be concerned."
" Ay, and it wasn't so as he always promised,"
observed Long John. " Callous ! he was that gal-
lous once there was no holding him."
"Yet he was always a handy lad," declared the
farrier, " and had a knowing way with horses from
the first, hadn't he, Sam?"
Sam agreed that it was so.
"Ah, I know'd Sam 'ud remember," said the
farrier. " You see, it come about this way : Sam,
being a bit new to the business then, was carting
timbers for the new houses that were being built
up by Falkner's Lodge ; and he'd got a load of long
planks a'most touching the ground one end, and
right out over the horse's head at the other. Well,
he got on all right till he come to a bit of new
road-mending where the cart went humpity. The
horse had hardly gone a yard on it when ' bang '
come a crack of one of they long planks right on
his head ; and before he knowed what that was for,
' bang ' come another a bit harder than the first.
The horse began rearing and kicking; Sam had a
rare job to quiet 'un. Then he tried to go on again,
48 SABRINA WARHAM
but it wouldn't do; no sooner were they started
on the rough when bang come the plank on the
horse's head, scaring the poor beast out of his
wits ; then he tried for to shift the planks, but that
wouldn't do either ; any bit back brought 'em too
much out behind. Sam were kep' there half an
hour or more wondering how to get the job
through. So happens then little David Lorry
come along and see what was up ; and he says to
Sam Sam don't say it to him, not having enough
sense for it, had you, Sam ? ' Give me a leg up,'
says he. So Sam mounts him he wa'n't no weight
then and he just sits straddle, and takes the bottom
plank in his hands, and holds it so as it can't come
no further. When they'd got over the rough bit
he come down again ; and all his ringers was pum-
melled black and blue by the joggling of they
planks, but he hadn't made no noise. After that
he used to hang round wi' Sam a good lot, and
come down to the forge with the horses anything
to be with horses, or away from his father. But in
the end the sea was the only safe place for him.
Ah, poor lad ! he come back very sober from
it all."
The talk was at this point interrupted by the
arrival of a stranger, who, after general greeting to
the company, inquired of the innkeeper if he could
have a bed for the night. Such a request in so
quiet a neighbourhood caused interest and surmise
to every mind in the room ; with slow, curious
scrutiny each man present began to form his own
f estimate of the new-comer's quality, and to specu-
late as to what business had brought him among
them.
The man who formed the centre of this silent
inquest gave by his appearance little indication of
his place in the social scale. He was young, slender,
and of good stature ; his small head was set well
upon shoulders broad enough to suggest activity,
if not strength ; he bore himself, moreover, with an
I
AT THE CASTLE ARMS 49
easy assurance, seeming never at a loss for that
Tightness of attitude which some find so difficult
a thing to acquire. His hands were well shaped,
but scarred and roughened by labour ; his clothes,
frayed and soiled, were of a light over-all descrip-
tion, their whiteness dulled by the stains of long
service. The stranger combined, in fact, the bear-
ing of a gentleman with the dress and general
condition of an artisan. His face, when he un-
covered, showed more than a pretension to good
looks : the eyes were keen, and of a light grey, and
their intentness became momentarily increased now
and again by a fretted knitting of the brows which
brought into prominence a certain irregularity in
their contour. This was the one flaw if flaw it be
reckoned in a face which might otherwise have
claimed to be perfect; the suave features of Saxon
type gained thereby character and distinctness; it
held there, in fact, the same value as the faint
shadow of cloud in a Claude landscape.
The preliminary interchange as to weather and
time of year having been got through, Tarn George
inquired, for satisfaction of the general interest
" Have you footed it far to-day, master ? "
"I have," replied the stranger; "at any rate,
what some would call far. What's your dis-
tance ?"
" Mine ? " said Tarn. " Oh, wheels is my trade ;
five miles on my legs is enough for me. Now, I
suppose it wouldn't have been you I passed on
the road back from Warringford ? " he added
artfully.
" Hardly, as I happen to have come by another
road."
" Ah, going to Warringford, maybe ? "
" I don't propose to do that to-night."
" No, no ; I take it not to-night," said Tarn
George, as though concerned for the hospitality of
the house. "This be on'y a small inn, but we've
accommodation for chance comers. Not that there'd
50 SABRINA WARHAM
be much room for a married couple, eh, landlord ?
but all right for a single man ; and I suppose you
be single ? "
"Well, I've certainly not brought a wife with
me," replied the stranger, continuing to fence in-
quisitive remarks with an air of candour.
As he spoke the distant clamour of a bell smote
upon the ears of the assembly; it seemed a signal
requiring attention; there was a general emptying
of mugs and a knocking of ashes out of pipes.
" What is that? " inquired the new-comer.
"That," said Tarn George, "is our Squire putting
on his nightcap : it means good night for all of us."
"But your Squire has not arrived from town
yet?" exclaimed the stranger; adding hastily, "And
only nine o'clock : what a ridiculous hour ! "
"Well, it be our hour all the same," remarked
Long John ; " and absent though he may be in the
body, Squire he be present in the spirit, as we know.
Wish you good night, stranger."
Good nights were now said by all, and the
gathering rapidly dispersed. Left alone with the
landlord and his wife, the stranger asked if he could
have supper before going to bed.
" I suppose," said the innkeeper, rather doubt-
fully, "that you can have it since you are in the
house, and come late; but I'll ask you to say
nothing about it if you want liquor as well."
"What?" inquired the other; "are you not
licensed up to ten o'clock ? "
" Not here, I'm not," answered the innkeeper, with
an impassive countenance ; " my license hangs in that
bell. Squire is my landlord, and I'm only here on a
yearly holding. He makes his rules, and I have to
keep 'em."
" The old ruffian ! " remarked the stranger, gen-
ially.
The landlord looked round to see that no other
member of the household was in hearing. He
leaned across the table, and said impressively, with
AT THE CASTLE ARMS
a sincerity of conviction about which there could be
no mistake
" I tell you, sir, he's a caution. There's only
one other man like him in the neighbourhood."
"And who may that be?"
" Farmer Lorry. They are a couple, they are ;
and folk say there's reason in it."
CHAPTER VI
A DRIVE TO WARRINGFORD
HIGH words were reported to have taken place at
the stables one morning between James Lorry and
his son ; the cause of their contention was not
known.
For the old farmer's voice to be raised in anger
was too daily an occurrence to excite interest, but
that the other should trouble to reply was unusual,
and caused remark. In the afternoon David had
out the market-cart, and sent up word to Sabrina
that he was starting for Warringford. She kept
him waiting no more than two minutes. The farmer
stood in the entrance and watched them go : he did
not return his niece's greeting.
Seated by her cousin, after her first shy thanks
to him for remembering her request, Sabrina be-
came tongue-tied. They drove together in silence
for more than a mile, she suffering from an embar-
rassment that did not wear off ; he, apparently, finding
no cause for conversation. When they had reached
the open level of the heath, David abruptly inquired
if she would like to drive.
" I can't," said Sabrina, and coloured as though
she had said an awkward thing.
" Would you care to learn ? "
" I would indeed ! " she said, growing suddenly
brave. David put the reins into her hands and
showed her how they should be held. " I've been
thinking," he remarked, after a time spent in instruc-
tion, " that you might like to have out the pony-
52
A DRIVE TO WARRINGFORD
S3
shay for your mother now and again ; it would
always be an easy matter if you could only drive it
yourself."
" It is very kind of you to think of it," said
Sabrina, too much engaged to say more.
Her colour was bright, her eyes fixed anxiously
on the very middle of the track ; she was so bent
on the task of acquitting herself well, that an
inclination to let her words fall in time with the
trotting of the mare became apparent.
" Oh, not at all," said David, watching her as
he spoke.
" My mother, I am sure, would like it, but for
myself I prefer walking : I mean as an exercise."
"Ay, I've noticed you going about," remarked
her cousin.
" Noticed me ? "
" Up along the down ; a stiff climb, that."
"The climb is what I like, only I never can
keep straight, since there is no landmark to go by ;
when I make for the gap above Amesbay, which
is my favourite point, I am always quite a hundred
yards out of my reckoning before I get to the
top."
"You should take your bearings from behind
when there's nothing to go by in front."
" Oh, I'm not clever enough for that ; no, I want
posts. I wonder there is no path."
"Tracks don't come if there's no one to make
them," observed David; "but there are coastguard
pointings further up along top."
" What are they ? " inquired Sabrina.
" Here and there a sprinkle of white pebbles,
or stones with whiting rubbed on ; 'tis all the
coastguards have to go by when they make their
beat."
"When do they do that?"
" Start at ten every night."
" In all weathers ? they do that here ? "
" All round England, I believe."
54 SABRINA WARHAM
" All round England ! How wonderful that
sounds ! "
David did not seem to think it so wonderful.
" Reason enough for it in smuggling times," said
he ; " up top there've been men killed before now.
Maybe you'll have noticed a white stone halfway
toward East Gill, with two men's names on it ; they
were coastguards."
" I had not noticed the names."
" My father remembers them ; and a man thought
to have had a hand in it still lives over at East Gill ;
a very old man he is now."
" How barbarian it all seems ! Is there no
smuggling now ? "
" Not in these parts it's only at the big ports
that it pays nowadays."
"Ah, then, even that interest is gone now,"
remarked Sabrina, for whom, as for most women,
certain kinds of law-breaking had their attraction.
" You were at sea once, were you not, David ? " she
added.
"Ay, for a bit."
" Did you like it ? "
" Better than some things."
" But I suppose now you have given it up for
good ? "
" It looks like it," he replied, as though the
question hardly concerned him.
The mere inquiry had carried Sabrina's thoughts
abroad.
"To travel has always been my dearest wish,"
she said, " and I suppose it is the most unlikely of
fulfilment. Where have you been, David ? "
" Oh, a many places ports mostly."
" Foreign ? "
" Some foreign Marseilles was the biggest."
" Oh yes, Marseilles. And what was the
farthest ? "
David considered. " Venice, I suppose," he said
at last.
A DRIVE TO WARRINGFORD
55
" Venice ! You have been to Venice ? " She
stared at him with amazement. " How long were
you there ? "
" Nigh on two months."
"In Venice?" Her tone was divided between
envy and wonder. In all the world, could she have
had her will, Venice was the spot she would have
flown to. And yet her cousin, this man of vegetat-
ing life and dull routine, had been there and could
be mute on it ! " What did you do there ? " she
asked.
" Mostly lay in hospital."
" You were ill ? Did you see nothing, then ? "
" Oh, I went about a good bit at the finish."
"Tell me of it what was it like? You saw St.
Mark's ? "
" Well, it was like other things, only a bit
different; a good deal of shipping and a lot of
church towers standing up like chimneys, and
streets mostly under water."
"But St. Mark's itself?"
" Oh, that wasn't much ; I never went in it.
There was a big tower standing up alongside; I
went to the top of that. You could see all the
shipping from there."
" Really, David, you are too, too provoking !
You never even went into St. Mark's ? "
"No," the other mildly explained. "You see, I
always went to church at the chaplain's. 'Twas
the only place where English was spoken."
Sabrina could scarcely define the vexation she
felt at this display of her cousin's deficiency of
interests ; it seemed to make for division just when
she had been so eagerly cultivating friendly rela-
tions.
" I suppose," she said, in a deeply disappointed
tone, "that things which mean everything to some
people are nothing to others ? "
" I didn't know that you cared so much about
churches," replied David, in some perplexity.
56 SABRINA WARHAM
"Oh, don't let's talk about it," said Sabrina. "I
care nothing about them in the way you mean,
and you care nothing in the way I mean. You might
just as well have never been to Venice at all, for all
the impression it seems to have left ! "
" Well, I don't know that," said David, his face
wearing a thoughtful air. Presently he said ab-
ruptly : " Now you are not driving at all ! " Her
interest had flown ; on the excuse that she was
tired, she resigned the reins. They entered War-
ringford somewhat silently.
Warringford is one of the few towns left in
England which is still girdled by its ancient ram-
parts. Time has robbed them of their warlike
aspect, and a stranger may enter the place without
realizing that the grass-grown mounds to right and
left had ever a defensive value. Such prominence
as they still possess is due to the fact that the town
which they still hold in a four-square embrace has
shrunk rather than grown ; while vegetation advanc-
ing by a stride has thrown itself in a green wave
over the boundaries. In the grassy hollow which
was once the town moat, children come to roll on
the cleanliness of mother earth ; and here at intervals
gypsies and strollers pitch their cocoanut shies,
and set up their swing-boats and merry-go-rounds ;
and the small sleepy town pants at life as with an
attack of asthma.
Debris from one of these periodic disturbances
still strewed the green way of the ramparts as
they drove into the town. Arrived at their destina-
tion, it became evident that they had not much to
do there. Sabrina's errands were soon finished,
while David seemed to have had no other object in
coming than to give his horse fodder and rest at the
stables of the Blue Bear. When the moment came
for them to leave the trap, Sabrina was ashamed of
the conspicuous smallness of her parcels ; they
were indeed hardly worth leaving. To make up
for so meagre an excuse for their expedition, she
A DRIVE TO WARRINGFORD 57
began remarking with frank pleasure the quaint-
ness of the place. The portico of the inn stood
out over the pavement, and upon the top of it
squatted the life-size effigy of the bear which was
its sign. As she stepped out into the roadway for
a better view, Sabrina's eyes were raised toward
the windows of the first floor. Behind one of them
she saw a very gay hat and a head of abundant fair
hair. The owner of these attractions sat with her
back to the window, and though in bright holiday
attire, and with locks suggesting an accompani-
ment of youth and good looks, she would not have
attracted more than passing notice but for one
circumstance. Around her neck, and forming, as
it were, a cushion for her head, appeared the fore
part of a man's arm ; to all that lay beyond the gay
hat formed a screen ; on neither side was there
anything to break the silhouette of the head
against the dark interior background. It was
evident, unless the arm were a disjointed piece
of humanity, that the young woman was going
through the process of being kissed, and that the
kiss was no mere passing salutation, but an affair
of moment, or, to speak more strictly, of moments.
Sabrina withdrew her eyes from the privacy
they had unwittingly invaded, and suggested to
her companion a walk round the walls until the
trap should be ready for their return. Passing
the small Saxon church adjoining the site of the
old north gate, they quitted the street by a sloping
footpath which led immediately on to the ram-
parts. Here upon one side lay a row of back
premises, upon the other a short declivity led
down to the river, which at this part forms a
natural moat to the walls. On the nearer bank
stood an old house once a mill, which appeared
long since to have had all trade choked out of it.
Mellowing moisture had invaded its walls from
base to roof ; a jumble of red gables hung locked
in the grappling embrace of ivy that had passed
58 SABRINA WARHAM
from the stage of the parasite to that of the pre-
dominant partner ; it was, in fact, a perfect example
of that picturesqueness in which modern sentiment
delights, and which sanitary inspectors condemn.
Through the open and uncurtained windows could
be seen stacked furniture and rolls of bedding;
evidently the occupants had but recently moved in.
A small urchin, squatting solitary on a hillock
by the footway, got up as the two drew near, and
inquired if it was yet tea-time. Sabrina asked him
in return when his tea-time might be.
" Oh, no time ! " said the child, in a thin gnat-
like wail of forlorn misery. " But I do want my
tea."
" Where do you live ? " she inquired.
" I live down there," came the voice of his com-
plaint. He pointed to the dismantled mill.
" It looks a very nice place to live in," said
Sabrina, not quite honestly.
" Oh no ! " went on the child, in a long-drawn wail
of protest.
"Not nice, you say ? "
"Oh no! covered with rats!" The misery of
the note was indescribable.
Sabrina began to feel a considerable pity for
the small urchin. " Is that why you don't go
home, except for meals ? " she asked.
" Oh no ! " came the desolate refrain once more,
" Mother's having a baby." The picture of house-
hold misery was complete. " Can we not take him
with us, and give him something ? " inquired
Sabrina of her companion. David remembered
booths still standing on the fair-ground, where buns
could be purchased. The child, invited to come,
trotted solemnly beside them.
" Do you go to school ? " asked Sabrina, after
they had gone some way in silence.
Reproachful of her ignorance came the inevit-
able word
" Oh no ! I don't go to no school, I don't,"
A DRIVE TO WARRINGFORD 59
" Do you play, then ? " There was no variation in
the answer ; before she heard it, Sabrina saw in the
melancholy face the shadow of denial. Every ques-
tion she put drew the same monotony of reply.
Existence seemed to have impressed an over-
whelming negative on the child's brain ; he said
" No " almost without waiting to understand what
was asked.
At the place of booths, David gave him his choice
of currant bun or plain.
"No currants," answered the boy; "they hurts
my inside." Negation was to the fore even in the
matter of appetite. He ate as one who saw the
ghost of his bun looming ever before him ; nor did
even the promise of a second and a third lend to his
eating a less funereal aspect.
The fair-ground on which they now stood bore
more traces of departed attractions than standing
ones left ; gridiron marks on the turf showed where
swing-boats had been recently set up ; a circular
track round a heap of cinders marked the site of a
vanished merry-go-round ; elsewhere could be traced
the limits of a boxing-booth and the ground-plans of
a couple of shooting-galleries. All that remained
now were entertainments of the cheaper and less
exciting kind. David nodded to one of a few youths
standing about a " cocoanut shy," offering to go win
or lose on his next shot. The lad threw and knocked
down the nut; he looked rueful, having to hand it
over, remarking
" You've got your old luck, Mr. David."
David paid for him to have another shy on his
own account, and handing the nut to the child, still
solemnly munching at his bun
" There's milk for your tea, my man," said he.
Sabrina, watching the balls as they flew, began
to listen with relish to the thwack of every well-
delivered blow. She turned to her cousin and said,
smiling
" Why don't you try, David ? "
6o SABRINA WARHAM
"'Twouldn't be quite fair," he replied. "I used
to be a known hand at this game." He took up, as
he spoke, one of the wooden missiles and approached
the crease.
" No you don't ! " cried the owner of the pitch,
and snatched the ball back again.
" Only to try my hand," said David ; " and any
damage done I pay."
The man agreed. Six cocoanuts went down in a
run without a single miss, three were broken by the
impact. The on-lookers applauded ; David's interest
in his feat was entirely scientific.
" I was afraid I'd lost the knack," he remarked.
" I used to be pretty good at it as a boy."
His speech sounded more like apology than
boasting. Just then a gypsy-like fellow of middle
age, owner of a donkey-cart which stood near, came
up to ask if he might have the broken cocoanuts.
Hearing him spoken to as Gage, Sabrina turned to
look at him, and although his face did not impress
her unfavourably, she moved slowly away so as to be
quit of his company. An instinct of repulsion from
certain forms of evil was strong in her, sometimes
causing her to be unjust.
Upon the way home she made one or two inquiries
concerning the man, and found David's tolerance
little to her liking. "Wildish, but not a bad sort,"
was his verdict, yet with no particular reason to show
on the good side. Having yet to learn that David
spoke ill of no man, she was inclined to regard such
tolerance as a laxity in morals.
As an outcome of this expedition Sabrina found
that her liking for her cousin had increased, together
with a certain disappointment in him. He was a
good fellow, no doubt; but it would be affectation
to deny that he was of a different class from her
own. He belonged to the crops and the herds which
were the sum of his labours, and like them, he
was of the earth earthy, without ambition, or aim,
or interest.
A DRIVE TO WARRINGFORD 61
Having formed this view of him, it was with some
compunction that she found, a few days later, a couple
of guide-posts set up at intervals on the down, meant
evidently to serve her as landmarks. She felt uncom-
fortably grateful, and wished he had not taken such
trouble on her behalf.
CHAPTER VII
SUNDAY AND MONDAY
FARMER LORRY hobbled up to church on the Sunday,
disdaining the aid of the refurbished pony-trap,
which conveyed Mrs. Warham to her own place
of worship. This and the parish church stood
within a stone's throw of each other in the Castle
grounds ; and the history of their proximity serves
in part to explain the cause of contention between
squire and farmer.
Lutworths of old had held out against the
Reformation changes, when the church which their
ancestors had built fell into the practice of the new
religion. For two centuries and more they, and
those of their tenantry who had stood with them, had
worshipped in such privacy as penal laws made
obligatory. Then it chanced that one of the Lut-
worths, having secured the friendship of that unim-
peachably Protestant monarch, George III., built for
himself and his co-religionists, by royal favour and
connivance, a chapel, which, under the outward
semblance of an observatory, satisfied their spiritual
wants while rendering eye-service to the claims of
Protestant ascendancy.
During this period, headship in church matters
had passed over to the Lorrys, and with it had
gone the ownership of the majestic family pew,
which crowned the accommodation of the sacred
edifice. Thus when there stepped into the inher-
itance a younger branch of the Lutworth family,
holding established views on religion, in the very
62
I
SUNDAY AND MONDAY 63
place where squirearchy goes usually to be wor-
shipped an unseemly precedent was found to have
been created ; nor would the Lorrys on any con-
sideration yield up their pride of place. The battle
waged by the fathers had descended to the sons, and
these in turn had grown hoary in a slow two-handed
duel wherein neither party would yield jot or tittle to
the other's claim.
Mrs. Warham had herself once played a mild
part in these contentions. On her mother's death
she had quitted her father's roof for that of the
Castle bailiff, her maternal uncle, and her desertion
of the family pew at that date was but a preliminary
to her further descent into service which the Lorrys
chose to regard as menial. From that she had been
doubtfully raised by her marriage, but had never
returned to the place of distinction in the eyes of an
assembled congregation which she had resigned in
her youth. David, to his father's disgust, had, on
his return from sea, joined the choir in the west
gallery; thus the old man, Sunday after Sunday, sat
in cold solitude, sole occupant of a structure that
would have accommodated a score.
With these materials of controversy were mixed
the bones of a more ancient quarrel ; rectorial rights
were queerly divided in that parish between the
Castle and the Monastery Farm. Through Lorry's
hands came part of the vicar's stipend ; he also
had a theoretic share in the presentation of the
living. His father had gone to law to make it
effective, and had lost; and James Lorry, though
he did not revive, had not abandoned the claim. So
old was the division that a saying had grown up
in the neighbourhood, acquiring after generations
of usage a sort of superstitious value, for all the
world as though Mother Shipton had cast a pro-
phetic eye over the scene and uttered words of
fate.
" Till Lutworth give or Lorry go,
Lutworth and Lorry shall have woe,'
64 SABRINA WARHAM
That sort of saying may be made to mean any-
thing, and can therefore the more easily obtain
credence and fulfilment. The superstitiously in-
clined might point to circumstances in the past
which seemed, through some fever of the blood,
to connect the fates of the Lutworths and the
Lorrys. Mrs. Warham's marriage, though it had
put the extinguisher on a certain scandal, had
been followed by a lurid event not satisfactorily
explained to all minds by Tarn George's version of
it. And now again something was beginning to
be whispered concerning the continued absence
of Lady Berrers' daughter. But against all that
was to be set the fast friendship which had existed
since their return from foreign parts between that
most harum-scarum branch of the Lutworth blood,
young master Ronald, and David Lorry ; it made the
other talk decidedly improbable. Lady Berrers had
found David lying in a seaman's hospital, weak from
the loss of hot blood, spilled through a moment's
folly and ignorance of what southern custom will
allow. With a neighbourly, perhaps with a motherly
feeling for a youth so stranded, she had lightened
his convalescence by her kindness, and persuaded
him at last back to his home. Farmer Lorry, owing
the enemy a debt, grudged its acknowledgment ; he
grudged even more the David and Jonathan friend-
ship between his own son and one of the Lutworth
breed ; for though David went no step out of his
way to meet it, he was receptive of the youth's
company ; and Ronald, who loved to trespass, thus
found excuse for hanging about the premises at all
hours, and for officious interference among the stables
and pigsties, where he had been bidden never to set
foot.
The arrival of the Castle party caused, there-
fore, both on public and on domestic grounds,
a souring of Farmer Lorry's outlook on the
world.
On this particular Sunday, however, Master
I
SUNDAY AND MONDAY 65
Ronald was still absent ; he was not expected for a
fortnight. Lady Berrers was there, and looking
well ; which, by comparison with the average of
looks, meant very well indeed. It had been said of
her that her smile was like a bow, her bow like a
smile ; and this radiance, which had won her the
favour of society, made her also a consummate
grand lady to those of humbler rank. Could there
be in this world such a thing of contradiction
as a stately romp, Lady Berrers was that. She
romped in the grand manner, from the sheer joy
of living ; she overflowed into gay movement, yet
retained her state. The courtier who so happily
described her smile and her bow, gave this as her
full-length portrait : in repose a banquet, in motion
an elopement. She was gracious to a fault, yet no
word had ever been breathed against her reputation.
Widow to two diplomatists an active and a retir-
ing one she had dipped into foreign courts and
come out of them more English than ever. A great
foreign minister assured her, when with her second
husband, Lord Berrers, she withdrew from diplo-
macy, that she had once saved her country from war.
She was dying to know how, innocent of the inten-
tion. " I fell in love with you ! " he explained
simply. Her answer, "There would have been
war had Lord Berrers known ! " gave, perhaps, a
good reason for the retirement from service of an
old nobleman with a young wife. Her marriages
were explained by a remark which she made in
her second widowhood when asked what she thought
to be a true reason for existence. " I mix my reason
with my passion," she replied. " I have a passion
for being fallen in love with by elderly men."
To be able to say this meant that she had done
with marriage; two memories she thought were
enough to be faithful to ; she was grateful to
both, and argued that a daughter by a first hus-
band allowed a division of her widowhood between
two.
66 SABRINA WARHAM
Imagine the lady, whose character is here pre-
sented to you still an acknowledged beauty though
fifty, with dark eyes dartingly piercing, and a
mouth never slow at mirth ; imagine her so placed
when in church as to command a direct view
forward upon Farmer Lorry's profile, able to make
him conscious of her while without excuse for
returning the directness of her gaze ; imagine that
power habitually exercised, and you may then under-
stand that the farmer, sitting in the vast emptiness
of his pew, so useless and so disputed a territory,
was, after all, a man of courage, and perhaps worth
fighting. And Lady Berrers, as you now know, had
a passion for being fallen in love with by elderly
men !
She was one who could not dislike what amused
her ; and the war between old Lorry and the Squire
amused her vastly ; she enjoyed even her secondary
position in church because of it; it helped her, she
said, to pray humbly, giving her an example of the
world, the flesh, and the Devil, more instructive than
any image or sermon. The remark showed that she
could make much of small things, for the flesh upon
Farmer Lorry's bones was little indeed ; long ago
she had called him the " Devil's ascetic," imputing
his notorious ill-humours to a prolonged abstinence
from human charity.
As no one could say what were the farmer's
true views regarding her, feminine curiosity was
perhaps at the root of her inability to let him
alone. On this occasion Lorry had been before-
hand in getting to the church-door, though she ran
him a race; he had missed, therefore, as he had
intended to, the flowing bow with which, after a long
absence from her native parish, she always greeted
him.
During service a shawl which she had laid
across the book-rest slid over into the farmer's
pew, and fell upon the seat. A little time after,
during the singing, a small Prayer-book toppled
SUNDAY AND MONDAY 67
at a chance touch, and rejecting the seat, reached
the floor. Farmer Lorry behaved circumspectly
and without haste ; turning from his book he
looked first through his spectacles, then over them
at the intruding articles ; then he walked down
the pew, and handed back, in the order of their
coming, first the shawl, which by courtesy he might
have left; then the book, which without rudeness
he could not.
It was a triumph, and Lady Berrers knew it;
if she had been playing him tricks, the farmer had
worsted her.
The lady had come to church that day with a
certain curiosity ; informed of Sabrina's return to
the neighbourhood, she had looked forward to
seeing her, not merely as being her mother's
daughter. Rumour had acclaimed her beauty;
and Lady Berrers had reason for wishing it to
be true. Seeing the farmer solitary, she supposed
that filial kindness had kept mother and daughter
together, and was ready to approve so humane a
laxity of creed.
Her surmise, however, was wrong : Sabrina
would willingly have worshipped at her mother's
side under an alien formula ; but in religion Mrs.
Warham was austere, almost forbidding ; an element
of Calvinism had survived her change of faith,
causing her instinctively to repulse from the
intimacies of her spiritual life one whom she re-
garded as an unbeliever. Both in conduct and
doctrine Sabrina failed to give her parent the
requisite assurance as to her spiritual welfare. She
had once indeed been to the parish church, but had
found the hard formalism of the service too trying.
Her most vivid recollection was of a kneeling row
of school children, clinging miserably to a high
book-rest like shipwrecked mariners to a spar ; and
she doubted much of a system of prayer which gave
" misereres " to the young and cushioned support
to those whose consciences were ripe in sin. Had
68 SABRINA WARHAM
there been no other drawback, the Lorry pew
would have decided her. Occasionally she attended
service in a neighbouring parish, but she was not
a regular church-goer, and her mother, in conse-
quence, did not reckon her a Christian.
Monday morning has its moods, differing from
those of other days. To practical minds it is the
true first day, which sees action sprout once more
from the dull mould of sabbath rest; to the more
passive it is a day for mental and physical digestion,
and brings with it small sign of grace.
Farmer Lorry sat on the porch-bench in the
morning sun, and looked out over his farm. Like
the mainspring of a clock while the tick of the
works goes on and the cogs move round, he sat
with his energies coiled, his leisure a sign of
power. Over the lower slope of the opposite down
went a plough, leaving in its wake fat ribs of
purple earth; David's was the directing hand,
Farmer Lorry made claim to the directing mind.
A spell of fair weather was promised by the
direction of the wind and the high drift of feather-
ing clouds ; it was a day when a farmer might
reckon on a week well in hand for good ends ; the
ground was ripe for ploughing, and much waited
to be done. Having sent his son forth into the
fields, Farmer Lorry sat there to keep an eye on
him.
While he thus sat ruminating, his niece, pleas-
antly arrayed to meet the sunshine, came out of
the house and threw him too confident a greeting.
As he had particular dislike for people to be
pleased with themselves till he chose to be pleased
with them, Sabrina's good humour offended him.
Sour as could be, he returned her salutation.
" So it's fine enough for ye to be out, is it ? "
he inquired, as though indoor coddling were her
practice. "Thought you'd do a bit of a show-off,
eh ? "
SUNDAY AND MONDAY 69
" I thought it looked promising," said Sabrina.
" Is it likely to rain, do you think ? "
"Yes, it'll rain next week; you may be sure of
that."
" Oh, I hope to be in again before then," she
said, smiling at his crustiness.
" Indeed ? Going into Warringford, I suppose ?
Well, you can't have horse or trap to-day for that
business or man either."
"I shouldn't think of expecting it; the other day
David kindly offered to take me."
" Oh, he did, did he ? Well, you see he's back
at work now. He's no time for gadding and he
doesn't, when I look after him."
James Lorry felt it necessary to make show of
his authority ; an object-lesson was needed, and
here was the occasion. A farm-boy was just then
going down toward the gate ; the farmer called
him back.
"Go and tell David I want him," said he.
The lad departed on his errand. Over the
breadth of two fields, Sabrina watched David
driving his laborious furrow ; and began calculating
where he would be by the time the messenger
reached him. Behind his track flew a flock of white
sea-birds ; wheeling and dipping, ever attendant,
they seemed in haste to alight upon each fresh
foot-print ; their shadows fell on him, their wings
almost brushed him.
The sight appealed to her, suggesting a natural
harmony in things, a notion that there must be
something gentle in one whom white birds cared
thus to follow. Following her thought, she cried
" How tame they are ! "
" Tame ? What ? " said Lorry. " The horses ? "
" No, the sea-gulls ; they seem to be so
friendly."
" Oh, friendly you call that ? Don't you know
what they're after ? "
Sabrina confessed ignorance.
70 SABRINA WARHAM
" Worms," said the old man, maliciously. " Did
you think, now, they were angels ? "
" I'm afraid I didn't think enough," she answered,
a little vexed that beauty could be so baldly
explained.
" Ah," said the farmer, " they are only human
like the rest of us. Victuals is what makes
matrimony. When you marry it's victuals you'll
be a'ter, though you'll be for giving it some fancy
name of your own, flapping around just like them
birds, and thinking yourself an angel, maybe, all
the while."
" Only that now I shall know better," said
Sabrina, smiling.
The old man grunted, paying little attention ;
purpose was in his eye. The farm-boy had now
arrived within hailing distance of David ; his voice
could be heard delivering the message, though not
the actual words. Answered by interrogation, the
lad drew nearer. After a short colloquy, David
resumed his ploughing; the boy returned alone.
All this was clear to the farmer's eye ; he
made no comment, sitting mute till the messenger
approached.
" Please, sir, he do say he'll be back at dinner-
time ! " was the answer rendered.
Storm gathered over the farmer's brow.
" Come a-nigh ! Come a-nigh ! " he shouted, as
the lad hung back. " What had you said to him ?
What message did you give him ? "
" I told 'un as how you wanted 'un ! " said the
boy, faithfully rehearsing his part. " And then 'a
said, ' What for ? ' and I said, ' I dunno, but he
said it.' And then 'a said as, if 'twas for any-
thing special, you was to let 'un know, and if not
'a'd be back by dinner-time; and then I come
away."
Lorry rose, gesticulating. " Be off, back to
him ! " he shouted, waving an angry arm. " And
you say I say he's to come! And mind,
SUNDAY AND MONDAY 71
now, if you don't make him come back this time,
I'll skin yer!"
Sabrina's sudden departure from the scene did
not allay the farmer's wrath. That she should
have looked on his discomfiture without staying to
see the culprit brought to heel aggravated David's
offence. Yet it turned out to be well that she had
retired when she did. David kept his word, re-
turning to the house at dinner-time; meeting him
then, the farmer said nothing.
In the afternoon he chanced on his niece again,
and was almost gracious to her. On this excuse
and on that, he drew her after him from one part
to another of the farm-buildings, s'howed her the
stables, the pigs, and the turkeys, had out for
inspection a young Jersey bull, newly arrived ; in
fine, though queer and fidgety, he treated her as
one free of the premises. Meanwhile his eye
roved; David was nowhere about. On learning
from one of the men that his son was out on a
distant part of the farm, his manner toward Sabrina
altered.
" Well, as you seem to be going somewhere,
I'll not keep you," he remarked; and, so saying,
he moved off toward the house, dropping her as
abruptly as he had a short while before sought her
company.
Sabrina having errands to do in the village,
resumed her interrupted course. Just by the first
group of cottages she met Lottie Gage coming from
the Park gates.
The girl's pretty face bore signs of recent
distress, and at the sight of a friendly countenance
the ready tears came flowing.
" Oh, miss," she cried in tones of entreaty,
"I know you will be kind to me; I know you
will ! "
Sabrina, thus appealed to, asked what was the
matter.
" It comes of my going down to nurse aunt,"
72 SABRINA WARHAM
said the girl; "they say I've been coming back too
late, and you know, miss, how things have hindered
and been in the way, one thing with another, when
I've wanted to get back. So I've just given notice,
and then I can be with aunt as much as I like and
nobody say anything against it; and it's nothing
to look forward to, I'm sure!"
Sabrina was touched and surprised at the girl's
readiness to make such a sacrifice ; nevertheless,
she doubted the prudence of the step.
" Are you quite sure that you will be able to
get on with your aunt?" she asked.
" Oh yes, I've always got on with her somehow,"
answered the girl. " And I must T>e free, yes, I
must ; I feel I must ! " She spoke passionately.
Any longing for freedom Sabrina could well
understand.
"Well, Lottie, if you must," she said kindly,
" I will be sure to come in as often as I can and
help you. Why, my child, what is the matter ? "
They had turned aside from the road, and were
now alone together on the path leading to the
heath. Lottie's small grief had suddenly changed
into a storm of weeping.
" Oh, it's hard, it's hard ! " she cried, " I get no
time to call my own, but I do love him so, and
I see him such a little short time, and some days I
can't see him at all ! And I know he'll go away.
I know, I know though he says he loves me. I
can't expect him to love me ever and faithful, if I
don't do what he asks ! "
Sabrina had never before received such con-
fidences; she found her ears suddenly exposed to
the artless expression of a passionate girl's heart-
trouble.
"Who is ke, Lottie ?" she inquired gently.
The girl wept tenderly ; her heart was so full
of the image that she had no name for it. It was
he, her lover ; and she wept, fearing that he would
be lost to her.
SUNDAY AND MONDAY
73
" Oh, you don't know what it is, do you, miss ? "
she inquired, without a thought of any case but her
own.
And Sabrina listened and wondered, and was not
envious.
" He's a stonemason," she went on. " Yes, and
he works for Government on the new harbour
they're building over at Wedport; and he's bound
to have a rise soon, he says, and then he'll have a
house of his own where he can take me ; but I'm to
stay on here till then, he says ; and oh, I wasn't to
tell anybody, and now I've been and told you ; but
you'll keep it a secret for me, won't you, miss ?
There's another young man who wants me, a coast-
guard, and he's very respectable, and I was fond of
him once, but I haven't encouraged him at all, not
since not since I made up my own mind. And I
don't want him to know ; why should he ? It would
only hurt him ; and aunt would get to know of it. It
will be time enough to tell them when everything
else has been settled for me to go. Oh, dear, dear,
Miss Sabrina, it all seems such a tangle not being
able to do what one wants, and having to do what's
right ! I wonder whatever you must think of me ! "
" I suppose what you feel is very natural," replied
her companion ; " but I don't think it is very wise,
Lottie."
" Oh yes, it must be," pleaded the other ; " you'd
understand, miss, if you was only to see him."
" Should I ? " Sabrina smiled a little to herself
over the girl's infatuation for this ideal among stone-
masons. " I think, Lottie," she went on, "that you
are much too young and inexperienced to be wise
in keeping such a thing secret. Are you quite,
quite sure that he is in earnest, this lover of
yours?"
" Oh yes, miss, that I am ! " and the girl's eyes
grew tender. " I wish I could make you understand
how well I know ! "
" I almost wish you could," answered Sabrina
74 SABRINA WARHAM
and a spark of something like envy entered her
heart as she spoke. This young girl, pretty, but
not very wise, light of mind and of speech, and
with no great sense of duty in her, seemed lifted
by her passion to another scale of being; not only
was there a certain poetry in her abandonment of
mood and in her singular humility with regard to
her lover, but there was in looks and manner a
corresponding elevation which made her a different
person. A sort of loveliness fell over the face,
giving to what had before been mere prettiness, an
indescribable touch of character, a frail and pathetic
strength, not of will or of intellect, but of devotion.
Millais' picture of the Huguenot's wife conveys in
paint this ultimate expression of womanliness which
makes so overpowering an appeal to some men's
minds. Even to Sabrina, though she was no longer
deceived as to Lottie's motive in quitting service,
this revelation of a heart possessed by passion was
curiously attractive. She felt sorry for the girl
with a springing fondness, not understanding, per-
haps, how much this impulsive confidence from
another filled a need in her own heart. Neverthe-
less she counselled prudence; receiving in return
more gratitude than attention.
The two walked on together to the cottage. On
entering, Lottie suddenly dropped a deep curtsey.
Within the door stood Lady Berrers.
" I have been in to see your aunt, Charlotte,"
said she ; " but I don't think she wants me. Ah, and
she certainly will not now."
Sabrina was aware of a direct and friendly gaze ;
then with none of that awkward pause of strangers
dubious at meeting, the lady addressed her quickly
and to the point.
"Tell me, but I feel sure I know are not you
Miss Warham ? "
Sabrina took the offered hand, while the other
continued
" I hear you are staying with your mother ?
SUNDAY AND MONDAY
75
I am so glad to meet you." It was the phrase of
mere ordinary politeness, rather warmly expressed,
but Lady Berrers still held her hand. " Yes," she
said, nodding, "you are your mother's daughter.
Charlotte, now you are here, I am sure your aunt
wants neither of us. I am going to take Miss
Warham away for a few minutes." She turned to
Sabrina : " That is, if you will come ? "
" Since you wish it, with pleasure."
Lady Berrers again directed upon Sabrina a full
and friendly regard. When they were in the open
she spoke
" Miss Warham, I said that I was glad to meet
you, and I am. I trust that there are many reasons
why I should be so ; but there is one that only
indirectly concerns yourself. I wish to pay my
respects to your mother."
" Yes ? " replied the girl. " Indeed that is very
kind of you ; but is there any difficulty ? "
" There is the difficulty that she will not see me.
When I first knew that she was coming back to live
here, I wrote to welcome her. From her answer I
understood that she wished to be left alone. At
that time of fresh and sudden bereavement, I could
not intrude ; but now I wish that I might venture.
We were old friends, and nothing but time has
estranged us. So now I am asking you to help
me."
" I shall be happy if I may," said Sabrina ;
" but " She paused, then added, " I cannot tell
what my mother's feeling in the matter may be."
" I know already she wishes not to see me."
"Then in that case ? "
" Yes, then ; it is in that case precisely that I wish
your help."
"You think, madam, that it can serve any good
purpose ? "
"To see her against her will? Yes, I do think
so."
The face Sabrina looked at seemed to invite
76 SABRINA WARHAM
acquaintance ; it beckoned her on with generous
looks, with encouragement. She thought of it set
down in her mother's small parlour, a radiating
influence, a light of human warmth amid its
general air of restraint, and she smiled, saying at
last
" I think so, too."
" There is my point gained, then ! " the lady
replied. " Think it over and let me know what
can be done. I will not be in a hurry, though I
am much set on the meeting. Are you," she added,
"intending to return to the cottage? I am taking
you away."
" I think I must go in and speak to Lottie for a
minute."
" Ah, you know her, then ? What is that little
puss up to ? She is flighty and difficult, and I hear
that she has given up her place. Has she the right
friends ? She is much too pretty and silly to look
after herself properly."
" She tells me that she is leaving in order to nurse
her aunt," said Sabrina, keeping counsel.
"That is not a permanency or, necessarily, a
duty. If you have influence with her, persuade
her to marry. She has the chance, I am told, and
one that she is not likely to better. Do you," she
added, suddenly changing the conversation, "do
you like the place now you are here and the
people ? "
" Some of the people very much." But she let
the question as to place go unanswered.
" I hope that includes all important ones ? " said
the lady, and Sabrina suddenly smiled.
" It should," she said, " when I meet such kindness
from them."
Quick thought, and the genuine liking which she
felt for this new great lady acquaintance, had
prompted the word. Directly it was said she
feared that she had spoken too freely in thus giving
to the question the play of a meaning that was not
SUNDAY AND MONDAY
77
meant. She blushed warmly, and made a tentative
move toward going.
Lady Berrers nodded, a wealth of approval in her
smile.
"That is as it should be," she said. "We meet
again. When you have brought me and your mother
together, I shall not be contented to call you Miss
Warham any more."
CHAPTER VIII
A MEETING
A SLIGHT indisposition which confined Mrs. Warham
to her bed for a few days caused Sabrina to post-
pone mention of Lady Berrers' proposed visit.
She was in doubt how best to approach the subject,
or by what argument to persuade her mother to
reconsider her past decision, knowing well that
character of soft obstinacy, and how permanent
were its resolutions when once made.
Taking advantage of her mother's temporary need
of continual attendance, to test her own usefulness
as nurse and companion, Sabrina stayed much in
the house, only going out to do errands or for a
short walk toward evening.
A week's experience brought her miserably to
the conclusion that her presence served in a way
to diminish the invalid's comfort. Mrs. Warham
preferred, it seemed, to forego service which she
would have required from Betty without scruple,
merely because her daughter was there waiting to
render it. And all her unselfish refusal of aid and
constant choice of solitude rather than companion-
ship were intended as a set discipline and admoni-
tion to the daughter whom she loved but disapproved.
If her actions had been interpreted into words, their
meaning could scarcely have been more clear ; in
each gentle refusal of service Sabrina heard her
condemnation spoken : " You cannot be a com-
panion to me, my dear ! "
And it was true, she could not ; for with
78
A MEETING 79
renewed intimacy the fundamental opposition of
their characters became apparent. Sabrina could
listen in silence to her mother's complaisant views
of the world and the ways of Providence ; but she
could make no response. So much that the one
thought right the other thought wrong; and while
the younger woman never dreamed of blaming the
other for what she regarded as a credulous form of
faith, she felt herself constantly blamed for the lack
of it. " You must be wrong," her mother once said
to her, "if you do not love God." And Sabrina
had remained silent on that question of "mine and
thine" which was behind all, on the different
meanings which may be given to the same word.
In spite of small alleviating incidents, her days
were desolate in their lack of purpose; it seemed
as though her brain had made a solitude for her
heart. In all this life what was there that promised
any interest, apart from filial solicitude thwarted
of its aim ? Her new friend, Lady Berrers, was
but an occasional visitor, whose true home was the
gay world. In her cousin David she feared to
have already discovered the limits of interest,
though not of liking; the romance of his sea
voyages on examination had become prose ; he
was just good earth, a producer of local crops.
Only Lottie remained: what of her? A poor
foolish little thing made sublime by her love for
a stonemason, worthy enough, perhaps, in his way.
When her aunt died she would probably marry
and become a household drudge, and her beauty
and romance would then die a common death.
This was Sabrina's world and she viewed it
with small satisfaction. The monotony of the bare
featureless downs was typical of her daily outlook
on life : chance travellers across that close and
shut-in horizon made an event. Amid this general
lack, one small matter had aroused interest in her
mind as a problem set for her to solve. With an
almost daily regularity at the fall of dusk she saw
8o SABRINA WARHAM
the light-clad figure already described crossing the
barrel of the down, and descending upon the by-
road to Warringford. The hour changed with the
shortening of the days : it was as a messenger of
twilight that the pedestrian arrived. Since she had
first noticed and definitely looked out for him, only
twice in a dozen times had he failed to appear.
Curiosity to learn what kind of a man this was,
whom nightfall seemed to signal from tracks with-
out habitation, led Sabrina one evening, on going
for her walk, to direct her steps toward the down.
Mounting in line with the two posts which David
had set up for her guidance, she advanced along
the ridge westward in the direction of the small
stone bearing inscription of dead men's names.
From the point where this stands a gully descends
sharply to the sea, the route no doubt chosen by
the smugglers when the fatal collision took place.
Below, the down breaks halfway into a sort of
terrace, along which lies the rough track used by
the coastguards on their beat.
As she reached the stone, now standing whitely
above the embrowning shadows of the turf,
Sabrina heard the sound of footsteps on the loose
rubble of the gully and the clatter of falling stones.
Presently a head emerged, then the entire figure of
a man, whom without difficulty she recognized as
the stranger she had so often seen from a distance.
Encountering in a lonely spot makes it difficult
for human beings to pass each other with the air of
stolid unconsciousness due on ordinary occasions.
In a street it is easy to look away ; in a desert you
find it impossible.
The stranger brought face to face at this solitary
altitude with a woman beautiful and young, lifted
his hat in conventional salutation ; then, as though
to excuse the action, paused, saying
" Pardon me, can you tell me if this path will
take me to Cover Cliff, the coastguard station ? "
Sabrina, though well aware that the question
A MEETING 81
was a forced one, was compelled to give the
required information.
"There is no path," she answered, "but the
down is all open from here. I can hardly direct
you further ; being a stranger, I know little of the
country."
As she spoke she eyed speculatively this con-
stant comer who now pretended so complete an
ignorance of the locality. Her scrutiny gave a
favourable summing-up of his bearing : he was
tall, well-set, his features, darkened by the deep
western glow behind him, showed character; pos-
sibly he was handsome ; and he had none of that
sham deference of demeanour by which some men
seek to win favour with women who happen to be
fair.
" I am a stranger also," he said. " I chose this
route that I might see more of the country. One
seldom finds natives admiring their own scenery.
I might have guessed you were a stranger : that is
what brings you here."
" Yes," replied Sabrina, with a slight consciousness
of manner.
His conversation was a little too ready for her
taste ; she wished to move on, but felt herself held.
"Then you can give me no direction by land-
marks ? " he resumed, seeing a tentative movement
on her part.
Sabrina humoured the fiction in order to have
done with it.
" Amesbay lies there," she said, pointing, " under
that headland : there above it lies a camp. About
three miles to the further side of that is Cover
Cliff. I do not know how you get there; the
ground is steep and rough ; but it is all quite
open."
"I am greatly obliged," answered the other.
"Forgive me for having troubled you."
Saluting once more, he pursued his way ; Sabrina
went hers. Passing from sight, his figure still
G
82 SABRINA WARHAM
remained clearly imprinted on her memory ; it
prompted speculation, curiosity. There was some-
thing striking and distinctive about the man's
appearance. Though his garb was rough and
soiled, she detected in it his degree ; there could
be no doubt he was what the world styles a
gentleman. He seemed a poor man, yet a man of
independence ; of good address, but without con-
vention ; of gentle birth, but not of refined breeding ;
country, she thought, rather than town bred ; yet
it might be only his costume which made her think
so. Endeavouring to estimate his exact standing,
and failing, she found her interest in him increase.
Scarcely had she moved on when she again
heard footsteps behind her.
" It seems that I am fated to intrude," said the
stranger, ranging alongside. "The fact is, I have
dropped my tobacco pouch, and have come back to
look for it."
Sabrina's eyes instinctively sought the ground.
" What was it like ? " she asked. " I fear you will
hardly find it in this fading light."
"Ah, but I must; pray, don't you trouble! If
I can't find it now I will come again. We men are
the slaves of habit; and though it seems absurd, I
cannot be happy unless I have my own particular
pouch about me."
"Then I hope you will be able to find it," said
Sabrina.
" Oh yes, I am quite sure to."
Again they parted ; Sabrina ought by this time
to have been turning home, but to avoid the
awkwardness of another encounter, she walked on
slowly for a couple of hundred yards. When at
last she turned she saw him disappearing in the
distance, and was free therefore to begin retracing
her steps with all speed. She supposed he must
have found the object of his search, till, coming to
the small obelisk, she perceived lying at the foot of
it a dark pouch bearing a monogram ; the letters
A MEETING 83
"V. R." in silver throwing back the reflection of the
west caught her eye.
The stranger was now too far for recall; all she
could do was to take present charge of the prop-
erty, and wait to find means for returning it to its
owner.
Descending from the ridge of the down by its
eastern slope she found herself suddenly in an
atmosphere already steeped in night ; only a few
yards below the level of the crest twilight became
merged in darkness. The rough burred surface
of the turf, ribbed where it caught the light by
innumerable protuberances and hollows, became,
as the ground descended, vague and uniform. She
trod uncertainly, fearing that she might set foot in
some pit or burrow unawares ; the short grass had
already become slippery with dew.
While she progressed with caution, avoiding here
and there an extra steepness of the descent, her
attention was caught by a faint rattling of chains
apparently at no great distance to her left. She
paused to listen ; the sound seemed to come out of
the earth itself ; it stopped, and went on again. As
she advanced, curious to discover what it might be,
the rattling became more quick and incessant, a
metallic paroxysm, issuing from the turf. A slight
fear took hold of her at the proximity of a thing
so definite, so unexplainable. Presently she dis-
cerned, almost underfoot, a soft body of shade
bounding in short tethered jerks this way and that ;
to these movements the rattlings formed an accom-
paniment. Suddenly she comprehended what she
saw : it was a rabbit caught in a trap. Terror and
compassion fought in her for mastery ; compassion
prevailed, she stepped down to give instant relief
to the shadowy anguish there beating itself to earth ;
the rabbit squealed and strained. " Oh, oh ! " cried
Sabrina, setting her foot on the leaping trap. She
pressed, and felt the jaws give, and the last tug of
a maimed limb snatching itself free. Off went the
84 SABRINA WARHAM
creature to its hole. She took her foot from the
trap ; she was trembling, and could scarcely stand.
Then again she was aware, as before, of the rattling
of chains, and now not in one place only, but there,
and there, scattered all over the dark side of the
down, near and far.
It was useless, she believed, yet she could not
resist the call, so passed from point to point directed
by the sound, and came always on the same miser-
able thing, and gave misery its release. In one
case the tethering-stake stood at the entrance of
a burrow ; trap and victim had disappeared under-
ground ; and as she reached down to effect the
release, she heard the scream of panic come muffled
from the bowels of earth.
After each unlocking of a trap, she stood erect,
and listened fearfully. She had set free no fewer
than a score before silence came as a reward. And
the hill was silent also, nursing its heart of pain.
CHAPTER IX
A VISITATION
THE next morning Sabrina gave the pouch to her
cousin, asking him to have it returned to its owner.
She told how he might probably be found.
" Comes over the down, does he, toward even-
ing ? " said David. " I'd better give this to Giles,
then."
" Who is Giles ? "
" He's the rabbit man."
" Ah, the rabbit man ! What does that mean ? "
she inquired, with sudden keenness.
" It means the trapping ; he pays for the rights."
" What ! " cried Sabrina. " Did you know of it ?
Why, it's horrible ! " She told him her experience
of the previous night.
" Yes," said David ; " it's been like that a many
years."
" I let them all go ! " she said ; " all that I could
find."
" Well, I suppose that's natural ; but you mustn't
do it, Sabra ; you're making the man lose his bargain."
He smiled with grim amusement. " Eh, I reckon
Giles was in a rare taking when he came to his
traps this morning for you didn't set 'em again, I
suppose ? "
" Set them again ? "
" No, of course not. Well, I'd better explain to
him."
" But must it go on ? " cried Sabrina, in horror
at the thought.
85
86 SABRINA WARHAM
"What's to help it? It's only like a hundred
other things and you just come on this one it's
no good thinking about. I'll see if I can get him
to give a look round of an evening to clear 'em up ;
but I doubt he has too much on his hands."
Sabrina fell into dejection. " Now," she said,
" I shall always be thinking of that cruelty when I
look out!"
And David, having nothing comfortable to say
on the matter, held his peace.
His cousin then inquired after her uncle, whom
she had not seen for several days, and, learning
that he was confined to his chair by an unusually
severe attack of lumbago, she seized her oppor-
tunity. In speaking to David she had learned to
be more at ease ; so, without too great an effort,
she now said
" If I may, I would like to come in and see him
this evening ? Shall I be allowed ? "
" To be sure," said David ; " I'll tell him you're
coming, and thank you, cousin Sabra."
The way in which the word was said won her
gratitude. Sabrina turned to him with something
almost of affection in her glance, saying gratefully
" Do you know you are very kind to me,
David?"
And then she went away. And when she had
passed quite out of sight David also went back to
his work.
That proved to be a day of visits. An hour
later a groom arrived from the Castle bearing a
note for Miss Warham. With a face brighter from
the reading of its contents, she entered her mother's
room.
" Mother," she said, " I am going to ask you to
do two people a favour."
" What kind of a favour ? " inquired the widow.
" A kindness. Will you let Lady Berrers come
and see you ? She wishes it. And there is now a.
further reason : I did not tell you before it seemed
A VISITATION 87
such a forlorn hope. When I last advertised for
work it was not as governess, but as a secretary or
librarian. Lady Berrers has seen my advertise-
ment, and has written about it. Would it not be
strange if I were to have charge of the library
which my father arranged and catalogued ? She
writes that it has been much neglected."
Mrs. Warham received the news in ominous
silence.
" I do not think," said she at last, " that it would
be a suitable or a womanly occupation."
This remark, the reader must remember, was
made very nearly thirty years ago ; and Mrs. War-
ham was old-fashioned even then.
Sabrina's answer was not without guile. " If
that is your feeling, will you talk it over with Lady
Berrers ? I am to see her this afternoon ; but I
will settle nothing. May I bring her ? "
" If it were my duty, I would, of course, see her,"
said the widow.
To which her daughter, as though the point
were now conceded, replied
" Your duty, then, will be her pleasure. May I
say that you also will be pleased ? "
" You had better say ' honoured,' " answered
Mrs. Warham. " Few pleasures remain for me in
this life ; and in such a meeting there will be pain,
for it will revive memories I have tried to forget."
When she added, " I must wear my best dress,"
Sabrina understood that sanction to the proposal
had been given.
In the afternoon, when Lady Berrers arrived,
Sabrina was with her.
"You go in first," said she, "and tell her that
I am coming. That will give her the time she likes
for preparation. Oh, how well I remember her little
ways ! "
When her visitor was announced, Mrs. Warham
rose, and, making a deep curtsey, stood without
further advance.
88 SABRINA WARHAM
" Oh, indeed and indeed no ! " cried the lady,
all warmth and smiles, when on her nearer approach
a formal hand was offered. " Are you pretending
to have forgotten me, Martha ? " She bent and
kissed the withered cheek, inquiring, " Have I, then,
changed so much ? "
" It is very good of your ladyship to remember
me," replied the other from a barricade of ceremony.
But the great lady was not to be denied. " Now,
could I forget you could I?" she demanded,
fondling the frail hand. " And have I not been
always wanting to come, and you never would let
me ? "
" Your ladyship must remember that I have
been an invalid for years. Pray, will you not be
seated ? "
Lady Berrers turned to Sabrina. " Your mother
hardens her heart to me/' she exclaimed pathetically.
" Would you know why ? Twenty-five, thirty
years ago, I a mere chit of a girl, too young to
know better did my best to shine in spite of her,
to dispute her claim to be called the most beautiful
woman in the country ! Oh, your daughter shall
hear of it now ! She had only to appear, and I was
nowhere ; but that she never would do, and for that
though why, Heaven knows ! she still will not
forgive me. Can any one explain it? "
" Indeed, my lady," interposed Mrs. Warham,
" I have always remembered your great kindness,
though it recalls days which, to me, are chiefly a
subject for regret days of folly and vanity."
" You, my Martha ! Folly and vanity ? Why I
never knew a woman make less of what nature had
given her; you put yourself under a bushel always.
Turn to the light and let me look at you ! Why,
it is all there still ; I see it, though nobody else
would. The dear ! Why, she is blushing ! Sabrina
no, I can't call you Miss Warham when it's your
mother I'm talking about ! if I declare to you that
she was at thirty-five what you are now, you will
A VISITATION 89
think nothing of it, so what can I say ? I will say
is, that there was nobody then whom I admired
I did your mother nobody; and I never have
ce, until just the other day."
It was Sabrina's turn to blush then ; but she
derstood well enough that Lady Berrers' lively
run of compliments was the cover of some deeper
emotion which she was at pains to hide. More
unexpected and strange was the effect of this visit
on her mother. The widow's face was flushed ;
and, in spite of a certain agitation, there was
pleasure as well something of youth had returned
to the worn countenance. Sabrina watched, and
the indifference grew plain her mother had become
human. As Lady Berrers pressed her hand and
fondled it, an answering smile began to concede the
renewal of old ties.
" I have made a vow," said the lady, " that you
shall call me Janet before I go."
" Oh, my lady, I could not ! " cried the widow,
aghast.
" No, not as a custom, but for once, that I may
hear old times."
" It was Miss Janet always."
" And you remember the part that has perished ;
how like you that is ! Am I to remain a beggar ? "
In the end she got her way. So, too, in that
other matter which was the ostensible cause of her
visit. She left with Sabrina's acceptance of employ-
ment, for a few hours daily, as reorganizer of the
Castle library.
The girl's gratitude to her kind patroness was
mixed with a renewed discontent against herself ;
it appeared to her that this short visit from Lady
Berrers had done Mrs. Warham more good than
the whole of her own long sojourn.
But if this visit brought good results, she was
not to have the same satisfaction over that which
she paid to her uncle the same evening after Mrs,
Warham had retired to rest,
9 SABRINA WARHAM
Old Lorry was prepared for her coming, a
circumstance not likely to aid matters ; for he was
a broody one, a chewer of the cud of enmity, and
in malice hard to be beaten. Crippled, not daring
to move lest the twinges of his malady should
seize him, he had sat all day long in his chair by
the fire fixing his mind to his purpose. Thus nine
hours had been profitably spent, when Sabrina,
holding the breath of her resolve, lifted the latch
and entered.
At the far end of the chamber some half-dozen
farm labourers sat smoking; an oaken screen
divided the room in half, lending a sort of privacy
to the upper portion ; against the partition stood a
long dresser, upon which was set forth a goodly
display of old pewter, the family plate of the
establishment. Mrs. Willings, the mute, middle-
aged housekeeper, a docile product of the farmer's
domestic training, sat at mid-distance, and stitched.
In a species of inner chamber formed by the broad
ingle the farmer reclined alone. David was among
the men ; he came forward with a word of welcome
when the opening door revealed their visitor.
Farmer Lorry turned his head stiffly and with
precaution ; blinking small eyes, he greeted his
niece with sardonic courtesy.
" Oh, so you've come to call on us, have you.
I'm sure we be much obliged to 'ee for the compli-
ment. David, man, look to your manners, and give
your lady-cousin a chair ! "
Sabrina was bent on resolute action to break
down the barrier she disapproved.
" Give me a welcome first, uncle, so that I may
feel I am not intruding," she said hardily. " I don't
want to be looked on as a visitor, living in the
house as I do now."
" Ah, don't you, now ; don't you ? " remarked the
farmer, in mock cordial tones. " Now, I call that
friendly meant, I do ! And what does your mother
say to it, I wonder ? "
A VISITATION 91
" She has not said anything. Why should she ? "
" Ah, she will when she hears of it, you be
bound ! You see, we don't make out for to think
ourselves your mother's ek'als, or yours either ; we
recognize condescension when we see it. Still, if
you will be pleased to sit down, I am pleased for
'ee to do so."
Sabrina's colour was high. " I came to inquire
how you were, Uncle James," she said, "but I need
not stay unless you wish." Nevertheless, when
David placed a seat for her she took it.
"Well," replied Lorry, "I be as you see me, no
better and no worse. David, make up the fire ! "
Then for a time speech ended, while the younger
Lorry gave a vigorous stir to the logs upon the
hearth. The room was already too warm. He
turned from his operations to inquire of Sabrina
if her chair were placed as she would like it. She
recognized gratefully the kind amends made by his
tone for the old man's rudeness, and answering,
added
" Do you use faggots here always ? How brightly
they burn ! "
" We use faggots," said the farmer, sticking to
his device of carping comparison. " Coals we keep
for our parlour-boarders ; they are only for the
quality. Your mother ha'n't no complaint to make
of 'em, I hope, young woman lady I should say."
" Uncle James," petitioned the girl with grave
earnestness, "will you, please, try to remember
what my name is, and call me by it ? "
" Well, I've heard of it ; but 'tis a great awk'ard
mouthful for plain folk to use : a real knock-me-
down sort of a name, I call it."
" Sabra makes it quite easy."
" Za-a-bra ! " drawled the old man, debasing the
sound with slow relish. "Why, surely that puts
one in mind of they striped donkeys you see in
travellers' menageries. Now Zabby 'ud sound a
deal better and more reasonable, I'll call 'ee Zabby
92 SABRINA WARHAM
with pleasure since 'tis to oblige 'ee or Briny, if
ye like that better." Farmer Lorry accorded to the
selected diminutives the lowest and most sordid
rendering possible.
Sabrina gave in a faint assent to the proposed
usage.
Forthwith the farmer assumed a more cordial
tone : the situation entirely suited his queer
humour.
" Come," said he, encouragingly, " now we shall
be getting on. Zabby'll do first rate. The fact is,"
he continued, as though to explain past difficulties,
" I can't abide gentry, and I don't like mixing wi'
'em. Your mother, she got mixed up with gentry
and ended by marrying one of them. What's it
brought her to ? Poverty and Popery, I say.
What made her, come of a good Protestant stock,
turn Papist? Having a gentleman for a husband,
I say. Did being a gentleman make him keep his
lawful wife? Did it?"
David thumped the fire, breaking the billets into
fractions.
" Now, boy, boy ! " cried the farmer, " don't 'ee go
wasting good fuel that way."
Sabrina declined the diversion. " Why are you
saying these things now, uncle ? " she inquired in
even tones.
"Now? It's now that we are seeing the results
of it all ! Did it make him leave any provision for
his family ? Did it make him live decently, or die
decently being a gentleman, eh? I'm not for
blaming you, Zabby," went on the unbearable old
man ; " it's not your fault you've got mixed up in it.
But I'm just telling you what it is a bad thing
from the start. Don't you go trying to be a lady,
Zabby ; you'll only end as your mother has ended.
Don't try it, I say ! "
As though by this time he had earned some
refreshment, he bade David draw him some ale.
" I must try to believe that you mean kindly in
A VISITATION 93
saying these things," said his niece, with rising
anger.
" I don't mean kindly, and I don't mean un-
kindly," answered the old curmudgeon. " I only
mean facts ; you've got to stomach 'em some day,
so it's better to know 'em now."
"You tell me nothing that I am not aware of,"
said Sabrina. " I know everything already."
" Oh, you do, do you?" said the farmer, queerly.
" You know that your father was a rogue, then ? "
" I know that he did wrong things."
" Did he ever do a right one ? "
" He is dead," said the girl, simply.
" Ay ; and that was only half honest. Could he
pay for his own coffin ? "
Sabrina sat silent. But for her cousin David's
sake she would now have gone, never to return ;
she was properly punished for having believed
friendly terms possible.
The farmer said, after a pause to let his triumph
sink in
"Ah, if I'd only had the walloping of him when
he was a boy. I don't turn out rogues, I don't,
once I tackle 'em. That fellow over there now," he
pointed to his son, " I had the making of him, he
may thank his stars. Rogue was in him at one
time, till I larrupped it out of him."
Farmer Lorry had a gross habit, arising from a
vast sense of his own importance, of alluding to
people in their presence as though they were
absent or unconcerned : he was thus able to indulge
his taste for backbiting in the very hearing of his
victim. Protest was useless, while silence and
submission were accepted as proof of the accusa-
tion. Under these attacks David had long since
learned to sit unmoved : for passive endurance the
meek housekeeper was his only possible rival.
With Sabrina for audience and a certain recent
recurrence to insubordination well in his mind,
Farmer Lorry pursued bis theme?
94 SABRINA WARHAM
" Till I larrupped it out of him," he said, and
pointed. " Do you see that stick ? " At a corner
of the ingle lay a stout ash sapling, showing age
and wear. " There's the tool I turned him out
with," continued the old man eloquent. " And
you may say it was hard work ; why, so it was.
And you may say, did I ever get any thanks for 't ?
No, I didn't. But I've made my son what he ought
to be, and he's no rogue ; and maybe he'll thank
his old father for it some day, though I may be in
my grave then. Ay, you don't better the stick, I
say; no other thrashing-machine ever come up to
it. David, he looks at that and he remembers who
it was once mastered him, and would still if 'twere
needed. That's the truth, Zabby." He added for
a finish, nodding across the hearth to where his
son sat passively regarding the flames, " David
there, he hears well enough what I tell 'ee ; and he
ha'n't got a word to say against it."
Sabrina's patience had reached its limits: she
rose abruptly.
" I hope you will be better in the morning,
uncle," she said, with cold civility, and passed out,
giving but half a glance and a murmured good night
to her cousin, who sat staring into the fire and
making no sign. She was miserably conscious
that her visit had been the occasion, if not the
cause, of the indignity he had to endure.
After she was gone David still sat staring and
saying no word. He took up mechanically the
staff of discipline lying near him, eyed its writhen
stem, and the ferule stumpy with long use. Ex-
tending it toward the fire, he began poking at the
faggots ; then, levering a log, he worked in the end,
and there let it rest. Old Lorry, watching from his
chair, cried peevishly -
" Now, boy, now, you are burning that ash
stick ! "
It was even so. A little tongue of flame lapped
round the ferule ; in the centre it showed blu
A VISITATION 95
where the chemic action of heat on metal had
begun.
David bent forward and stared into the fire,
giving no sign, saying no word. He drove the
stick a little further home, only a little further :
inch by inch the fire crept along the wood.
Language not to be repeated came now from
the farmer; his voice rose to a roar, wrath choked
it, it broke into a whine wrung out by physical
pain. The meek housekeeper came forward to
learn what was the matter ; the men at the far end
of the room stood awkward spectators of the scene.
Farmer Lorry sat impotent, gripped hard by his
malady in the rear : knives cut into him whenever
he attempted to move.
David sat as one studiously absorbed, pushing
the stick to the flame. Presently six or eight inches
were gone : the ferule dropped off, and lay a ghost
of fire, blue amid the red embers.
The farmer now called for others to lend aid.
" Take it off him, take it off him ! " he cried.
The housekeeper, a mechanical messenger of
peace, whose instinct was to obey, went up to David
and touched the lapel of his coat.
" Go and sit down, Mrs. Willings," said he ; it
was the only word he spoke through all that scene.
Not a man came forward to lay hands upon him.
As one faithfully pursuing an experiment to its
end, so David sat and watched impassively the
burning of the rod which claimed to have made
him a man. When the heat became too much for
his hands he thrust all that remained of the stump
into the fire and rose quietly, as though the matter
had thus reached final solution.
Not a man spoke in all that room : Mrs. Willings,
for some queer reason of her own, sat and snivelled
into a corner of her apron. Spent with rage,
catching painfully at breath, the farmer sat in his
chair speechless, eyeing his son. He looked now
as though he were expecting a blow. When the
96 SABRINA WARHAM
hour struck and the farm labourers trooped off to
their loft, David dismissed Mrs. Willings for the
night and remained to lock up the house. Five
minutes later he carried his father up to bed. The
son was a man of few words, the father a man of
many : yet a likeness between them showed now.
" Davy ? " murmured the old man, in quavering
tone, pitiful in its appeal : he said no more.
David answered him not a word.
CHAPTER X
FARMER LORRY LAYS DOWN THE REINS
A VIOLENT bell-ringing in the rafters, and the
vigorous thumping of a boot upon the floor were
the signals for all sleepers at Lorry's Farm to arise
and work. In the older part of the house the bed-
rooms stood like boxes without lids under a
common roof; thus a single bell held common
jurisdiction over all sluggards, whether in the men's
quarters to the right of the staircase, or in the
women's to the left. The boot-blow was for the
benefit of David, who slept in a room under his
father's, out of hearing of the bell.
The vindictive blow seldom reached his ears,
and never caught him at slumber, for he was by
habit an early riser, and a short sleeper at all
times. Maids descending to their morning work
often found traces of a hastily snatched meal ; and
in a while, when the whole household was astir,
David, the man of peace, would stroll in on them
keen-eyed and ruddy after a two hours' break in
the open, fresh, perhaps, from a spell of sea-
fishing.
Sabrina, risen early herself one summer morn-
ing, had noted this alert aspect of a face that became
more placable as the day wore on ; it reminded her
of the look of some benevolent bird of prey, and
she admired it not a little. These draughts of the
dawn he took always in solitude.
Whether Farmer Lorry knew of his son's inde-
pendent risings or no, his appetite for a tyrannous
H 97
98 SABRINA WARHAM
assertion of his authority made his hammerings at
the floor as vigorous and prolonged as his ringing
in the roof ; punctual to the stroke he rained his
blows aloft and below to convey the same im-
putation of wilful sluggishness against all. The
farmer was one to whom smooth-tongued methods
came neither by grace nor by nature; he would
damn a man sooner than look at him, and regard
as a rebel one who did not anticipate his bidding.
Thus his mind was already on the rasp over the
obstinate slumbers of his household, before ever
he laid hand on bell-rope or boot-thong ; and the
" Devil take you ! " of his summons, the " How
dare you be asleep when / ring ? " were recogniz-
able by all.
It had cdme to be his custom in old age, having
set the machinery of his house thus in motion,
soothed by a consciousness of the due disturbance
of others, to turn over again on his bed for a last
sleep. But on the morning following the events
last recorded, Farmer Lorry, having given the
customary knocks, bided a while, and knocked
again.
" Davy, Davy ! " he cried, pitching his note of
complaint so as to be heard in the room below.
David did not come.
Leaning down over the bedside he called again,
but fetched no answer. After a further wait, moan-
ing and whining to himself, he rose, and shambled
across the room to a spot near the wall, where a
large gap in the unceiled timbers let in light from
the chamber beneath. From this coign of vantage
in old days the father had once, for discipline,
poured down a jug of ice-cold water on a sleeping
form below ; and in the darkness had heard the
steeled youth start up without a cry. That had
come on the top of a rare thrashing, and in the
morning David had disappeared not to be seen
again for four years. The old man had a dim per-
ception that those four years' loss of discipline would
LORRY LAYS DOWN THE REINS 99
never be made good : the lad had come back a
changed being, easy-going, yet in some queer way
aloof, self-possessed, no man's property but his
own. Hidden away in a sour nature, the farmer
had a devouring pride in his son ; but he was
miserly and covetous of soul ; what he loved he
must also possess, and his right seemed now to
be denied him. Bullying fondness had led to his
telling Sabrina of the youth's up-bringing under
wise chastisement, and little could he understand
David's wrath over the recital, if it were not
the old fought-out devil cropping up in him once
more. Had he been hale, the farmer told himself,
he would yet again have applied the old remedy,
just to be sure that the lad was still his very own.
Now feeble and infirm he must reach his end by
other means.
Still bemoaning his aches and pains, he got
down upon his knees, and put his mouth to the
chink. In a voice of quavering self-pity
" Davy ! " he cried. " Davy ! why do ye not
come up when I call to ye? Ye ain't angry with
Smr old father, are ye ? What have I done to ye,
avy, lad; what have I done, 'cept it was for your
own good ? " He paused, then again went on.
" Ay, I've been a good father to ye always ; don't
you forget that, my son, now that I'm growing old,
and need a prop to my declining years. Ah, it's a
false son that deserts his old father. David, eh,
David, lad ? "
With the sad recital of his own virtues and
unrequited love, his sense of injury grew. He
paused ; still there was no answer. Withdrawing
his mouth, the farmer placed an eye to the aperture,
and saw beneath him a bed that had not been lain
on, and the room empty.
The sight gave bitter offence; all this time he
had been wasting his heart on emptiness, pouring
out his soul to no purpose. He felt that he had
been made a fool of, and suddenly the conviction
loo SABRINA WARHAM
came on him like physical nakedness that he was a
very lonely and neglected old man.
He looked down again on the unoccupied bed,
twisting its meaning to his own choice.
"Chambering and wantonness," he muttered.
" Ay, that's what it is ; chambering and wanton-
ness ! " He repeated the accusation with that keen
sense of moral support which the wicked always
derive from the citation of Scripture. Then he
shuffled feebly back to the warm bed he had quitted,
and, comforting himself with the thought, " Me, a
poor bed-ridden old man ! " got into it, and allowed
sleep once more to steal over him.
Three hours later Farmer Lorry was still abed,
and word was about that he meant to stay there.
David first heard of it as he was going out upon
his rounds ; he heard of it to more effect, returning
late at the dinner hour to find the men clamouring
for their midday beer.
The case was stated by the housekeeper; Mr.
Lorry was abed, and an hour before had sent word
that he was about to sleep, and was not to be dis-
turbed ; on the other hand, here was honest labour
waiting for its beer, and of a truth beer was in the
bargain with wages. The key to the situation
lay in the pocket of the farmer's breeches beside
his bed ; what was to be done ?
David trod the stair to his father's room. Old
Lorry heard him coming, not softly, as one fearing
to disturb a sick man's midday snooze. He whipped
out a hand for his keys, and got them safe ; a
momentary panic when David's touch fell on the
door made his brain agile ; he snatched them from
under his pillow, and thrust them down to the far
end of the bed. During the interview that followed
he held them clasped in his toes, a delight to his
sense of possession. Master of the situation, he
let it be known that the men might wait for their
beer till he was up again, reckoning David, by the
light of certain episodes of a riotous youth, as one
LC
LORRY LAYS DOWN THE REINS 101
not to be trusted. His son went no further than
to hold up two articles of apparel, and shake them
with an ear to sound : short of speech he came, and
short of speech went. The farmer waited till the
door was shut; down among the bed-clothes he jiggled
the keys delightedly, and between the four posts of
his bed indulged his sense of triumph. But there his
dominion ended ; before they rose up from table the
men had their beer, and the cellar a broken padlock.
The son went up, and told his father what he had
done.
" David, the devil's in you again ! " said the old
man.
Something certainly was, making short work of
the old conditions under which he had so long
laboured without voice or authority.
What passed between him and his father that
afternoon no man knew ; but in the evening old
Lorry dressed, and came down. There was some
ceremony in his appearance. Mrs. Willings came
first, carrying cushions for his chair and a footstool.
Then very feebly the farmer entered, leaning on two
sticks, his progress a slow shuffle with many pausings
and wincings by the way, a picture of bodily infirmity
meekly borne.
He got to his chair amid a general silence. The
men at their own end of the room sat looking on.
David, contrary to his custom, was not among them ;
from the ingle-corner he turned about on his father's
entry, but made no further sign of welcome. Mrs.
Willings helped the old man into his seat, and set-
tled the footstool for him. He sat looking down the
room.
" Go and bid the men come up nearer," he said
then, speaking feebly. "I've got to make 'em hear
me somehow." He was audible enough before he
reached the end of his say.
The men rambled forward awkwardly, and stood
about the partition which divided the room into two
chambers. The farmer eyed them over, as a drill-
102 SABRINA WARHAM
sergeant his squad, let them wait awhile ; then, cast-
ing an eye round to the rear, where his son sat arms
folded regarding no one, he set himself weightily to
his task.
" Men," said he, " listen, every one of you, to
what I have to say. Here you see me an old man
sitting feeble and afflicted ; and yonder you see a
young one, strong, and in the pride of life that's
my son, what I made him. Well, you know me,
and you know him. You know how I've sweated
and toiled and moiled year in year out on this farm,
so as to leave it to him as good as I found it when
my time comes to go. You know that, men, don't
you ? "
"Ay, we know that well enough," said one, acting
as spokesman for the rest. " Yes, we do know it,
Mr. Lorry."
" Well, then, you know me," went on the old man,
scoring his points ; " that's been my life, and my
aim ; and now I'm come to the end of it all."
" Don't say that, Mr. Lorry," protested another of
the group, as the farmer again paused.
"And now," he resumed, "here's my son David
come to take my place seems he's been waiting
for it these three years, and has got tired of waiting
at last. I'm too tough for'n ; he goes when he
likes, and he comes when he likes leaves me to
do all the work alone, and then comes back hoping,
maybe, to find me dead, and my shoes warm for
him to step into. 'Stead of that he finds me alive,
with as good a head for farming as ever, but sore
afflicted in body and limb. Well, what does he do
then ? "
"Why, surely he's been a shoulder of strength
to 'ee, Mr. Lorry," replied one, more ready to plead
David's cause than the rest.
" Ay, a shoulder ; so he has," returned the farmer.
" Young and strong he comes back, and finds me old
and feeble, an easy enough mark for him to aim
at. So, with his shoulder of strength he comes to
LORRY LAYS DOWN THE REINS 103
help me, as you say and down I go ! Well, men,
these be our sons nowadays; and as we made 'em,
we got to let 'em be our masters at last. Any-
way, I've found that true ; and being too feeble to
do else, I don't say but what it's right. So that's
all said and done, and you know who your master
is now : a fine one to look at, I say, for I made
him, though all he uses his strength for is to put
an old man to shame. Well, bed's the place for
me now ; I shan't be in any one's way there, and
if the farm's got to suffer, why, so it must. My
day's over."
He got up from his chair as he spoke, looked
round on his son to measure the effect of his words
in the direction where they had been most aimed,
but got neither look nor word in exchange. Then,
with the same feebleness with which he had entered,
he tottered off to bed, and lay there for a month.
A doctor was called in ; nothing was the matter
with him but his old aches and pains, but it satis-
fied his sense of importance to set heavy charges
for medical attendance against the profits of the new
management, since it was David who had caused
him to become bed-ridden. Thus, with a pension
to his injured feelings, old Lorry retired from work,
wishing all the harm in the world to the business
he had quitted.
CHAPTER XI
AN ARRIVAL AND A DEPARTURE
SABRINA saw a boyish face looking at her with
interest across the hedge as she passed up the
Castle lane. The youth was accompanied by dogs
and a keeper, and carried a gun. She met him
rather often during the rest of the day ; or, to state
the case more accurately, he met her. This was
Ronald Lutworth.
She had been at her new duties for a couple of
days, and was finding that, at the outset, her work
would be more a matter of dusting and clearance
than of cataloguing. Behind a veneer of decorum
lay chaos. Whatever book had been in use had
become misplaced, only the great monumental works
of history and science, which nobody thought of
consulting, remained as her father had left them.
She came on his manuscript notes preparatory to a
printed catalogue ; but the scheme had not been
carried far : if it was to be completed, there was at
least a year's work before her.
In the dark and gloomy suite of chambers which
composed the library, her spirits rose ; here, at
last, was something definite to tax brain and
energy. Lady Berrers paid her a visit, and, find-
ing so much dust and disorder, sent a servant to
her aid. This turned out to be Lottie Gage. The
hours passed happily ; Sabrina; listening to the
girl's chatter, found that she had secured the com-
pany of a sort of human canary, preferable to the
kind she had to endure in her own home. This
104
AN ARRIVAL AND A DEPARTURE 105
one she could at will either silence or send away,
and, having the means of relief at her command,
she grew rather to welcome the distraction.
Lottie was a bird : that was the girl's character.
Her griefs were birdlike, thin, piping, and full of
complaint ; her happiness was song ; her heart had
its nest, too, and flew there on wings at the least
excuse. Talkative or silent, Sabrina soon came to
know from the girl's face whether her thoughts
were in their true nesting-place ; when they were
there her whole being seemed lifted to keep them
company: " lifted" was the true word. Love, then,
thought she, viewing this object-lesson, finds its true
payment at home independent of the recipient; for
she could not believe sufficiently in the common
British workman to imagine that Lottie's ideal
had better than dull material to go upon.
Just now the girl had a fresh grievance; she
had not seen her stonemason for more than a week.
Once she had missed him, and he had been unable
to come since. Extra work was keeping him late ;
he could not get away till after dark; Lottie's
chance of meeting him except on Sundays had thus
become small.
" And oh, it's like that ! " she cried, pressing her
heart to indicate the ache and longing that possessed
her. But when later that day she came to Sabrina
all tearful for comfort, her concealment of certain
facts grew evident.
" Look at me ! " she cried. " I've made a fright
of myself ! Oh, what shall I do ? " An accident
with an oil-lamp, while descending to the cellar
too heavily laden, had resulted in a burnt hand and
the singeing of the light waves of hair that fluttered
over her temples. "That settles it," she wailed.
" Now I can't see him ! Oh, whatever will he think
of me?"
" When were you to see him ? " asked Sabrina.
The girl blushed ; convicted, she confessed
frankly.
106 SABRINA WARHAM
"To-night He was going to be in the park to
meet me; I could have just managed to slip out
between eight and nine."
"That is too late for you," said Sabrina, looking
grave.
" Oh yes, I know ; and now I'm punished ! " re-
plied the girl. " But it was just a chance my only
one ! "
" I think, in any case, you ought not to go."
" I can't now. Oh dear," wailed the love-lorn
maid ; " and he'll come and wait, and that'll make
him so angry, for he's sure to think it's because he
kept me waiting last time ! "
" Can't you write to him ? "
"Yes, I must. Oh dear, but I can't now." She
held up her bandaged hand. " And how'm I to get
it to him ? "
Then, with more blushes, seeing no other way,
Lottie confessed that there was a meeting-place,
and a stone under which letters lay and were
exchanged ; and if her dear Miss Sabrina would
be so good and kind, she might help to prevent a
misunderstanding.
This was to have a closer hand in the affair than
Sabrina cared about. On reflection, however, she
consented to carry the note, if Lottie would promise
that there should be no more such meetings.
" Oh yes," said the maid forlornly ; " I must do
whatever you tell me, miss, since you've got to do
the writing. Only don't make me say it in any
unkind sort of way ! " she added pleadingly. Her
submissiveness was touching.
Sabrina wrote at her dictation, learning then
for the first time that Freddie was the name of
the adored one. The letter showed a dangerous
softness.
"You make yourself too cheap, Lottie," was her
comment on finishing. " If you do that, how will
you teach him to respect you ? "
" I don't care about his respecting me, as long
AN ARRIVAL AND A DEPARTURE 107
I
as he loves me ! " said Lottie, as she mumbled kisses
on to the crosses which Sabrina had set down at
her bidding. " Only three ! Oh, what will he
think ? " she exclaimed, regarding them ruefully.
She begged for a more lavish demonstration to be
made.
" Lottie," said her companion, " you make me
anxious."
" I am anxious myself ! " said the girl, naifvely
assuming that their minds had thus found an agree-
ment on the matter.
Sabrina, on leaving the Castle for the second
time that day, took the path to which the other
directed her, found the stone at the trysting-place,
and deposited the missive.
"Am I right?" she wondered, and hesitated; but
it was too late then.
Halfway down the lane she came on David
enclosing his sheep for the night. A muffled echo
of recent events had reached her; coming from
Mrs. Willings through Betty the version gave an
unfavourable view of David's conduct. His stern
unbending silence and rocklike attitude had ap-
peared to bear out the charge of unfilial be-
haviour.
Sabrina, while not crediting the story in all its
details, understood that a conflict of two wills had
taken place, and that the old man had gone under,
with the apparent result that a doctor had been
sent for to attend on him.
Though with no wish to pry into the family
differences, she could not, therefore, well avoid
making inquiry. David's reply was that his father
had nothing especially the matter with him. He
added, leaning on the gate which he had just
fastened
" I ask your pardon, Cousin Sabra, for letting
you come in the other night."
"Do not do that, David," said she; "or it will
mean that I must ask yours as I do, if it was
io8 SABRINA WARHAM
through me that is to say, if my coming has been
the cause of any later unpleasantness."
" Oh no," he said ; " you are not to think
that."
A silence ensued. Wishing to express a sym-
pathy for which words were difficult, Sabrina
lingered beside him, and, as she leaned at the gate,
her hands pulled nervously at the loose knot of
blue ribbon worn at her throat.
Thus they stood silently together, looking over
toward the farm. There by the out-buildings and
stable-yard could be seen the leisurely movements
of farm labourers at their work; a boy came, lead-
ing a waggon team ; two men were hoisting tar-
paulins over an unthatched stack ; from another
quarter the slam and reverberation of heavy beams
signalled the shutting of barn-doors ; the lowing of
cattle sounded from the milking-shed.
As Sabrina listened and watched, a sense of the
peacefulness of it all came over her; she almost
wished that she could make such a place with its
quiet interests the home of her heart. From this
outlook she turned to regard the man who was its
directing spirit. Expecting to find a reflection in
his face of the same quiet, she was startled to note
the almost fierce intentness of his gaze : whether
it were sorrow, or indignation, or mere concentrated
thought, she could not tell.
Laying a friendly hand upon his arm, " David,"
she said, " what are you thinking of ? "
His answer was unexpected. " I'm thinking,"
said he, " how we only find the truth of God's laws
when they come hard on a man. The more they are
worth, the harder they are to keep."
" You mean " she said, and waited to let him
speak.
He nodded towards the farm, indicating the
direction of his thoughts.
"I'm master over there now," said he. "Yes;
and though I could swear I'd done right, it seems
AN ARRIVAL AND A DEPARTURE 109
now as if I'd been all wrong. It's like cutting
into flesh and blood when some things have to
be done. But, there ! it's no use speaking of it
now! "
Sabrina said, " I know too little about it to say
anything: and I hardly wish to know more; yet
that you take it so much to heart makes it easier
to believe that you were right."
The young man turned to her, watching, as one
in a dream, the play of her fingers on the pinned
ribbon at her throat.
"Well, it'll be all one to-morrow," he said at
last. " It's thinking that wears folk out : and
there's less danger in keeping one's mind than in
changing it."
" But do you never change yours, David ? There
are times when one must go back."
"Ay," he answered, "one's dearly tempted to
sometimes."
She gathered from his tone that their thoughts
were apart : she could not fathom him. When she
drew away from the gate to resume her course he
did not offer her his company. With a secret sense
of disappointment she walked on toward the farm
alone.
Once again a figure that had already grown
familiar came into view. Ronald Lutworth seemed
to be everywhere. Twice on her way up to the
Castle, and now, for the second time on her return,
this face of silly sweet youth had persistently con-
fronted her. The meaning it sought to convey was
plain ; mutely it said, " I adore you ; but my silence
shows my respect ! " Thus loaded with eloquence,
it passed honourably on its way. The youth was
now without dog or gun also without keeper ;
instead of firearm he bore in his hands a mon-
strous posy of late autumn wild-flowers delicately
arranged.
Again he gazed upon the fair face of his day's
passion, and passed it by, seeming this time to say,
no SABRINA WARHAM
" Look what a lovely bouquet I have brought for
you, but am too full of respect to offer." He was
walking hatless, as though only so was it possible
for him to pass the presence ; his fair hair tumbled
over a berry-brown visage with large grey eyes
comically languishing : it was the face of some soft
woodland creature from which a human soul looked
out spell-bound. And if the eyes said, " Pity me ! "
they also said, " Admire ! " nor could admiration
be denied to that combination of a natural and an
artful attractiveness. This head of scatter-brained
romance was perched on the lean body of a bred
athlete. Nothing of its wear, from the open throat
of the shirt to the curiously thonged shoes, was
quite the same as other men's.
Fifty years before, this youth would have fallen
into the Byronic convention. He was but wearing
another cut of the same cloth ; indulging, in fact,
in that seed-time of the ideas and the emotions
which seizes for a brief period many destined to an
after-life of strict social conformity.
One curious point of personal resemblance struck
Sabrina on this their fourth meeting. Seeing him from
a distance, she noticed that his walk was like David's,
a measured gait of long, slow strides, easy and negli-
gent, almost a slouch.
As he and the breath of his bouquet passed, the
awkward consciousness of these repeated meetings
caused Sabrina's colour to rise ; yet she could only
laugh outright at the absurdity of the thing when,
coming to the entrance-gate of the farm, she saw
laid there, like an offering at a shrine, the same
bouquet which Ronald Lutworth had been too
respectful to present when passing. She let it lie,
and had afterwards to hear many reproaches and
complaints over that first act of cruelty.
A few minutes later, standing before her glass,
she found her brooch hanging; the blue ribbon it
had held was gone. She supposed it must have
fallen somewhere between the field-gate and the
AN ARRIVAL AND A f)EPARTURE in
farm ; and, if that were so, could guess into what
foolish hands it had probably fallen.
A day or two later, Ronald Lutworth found his
way to the library in sudden need of a guide to
English literature. The place was evidently un-
familiar to him ; he roved over the shelves of
history in search of the works of Charles Dickens.
Inquiring of Miss Warham whether she had ever
read that author, and hearing that she had, he seemed
to consider that a strong intellectual bond had been
established between them, seeing that he himself
was now about to begin.
" Did something the other day died, didn't he ? "
he inquired solemnly, enabling Sabrina to guess how
it was that he had Dickens sufficiently on the brain
to name him.
Before long she was in difficulty how to get rid
of him. As there was dusting going on, he insisted
on doing it. Lady Berrers, who looked in daily,
came and caught him in the act, quickening Sabrina's
sense of annoyance over a situation she had been un-
able to prevent.
" Is that boy worrying you ? " the lady asked
sensibly.
" I am helping," said Ronald.
She gave him an understanding look, and packed
him out of the room.
" Make what regulations here you like," she said,
when her nephew had gone ; " and I will see the
family observes them." She added in a much more
concerned tone, " Can you tell me what has become
of Lottie ? "
" I met her just after I left last evening," said
Sabrina. " I understood then that she had leave
of absence. Perhaps if you were to ask the house-
keeper "
" But the housekeeper has asked me."
" Oh ! " cried Sabrina, starting, " then I ought to
have known : now I remember ! Oh, madam, how
I reproach myself ! "
ii2 SABRINA WARHAM
" With what ? "
"That I did not guess. She asked me to kiss
her ; and I saw that she had been crying. I fear
now that it meant good-bye."
" Yes ; but even then ? It may be serious
enough ; but what have you to reproach yourself
with?"
" She was wearing a hat that I thought I had seen
once before ; and now I remember ; it was at an inn
window in Warringford."
She recounted the circumstance.
" I ought to have been more alive," she said ;
" for I knew she had a friend a lover not the one
you spoke to me of ; but, by her own account, a very
respectable man."
Lady Berrers was deeply concerned. " Poor
Lottie ! " she said. " I fear her word counts but little.
I had a presentiment that she was too pretty for her
station ; no, for her brains, I mean ! I will send over
to Warringford at once. There is just a chance."
" She may really have gone to get married ! " said
Sabrina, with faint hope.
" And she may find she has been deceived," replied
Lady Berrers. " In such a case, I fear she would not
have the courage to return."
Sabrina recognized the likelihood of this sup-
position.
" Oh, I will go at once ! " she said. " Let me !
It is better for it to be some one she knows and
can trust."
" Yes ; go, go ! " cried the lady, urgently. " Oh,
what a trouble in this world good looks are ! I am
sometimes tempted to wish that we all had scratched
faces till we reached forty and discretion. No ; I
don't mean people like you, my dear ! " Then,
approaching kind lips, " May I ? " she inquired, and
kissed her.
Inquiry of Mrs. Gage sent Sabrina over to Warring-
ford post-haste. Search went out in other directions
also ; but no Lottie was traced.
AN ARRIVAL AND A DEPARTURE 113
The same evening Tarn George, the carrier,
brought word of her. She had travelled in his cart
that morning, meeting him on the road, and had been
set down at the Blue Bear. It was the last news
heard of Lottie Gage in East Gill for many a long
day.
CHAPTER XII
MOTH AND RUST
DURING the first fortnight of her librarianship,
except for Ronald's occasional inroads and the
friendly visits of Lady Berrers, Sabrina was left en-
tirely to her own devices. Under her management,
the books had already been brought into fair order,
pending her scheme for making out a complete
catalogue. Little by little she was acquiring full
knowledge of the material she would have to deal
with.
The last of the three rooms under her jurisdiction
had been arranged as a small museum. It contained
some Roman pottery and coins, a few instruments of
war, ornaments, and articles of apparel from the South
Sea Islands, and a more important and homogeneous
collection of minerals and fossils, chiefly of local
origin. These she regarded as outside her province,
though they were actually in her custody. Here,
stuffed among some shelves, she came in one of her
clearings on a dozen booklike cases containing a
damaged collection of butterflies. She spoke of
them to Lady Berrers.
" They belonged to Ronald's father," replied her
friend. " I suppose they have now very little value,
but I will ask the Squire what is to be done with
them."
A few days later, Sabrina sat busy in the middle
library amid apparent rubbish heaps, when she
heard a soft shuffling step near her. Turning, she
saw Squire Lutworth for the first time; a tall, thin
114
MOTH AND RUST 115
old man of precise appearance. He stood with his
back to her, reaching for a volume in one of the
upper book-shelves. Having secured it, he made a
great to-do, clapping and blowing on the covers as
though much dust had settled there ; all the while he
talked to himself, appearing unconscious that the
room held another occupant.
" Will you allow me, sir ? " said Sabrina, coming
forward to offer assistance.
The old gentleman turned sharply about, viewing
her up and down over the barrier of the big volume
which he had now opened.
"Oh, you are Miss Warham, are you?" he said;
then throwing a cold glance about the room, "You
appear to have made great disorder here. Yes, I
was saying to myself when I came in, this room
shows great disorder. You are new to this sort of
work, no doubt."
" The disorder was here," answered Sabrina. " I
am only bringing it to light, preparatory to abolish-
ing it."
" Ah, yes ! Well, it looks very untidy, I must say,
and very useless, all of it ; much better be burned,
I fancy, this sort of stuff ; smells most unpleasantly,
unwholesome, even ; almost needs a sanitary in-
spector. Whatever you do don't introduce infec-
tion."
Sabrina smiled. " Things were very damp here,"
she said; "that accounts for the smell. May I order
some fires to be lighted ? "
" Fires ? Oh yes, yes, I suppose so, if you must.
Don't burn the place down. If you wanted a bon-
fire, I should have supposed it would be better to
have it out of doors."
" But I don't want a bonfire at all," she answered.
" Please don't think of having anything burned yet.
Why, some of the most valuable things in the whole
library may be here, huddled out of sight and for-
gotten."
" Ah, that is your opinion ! Young people, of
Ii6 SABRINA WARHAM
course, have those notions romantic discoveries,
and such stuff. Yes, you remind me ; you are very
like your mother who was once here. She used to
be romantic, too, in her young days ; very trouble-
some, very catching. I am told you live with her ;
I trust she is recovering."
" Entire recovery we can hardly hope for her
now."
" No ? Well, well, recovering is more trouble than
falling ill sometimes." He walked up the room and
showed that he expected to be followed by remark-
ing presently, as though she were still at his elbow,
"Well, now you are here, I suppose you require
supervision."
Sabrina referred to the museum.
"Yes, yes, come with me, and I will supervise
you," he said, and led the way in.
She soon learned that, as regards books or natural
history, he was without ideas of any kind ; the only
one which he managed definitely to convey was
that the place belonged to him, that under his
orders it might be improved, but that without his
orders he would very much rather it went to
rack and ruin. Sabrina had been in possession a
fortnight, and had begun to feel a happy sense of
responsibility over the ordering of things : a ten
minutes' interview with Squire Lutworth was suffi-
cient to remind her that she was merely a paid
subordinate to a man with no policy or thought-out
scheme beyond the satisfaction of his own self-
importance for the moment. Most of her sugges-
tions he first met with a decisive negative ; two
minutes later they became orders, given on his own
initiative. His fidgety, jerky mode of speech was
not the result of nervousness ; he was simply a man
slow in idea and vocabulary, bent on laying down
the law. Conscious in some vague way of his
inferiority of mind, he adjusted the balance by
teaching others to remember their inferiority of
station. Once in receipt of the deference which he
MOTH AND RUST 117
conceived to be his due, he was not unmannerly,
could even be gracious ; and the small acerbities
which had shown in his first interview with Sabrina
came merely in the hurry of acquainting a stranger
with his claims. In appearance he was not without
state, but his breeding was of the type that runs
rather to backbone than to feature; as he walked
he had a way of holding himself as though on
horseback ; perhaps a hobby-horse would have been
the most fitting accoutrement of the inner man,
slow-going, pompous, something of a masquerader.
Having taken up much time and done nothing
" Yes, I must supervise you," he said, as he
walked out.
Not a difficult man to read, nor perhaps to
manage, thought Sabrina, after having studied him
for a while ; and her philosophy was sufficient to
leave her amused rather than annoyed at the in-
effective interference with which her work was
threatened. One thing she gathered plainly ; that
a dispersal of the collection, both library and
museum, was impending. " I think of presenting
it to the nation," said the Squire, with a flourish ;
but Sabrina had learned more than he had intended
to convey, and understood well enough that if ever
the presentation took place, some equivalent in
title would be demanded.
Meanwhile, another member of the family was
endeavouring to prove his importance to her, on
different lines. Ronald obeyed his aunt's interdic-
tion of the library as long as it suited him to exhibit
the languishing demeanour of a hopeless exile in
other places where Sabrina was sure to be met
with. They encountered at least twice daily ; see-
ing him often in David's company, she might have
imagined it was sought as a means to an end, had
she not learned from Lady Berrers that a fast
friendship existed between them. The great lady
seemed almost to share it.
" Have you found out what a fine fellow your
Ii8 SABRINA WARHAM
cousin is ? " she asked early in their acquaintance,
and more than once the inquiry was repeated.
Sabrina's admission, " I like him," did not satisfy
her.
" You should get to know him," she persisted ;
" he is worth it."
" I believe in his worth thoroughly, for I have
seen it tested," replied Sabrina.
Lady Berrers gave her a soft look of scrutiny,
but let the remark pass unexplained.
" I regard my nephew's liking for him as of happy
omen," she said. " He is a man of sense ; and to
that Ronald has not yet attained. I am pleased for
them to be together."
Sabrina, too, though for other reasons, would
have liked always to see that youth in David's
company. Alone she found it difficult to get quit
of him ; traces of his state of mind lay everywhere.
Without putting his absurdity into words, he was
beginning to lay strenuous siege to her favour.
When the performance had gone on for a few days,
Lady Berrers referred to it with her accustomed
frankness.
" Ronny is in love with you," she said. " I trust
you have a sense of humour."
" If I have, I wish I could lend it," replied the
girl; "it is certainly what he wants."
" Not as a rule ; no one laughs better than he
does."
"Then I wish he would laugh quickly, so as to
get cured."
"Ah, he has been teaching you that he can be
solemn ? "
" Yes ; and then he becomes so laughable, I
almost have to laugh."
" Oh, as much as you like ! It is far more your
solemnity that I am afraid of. I fear you are con-
scientious, and apt to take things too seriously.
Now remember, conscience where Ronald is con-
cerned is virtue wasted; it will only inflame him."
MOTH AND RUST 119
This, then, according to the person who knew
him best, was the youth Sabrina had to deal with.
His flowers continued to fall on her from unexpected
places ; he larded sweetness over the library in her
absence; pressed blossoms fell from the books as
she handled them ; and the lover, studious to claim
no credit by word written or spoken, watched with
fond eyes to see it accorded him in her understand-
ing. Ronald Lutworth in a short life had paid
much court to beauty ; but the death-blow of an
acceptance had never fallen to him ; it was part
of his method to urge his suit with every appear-
ance of hopelessness as to the result, his love being
essentially that " of the moth for the star, the night
for the morrow " ; in a word his desire was toward
the unattainable. Instinct had told him at first
sight that Sabrina Warham would satisfy his need
for some one to despair over.
One morning he stood before her table with a
returned volume of Dickens.
" Miss Warham," he said, " I love you ! "
She thanked him, taking the book.
" Oh, don't thank me for it ! " he cried, all woe-
begone.
" Let us put it in its place at once," she said.
" Are you talking of the book or of me ? "
" Of the book, surely ; you thanked me for
introducing you to it. So you like Dickens ? "
" I haven't read a word of him ! I I have been
writing."
" That is better still."
"Miss Warham, will you will you read what
I've written ? "
" Certainly, with pleasure."
He revealed a manuscript of no great bulk.
" Ah, poetry ? " she said, perceiving its nature.
" If I read it, shall I be allowed to suggest correc-
tions ? "
He spied a trap. " I won't promise to change
anything," he said.
120 SABRINA WARHAM
" Is it so unalterable ? "
" Yes ! " He made his affirmative sound the vow
of an everlasting passion.
" You mean, then, that it is perfect ? You should
publish it and get fame."
" Won't you read it ? " he petitioned.
She took her time, saying at the end
" And who is she ? "
Forbidden to pretend ignorance, she declared
"task" and "clasp" rhymes she could not possibly
accept, and handed the sheets back to him. He
offered to alter them.
" But that would be against your conscience."
" I haven't any ; I only want to please you."
"Till you have one," she said, "that will be
impossible."
Her handling of him was, as Lady Berrers had
feared, too tenderly scrupulous to be of good effect.
On this occasion she got rid of him without having
to hear a second declaration of his passion. Yet,
when left alone, she reproached herself for having,
even in so small a degree, played with the youth's
feelings. A curious lack of feminine skill in allure-
ment and strategy marked her character ; she was
without zest for a game which inflicted an indignity
on her idea of womanhood, being, in fact, as her
friend had said of her, too conscientious.
" Ronny refuses to eat," remarked Lady Berrers
on their next meeting. " What have you been
doing to him ? "
Sabrina took the jest seriously. " I am very
sorry," she said ; " I tried to laugh at him a little ;
I fear I did it too much."
" Oh, my dear, it won't hurt him ! " was the
confident reply ; " he sleeps well, and that's proof
positive. Indeed, I'm not sure that it wouldn't be
good for him just for once to find his feelings
seriously engaged. I wish you would do it for him ! "
"Oh, please, no!" cried Sabrina. "I shouldn't
like it at all ! "
MOTH AND RUST 121
" Well, when are you going to marry, then ?
These things will go on, you know. Don't be too
like your mother ; she never would understand
that she was beautiful : and she was, in consequence,
the most dangerous woman of her day. I remember
more than one would-be wooer who came to the
Castle meaning to fall in love according to expecta-
tion, and whose affections strayed to the wrong
person."
" Was not that your own choice, madam ? You
were not compelled to have my mother as your
companion."
" Of course it was. She was an admirable light-
ning-conductor ; we poor heiresses need them, if
we would secure time to make choice of fit persons
and lay hand suddenly in no man's. I was a hap-
pily married woman, thanks perhaps to your dear
mother ; and she will not understand the debt, nor
can I now speak of it. "
Allowed these glimpses of past history, Sabrina,
though doubting the Squire's interpretation of her
character, began to wonder whether her mother's
youth had not held a romance. There was at least
something romantic in Lady Berrers' loyalty when
speaking of her, as though a debt were still waiting
to be paid.
During the ensuing weeks, visitors were coming
and going at the Castle ; it was the season of game,
and Ronald was obliged to take a part in entertain-
ing his grandfather's guests ; thus there were hours
and even days which left him no opportunity for
troubling her. Indication of his state, however,
was not wanting when Lady Berrers, speaking of
the date for her own and the Squire's departure,
confessed uncertainty as to Ronald. " He still
sleeps well," she said, in a tone which suggested
this to be the only leg of sanity left to him.
Lady Berrers, full of worldly wisdom, still found
amusement in the affair ; but Sabrina's scruples
rendered her uncomfortable ; not that she could for
122 SABRINA WARHAM
a moment regard the matter seriously ; and for that
very reason she was constantly called upon to play
a part out of character with her own honesty of
purpose. So when chance gave her the means to
secure a respite, she made haste to use it. One
day Ronald petitioned that she would lay a com-
mand on him, so that fulfilling it he might obtain
her favour anything, he did not care what, so long
as it was difficult. Were she to do so, she asked,
would he beforehand promise obedience ?
" Yes, if it is not to cease 1 : the word I'm
not to say," he answered. That word had been
prohibited early in the career of his passion : " If
it be true," had been her argument, "you have
now told me, so I know. Tell me when it be-
comes untrue, and I will tell you if your recovery
is news to me." Now she said, " I wish you to go
up to town next week along with your aunt and the
Squire, and, when they go abroad, go with them and
do not return till they do."
He took the blow manfully, after his own fashion.
In the interval Lady Berrers said, for the first time
a little anxiously
" He is not sleeping."
This was no' news to Sabrina, seeing that she
had already full knowledge outside what window
he kept watch. For the first time keeping her own
counsel, she said
" He will sleep well when he gets to London."
" Oh, that's it, is it ? " said the lady, nodding
comprehension. " So at last you have used your
power. Now you are dangerous ! "
This was at their farewell meeting. As they
embraced, the elder woman remarked
" Ronald is in for a heartache his twentieth
attempt, his first success."
To give Sabrina comfort, she added that it would
do him a world of good. She was not one whom
the future made anxious.
CHAPTER XIII
THE PAINTED PARLOUR
WINTER descended grey and sudden over the
downs in early December. The Castle party was
already on its way through Town to the Riviera.
East Gill shot its bolts on the outer world.
A blow more grievous than her loss of the
befriending presence of Lady Berrers was dealt
to Sabrina by the Squire at his departure. She
was ordered to postpone further work on the
library till his return in the spring made " personal
supervision " possible. Should this arrangement
keep her from other employment, her stipend, she
was informed, would be continued to her a small
indignity characteristic of the Squire's method of
conferring a favour. The affair was done cere-
moniously by letter. Lady Berrers, writing a few
days later from Town, had but just heard of it ;
her kind words showed that she understood how
harsh was the stroke. " This is the sort of thing,"
she wrote, " that the Squire does by inspiration ;
and from pen on paper nothing will change him ;
he seems to regard his blotting-pad as a witness
before the recording angel. I can get him to change
his mind, but not his word ; so for you, poor hungry
piece of industry, I see no present remedy. Go up
to the Castle when you like, borrow what books
you please so much, at least, I can offer you."
It was little in comparison with what she was
deprived of, but the kind thought prompting it was
tnot the less valued. She availed herself of the
5
124 SABRINA WARHAM
privilege, and was emboldened to ask further that,
as an apology for employment during the slow
winter months, she might attempt the refitting of
the damaged butterfly collection.
The permission was accorded. A new difficulty
confronted her when the cases arrived at the farm ;
Mrs. Warham would not have them in the parlour.
Her practical objection was fear of moth ; a more
reasonable one would have been the strong smell
of camphor which filled the room whenever the
boxes were opened. Sabrina felt convinced that
the true reason had not been given, and wondered
whether it were due to continued disapproval of
her undertaking this kind of work, or, after all, to a
sort of jealousy. Mrs. Warham had refused to allow
more than one box to be opened. ''Have them
taken away," she said coldly, and caused the removal
to be immediate by retiring to her room until it
had been effected.
In this difficulty Sabrina consulted David, who
offered her the use of a small parlour adjoining the
common room.
It was barely furnished ; 'unused except when
farm accounts were made up on the weekly wage
day. Recessed in the wall was a locked cupboard,
covering the account books and the cash-box;
there was nothing besides except a square of
carpet over a tiled floor, a table and four chairs.
As a workroom it suited Sabrina's purpose ad-
mirably. Having found from David that her use
of it would cause no inconvenience she made a
point of applying in form to her uncle for his
permission.
He gave it as though he could not help himself;
for his pose now was to creep decrepit in mind and
will as in body, as though the weight of his son's
despotism had brought him to earth never to rise
the same man. Nevertheless, when David was afield
old nature would have its fling, and he would give
vent with unabated force to vitriolic abuse of the
THE PAINTED PARLOUR
125
work which went on round him. David's return to
the house sent him back to his shell, with ten sad
years added to his infirmity ; dusk became his bed-
time. This was his life the nursing of a never-
ending sour sense of his son's ingratitude. As his
chief bitterness was against the farm's continued
prosperity, so was his delight in mishaps to any-
thing that moved on it. The chopping off of a
man's finger in the chaff-cutter made for Lorry
a red-letter day. One of the horses went lame :
Lorry's legs went the lighter for it. A sheep
slipped from the cliff above Amesbay, and was
picked up carrion : the old farmer ate his mutton
with the more relish. He leagued himself with the
weather like Samuel of old against the king-loving
Israelites and prophesied ill concerning it. And,
as though indifferent to the paternal spite, David
would still open his ear to the old man's advice,
and, having sounded its worth, take it or leave it
as he judged best. This sign of David's prevailing
charity of mind was regarded by the elder Lorry
as the blackest ingratitude of all. " You use me,
and then you throw me away," said he, and it was
an aspect of the truth ; but aspect is not substance
they have the relation to each other of words to
silence and David, being a silent man, did not
trouble to deprive the other of his luxury of com-
plaint.
Sabrina, on entering into possession of her
work-room, found comfortable additions. A chained
lamp hung from the centre of the ceiling ; to one of
the chairs cushions had been added, and curtains to
the windows. A dark, fusty-looking room by day,
it now shone bright even to its corners, and, for the
first time, she noticed that the wall-panels were
adorned with curiously painted scenes, half scrip-
tural, half historical. A glance sufficed to show
that no master's hand had been responsible for the
work; it was, in fact, frankly and irredeemably
bad, but it was quaint and it was not English. A
126 SABRINA WARHAM
further inspection told her it was not recent. She
was puzzled, wondering what its history might be.
But before long she had forgotten her surroundings,
absorbed in the delicate manipulation of her work.
The first two cases she opened contained only
British varieties ; apparently in some stage of their
history they had been subjected to rough handling ;
many had been detached from their cork stands,
a few still hanging by a pin, but most of them lying
altogether loose, divorced from their labels. Sabrina
had not sufficient knowledge of entomology to
restore them to their places, and it occurred to
her then that she might have found the country
more interesting had she looked at it with a keener
desire to learn something of the life that went on
round her. Probably many of these brilliant forms,
so delicate in their beauty still, were natives of
the neighbouring heath. Yet she knew nothing of
them ; for all that her eye told her, they might be
foreign except for the distinctive label on each box.
Thus, at the very threshold of her self-imposed
task, she found that she was too ignorant to pro-
ceed. No doubt the Castle library contained books
that might help her, but meanwhile there was the
room prepared and the fire lighted.
Determined to make it her study for that even-
ing, she went upstairs and brought down the first
books that came handy. After doing so it occurred
to her that her cousin would surely know some-
thing of these native butterflies about which she
was so ignorant.
One of the parlour-doors gave on to a small
lobby, in which hung hats and coats, and this again
through an opening with no door into the fireplace-
recess of the common room. Using this passage
of communication, Sabrina came on her cousin net-
making.
" Oh, David, are you busy ? " she asked him.
He took her question a a summons, and went
with her into the little parlour.
THE PAINTED PARLOUR 127
" I am beginning to discover my ignorance," she
said ; " I wonder if you can help me ? " She told him
her difficulty, and found him fully up in the English
and local names, but the labels were all in Latin ;
they could get no further. David thought that
they were French ; his saying so caused her to
exclaim
" What, do you not know French, David, after
having been so much abroad ? "
" Only a word or two that I picked up at
the ports," he answered. " I never had much
scholaring."
" Don't you miss it ? " she asked.
" I don't know. Can a man miss what he has
never had ? "
" Yes ; surely he can feel the want of something.
And it is strange, now I come to think of it, that you
should know no French at all, for we have French
blood in us you and I. My father once told me
so."
The "you and I" came kindly from her lips.
David stood looking at her with earnest eyes.
" I never heard tell of it," he said ; " I reckon we
are English enough."
" Oh no," she declared ; " we are of Huguenot
origin. Lorry is French badly spelt. You ought
to know your own history, David! And talking of
history, where do these come from ? " She pointed
to the pictures upon the walls.
"Ah now, that's curious; those are French," said
her cousin. " Nothing to do with us, though."
" Is it known who did them ? "
" Prisoners, so I've been told. French officers
taken when Buonaparte landed."
" Buonaparte never did land, David."
" Oh, where did we beat him, then ? "
"At Waterloo, finally."
" Well," he answered, " isn't that in England ? "
Once again, as before, Sabrina felt a curious vexa-
tion at coming thus upon proof of her cousin's limited
128 SABRINA WARHAM
outlook and training. He, such a good fellow, to
know so little !
" Oh, David ! " she cried, " did you waste your
time very much when you were at school ? "
" Yes," he replied simply ; " not that I was there
long, though."
"And so you know nothing about England,
your own country ? Don't you feel that is a
loss ? "
" Looking at it from your end, maybe that's true.
Yes ; I suppose it's reasonable to know how things
have come about."
"You say it quite doubtfully. I wish you had
more pride in you, David ; more ambition."
"What should I have ambition for?"
" Have you no plans of what you would like to do
and be?"
David looked at her as though slow to com-
prehend.
" I don't make plans," said he.
" None ? Do you never look forward to any-
thing ?"
"No; to-day's enough for me. I take things as
they come."
" But does that make you contented ? " inquired
his cousin, vexed at so passive a philosophy. " Have
you never thought of what you mean to do with
your life ? "
" That's all been thought for me ; I reckon I shall
stop as I am."
" And you wish it ? You can look forward to that
prospect ? "
" I don't wish otherwise. Where's the hard-
ship ? "
"To me it would be unendurable?" exclaimed
Sabrina.
" Ay, to you ; that's understandable. People are
shaped so differently ; none of us be quite of your
pattern, Cousin Sabra."
David stated the fact dispassionately ; the other
THE PAINTED PARLOUR 129
seemed rather inclined to take it as an accusa-
tion.
"You are quite mistaken about my pattern, as
you call it," she replied with some impatience.
" I am not superior to anybody ; I only wish every
one to follow the best that is in them. I hate to see
ability wasted."
" My best," said David, and paused reflectively.
"Well," he went on, "it's gone a different road
now ; I'm not likely ever to see it, I reckon. What's
done is done. I wasted time once ; there's no mak-
ing up for that."
" You should not think so," said his cousin. " In
a way that is never true ; where one has the knowl-
edge and the wish to do differently, one has really
gained wisdom. I wonder," she went on, fighting
her obstructive shyness, " I wonder if you would
like, David, for me to lend you some of my books,
or even for us to read together sometimes in the
evening; that is when you have nothing better to
do."
" I'm a poor reader," said David.
"Then I might read to you? I mean; but no,
of course, you have far too much to do, and when
your work's over you are too tired for anything of
that sort. I was foolish to think of it."
She was heartily regretting having spoken; her
cousin's impassivity seemed a rejection of her shy,
embarrassed advances. Great was her relief when
David suddenly broke silence, saying heartily
" Why, that would be fine ! How I'm to thank
you, I don't know."
" You can very easily," said Sabrina, all in a
friendly glow at finding her proposal welcome.
"Can I?"
" Yes. Come now, bring in your netting. You
can work at it here, can't you. There is little I can
do with these cases to-night."
A few minutes later David Lorry had gone to
rhool for a second time, and Sabrina had once
'
130 SABRINA WARHAM
more a pupil. She found him an attentive one,
though silent. It was the first of many meetings.
When she rose to go, she looked round on the
gaudily painted walls with a new sense of gratitude ;
their cheerfulness, their gay flaunting unconscious-
ness of their technical deficiencies seemed to suggest
a philosophy worth cultivating the triumph of self
over surroundings. These paintings had lightened
hours of captivity for men dwelling in a land hostile
to their race, to their temperament ; and they were
the expression of something natural to the gallant
French nation, something which has enabled its chil-
dren, in spite of all reverses, to remain the play-
makers of Europe, and to keep fair France the land
of laughter.
While winter's wind roared over the downs and
raked the bristling heath, and while, two miles away,
even West Gill harbour became untenable to craft
a shaken backwater of storm, its rough-hewn
jetty swept over by wreaths of foam, while all the
savagery of nature which she had dreaded spread
desolation round her, Sabrina found in the cosy
brightness of the small parlour, with its bad French
art, a refuge for brief hours as welcome as un-
expected.
Probably she did not estimate till long after the
actual value those hours had for her, or how much
she, who had undertaken the role of instructor, found
instruction in a form of wisdom whose worth she
had not hitherto distinguished, that, namely, which
springs from character rather than from knowledge,
and is communicated by no words which memory
can recall.
During its unoccupied hours, two signs of the
new use to which it was put remained in the painted
parlour ; Sabrina's books lay upon the mantelpiece ;
David's net hung from one of the beams. The
remounting of the dead butterflies was relegated to
the tedious leisure of daylight hours.
Lady Berrers wrote to Sabrina at the beginning
THE PAINTED PARLOUR 131
of the new year. " What are you doing with your-
self ? " was the main purport of many friendly
inquiries ; it was evident that she feared desolation
to abound. She wrote from a land of flowers ; her
daughter as well as her nephew was with her.
" Ronny sleeps," she wrote in a postscript, " but
only since we left England. So you see . . . ! "
CHAPTER XIV
A CHAPTER OF NATURAL HISTORY
THE touch of spring upon the senses is never so
strong as at that short heralding period of the
year before it gives vision to the eye. No note
ever sounds more liquid with life than that of the
early February birds singing in the thaws and the
sunshine from the black dripping boughs of un-
awakened woods.
That time of the year had come. East Gill
was resuming its slow activities ; farm workers
were afield. At West Gill harbour fish could again
be purchased, boats were unstacked from their
inland shelters and once more ranged the beach.
This time of man's reawakening to labour and
the joy of earth was marked in the Warham house-
hold by a small tragedy.
One morning, on going as usual to clean his
cage, Sabrina found Buddhie fallen from the perch
and lying dull-eyed and beak agape, a mere bunch
of feathers amid the strewn sand and litter of his
prison. For some days he had been ailing, and in
the absence of his song Sabrina had found comfort ;
but this alarming development of what she had
taken for a passing indisposition filled her with
distress on her mother's account.
Informing Mrs. Warham, who was still in bed,
of Buddhie's sudden seizure, she prepared at once
to take the canary to Warringford and consult the
bird-fancier from whom it had originally been pur-
chased. It was Sunday, but the hour was early,
132
A CHAPTER OF NATURAL HISTORY 133
and she made no doubt of finding the man upon
his premises.
Mrs. Warham, though full of tender solicitude
on Buddhie's behalf, demurred, from the Sabba-
tarian instinct which still clung to her, to Sabrina
letting herself be seen in the performance of a
shop-door errand.
" But I am not missing my privileges," said the
girl ; " if I like I can go to church at Warringford."
And without waiting for her mother's decision, she
got ready to start.
Having constructed from cardboard an airy
travelling-box with a row of small windows for
the comfort of the invalid, she snatched a hasty
meal and set out, disregarding Mrs. Warham's
final entreaty that she would put on a loose mantle
instead of a close jacket in order to conceal the
fact that she went laden.
"Oh no!" she objected, "I should be far too
warm; I mean to walk fast."
Several times while crossing the heath she
peeped through the airholes of the box, anxious
to know if her charge were yet alive. Now that
he lay so still and stricken she felt a lively pity
for her small tormentor; she carried him with all
possible gentleness, even chirruping now and again
for his encouragement, and to let him know that
though incommoded and shaken, he was not de-
serted of friends.
"Oh, Buddhie, do be a sensible boy and live!"
she cried, striving to employ the language of en-
dearment which flowed so easily from her mother's
tongue. The sick canary sat apparently holding
his breath, maintaining a severely death-bed attitude
which allowed her anxiety no respite.
The church bells were already chiming for
morning service when she entered Warringford.
Coming to the bird-fancier's door, she had to wait
some time outside the shuttered shop-front before
her knock won admission. While she so waited
I
134 SABRINA WARHAM
several respectably dressed inhabitants, carrying
prayer and hymn books, passed upon their road
to church, accompanied by their families. Each of
these groups gazed in turn with curiosity, suspicion,
or disapproval upon the cardboard ambulance
which, with its improvised air-holes, seemed a
sort of a mixture between a doll's house and a
Noah's ark, something at all events wholly out of
keeping with the day and its penances. In the
glances of these strangers she read the rebuke
of her mother's eye. " I told you so ; you should
have worn your loose mantle, Sabrina ! " was the
judgment she seemed to hear passed on her.
After a few minutes' delay, in answer to her
repeated knockings, an old woman admitted her
to the darkened interior of the shop, and learning
her errand, shuffled off to summon the bird-fancier
from the bed where he was still enjoying his
Sabbath rest.
Sabrina stood in a chamber of gloom, and
as she waited discerned by degrees walls dimly
patterned in irregular squares with a uniform
wire-trellis extending over all. Within each of
these squares went on a ticking noise, as persistent
as, but not regular enough for, clockwork. The
sounds came from the pickings and perchings of
the innumerable occupants of the cages by which
the bird-fancier made his trade. But though thus
audible and in motion, they remained invisible,
shadowed by the dividing partitions of their cells.
After a time this continuous stepping from perch
to perch gave Sabrina the impression that she
stood in a sort of penal settlement, and heard
all round her the prisoners treading out their
useless tale of labour at the mills. But here
anxious tip-toe impatience rather than dull grind
seemed the incentive to movement.
One of the prisoners, when the momentarily
opened door at her entry brought daylight from
without, broke into eager chirrupings, drawing a
A CHAPTER OF NATURAL HISTORY 135
timid response from the inhabitants of other cells;
but at the relapse of darkness the loud note of the
impatient timekeeper died away, and the click, click,
of claws from perch to perch went monotonously
on, only broken now and again by the low querulous
interrogation of some throat defrauded of its morn-
ing song.
Amid all this constrained activity Buddhie lay
mute and resigned in the cardboard enclosure
which might so soon become a coffin. Though her
eyes were now grown accustomed to the gloom,
Sabrina could not make sure by mere spying
whether breath were still in him; lifting the lid
she reached down a finger, and had just touched
warmth when the bird-fancier entered the shop.
Throwing back the shutter of a side window he
let in a shaft of morning light, and with a mild
apology for having kept her waiting, proceeded
to examine into the condition of the sick bird.
The caged songsters around, beholding the light
they had been waiting for, now broke into eager
melody, the more boisterous because so long de-
layed. In the midst of all this uproar one throat
alone lay still. The old shopman pursed his lips
dubiously, turned the soft yellow plumage this way
and that to note the condition of the skin under-
neath, pushed open the beak, and looked down
the narrow red throat, all with that indifferent
callousness of touch which the ignorant looker-on
apprehends when watching the handling of an
expert.
Presently he stopped his examination, and in
answer to Sabrina's look of inquiry, shook his
head decisively.
" There's nothing to be done," said he ; " it
hasn't a chance to live now."
" Nor if I had come sooner ? " she inquired
anxiously.
" Maybe a week ago," answered the other, " but
there's no knowing ; cage-birds don't hold out for
136 SABRINA WARHAM
long when anything goes wrong with 'em. Do
you wish me to do anything with it, now ? "
" You mean that it would be better to make an
end of it?"
" Well," the old man replied, considerately ;
" 'twouldn't be worth your trouble, miss, to carry
it back."
Sabrina gazed at the small object of their
solicitude, and felt more tenderness for it now that
its singing days were over. The gabble of the other
birds went on : had Buddhie consciousness enough
to recognize it he might have felt then in a measure
like that royal toper whom history tells us of,
tasting death in a cask of the liquor his soul loved
best; but there was no sign that song meant any-
thing to him now.
The bird-fancier, looking down on the ruffled
comeliness of his once sleek person, said with pro-
fessional forethought
" Would you like to have him stuffed, miss ? "
It was evident, then, that the end was not far
off ; indeed the inquiry, though it might have
seemed untimely to a sentimental mind, anticipated
only by a few minutes its justification in the event.
Buddhie, lying out on the gnarled palm of the old
bird-fancier, was taken with a short spasm ; in a
few seconds he had breathed his last, rejecting the
troublesome burden of life. The bird-fancier said
again
" Would you like to have him stuffed, miss ?
He was a dainty one, he was ; and a pretty show
he'd make, to be sure, set up in a glass case ; ay, a
very pretty show ! "
Thus he praised the dead.
Sabrina considered the gay coat, which the man
was now smoothing into form to make the offer
more tempting.
" I'm not sure," she replied doubtfully, at a loss
to guess what her mother's wish would be. " I
think, perhaps, it would be better if you let me
A CHAPTER OF NATURAL HISTORY 137
have another as like him as possible. My mother
is an invalid and finds a sort of company in the
noise. I don't like it myself; it gets on my
nerves."
"In that case," said the old man, "a siskin
might suit you better ; it sings softer like. If you
will step into that back room, I'll bring one out to
you. Here you wouldn't be able to listen to 'un
properly."
Following his direction Sabrina passed through
a door and up a few steps into a small back work-
shop littered with the appliances of the fancier's
trade, whose craft was not only concerned with the
keeping of birds alive, but the preservation of them
when dead. Several skins, peeled rinds of their
former inhabitants, lay about on tables and shelves
in the various stages of curing; a strong smell of
camphor pervaded the room, while a glue-pot,
some glass shades, twigs, lichen, and an assort-
ment of pebbles, artificial grass, and leaves laid out
on trays indicated other stages in the reconstruc-
tion of nature which here went on.
The room had already an occupant ; in the low
bay-window facing the door by which she entered,
Sabrina saw a man's figure bending over the stuffed
body of a large sea-bird into which he was just
then inserting the guide wires necessary to preserve
its deportment.
Hearing some one enter, the man looked round,
when Sabrina at once saw that, though in a sense
strangers, they were yet known to each other.
The recognition was as instant on his side as on
hers ; with a face that showed surprise and anima-
tion he returned Sabrina's formal acknowledgment
of his presence. Then, with the readiness of speech
which she remembered from the former occasion,
he began
" This is fortunate indeed ! Sabbath-breaking
has its rewards ; for a long time I have owed you
thanks for the trouble you took on my behalf, and
138 SABRINA WARHAM
have never known where to address them. Let
me thank you now."
"Indeed," answered Sabrina, "so small a service
is not worth mentioning."
" I measure it by my own selfish gain," he replied.
" Thanks to you I recovered what was to me of
value. See ! " he went on, " here it lies on the
table where I am now at work ; it is my daily com-
panion, and thus it constantly gathers fresh associa-
tions, many of them very pleasant ones."
His glance gave the words a meaning. Sabrina,
recognizing on the pouch the silver initials " V "
and " R " entwined, said, smiling
" It looks as though it had been a royal gift."
" Ah, yes, to be sure, the initials do give it state ;
but they refer only to myself ; Valentine Reddie
is the name they stand for. This pouch was my
first smoking companion, and I am so accustomed
to it now that I hardly smoke happily without it."
" Surely that is a danger : losing it would almost
make you regret the attachment."
" For a time, yes."
" You mean," said Sabrina, with a slight touch
of irony, " until you had developed a similar fancy
for a new one."
" Yes ; but always with a memory for the old,"
he protested. " I believe women have no notion
how faithful we men are to the humble odds-and-
ends of things that have once served us. We are
really most domesticated in our tastes, and become
quite wedded to anything that " he paused for a
word.
" Adds to your comfort, you mean ? "
He laughed ruefully, as one owning himself
beaten.
" Well, I suppose I do mean that," he said. " I
hear," he added, " that you have brought a sick bird
to be doctored. I am not without knowledge in
such matters, and shall be glad if I can give you
any assistance,"
A CHAPTER OF NATURAL HISTORY 139
"You are very kind," replied Sabrina, "but
nature has chosen her own remedy; the bird died
scarcely a minute ago. I am now considering the
purchase of another."
" Ah, then, like myself you are a lover of birds.
But are you able so speedily to fill the place in
your affections ? There is sense in it, no doubt ;
but some would consider you a little heartless."
"I am heartless enough not to care for pets at
all," answered Sabrina ; " but I have to put up with
them for the sake of others."
Their conversation was here interrupted by the
entry of the bird-fancier, bringing with him the
siskin for approval. The old man whistled the bird
into song.
"It is certainly more bearable," Sabrina said,
after listening for a while. "Yes, out of a cage
I could think it beautiful, which a canary's song
never is. I only wish it were rather more like the
other in appearance."
" Ah, but," said the bird-fancier, " if you've got
the other one stuffed, the difference '11 be no concern
to 'ee at all."
Sabrina was undecided, not knowing what her
mother might wish. She arranged, therefore, to
let the body remain and to send word next day
what was to be done with it. The siskin she
determined to take on approval; it would at all
events do temporarily to fill the empty cage and
give Mrs. Warham's ear the solace it needed.
The old shopman retired to pack the bird for
travelling, and at Valentine Reddie's invitation,
Sabrina turned to inspect the various specimens
which hung round the walls. She saw at once
that the bird-fancier's craft was one of the most con-
ventional description ; the attitudes of the stuffed
birds were for the most part as stiff and un-
reminiscent of life as they could well be, and the
accessories of vegetation and foliage garish and
overdone. Here and there a moth, butterfly, or
140 SABRINA WARHAM
beetle had been added to the composition to give
local colour and incident; but the situation was
seldom well thought out. Pointing to a case in
which hung a king-fisher pecking at a "white
admiral," the young man said smiling
" Natural history, I fear, is scarcely the old man's
strong point; he does not recognize that it is part
of the trade."
" Yet these are really good," said Sabrina, com-
ing upon a group near the window.
" Ah, thank you, indeed ! Those are my
doing."
The girl at once became interested, for the
specimens she was now looking at showed some-
thing of the artist's touch as well as the dexterity
of the craftsman.
" Are you so much of a professional ? " she
asked in surprise.
" So much of an amateur, I would rather say,"
he responded. "This is my hobby, though I have
also done commissions for profit ; but by profession
I am a geologist."
"Oh, a geologist? That means fossil-hunting,
does it not ? "
" That certainly forms a part, but it is not all,
though it was what first brought me to this
district. Last year I was sent down under Gov-
ernment to examine the strata exposed in the
new harbour works at Wedport, and I shall expect
to be there again when work is resumed in the
spring. The whole coast is very interesting from
a geological point of view. Just now I am here
arranging the specimens I have already secured,
and I find it convenient also for this alternative
work, some of which goes presently to the British
Museum."
" Why, that is almost like fame ! " said Sabrina,
impressed by the apparent indifference of the
speaker to his attainments. "You must already
have had a great deal of experience."
I
A CHAPTER OF NATURAL HISTORY 141
"Yes, I started young, and have travelled in
rather outlandish places. I have been to unnamed
islands in the Pacific, finding there more than one
small variant which no one had met with before.
Here, in this drawer, I have six specimens for
which a rich collector has just offered me forty
pounds each ; unfortunately they are booked to the
National collection for a much smaller sum. I
have still to decide on a name for them ; like our
first father Adam, a discoverer is allowed that
privilege."
" You must feel quite important."
" No, only very lucky in securing a berth which
twenty men, all as good as I am, were trying to
get hold of."
" And what do you intend calling them ? "
" I had thought of ' Fringilla Reddiensis ' from
a greedy wish to link my own name with the
finding of them ; but I am not sure that I shall not
in the end choose some other and better one.
Flow strange," he added suddenly, " that you
should have come here to-day ! "
" Not so very strange, when you know what
my errand was."
" But that we should have met."
" Since we are in the same neighbourhood, it
was not extraordinary."
" I look upon it as a friendly omen," declared
Reddie. " Your finding of my pouch too ! "
"Yes, I am glad to know that it reached your
hands safely."
While she was speaking, the old bird-fancier
returned with her new purchase conveniently
packed for carrying.
Reddie started forward to take possession.
" Let me carry it for you," he exclaimed.
" Indeed, no ! " she objected decidedly.
" Oh, but I must, I insist ! "
Sabrina, having said no once, ruffled her fair
brows at him.
142 SABRINA WARHAM
The silent denial only stimulated his wish.
" A part of the way ! " he entreated.
" Not any, with my consent. I couldn't think
of it."
Like a boy, he made an exaggerated show of
disappointment, saying
" Why are you so resolute ? "
" Because," answered Sabrina, smiling, " I am
obstinate to have my own way when it is mine by
right."
"Then you force me to go on breaking the
Sabbath ! " he said, and allowed her to depart
without further protest.
In the street her first solitary thought, in
contradiction to what she had said but a few
minutes ago, was " How strange that we should
have met again." For there was more accident
about this second meeting than about the previous
one. On the way home her mind was much
occupied, less by the personality of this new
acquaintance, than by his mode of life, with its
varied interest of travel and science, and general
freedom from routine, combining, as it did, the
physical and the intellectual energies, the brain-
work of the student and the exercise of manual
labour. Had she been a man, Sabrina could have
wished for no more congenial occupation ; it
seemed a reward in itself; and how much happier,
she thought, appeared the instinct of the collector,
as intelligently presented by the small littered
workroom she had just quitted, than in the
gloomy entombment of the Lutworth museum and
library; between the acquisition and the con-
servation of knowledge there was, to her mind,
restless under its present limitations, no possible
comparison. This wish to be up and moving she
inherited from her father, and continual residence
with her other parent had only made it grow
stronger.
Occupied over the ideas suggested to her by
A CHAPTER OF NATURAL HISTORY 143
this new outlook, she paid little heed to the lively
bobbings of her small companion, so different from
the mute endurance with which its predecessor had
gone through the same ordeal. But as she neared
East Gill, a doubt arose whether she had not acted
precipitately in thus bringing a strange bird so im-
mediately to replace the one whose death she
would have to announce when introducing the
stranger.
So much did the doubt increase that, on
entering the house, she was about to put the
siskin in a place of concealment until she could
be assured of its welcome, when Mrs. Warham,
anxious for news of her pet, came into the passage
and found her, cage in hand. Seeing brisk move-
ment within, she uttered a gay cry of relief, and
ran forward to lavish praise on her darling for its
recovery.
" My Buddhie boy ! " she cried.
" No, it's not Buddhie," said Sabrina, all her guilt
then for the first time coming home to her. She
saw her mother's face wither at the words, and
speaking rapidly to forestall useless interrogation,
she recounted Buddhie's survival of the road
into Warringford, his peaceful death in the bird-
fancier's hand, and her own precipitate purchase
of the siskin, to fill the aching void in her mother's
heart.
Mrs. Warham heard her to the end with a coun-
tenance so unalterably fixed in pain and disapproval,
that no word was needed to inform Sabrina of her
failure.
" I suppose you meant it kindly," said the widow
at last, " but you have evidently no understanding
of how one feels in such a case. To think to
think that I would let my Buddhie's place be taken
like that ! "
Whereat, as though anxious to show how
effective a substitute he could be, the despised
siskin broke cheerfully into song. A faint spasm
144 SABRINA WARHAM
disturbed Mrs. Warham's worn features. " Take it
away," she cried, "take it away!" and returned
without another word to her room, closing the door
behind her, as though to shut off the unwelcome
sound.
A few minutes later Sabrina, following, stood
before her mother's chair in humble apology.
"I am so grieved," she said, "to have vexed you.
It was, indeed, thoughtless of me ; I did not under-
stand how you would feel."
" You seldom understand me, my dear," said Mrs.
Warham, in an aggrieved tone.
"That is what I feel," answered her daughter.
" It would be so much better if I went altogether
away ! "
" It is useless to talk like that, when you have
found nowhere to go to."
" But I could go ! There must be work waiting to
be done somewhere."
"What sort of work?" said her mother, and, as
Sabrina left that challenge unanswered, she let the
subject drop, inquiring, "What have you done with
Buddhie ? "
" I left him at the shop."
"Oh," cried Mrs. Warham, "how could you be so
cruel ? You seem to me to be heartless ! "
"Yes," cried the girl, out of patience at last,
" everything I do is wrong ! If I had brought him
back, that would have been wrong too. I thought
you would like to have him stuffed ; and so I told
the man to keep him until I sent word, so as to save
carrying to and fro. If you like I can go and bring
him back now ; I only did what I thought you would
wish."
The tears were in Sabrina's eyes, her voice
shook. Mrs. Warham sat for a while in silence,
then said
" Of course, I wish to have my darling pre-
served for me, but I should have liked naturally to
see him first, before before anything was done."
A CHAPTER OF NATURAL HISTORY 145
Her tone was that of a mother deprived of her
child's body till autopsy had been performed over
it. She added in a resigned tone : " For three
years he has been my constant companion, my one
comforter."
"I know," said Sabrina, "that I have been no
companion to you. I have often felt it."
" My dear, I have not reproached you."
" No ; but you have, I think, sometimes repulsed
me. Since I came here I have never been of any
use except," added the girl in a tone of faint
sarcasm " except to clean Buddhie's cage for him ;
and now I have not even that office ! "
" My dear, let us say no more about it," replied
Mrs. Warham, in a voice that implied finality as well
as forgiveness. " But I shall be obliged if you will
write and ask the man to get the work done as
quickly as possible, so that I may have my own dear
one back again. I am quite sure that you meant
kindly."
No more was said then. A week later Buddhie
arrived in stuffed condition under a glass case.
The work had been perfectly and delicately done ;
and the widow was able to drop a rapturous tear over
a counterfeit of life so close to the once cherished
reality. Sabrina saw, at first glance, that this was
not the work of the old bird-fancier; she discerned
clearly another hand.
CHAPTER XV
THE CARRIER'S CART
DURING the short days of winter, Tarn George's
hour for leaving the Blue Bear on the home-
journey was three o'clock in the afternoon. On one
particular day near the middle of February, having
more than his usual load of parcels, it chanced that
he was late in setting out.
Just as he was starting he received a hail from the
rear. Valentine Reddie, issuing from the inn, swung
up a small valise, and asked to be taken to East Gill.
Tarn George, with much alacrity, made room on the
seat beside him, for being talkative he liked com-
pany. Bestowing on Reddie a nod of respectful
recognition, " I think I've seen you before, sir,"
said he.
"Very likely," replied the other. "I have been
about these parts before, on and off."
They stopped several times, as they drove through
the town, to pick up waiting parcels.
" You seem to be in demand to-day," remarked
Reddie.
" Well, yes ; you see, sir, it be half -market-day ;
and then to-morrow's rather a busy sort of day
too."
" Why, what is to-morrow ? "
" Well, levering day, I calls it. Valentine day's
the more common word for 't."
Reddie slapped his knee. "Why, by all that's
lucky, so it is ! " he cried. " So you keep that old
custom going in these parts, do you ? "
146
I
THE CARRIER'S CART 147
" Oh yes, sir ; it's a good deal done. There's
many more valentines than banns in a year, I
reckon."
"Then I suppose some of these parcels you are
carrying have something to do with it ? "
" It wouldn't be unlikely, sir. I shall know
when I've seen the addresses."
" Ah, yes ! I suppose you guess most of what
goes on in a small place like East Gill."
" Perhaps I do, sir; it isn't for me to boast."
The subject seemed to have an interest for his
companion, as one not remote from his own youth-
ful proclivities.
" Any great beauties about your way ? " he
asked. " East Gill seems a likely sort of place for
love-making; it affords plenty of cover."
"Well, I don't know about beauties," answered
the carrier. " Ay, there's one ; but she won't mate
wi' any one in these parts, I reckon."
" Who may that be ? " asked the young man,
preserving a tone of mere idle inquiry.
Tam George was about to reply, when his
horse suddenly drew up before a small roundabout
house with a big gate-post standing before it.
" Rot the beast ! " cried the carrier, plying his
whip ; " shall I never get 'un to go by that post
without stopping, I wonder? I thought I'd cured
'un," he went on as the cart proceeded on its way;
" but he's been out to grass lately, and here the
habit come back to 'un. Nature's as strong as
folly any day, I do believe ; and it's saying a deal,
that is."
He explained that here had been the old turn-
pike, recently done away with, a stopping-point for
the beast during the last thirty years, since it had
served not only for the collection of toll, but of
parcels as well.
They were now clear of the town; turning off
from the main road, they saw ahead of them,
striding at a good pace, a man in coastguard's
148 SABRINA WARHAM
uniform. Coming within hail, the carrier gave a
call.
" You seem in a hurry, Dan Curtis ; will you
have a lift ? That is, if you don't mind the squeeze,
sir," he added, turning to Reddie, who as paying
passenger had the right to a say in a matter
affecting his own comfort. Valentine was quite
willing.
The coastguard nodding acceptance of the offer,
climbed into the cart. He was a big, burly fellow,
and to accommodate him they had to sit close, a
circumstance which, as a rule, promotes good-com-
radeship. The newcomer was, however, indomitably
silent, a mere dealer in monosyllables. *
" Going to Cover Cliff station ? " inquired Tarn
George.
The man nodded.
"I'll put you down at Tapp's corner, then?" said
the carrier, and was met once more by mute agree-
ment to his proposal. He seemed not in the least
to resent this unsociable treatment from the man
whose legs he was saving, and talked on, contented
with the sound of his own tongue ; Reddie and the
coastguard, meanwhile, sitting silent shoulder to
shoulder.
The former companionably made an offer of
tobacco.
" I've my own," said the man, adding, as a late
afterthought, "Thank you all the same." He had
not a morose face ; it was broad and honest, the
true salt-sea weather-front of a British sailor; a
man of muscle, as Reddie could feel from the close
contact of shoulder and arm, and still youthful,
though his heavy build suggested that he was past
thirty; very blue eyes gave an air of childish
simplicity to the beef-steak countenance. From
his general appearance one would have reckoned
to find him sociable; he was a curious negative
to this indexing of character.
He got down at the corner named by the
THE CARRIER'S CART 149
carrier, whence a rough track led through a
hollowing in the downs to a coastguard station
standing lonely on an exposed point about a mile
from the East Gill road.
"That fellow has saved ten lives," remarked
Tarn George, in testimony to his worth when they
had parted. " Do you know, now, he used to be
good company? "
" I should not have thought it," replied Reddie.
"Ah, he's had a misfortune; he lost his sweet-
heart, poor chap."
" Dead ? "
" No, run away ; no one knows where to ; with
another chap, 'tis supposed. He's never been the
same man since."
" Was she his sweetheart really ? " inquired
Reddie.
"Well, every one thought so, who saw 'em
together. There was no doubt about his feelings ;
the man was only waiting for leave to marry 'on
the strength,' and he might ha' had it this year, for
he's served his time already ; but now he's lost her,
and it don't seem as if he cared for anything."
" It sounds unfortunate," returned the other in a
thoughtful tone. "Has saved lives, you said?"
" Ay, that fellow can swim, I tell you ! Why,
he goes down and he bathes in a storm, or what
we landsmen would think such ; I've seen him
myself, out to a buoy and back, where a man 'ud
rather not be in a boat, I know. Ay, ten lives;
two since he's been here."
" Is he stationed at Cover Cliff ? "
" Sometimes there, sometimes over beyond West
Gill; they shifts 'em about. Government's got
an idea of not letting coastguards stop long at
one place, for fear of their getting familiar with the
inhabitants."
" Why is that ? "
" Oh, it's the old idea ; they are the police, you
e ; it don't do for them to be too friendly. If
ISO SABRINA WARHAM
they marry in the district, they are generally soon
moved out of it. Seems a queer unneighbourly
notion, don't it ? "
"It may have its advantages," said Reddie, who
seemed now to be deeply cogitating. "It avoids
the trouble of a mother-in-law, I mean," he added
in a lighter tone.
"Well, so it do, sir; I hadn't thought of it that
way."
" It's there that the solution of the marriage
problem lies," said Reddie. " English people are
behindhand in such matters. Now, I have been
among a tribe in South seas where the mother-in-
law is eaten at the wedding-breakfast. A good
idea I call that ! "
"Well, sir, I can understand it," said Tarn
George, guardedly. " My afflictions in that way are
over; but I can look back and sympathize, well
I can ! So you be a traveller, be 'ee, sir ? "
"Well, I have seen a little bit of the world in
my day. I have even been to East Gill before,
as you seem to remember."
" Yes, sir, I have the occasion in my mind now ;
Castle Arms, warn't it? Ah, I thought so."
" I suppose that in East Gill a stranger's
coming is remembered ? You must have wondered
where I sprung from also, perhaps, what I was
there for ? "
" Well, yes, we did just have a talk over 'ee,
I don't doubt, seeing that a stranger's a rarity in
our parts."
" And did you come to any conclusion? "
"No; we just dropped ye again, as of no great
importance. But I've generally a good memory
for faces."
"Ah well," said Reddie, with the air of a man
relieved, " I shall not be a stranger much longer ;
I expect now to be in the neighbourhood for some
months."
" Coming to the Castle, sir ? "
THE CARRIER'S CART 151
" No ; not to the Castle exactly, though I may take
it in passing if it chooses to stand siege. My mark
will be a bit nearer the coast."
"What, Lorry's Farm, then?"
"What place is that?"
" That's where the Beauty lives ; the one you was
asking me about."
" Miss Warham, do you mean ? "
" Ay, I mean her ; it seems you know her ? "
Reddie paused for a moment before replying.
"Yes, I know her rather well," said he.
" You know all the family, then, I suppose ? "
" Less well," said Reddie.
In the talk that followed, Tarn George, under
the impression that he was extracting news, im-
parted to Reddie all that was generally known in
the neighbourhood concerning the Warhams and
the Lorrys. East Gill was a small place, and an
hour's conversation with Tarn George was a liberal
education in the history of its inhabitants. Before
they entered the village the young man got down,
preferring for the remainder of the distance to walk.
" Leave my bag at the Castle Arms," said he,
"and say they may expect me in about an hour's
time."
Tarn George, in delivering that message from
a gentleman who meant still to be an hour on the
road, expressed the conviction that a suitor for the
beautiful Miss Warham had arrived; and a real
proper gentleman he was, declared the carrier,
whose inclination to view all men favourably had
in this instance been quickened by good coin of
the realm, after a hob-nob drive in company with
one who knew well how to be affable.
" He be come over to be her valentine," said he ;
and considering his small knowledge of the matter,
he could not well have come nearer the mark.
Valentine Reddie was a man with one high and
enviable virtue he had youth; and had it in
152 SABRINA WARHAM
singular extent and quality. He was youthful in
mind, in body, and in conscience; there was not
a furrow, not a wrinkle, in the composed experiences
of life which he had laid to heart, or allowed to
leave their impression on his brain. This was all
the more to his credit, seeing that he had faced
physical hardship, and was endowed with intelli-
gence. He had allowed neither circumstance to
age him ; he possessed essentially the recreative
faculty, the power of making the present do duty
for the past, or of forgetting the present in a sure
anticipation of the future. Thus a casual observer
or comrade might have regarded him as owner of
all the virtues under the sun, so blithely could he
meet and surmount the afflictions of the moment;
or, robbed of the present, regard the future as still
his own. But the harder virtues have not the sun
to shine on them, nor do they make themselves
so readily known to the beholder. Under the sun,
Valentine Reddie was a staunch comrade of men,
a gay lover of women, quick in thought and action,
generous in word and deed if good-humoured
tolerance and free-handedness deserve the name.
These social good qualities were of a rather unscru-
pulous kind ; he would indulge a warm impulse
with only one thought as to its results it pleased
him to please ; if he had a passion rooted and un-
changeable it was to be approved of men, and not
of men only. To this end he possessed a quality
which many have prayed for as a safeguard which
to him was none that, namely, of seeing himself
by the eyes of others. This gift accounted perhaps
more than anything for his good opinion of himself
and the world, for his many friendships, his easy
comradeship, his few dislikes. It represented his
knowledge of men ; his mind tracking another's
had the tension of an angler's line cunningly
adjusted to the task of drawing in its prey while
knowing the limits of its own strength; and he
had the power to desist in a moment from the
THE CARRIER'S CART 153
unattainable, when he recognized that it was beyond
him. On occasion, but not often, his sanguine
temperament led him into error; his foible then
was to discover success in some new direction.
Women had been obliged to suffer for this weakness
in him ; it had accounted for the exceeding brief
widowhood of his many boyish courtships, and for
one or two precipitancies which had led to a final
moment of disillusion.
Let it be remembered that youth is but type,
out of which the individual at last hardens, shaping
its moral limitations; and that some youth is singu-
larly unstained in essence by the actual things it
has done. The persistent worth which your raging
reformer does half-angrily recognize in men of unre-
formed character and lax ethics is more largely an
outcome of pure blood and mere animal health than
moralists will find safe to admit. Women, on the
other hand, are, as a rule, more foolishly sanguine,
and believe in their own power to purify when the
physical deterioration has set in. There are corre-
spondences in wear and tear on the moral plane
with those of the physical; and the happy gift of
irresponsibility dowers many a man with value of
a sort after an experience of life which cannot be
indulged in by his more thoughtful brethren with-
out bankruptcy. The shortcoming of these from
the higher rewards is primal and ingrained rather
than a result of their following of nature, and is
discerned less by the eye of reason than by the
inward consciousness of the soul.
Valentine Reddie was as unspoiled as his mother
had left him, when in his early boyhood they parted,
he for public-school life, she for the reconciling
touch of earth which bitter experience almost
before the passing of her first youth had rendered
acceptable. Her portrait, together with a small
allowance paid in trusteeship by a legal firm, and
continued to the son after his mother's demise, were,
in addition to his name, the sole proofs of his. origin.
154 SABRINA WARHAM
He was without history, and without relatives, yet
at the age of twenty-four he had by his own
exertions secured a firm footing on the ladder of
success. He had worked, he had travelled, and he
had lived, and had found life and work and travel
well worth the time spent on them ; it may be
doubted whether he had ever conceived the wish
to blot a single day out of his existence, or a single
folly from his sum of wisdom.
Under a dusk, chilly with soft rain, Valentine
Reddie turned first in the direction of Amesbay,
and gazed speculatively in passing on the windows
of the Monastery Farm. Yet later, he entered the
Castle Park, not keeping strictly to the right of
way, and there strolled under sodden boughs, his
feet deep in decayed beech-leaves. At the inn he
made himself welcome, and his name known, but
not his business; though Tarn George made artful
hooks and eyes of the conversation throughout the
evening with a view to securing it.
His sleep during the night was broken by the
querulous whimperings and barkings of a young
hound chained up in the inn-yard, unused, it would
seem, to such close confinement. In the morning,
on looking out, he saw a large travelling-crate which
had apparently served as kennel for the disturber
of his night's rest; but the beast was no longer
there. The landlord informed him that it had
arrived at a late hour the previous evening; too
late to be passed on to its destination, and that
a man had come down for it from the Castle the
first thing that morning.
CHAPTER XVI
VALENTINE'S DAY
IN the winding lane that goes down from East Gill
to Amesbay, Valentine Reddie was rapturously
charged upon and fawned over by a streak of grey
lightning with four muddy paws. A young deer-
hound of foal-like proportions had swept him from
head to foot with welcoming caress, and was still
for making an end of him when the cry of its keeper
struck his ears.
" Down, down, Ron ! " called the voice.
He looked. Sabrina Warham was before him.
He fought the leaping thing, mastered it at last,
hand on collar held it down, saluting under diffi-
culties.
" Oh, I am so sorry ! " cried Sabrina. " It is
shameful ! He has muddied you all over."
" I don't in the least mind if he is yours," said
Reddie, tussling with loving jaws.
"He isn't mine ! At least, he only came this
morning, and there's no holding him at all. I have
to carry a whip to keep him off. What a dreadful
mess he has made of you ! "
Sabrina's distress was of the kind that yields
easily to laughter if allowed to. Valentine gave the
lead ; it was the shortest of short cuts to putting
them on good terms. As he held the struggling
creature by its collar, he noticed a leathern label
bearing the inscription, " My name is Ron." It was
the name he had heard Sabrina use when calling
the dog back,
155
156 SABRINA WARHAM
" Heavens, what a handful ! " he cried, laughing,
throwing the animal off to arm's length for a
moment, and taking over the whip. " Now, sir,
down ! down ! I wonder you dared come out with
him alone."
" I hardly knew what else to do ; either he was
in mischief, or else he howled. It is a dreadful
mistake his coming at all ; he is beautiful and dear,
but I wish I were rid of him. And I must be some-
how, only I don't know how."
She seemed in genuine perplexity.
"He came to-day, you say?" Reddie remarked,
smiling.
" Yes ; only this morning."
"And a present to-day, of course, has a special
value."
" Not value necessarily."
" Significance, let us say. And so you have a
trouble about getting rid of it ? "
"It is certainly very inconvenient altogether
foolish ; the last thing I should have wished under
any circumstance."
" You do not favour pets, then ? Yet I have
known you take trouble on their behalf ; it was
that brought us to our last meeting."
" Oh yes," replied Sabrina, " if they suffer, it
goes to my heart. It seems a wrong that they
too should endure pain, if they have neither souls
nor responsibility as we have. It makes the
doctrine of pain sound foolishness to me when I
hear it."
" There you go beyond me," said Reddie ; " I
do without doctrines. But in the matter of animals,
have you no favourites ? "
" I have my likings, but no favourites at all, if
you mean pets."
" I remember, you said not."
"The petting of animals seems to me to have
something degrading in it, both for the owner and
the owned/'
VALENTINE'S DAY 157
" But how can the love of one's fellow-creatures
be degrading ? "
"I do not call it love; it is indulgence. Two
years ago I knew a lady who had as a pet a small
dog ; all its little vices were extolled and held up to
admiration as showing ' character ' ; its daintiness
over food was encouraged as a proof of its gentility ;
its jealousy of other people was flattered by elaborate
cajoleries, its very smallness was regarded as a
justification for the monstrous tyranny it exer-
cised."
" A good deal of love," remarked Reddie, " goes
on those lines, I imagine ; and women are the
recipients. Do you find that they object to it ? "
" If they do not," said Sabrina, " I pity them ! "
" You pity others ? " remarked her companion.
" And yet," he went on hardily, " I imagine that
men, in certain circumstances, would wish to feel
your power, your tyranny, if you like to call it so."
" That is hardly likely. I have not enough
wisdom to give safe direction to any one," she
answered.
Valentine glanced at her keenly to make sure of
her sincerity.
"Wisdom is not everything, Miss Warham.
Forgive me for not pretending ignorance of your
name."
" Indeed, you remind me," answered Sabrina,
" what I should have said long ago ; it is now my
turn to thank you. The trouble you so kindly took
has given very real gratification to my mother."
" Now may I pretend not to know what you
refer to ? " said her companion.
" Please do not ; in conferring a favour, you
incur also a debt. You must allow me to thank
you."
" You complete the pleasure the work gave me.
The likeness, then, was successful ? "
" My mother, who loved the original, could tell
you better than I. I told her of my suspicions,
you be
158 SABRINA WARHAM
She wished she could have had an opportunity to
thank you."
" According to you I ought to give it," said
Valentine. "May I some day? Not that I want
more thanks now. It so happens, Miss Warham,
that I shall be in this neighbourhood for some time,
perhaps at Wedport, perhaps for the convenience
of my work much nearer, if I can find lodging.
Will you allow me, alone as I shall be in these
solitudes, to come and pay my respects to Mrs.
Warham and yourself without further introduction ?
You see, I am not conventional. Now, if you wish,
without convention say no. I promise not to be
offended."
" It is hardly a question of yes or no. Indeed,
I thank you for wishing it. But my mother is a
great invalid, and sees few people."
" Surely I am few enough, for I am solitary."
Sabrina, smiling, said : " If you named to-day
now I could not well refuse you, since I ought
at least to offer you the use of a clothes-brush."
" You ought, indeed," replied Reddie, laughing.
" You see, then, the matter has been decided for
us. I like that dog of yours ! "
" I don't see how I can possibly keep him."
" You think such a big valentine should not have
come uninvited ? I, too, then, must tread warily.
What a pity you don't believe in omens ! "
" What omen do you want me to believe in ? "
"That this dog which you wish to keep no
longer than a day seems to have turned up for the
express purpose of introducing me to your clothes-
brush. Every dog has his day ; this is mine, you
will remember; the calendar of saints declares it."
Sabrina was not paying much attention to her
companion's light speeches; she was occupied
in wondering how the introduction of this total
stranger was to be brought about, and how it
would be regarded. To her surprise, Mrs. Warham
made no difficulty when, on arriving at the farm,
VALENTINE'S DAY 159
she preceded the visitor in order to announce
him.
" Yes, my dear, certainly," said the widow,
removing her eye-shade, and smoothing the folds
of her gown with ceremonious instinct. " I shall
be very pleased to have the opportunity of thank-
ing him. You did quite right, since he happens to
be in our neighbourhood."
She extended to the young man a gracious wel-
come. Sabrina watched, listened, and was pleased.
Somehow Valentine Reddie, with his ingratiating
way, with those touches of tenderness toward
infirmity which, when found in youth, have so
prevailing a charm, reminded her of Lady Berrers,
whose visit had for a brief hour made her mother
grow young again. There was the same flush on
the widow's face, the same melting of imposed
reserve, in modest response to outside homage,
which the daughter had seen once before.
" You like him, mother ? " she asked, when Valen-
tine had departed.
" He is a thorough gentleman," replied the elder
lady.
It meant that he satisfied her worldly creed.
CHAPTER XVII
" LOVE MY DOG "
RONALD'S return with the winds of March was not
needed to inform Sabrina that there was more love
awaiting her in the world than she had power to
return. His soft jealousy did but open her eyes
more clearly to a fact she had long fought against
believing. A new sense of responsibility settled
on her, and also a strange fear and unrest. In this
dark mood she would often go up to the downs, and
there seek counsel with the dim, watery horizon,
along which, borne east or west by spring tides,
the spool could be seen trailing its length grey and
serpentine. And at times, so full of apprehension
grew her regard, she seemed to be watching for
some black sail freighted with doom, like that which
had come of old to the coasts of Crete.
Ronald one day found her weeping, and, of
course, there was a scene. She ordered him away.
" Yes, I know I haven't got a chance now ! " said
the boy. "I never had against him. I'll go and
bury my head in a rabbit-hole and die ! " He
abandoned himself to earth, raising his head again
to say, " David goes about killing trapped rabbits ;
he never used to be bloodthirsty. I wish he'd
kill me ! "
" Oh, go, go ! " she cried, unable to show her
face.
"Don't think that I don't love him!" he said.
"I do ! And I will go if you will only promise to
keep Ron; I won't ever trouble you again, Look,
160
"LOVE MY DOG" 161
as I am lying now, if you pushed me, I should
trundle right over into the sea. Oh, Sabrina dear,
please do ! and all the way down I'll be blessing
you for it ! "
Sabrina left him to cry out in solitude. It
seemed she had but one sensible acquaintance
among men, offering possible friendship ; common
rational interests and the life of the intellect she
found to be the surest safeguards against senti-
ment. Even Lady Berrers was angry with her,
yet would give no reason : the question, " Are you
honest ? " had been put to her as though Ronald's
folly was now to become an accusation against her.
She had returned him his gift; but refusal was
useless. It came back garlanded for sacrifice,
bearing on its collar sentence of death. If she
refused it a home, it was to be shot on the downs
at sunrise.
Pity for the poor brute forced her to keep him.
David took charge of him, breaking the untamed
mind to obedience. Yet his desire was to his
mistress : he came like an arrow to her call, a
devastation in flight, a melting of mouth and loving
eyes in adoration at her feet. The resemblance to
Roland was striking. In all ways he was as dear
and foolish as his giver and namesake, only less
troublesome.
His cajoling love forced Sabrina to relax her
theories. Often she made him the recipient of
her griefs, laying her face to his, and soothing her
troubled brow against the grey hairs of his witless
youth ; and as she sought to fathom the beauty of
the eyes which looked out from a mere brute brain,
her thought was less of Ronald than of another.
She longed for a woman's heart to lean on, to
confide in, so that hearing herself speak she might
become more sure of her own mind. Lady Berrers
kept her effectually at arm's length by a too san-
guine air of curiosity which puzzled while it
annoyed her ; she seemed all on thorns for Sabrina
1 62
SABRINA WARHAM
to fulfil some promptings of fate to which she held
the clue, and was for ever shadowing it forth as
the prosecuting counsel foreshadows the halter
to the uncondemned criminal. Soon after her re-
turn to East Gill, she met Valentine Reddie in
Sabrina's company, then again in the widow's
parlour; and after a brief study of him had no
difficulty in comprehending one half at least of the
situation. As regards Sabrina she was more in
doubt, and remained so even when by her instru-
mentality Reddie was called in to give an inventory
of the geological specimens contained in the Castle
museum. The young man, being already in Govern-
ment employ, was able to send in an informal
report on the subject which might hereafter prove
useful. He made a good impression on the Squire,
and aroused Lady Berrers' interest, in spite of her
private reasons for regarding him rather jealously
as an interloper. She could see that Sabrina liked
him.
" Where have I seen that young man before ? "
asked the Squire, after the first interview.
"Ah," replied his daughter, "I have just the
same impression ; but I do not think we have met
him. I fancy it must be merely likeness."
" He seems to me agreeable and well behaved,"
said the Squire; "and he has the requisite knowl-
edge. I must have the museum looked into; it
wants doing like the library."
" I think that can wait," replied Lady Berrers.
" He will be here, I understand, for a good while ;
and it is better not to have two turn-outs going
on at the same time. Miss Warham has her hands
full in the library; and it might be inconvenient."
Nevertheless the Squire had his own way, and
Reddie was commissioned, when he could spare
time to lend his services.
He was then back at Wedport, getting the
bulk of his task finished so as not to delay the
advancing harbour works, which were of more
"LOVE MY DOG" 163
general importance than scientific research. Mean-
while his personal interests were drawing him
in the direction of East Gill. At this juncture
he heard of a small coastguard station halfway
between the two places, which was about to be
abandoned for new quarters. The " strength "
there had already been diminished by half, and in
the dismantled and unoccupied portion he was
permitted, by official sanction, to make a temporary
storage of his unsorted specimens. Finding the
arrangement convenient, when press of work was
over he shifted his quarters from Wedport, and
took lodging on the premises. Thus he was
brought within six miles of East Gill, and Sabrina
began to see a good deal of him, occasionally in
her own home, more often at the Castle library.
She found his conversation pleasant; irrespon-
sible though he seemed now and then, and prone
to flattery, she regarded this merely as an outcome
of his natural spirits, a laughing aside from the
serious interests to which he bent his energies.
He sought her because he had information to give,
because she had interest to offer in exchange ; and
he paid her the subtle compliment of an argument
or contradiction if ever she made a statement with-
out full knowledge to back it.
"You are worth fighting," he said to her one
day. " So few women are."
" I might say the same of men," she answered
equably, to what seemed his tone of patronage.
He smiled back frankly, saying, "Your rebuke
is just; it is not the thing to say, yet one must
think it."
Their talks were chiefly about books and natural
history ; she read in him enthusiasm for experi-
ment and discovery, and found no trace in his
manner of that fire of the male, of which, according
to Lady Berrers, she must inevitably some day be
the high recipient or the victim.
Reddie bore himself merely as a friend, showing
Red
164 SABRINA WARHAM
a face that was always without a cloud, and a
manner without embarrassment. He rose in her
estimation, as he intended that he should.
The trouble Ronald gave her meanwhile was a
sort she could at times afford to laugh at ; but
to another and more secret one she bore a grave
face ; and, if the truth must be told, her heart ached
for him. Often in those days, looking into her dog
Ron's beautiful eyes, she shook her head at them.
" No, Ron, it won't do ; it won't do ! " she said.
Sometimes his head was wet with her tears.
i
CHAPTER XVIII
WORDS AND DEEDS
FARMER LORRY was slowly recovering from the
blow dealt to his prestige, and was resuming those
reins of domestic authority which he had needlessly
laid down. Though the farm had passed into other
hands, his house remained to him ; there he could
sit master, casting an evil eye on the government
and order that went on round him : and there of
a truth he sat, like the Papacy deprived of its
temporal powers, as intractable and as unforgiving
to the supplanting authority.
The winter had shaken him considerably. Over
a long spell of weeks bed had been the right place
for him, and the visits of his doctor needed for
other reasons than as a salve for wounded vanity.
But with the spring he rose again, and first from
his chair, and then from his own legs, saw once
more to the machinery of his household. He found
it, by his own account, terribly rusty, and applied
remedies like the rasping of a file, audible during
all waking hours. Like a child with its noise he
seemed the very last person to be exhausted by
his own clamour. Finding traces there of unduly
prolonged trespass he locked the door of the painted
parlour, alleging for excuse that within lay the
money of the establishment.
" It isn't the beer cellar ! " he cried, when his
son was in earshot. " I suppose I may lock up my
money or mayn't I?" This to no word of objec-
tion from any one. Before a week was out he
165
166 SABRINA WARHAM
found the business of the key too troublesome;
lack of opposition robbed the ordinance of its
relish.
Sunshine brought him out of doors again. On
fine days he sat in the porch from early morning
till late afternoon, gazing over the fields seawards.
Here a few of the local farmers, victims to habit
or misled by a neighbourly instinct, would come to
visit him and be convinced of their gross ignorance
of farm matters ; to be taught also how blessed
were they who lacked sons to hound them to the
grave, and stand near waiting to pick their bones.
" My money isn't safe now ! " he fumed, as though
custody of the key had been wrung from him by
violence. " I'm not allowed to keep my accounts
even. He lets me draw the cheques for him he
does that ; and the farm's costing double ! "
These half-truths doubled returns being left
out of the reckoning supplied him with the
grievances necessary for the keeping up of his
spirits.
Sabrina, on his reappearance, found that his
animosity against her had increased. He would
now reply to her greeting with girding remarks on
her personal appearance. " A fine day, uncle ! "
called forth the response, " Ay, ye look fine ; but
there's no wear in it ! Flimsy ! " He left the remark
to apply either to her dress or her person. If she
chanced to be carrying a basket, attack would come
with the query, " Well, what have ye got there ?
'taters ? cabbages ? been getting 'em out of my
fields, I suppose." Sabrina found forbearance
easy ; but it was no use trying to be sweet to
him. There was no wine mixed with the sour
vinegar of his nature, and her apparent uncon-
sciousness of his attacks only exasperated him the
more.
One day she found him in company of a certain
Mr. Creswick, a neighbouring farmer of means,
notorious as a widower in search of a fourth wife;
WORDS AND DEEDS 16;
a big figure of a man, age something over fifty,
tawny and ruddy like his own meadows of butter-
cup and field-sorrel.
"Ay, here she is!" remarked Farmer Lorry,
in the girl's hearing as she approached. "Sit ye
down, Zabby. This be Mr. Creswick, come to ask
a'ter you ; and I tell him you'll show him how a
London young lady can talk. Well, neighbour, the
way's made plain to 'ee now."
Farmer Creswick plunged off into his crops ;
his ground seemed heavy-going under him.
"Here, William," broke in the farmer, "ye didn't
come to talk crops, did ye ? "
" Didn't I ? " quoth the other, all abroad for
cover into which to retreat.
Sight of my lady from the Castle, just then
approaching, gave Mr. Creswick his excuse to get
up and go.
" Ah ! " snarled the old man, maliciously, when
the visitor's back was turned, " you're too fine a
lady for him, Zabby. Soon as he saw you he didn't
dare put in a word."
Lady Berrers sailing in on him unabashed,
received warning to take care of his toe.
" Sorry I can't get up to ye, my lady," he went
on ; " but I be past expecting fine folk with their
fine manners to come a-visiting me. Here's my
niece been flouting a good offer of marriage ! "
" Uncle ! " cried Sabrina, all on fire.
Lady Berrers' face fell into consternation. Sa-
brina's seemed to confirm the news she most dreaded
to hear.
"Ay," went on the farmer, "there the man goes,
too heart-broken to lift up his head. She, with her
fine ways, done that ; and he's had experience, too.
She'd have made his fourth wife, and might have
learned dairying."
The lady recovered her looks speedily. " You
are making your niece blush, Mr. Lorry," she said,
laughing. "These delicate affairs of the heart
168 SABRINA WARHAM
should not be trumpeted, especially when they fall
out unfortunately."
"Ay," answered the incurable old man; "but
I know what she's after she's setting her cap at
my son David ! And I'll not have him marrying a
lady no, I won't ! "
" So you object to ladies, Mr. Lorry ? " said the
dame, archly.
" Ay, and lords," replied the farmer, stoutly.
" Oh, ye've been always mighty dainty in your own
marriages, my lady, I know that. That's your own
choice ; but I won't have Lorry blood mixing itself
where it's no right to. It was beef, and not gentry,
made this country what it is; and I'll see plain
English beef go to the stocking of my farm, or
David may whistle for it."
" Then his wife is to be beefy? " inquired Lady
Berrers. " I congratulate you, and him, and your
descendants. Sabrina, may I come in and see your
mother ? "
Thus she got free of him, carrying Sabrina off
with her. The ease with which she parried and
beat down his thrusts did not make him more
tolerant of the intrusion of the Lutworth gang on
his premises. And she could laugh, could she ?
He heard merriment going on in the upper chamber.
Sabrina and David between them had brought it
about that he could no longer call this house his
own ; it was open even to the hereditary enemy.
Hobbling into the stable yard at the rear, whom
should he find but Ronald Lutworth, of all people,
grooming the carriage-pony.
" The place is alive with 'em ! " shouted the
exasperated farmer. " Who told you to come here,
eh?"
" I didn't hear any one tell me to," said Ronald ;
" I just chanced it." And the work went on.
"Oh, didn't ye? Didn't ye?" fumed the old
man, advancing within spash of his operations.
" Then maybe ye'll hear when some one tells ye to
WORDS AND DEEDS 169
go ! D'ye hear that, now ? " He struck the bucket
with his stick, and sent it flying. " D'ye hear
that?"
" I hear but I don't see," said Ronald. He
carried the pail over to the tap, and started refilling
it. Lorry hobbled after him furious.
" Hey ! Hey ! What are ye doing here ? What
are ye doing here ? " he raged, making a renewed
assault with his stick.
" Violent and magenta old man," replied the
youth, " I am doing exactly what I like making
myself useful." And he continued to do it.
Wordy war cannot be waged in incompatible
vocabularies. The wit who retorted " Parallelo-
gram ! " on the frenzied fish-wife of Dublin, crushed
the head of her invective and left her speechless.
So the farmer, hearing himself described in unheard
of terms of contumely, might have flown to his
glass to refute the charge ; but tongue could give
no outlet to his wrath. Instead he flew to action,
and crying, "I'll clear ye out! I'll pack ye!"
shambled in haste to the shed where the young
Jersey bull was in loose stabling. Unhasping the
gate, he swung it open, and, reaching across the
barrier, dealt the bull a resounding thwack on
the hind-quarters.
The harassed beast swung about and broke for
the open ; smitten again as it emerged, up went its
heels, back crashed the gate. Lorry fell.
Ronald ran up in some alarm at what seemed
like a catastrophe. The old man had some blood
on his face to show.
" See what you've done to me ! " he whimpered,
lying low in the straw; "and in my own yard,
too ! " He allowed himself to be lifted by degrees,
saying, " That comes of trespassing. I'll have the
law on you, that I will ! " Set upon his legs again,
he had to stand and see Ronald drive in the bull.
" Now, maybe you'll let that pony alone," he railed,
indomitable of whim, when the gate was once more
I/O SABRINA WARHAM
fast ; and this time he was obeyed. " Magenta old
man, am I ? " came as his parting shot ; but the
colour was out of him when he returned to the
house.
Word of the affair reached the Squire in due
form. Lorry demanded that his doctor's bill should
be paid. No bill had been presented ; but without
asking to see it, the Squire contemptuously enclosed
a blank cheque in a letter formally repudiating the
claim. This Lorry returned for lack of the apology
that should have gone with it. He would now take
other means to obtain satisfaction, and hoped the
Squire would have the decency to keep off the
bench when the case came on at petty sessions.
The two old men, hugging the quarrel to them-
selves, had brought things to this pass, when word
of what was going on reached other members of
the two houses. Ronald came and sat by the old
man's side, and, with an eye on Sabrina's window,
listened to his railings in demure and undisturbed
satisfaction. At the end of them he craved per-
mission to continue grooming the pony whenever
the spirit so moved him.
"Well, you may now," said the old man, having
taken payment.
Ronald then said, for there was no limit to the
pageantry of his affections
" Mr. Lorry, I love your niece."
"What the devil for?" asked the old man,
petrified.
" For ever, always ! " affirmed the youth. " She's
the only woman I can love."
" Oh, take her, take her ! " cried the other, as
though by a wave of the hand he were disposing of
bad rubbish. And Ronald retired, enriched by the
farmer's consent.
" That Lutworth cub is wanting to have you
now ! " he announced to his niece, on their next
meeting. " Will you put up with him, or will you
go back to Creswick after all? I shan't have any
WORDS AND DEEDS 171
peace till I've got ye married away from my door ;
so the sharper ye are about it the better I'll be
pleased ! I don't want man-traps on my premises."
Sabrina's resentment at so scurrilous an assault
upon her rights gave her courage to retort
" Cry shame on yourself, uncle ! You are a
very foolish, wicked old man to harbour such
thoughts t"
He did not like her the worse for not trying to
be soft with him. " Oh, call me magenta, if you
like ! " said he. It was wonderful how that phrase
had stuck.
In this, at least, old Lorry was like Ronald, he
could not conceal his loves and hates ; rancour and
suspicion must out. So, having the thing in his
head, he must need say to his son one day
" David, that girl's setting her cap at you. Mind,
now ; I've told ye! "
David looked his parent down with an eye that
held him mute.
" Then ye've told a lie, father," he said at last.
" Say another word like that, and I'm gone ! " He
smote fist to table to drive his meaning home.
After that thunder silence reigned. Lorry had
learned that, when his son spoke thus, his word was
a rod of iron.
I
CHAPTER XIX
POINTS OF VIEW
As spring days advanced and grew warm, Sabrina's
solitary visits to the down became a daily occupa-
tion. But there was now a change ; she no longer
climbed the same down, she no longer sat looking
out over the same seaward view.
Deserting the ridge which divided West Gill
from Amesbay, she sought instead by a more
arduous ascent the one immediately to the rear of
the farm, upon whose crest lay the Roman en-
campment. Here, spent of breath, and without
energy to mount further, she would sink down
at the foot of the first great rampart, the outer
edge of a vast system of intrenchments. From
this point, she could look down upon the farm,
with all its peace and domestic order open to
view, a collocation of rough rectangular cells, each
fulfilling an economic purpose, each with its
attendant human energy to give it life. Here the
stone walls rose stunted under their eaves, lifting
grey-tiled and thatched roofs into unaccustomed
prominence ; cobbled alley and flagged court, turf-
plot and bedding-ground, pond and stable-yard, all
stood out distinctively like the patterns of a mosaic.
Across these went dark blots of human bodies
fulfilling the routine of labour, and, though small,
easily distinguishable, either by peculiarity of gait
or by the particular work on which they were
engaged. Sometimes they had not even to be
visible in order to be known ; the impact of clogs
172
POINTS OF VIEW 173
on stone-paving, the swish of water, and the clatter
of a pail told that the maid Sally was washing the
back-yard; a prolonged rattling of cans that the
scouring of the milking tins had begun; an occa-
sional movement under the branches of nuts and
fruit trees showed where a certain old Rachel was
weeding up groundsel; an ecstatic squealing in
the back premises told that William Hedges had
arrived with the pig's wash-pail ; a figure of hesitat-
ing gait going slowly from house to yard and back
again was old Lorry, spying out the land; another
of more even pace, with a dog following at heel,
was David starting upon his rounds. Sabrina
would watch him, and wonder at the apparent
ease with which he got through all his work.
" Never hurry, never rest," seemed to be the motto
of his days.
The country was now mantling day by day into
fresh beauty; soft clouds of plum-blossom lay
against the grey roofs of the farm ; the almond
flower was passing, pear and cherry bloom had
begun ; the Castle woods were shooting out fires of
green or smouldering in red ; and Sabrina, looking
on all the fairness of that scene, turned her heart
resolutely away from it, schooling herself to the
conviction that such life as it offered would mean
imprisonment to her energies, and paralysis to her
brain. This inborn apprehension was of no new
growth ; but recent events had quickened it. Sen-
sitive pride, moreover, was now in arms ; she had
been taught definitely to feel that her presence was
unwelcome, and that not only by her uncle, for
whose harsh tempers she had long made due
allowance, but in a far more painful way by her
own mother, whose soft opposition to any attempt
she made at home-like familiarity with her sur-
roundings grew more apparent as time went on.
Even Lady Berrers had grown impatient, and
seemed to have a suspicion of her, not to be
concealed by all the warm friendliness of their
1/4 SABRINA WARHAM
actual intercourse. In eye and manner there was
for ever implied a charge not expressed in words :
" You are behaving badly, my dear ! " And the
sense of its injustice sealed the girl's lips and kept
her from confiding in one she really loved, and
was grieved to have unwittingly offended. It
seemed as though the reproach levelled against
her was the continued incurableness of Ronald's
passion.
When Mrs. Warham herself spoke of the matter,
she felt deeply the affront which her friendly treat-
ment of youth's infatuation had brought on her;
her mother actually warned her to be careful for
herself ! As though ! Wounded self-respect
would not allow her to put the thing into words.
" But, dear mother, it is all a mere boy's folly ! "
she cried. "I don't think of it in any other way."
" Love is often a great folly," replied her
mother.
" It is natural, when he is so young."
"That is the danger."
"Surely, you mean the safety? These things do
not last long with the very young."
" Long enough, sometimes. My dear, he comes
of a family of which nothing safe can be said. I
tell you to take care ! And oh, my dear, you are
too young to understand ; but remember, women
are in peril when they are loved by certain men."
Seldom had Sabrina seen her mother so moved,
so near to true intimacy and communion. She
took her hand, pressing it warmly.
" Dear mother," she said, " what is it you want
me to do?"
" I wish I wish, my dear, that you would go
away for a time. There are many reasons why I do
not like your being here."
Sabrina loosed the hand she was holding. " You
do not want me ? " she said.
" I can do without you quite well. Sometimes I
think you ought not to have come here at all."
POINTS OF VIEW
175
" I have long thought that ! " answered Sabrina.
Little more was said then. It was after this
conversation that she began to spend her hours on
the down overlooking the farm ; and the filling and
the falling away of the fruit-blossom were symbols
to her long afterwards of thoughts formed to look
temptingly fair, which broke when the hard touch
of logic fell on them.
While her mind thus halted between two
opinions, a new element of interest was beginning
to find place there. Insensibly yet surely an
intimacy had sprung up between herself and
Valentine Reddie. Founded at first on common
interests, it developed in a genuine liking and trust
upon her part for one who did not afflict her
feminine instincts, or cause her to stand on guard,
as did others. She met him, in consequence, with a
frankness of demeanour which, though it was her
true nature, she seldom showed elsewhere.
Speaking one day of his fossil-collection tem-
porarily stored at Hawk's Point coastguard station,
he begged her to come over and see it. "That is,"
he said, " if it is not too far."
The distance was six miles by cliff, something
between eight and nine by the road. Sabrina
accepted readily ; the project gave her an excuse
she had long wished for, to follow over the rough
coast-line the crests and hollows of the downs lying
toward Wedport. Such a walk, too purposeless to
attract her otherwise, had now an object.
On the afternoon of the day agreed upon she
set off almost in gay spirits; nor was her zest
lessened when a hard scud of sleet met her as she
descended the first ridge over West Gill, and saw
the miniature harbour, grey and blurred, beneath
her in the thick network of driving hail. It fell
away again like a swept web ; far out over the
bay ran films of sunlight; one beam rode softly
over a distant down, disappeared in a cleft, and
rose on a nearer eminence, flooding its face with
i;6 SABRINA WARHAM
gold. The downfall stopped : drawing clear of
harbour and hill, it swung its way east ; miles
behind, Herm's Head dipped into the blackness of
storm, but in the other direction blue sky was
visible. Westward the day still promised to be fair,
and the weather always is what the sanguine eye
sees to be ahead. Nevertheless, when at a halfway
point Reddie met her, she had encountered storm
twice ; her face tingled from the sharp whippings
of the sleet, and she was not very dry.
" I believe I ought to have turned back," she
said, " but I feared you would be here expecting
me."
" Most certainly I did," he answered ; " I put
you down in my mind as weather-proof. Surely
you do not think of turning back now ? "
" I would not on my own account ; but my
mother may be anxious."
" She will think you have taken shelter at West
Gill, if she thinks anything."
This was'so probable that Sabrina, having come
so far, settled to go on. The coastguard's wife,
who saw to Reddie's wants, could provide her with
drying accommodation, and no doubt the weather
would clear; the storms were too violent to last.
Before they reached their goal, the wind had
driven all dampness out of her. Making her
companion's pace her own, she arrived warm and
flushed, almost beaten, happy with the exertion.
Rallying her to the last ascent for the station
stood on the top of a stiff rise Reddie expressed
admiration of her powers.
"Yes," she said laughing, "you may talk about
civilization ; if you had skirts to walk against in a
high wind, you would know what it is."
"Then petticoat government is really a manly
exercise ? "
" I believe men devised it as a part of our dis-
enf ranchisement. ' '
" I have heard you before now speak bitterly on
POINTS OF VIEW 177
that subject. Do you think that women are fit for
full citizenship ? "
" No, I do not ; but neither are the majority of
men. I admit the shortcomings of my own sex,
but not your right to deny us the liberties you
abuse."
" According to that, we ought to refuse you
nothing."
" You refuse us the wrong things for wrong
reasons: you give us far too much."
" And what about women's dealings with men ? "
"They seem to me hardly to reason at all; they
go by perverted instinct."
" Some day, Miss Warham," said Reddie, " you
may find that reason is not the safest guide in a
world that has failed as yet to account for itself.
The more we grow in reasoning intelligence, the
more we find unexplained."
" What guide, then, do you follow ? "
" Frankly, my own instinct."
" Do you rank yourself a Pagan ? "
" No ; yet perhaps I am one. Shall I ask, in
turn, if you rank yourself a Christian ? "
" My answer is the same ; a negative and a
perhaps. I feel that there is something outside
of us which moves the world ; and perhaps the
Christian religion best explains it."
"To my mind," said her companion, "Chris-
tianity puts too high a value on the individual, and
lowers that of race ; therein, I think, lies the true
identity the personality which counts, and carries
the world on. It is a particle of that energy which
urges each individual man in love, in war, in
experiment; he must fight, he must hunt, he must
love: he cannot stand still to act the consistent
fatalist."
" You say ' man,' " put in Sabrina.
" Yes, and I mean man ; and that it shows so
far less strongly in woman, convinces me that
nature meant her to be passive, a possession, the
N
1 78 SABRINA WARHAM
territory which man defends as he advances, and
moulds to his will that it may mould for him the
future of his race."
" You give us small freedom ! "
" In a way I claim no more for ourselves. The
spirit which impels each man is, in its origin, that
same universal breath of race which made the
patriarchs the founders of nations, and drove the
Romans from their ease and splendour to the con-
quest of one small savage island. It was nothing,
you may say, in comparison to the empire they left
behind, yet they could not help themselves; they,
too, were slaves as much as the men they held in
subjection ; for somewhere in us there is a tyranny
far stronger than flesh and blood. And yet these
great disturbances in us don't fight to live ; they
fight to perish, to find themselves graves. That
is the end of it all ! We are standing now on the
Roman's grave ; and this is the only living thing
he has left behind him to mark the spot."
He held up as he spoke a small snail-shell with
striped spirals, in the centre of which a pair of dun-
coloured horns could be seen disappearing.
"What had the Roman to do with this?"
inquired his companion.
" He brought it with him from Italy to make
soup of," said Reddie ; " and one finds it still in the
localities where he pitched his camps. Is it not a
fitting monument to his dust now, in this Christian
age? for it makes good soup still, and yet is quite
useless in the land of its adoption, because prej-
udice is so much stronger than reason. I could
not prevail on Mrs. Owens even to let me make the
experiment. Now, what do you think of this for
an outlook ? "
They had reached the topmost ridge of the
down, and stood by the signal-mast, facing seji-
wards. At this point no more than twenty yards
of rough turf divided them from the land's end. It
broke abruptly, disappearing in sheer immeasurable
I
POINTS OF VIEW 179
descent, till in the far-down distance tiny sails of
fishing-boats, rising like moths over the stiff grass-
bents of its brow, conveyed by scale what the eye
had lost with the sudden vanishing of earth into
space. Five miles distant across the blue lay Wed-
port behind its extending breakwater, a grey line
of flat sea-front, seen through a netted screen of
the masts and rigging of merchantmen. In one
quarter, where a chalky whiteness marked the line
of the new harbour works, thin puffs of steam now
and again rose, accompanying the circular swing of
vast cranes or the hewing and grinding of stone-
mills. Behind that scene with its teeming life,
Tort Point, bare and desolate, stretched like a
bony finger pointing south.
Under instruction, Sabrina saw more than her
own eye could have solved; the meaning of things
made vision of them grow clearer. From the man
on duty Reddie borrowed a spyglass for her to
look through ; and suddenly the whole scene became
alive.
" Why, they are like bees ! " she cried, presently
adding, " And there are drones too, black creatures,
standing idle upon the walls. What are they ? "
"Warders," said Reddie. "Most of those bees
are convicts."
" What ! " she cried, with a hurt sense of justice,
" is it by convicts that harbours are built ? "
" They have that privilege ; it is better for them
than the treadmill, is it not ? "
"For them? oh yes, it may be. But for us;
surely it condemns a nation that its noblest public
works should be produced by such means."
" The Pyramids were built by slaves."
" To be tombs for kings ! That seems right
enough. The contrast is greater here : harbours
for England's navies by men who have forfeited
freedom under her laws ! What an irony that
seems."
"Is it not rather fine ? I see no hope for a
i8o SABRINA WARHAM
nation that dares not deal sternly with men ; soft-
ness, and sentiment, and tender consciences only
lead to ruin. Nelson flogged those fine devils, his
sea-dogs, yet they loved him and won his battles
for him ; Venice condemned her Doges to fine and
imprisonment, and they came again from prison
and poverty and disgrace to fight under her
standard. She put out a man's eyes, and still he
worked in darkness to serve her. Yes ; I believe
in race, and in large justice, which involves the doing
of many small injustices. Justice to the individual
seems to me but a paltry thing to cry after ; yet
that is the yelp of your radical politicians nowadays ;
lest the plough should cut up the worm, his cry is,
1 Perish India ! ' On those lines * Perish England ! '
will follow before long."
" And meanwhile," retorted Sabrina, "you are for
saying perish one half of the human race so that
the other half may keep top ; your politics are
a masculine makeshift. Do you believe that evo-
lution is to accentuate the difference of sex?"
" If sex is a good thing, yes ; why not ? I hate
a muddle ! "
Thus they talked in hearty disagreement with
each other, a good bond for friendship. Reddie
brought her down by a wide detour to the narrow
shore below the great cliff, exposed only at low
tide.
" Can you mount those ladders ? " he inquired.
" Some of my work lies on that ledge of rock
halfway up."
Sabrina felt that her courage was being put to
the test.
" I can!' she said, rather tremulously, wondering
how she would feel when she got there.
" I guarantee that they are well fixed," said her
companion.
She started on the ascent, conscious that she
would have given much not to go, yet stronger in
the determination not to cry off. She even liked,
in a feai
POINTS OF VIEW 181
in a fearful way, this experiment of her own powers ;
it was purely a matter of nerve, the physical effort
was nothing. Setting her mind according to the
bidding of Scripture on those things that were
above, and forgetting those things that were behind,
she accomplished the task. Reddie followed at a
respectful distance. Safely lodged, she gazed into
the depth beneath, and cried aghast
" How shall I ever get down ? " The descent
now looked fearful.
" When you are down again you will look back
and say, ' How did I ever get up ? ' That is the way
always. Yet you did not find getting here difficult.
Now, look at my excavations; do you know what
you are standing on ? "
" They look like stone columns thrown sideways,"
said Sabrina.
" They are, or they were, trees : this was once
a forest." Reddie snowed her some of his half-
excavated fossils, the gaps whence others had
already been taken, the indications of further
deposits. Above their heads swung a small
wooden cradle on a double pulley the means, he
explained, by which he hauled up the heavier of his
specimens. " Once or twice I have myself been up
by it," he remarked, "when I have been in a hurry
for some reason."
Sabrina looked and shuddered. " I wonder you
could trust any one ! " she declared.
" I trusted myself. I went up steeple-jack
fashion walked up, as it were ; there is plenty of
foothold not seen from below, and a strong haul on
the rope is sufficient to steady one."
Sabrina showed him moist palms, and rubbed
them miserably to get free from the shiver of his
narrative.
" Why do you do such things ? " she asked,
half vexed ; " and why tell me of them now ? Did
you not feel that you were doing wrong, foolishly,
to hang your life on so risky a chance ? "
182 SABRINA WARHAM
" On the contrary, I felt a curious delight I
was in my own hands, my own master absolutely
in the opposite way to the suicide. I had the will-
power to save and keep my life, just by holding on
and putting out my best energies. Wheri I got to
the top I respected myself as I never had done
before. But the feeling wears off ; my second
and my third attempt were not nearly so exciting."
" Oh, pray don't make a habit of it ! " cried
Sabrina. " How shall I ever be comfortable when
I think of you at work here ? Do promise not to
do it ! The cord looks far too thin for a man's
weight."
Reddie regarded her with an earnestness equal
to her own; but when he spoke it was only to
assure her that the rope had been well tested.
" Let me show you how it works," he said. " No,
I don't mean by going up myself : there is a block
here almost ready for removal, and I have my tools
with me. Now you shall see me as a stone-
mason."
She watched him at work with his small picks
and hammers, dealing deft blows cunningly from
point to point; it seemed more like a sculptor's
work than stone-cutting.
"See," he said, "now I must pack it safe from
knocks on the way up. How heavy should you say
this was ? "
Sabrina guessed twenty pounds.
" Nearer a hundredweight," he told her. It
seemed unbelievable.
"That," she said, "brings back an old memory.
The awful physical weight of the world used to be
a nightmare to me when I was a child ; it returns
to me sometimes now, and causes a fearful depres-
sion to my spirits. I wonder what the connection
is? The sensation used really to be poignant; a
terror of matter as a sort of deity or demon, which
held men prisoners."
" It is the deity I worship," said Reddie. He
POINTS OF VIEW 183
drew down the cradle, adjusted its load, and began
to haul. After some minutes of hard labour, a
knotted loop came to hand. " Now it is at the top,"
he said, and, fastening the end firmly, rose. " Shall
we go down now ? " he inquired.
Sabrina blanched slightly as she once more
looked down on the height up which she had
come.
"No, no," said her companion; "don't look! that
is the most fatal thing of all, until your eyes, like
the rest of you, are in reasonable control. As you
go down, think of me going up that rope ; you will
find it a tempering reflection under the circum-
stances."
He laughed, and she conceived that he had
perhaps told her of that uncomfortable exploit for
a definite purpose. She tried, and found that the
ruse succeeded.
When her feet were once more on wet shingle,
Reddie gave her a glowing look of approval.
" Now I will say something," he said, " that I
would not say before. You have shown rare pluck.
I know no other woman I would have taken where
I have taken you. And," he added, " I know no
other who would have gone."
" Do you mean it was really dangerous ? " in-
quired Sabrina.
" Not to you," he answered ; " to many it would
have been. It was a matter of nerve, character
race." He laughed triumphantly at having made
her demonstrate his theory. " Now, if you like, be
angry with me ! "
" Oh no," she answered. " Perhaps I too shall
feel an increased self-respect if I can make myself
believe that it was worth doing. What is the matter
now ?"
Reddie, looking ahead, said, " I fear I have been
careless ; I had not the tide-table properly in my
head ; indeed, I forgot altogether about it We
shall get through all right, but it will be at the cost
1 84 SABRINA WARHAM
of a drenching. There is a good deal of wind on,
and that makes a bigger tide ; and there is practically
no shore here except at low water. I am a bad
guide, I fear."
Sabrina took the matter lightly. But he had told
no more than the truth ; she was wet to the waist
before they got to a part of the cliffs where ascent
grew possible. Arrived at the top, they directed
their steps to the coastguard station, a row of squat
cottages, with white-washed walls, and black roof
and chimneys, half sunk like a fort in a trench of
concrete, so that the window-sills lay well below
the level of the ground; black doors and shutters
completed the barrack-like aspect of a place which
from its exposed position had already so little the
air of home.
" Come," said Valentine, " I see plenty of smoke
going up from that chimney. Mrs. Owens has a fire
at all events ; and I have no doubt she will be able
to find some things for you to wear while your
own are drying. Do tell me you forgive my having
caused you this discomfort ! "
" But it doesn't exist," said Sabrina, " not in any
way that counts. I am really quite happy."
The blusterous weather and her exertions had
roused all her animal spirits she looked animated
and alert.
CHAPTER XX
THE WAY OF THE WIND
As they mounted to the head of the cliff, the wind,
from which till now they had been partly sheltered,
began to buffet them in force. Reddie had to give
Sabrina his hand. " It looks as if we were in for
a gale," he remarked. Over the sea a leaden sheet
of gloom had begun to spread far out ; the waves
became edged with white.
Leaving' his companion in charge of the coast-
guard's wife, Reddie went to the signal-box, where
the protruding snout of a telescope showed that
some one was on duty within. Before long Sabrina
received practical demonstration of what an increase
of wind meant to a house at that altitude bordering
on the sea. While changing her drenched garments
and endeavouring to make herself as presentable
as might be in those lent to her, she was startled
by a sudden clapping-to of the shutters, which left
her in almost total darkness. A minute later Mrs.
Owens, entering with a light, explained that the
shutters were thus closed to protect the glass from
pebbles.
" Sometimes," she said, " we have to keep them
fastened up for weeks ; and then the back-kitchen
is the only place with light in it. Often I daren't
leave the house at all without first shutting them,
unless there's some one here to see to it."
" You must have dreary times ! " said her visitor.
" Yes, indeed, miss ; though there's extra pay
given, no one stays long at these hilltop stations.
185
1 86 SABRINA WARHAM
My husband volunteered, but we are going to leave
in June ; and I don't fancy there'll be any one here
after September when the new station's opened.
My husband has only two other men with him
now ; the other married one went last autumn,
and Mr. Reddie has the empty half here for his
collections."
"Then do you housekeep for all of them ? "
" Yes, I do, miss. It's not much trouble ; the
bachelors come in and eat with us, and Mr. Reddie
is wonderful for the little work he gives."
"You must be terribly out of the world. How
often do you get over to Wedport ? "
" Only about once a month, miss. Every week
a cart comes over with provisions, but in the winter
I have to lay in supplies, and then the difficulty is
to keep them. And the clothes too, and the linen,
I have to air them every week regularly, else they
all get mouldy."
It seemed to Sabrina that she had come to some
remote place of exile, so slight was its contact with
the outer world. She compared the seclusion of
her own life at East Gill, and grew ashamed; it
seemed by comparison to have all the resources of
civilization at command. Yet in the summer, she
thought, life here might be pleasant; it opened up
to her mind possibilities for a student's life.
On issuing forth in dry apparel, she found
Reddie awaiting her in Mrs. Owens' kitchen, and
saw a tea-table already laid for four. A young
coastguard got up as she entered, and started to
leave the room.
" Would you prefer to have your tea here,
miss ? " inquired the woman.
Sabrina glanced at Reddie, not knowing what
she ought to say.
" No," said he, " that will be putting every one
else out for us; let it be in my workroom. Dan,
don't go away."
He called back the silent coastguard, and led his,
THE WAY OF THE WIND
187
visitor across the passage shared in common by
the two tenements. Entering his domain, Sabrina
recognized familiar objects ; Reddie had brought
with him all his bird-stuffing tools and materials.
" The secret of life in a place like this," he
remarked, in answer to her pleased comment, " is
always to be occupied ; then you find the un-
accustomed freedom of loneliness delightful. I
shall try to keep on here, even when Mrs. Owens
leaves. Dan Curtis, that fellow you saw just now,
has an actual liking for the place ; it suits his mood
of silence, and, living here together, he and I have
become friends. While Mrs. Owens is making tea
for us, will you come and look at these ? "
He began to show her some fine specimens of
plant-fossils which he had secured in the neigh-
bourhood ; and as they passed them from one to
the other, it chanced that Valentine's fingers rested
for a moment on hers : for a moment only, warm
and strong. Then, speaking suddenly
" Would you care to have this one ? " he
inquired, and with the question found excuse to
bring their hands once more together. He spoke
earnestly, "You would give me so much pleasure
by accepting it."
" I thought they were not really yours," said
Sabrina, coldly, withdrawing her hand.
"Oh yes; it is not as though I made a trade of
it; and I have already many duplicates. Please,
Miss Warham, I beg you not to refuse me ! "
" If it is of value," objected Sabrina, " I would
rather not have it. In any case, it can be of no real
use to me, since I am not a collector."
" May it not have a small friendly value ? "
" Your wish to give it to me is quite enough."
" Not for me," he said, with a look there could
be no mistaking; but Sabrina had already turned
away.
Reddie laid the specimen back in its place.
"Ah," he said, "I see that these things really
1 88 SABRINA WARHAM
bore you." He pushed to the drawer. A moment
later he had recovered himself, nor was there any
subsequent change in his manner; but the incident
was enough to disturb the serenity of his guest:
she began to be ill at ease.
" How late this candle-light makes it seem," she
said, speaking with forced composure. " I ought
to think about getting back."
Wind and rain were audible through the shutter
as she spoke.
" I fear," said Reddie, " we are in for some
rough weather. Owens says it is blowing up for
a gale.]'
Sabrina began to be apprehensive ; with a
gale coming on, she was either six or eight miles
from home, and it was quite possible that the
shorter way over the downs would be the worse
choice.
Reddie went out, and returned presently with a
face showing concern.
" I don't know what you will say to this," he
remarked. " Owens says that you certainly cannot
go back by way of the cliffs ; he thinks it would be
best if you let his wife give you a bed for the
night. I will go over to East Gill and tell them
that you are safe."
" Oh, I cannot let you do that ! " cried Sabrina,
dismayed. " I won't let any one be put to such
trouble on my account. No; let me go at once,
before it gets worse ! "
She rose to her feet.
" But in any case I shall go with you," said
Reddie.
Sabrina had now her reasons for not wishing his
company, under such conditions.
" No, indeed ! " she cried. " I am not so helpless
that I cannot go alone."
" Yet I am too helpless to allow you," said
Valentine; "the circumstances make it impossible,
Don't you see that it can't be ? "
THE WAY OF THE WIND 189
Sabrina stood with knit brows, flushing, perplexed ;
a disturbed sense of what her mother would think
was her chief concern.
Reddie watched her for a while in silence.
"Look here, Miss Warham," he said at last,
"you have proved that you have courage; now
show that you are sensible, and don't let a simple
miscalculation of the weather disturb you. If it is
possible for you to go, you must allow me to see
you home ; if it is not, face the circumstance cheer-
fully, and stay here. We can certainly let your
mother know in some way that you are safe, and
that Mrs. Owens is looking after you."
Sabrina understood the considerateness of his
last remark. Her vexation over the matter was
not for herself ; what people might think or say
was very little to her. To Mrs. Warham it was
almost everything ; and the girl could not without
a struggle give up her wish to conform to her
mother's notions, and do what was most incon-
venient and least reasonable.
" I must judge for myself first," she said at last.
" If I find that I really cannot go, of course I must
stay. Is it raining very hard now ? "
The weather answered for itself, and Sabrina
consented to wait and to take some food before
attempting to start. But when an hour later she
was again clad in her own garments, the sight of
Mr. Owens entering the house like a man escaping
from a mob should have been enough to keep her
from the attempt. Nevertheless, she went out,
and faced for a moment the rain-swept twilight,
gathering its far ends for storm. She sought the
help of Reddie' s arm, took twelve steps, and turned
about.
" I know it is useless now," she said, " so I resign
myself." Indoors again, she said, " I did not know
that wind could beat so hard as to cause actual fear.
I felt a coward before it."
" Then you will let me go ? " said Reddie.
190 SABRINA WARHAM
" No," she answered, " you must not. It would
be dark before you got clear of the downs, and
I should have no peace for thinking what might
have happened. Have they not a telegraph here ?
I remember seeing some posts as we came."
" Why, I never thought of it ! " cried Reddie.
" Yes, of course ; for you are, I think, sufficiently
within the definition of shipwrecked and stranded
to have news passed for you officially; it can be
handed on to the post-office at Wedport."
The message was sped. Reddie, returning, sent
Mrs. Owens to light a fire and talk Sabrina into ease
over her enforced detention. She could not help feel-
ing that he was in all things scrupulously considerate
of her comfort.
Though the house was strongly built, with walls
nearly a yard thick, the force of the gale shook
the chamber she was in ; the outer shutters stirred
as though strong hands were snatching to open
them ; and now and then great puffs of smoke
from the newly lighted fire drove back into the
room.
" It will settle down presently," said Mrs.
Owens, and left her to make household arrange-
ments.
A few minutes later Reddie returned. "Ah,
that is right ; I hope you have found books
there to amuse you," he remarked, and crossed
to his own work-table. "I am not now," he
went on, "going to ask you to excuse me, if I
just sit down and neglect you. You have had
enough of my company, I am sure, for one day ;
and there is no reason why I should make myself
a nuisance. That side of the room is for the
present your home, and this is mine. I shall look
in, if I may, to say good night ; and Mrs. Owens is
at your call." With that he buried himself in his
work, seeming really to forget that she was there.
He did not speak again for a couple of hours.
Sabrina was grateful for what other women
THE WAY OF THE WIND 191
might have regarded as cavalier treatment ; the
sense of his presence wore away, and she read at
last without self-consciousness in the solitude of
her own thoughts. They met at the supper-table,
and found plenty to talk about; then again retired
into companionable silence till the time came for
them to part.
" What have you been reading ? " asked Reddie,
when his guest was about to withdraw.
" Natural history," she replied, holding the book
up. " I always do prefer fact to fiction," she added,
half in apology, conscious that lighter literature had
been put out for her to choose from.
" That is in keeping with your ideas about pets,"
answered Reddie. " I fear you have an abnormal
love of truth. Some day you will put yourself to the
torture over the dotting of an ' i ' or the crossing of a
't.' I, on the other hand, am attracted to science
because it is the most speculative and romantic thing
I know ; it is cram-full of the most colossal assump-
tions. Here is Mrs. Owens come to say she is ready
for you."
Sabrina's sleep was sound ; the wind hardly crept
into her dreams at all, and before morning had sunk
into stillness. A scratch at her door and a sweet
whine of friendship were the sounds that roused her.
She opened ; Ron leapt in. It was then early morning.
David had come over in the trap to fetch her before
the world was abroad. He brought a note from her
mother, with not a word in it of reproach, begging her
to return with all speed. It contained a curious touch
which first puzzled and then illumined her under-
standing.
" I have sent your little hand-bag ; no one will
know that you did not take it with you. Your
telegram came via Wedport."
Mrs. Warham had friends there to whom a short
visit from her daughter had been owing. Sabrina's
heart laughed. Respectability was saved by a hand-
bag and a telegram via Wedport !
CHAPTER XXI
LOVE AND MORALS
SABRINA remembered afterwards that, as they parted,
Valentine Reddle's face had worn a cloud. She was
too friendly in her regard for him not to wish, as far
as possible, to give his mind ease ; she felt that she
owed him thanks. She wrote accordingly, express-
ing gratitude for his kindness, with a word of thanks
also to Mrs. Owens for the trouble she had been
put to. Valentine answered her letter by return as
it were, in person. He seemed charged with mat-
ter for delivery, and had known where to find
her.
" Have I offended you, Miss Warham ? " was
his direct inquiry, immediately upon their meet-
ing.
" Offended me ? On the contrary, you have been
most kind."
" You say that out of politeness. I believe you
have something against me in your mind."
" Oh no ; you are mistaken."
" Then I wish you had ; for, were it anything
definite, I believe you would tell me. But some-
how, without knowing it perhaps, you have become
prejudiced against me."
" What makes you think so ? "
" Even the way you speak now."
" Then there is no remedy ; my disclaimer is of no
use ? "
"Ah," he cried impatiently, "don't let civil pre-
tences stand between us ! I thought we knew each
192
LOVE AND MORALS 193
other better. Miss Warham, I think truly that you
know what it is I wish to say."
" That I have offended you, I begin to fear,"
answered Sabrina.
"That would be impossible. I desire nothing so
much as your friendship. Let me be sure of it ! "
" That, I think, I can promise."
" Why, then, was I not allowed to bring you home
the other day ? "
Sabrina opened her eyes, and smiled at his
apparent foolishness.
" Surely," she said, "the circumstances were
very natural. How could my cousin's coming to
fetch me back be a reflection on you ? "
" I think it was meant so."
" Then I am sure you are mistaken."
" Will you tell me that you did not prefer his
company to mine?"
" No ; I will answer no such question ! " replied
Sabrina, with rising spirit.
" Yet you know why I ask it. Ah, now you are
angry ! And that I love you, that also you know."
Sabrina shook her head, not with any thought
of denying his words.
"Yes!" he said, and reiterated "yes!" again.
" Is it an offence to you to be told that ? "
" It is an affliction," she murmured. " I wished
I hoped " She turned away her- face. "It
is such a disappointment," she said in troubled tone,
" that you should ask more than I can give, when I
am so willingly your friend."
" Will to be more ! it is only a matter of will.
Let me win you ! I only ask for time. At least,
do not deny me the possibility ; say that I may
have hope ! "
" Have no hope of me ! " she told him. " My vow
is to marry no man."
" Vows, like marriages," he replied, " need two
to their making. Who has heard your oath ? "
" Ah, do not mock me ! " she cried. " I have
r
194 SABRINA WARHAM
seen a few things too well, to think that I can ever
change in regard to them : marriage is one. I have
a belief in friendship : in love of any other kind,
none at all. Where that is concerned, I seem to
have been disillusioned from my very birth. It is
no joy to me to say this."
" Do you deny love entirely ? "
" No ; and yet to me it seems the great gamble
of humanity. For I see that when men love they
lose possession of themselves."
"Yes," said Reddie, "in order to rise to the
possession of the higher."
" Ah, that is the fallacy ! What human being -
above all, what woman has any right to accept
the assumption that she is higher than another?"
" I did not mean that. I mean that two in
one is essentially greater than one standing alone.
That is a mathematical proposition; we are talking
science. Spare me a few moments, don't let us
be merely ' friends ' again yet ! Remember I am a
man pleading for my life ! "
"Do not deceive yourself," said Sabrina; "your
life is in your own hands, not mine. And what
becomes of your mathematical proposition, if the
result turns into a tug-of-war ? " There was a
sudden bitterness in her tone.
Her lover's gaze fell on her; he glowed in the
contemplation of her beauty. " I look at you, and
I say Sabra ! " It was the natural man that spoke
then.
Something in Sabrina's soul startled as she
heard it. It at once repulsed and attracted her.
That it was no argument, she knew. Yet it was
a human voice thrilling deep with its emotions :
" I look at you, and I say Sabra ! "
"You are becoming a different person," she
said uncomfortably, drawing a little back from
him.
" Yes ! " he cried ; " yes ! I can daub it no
further ! This is my one hour mine, mine ! Give
LOVE AND MORALS 195
it to me ! Make earth and heaven sweet to me for
once, for a moment, that afterwards I may dream it
was true ! "
Sabrina was upon her feet. " Oh, my friend, stand
up ! " she said. " If you would not shame me, stand
now ! "
He too was up again, facing her. " Sabra, it is
yes ; it shall be yes ! " he cried. His face drew close
to hers. Violence and tenderness called on her to
surrender.
She shook her head, closing her eyes.
" Ah ! but I cannot take no ! " he cried ; " I must
conquer you. You are for me, for no other man on
God's earth ! "
" I am for no man," she said; "for none."
" For me ! " he affirmed, holding her.
" Release me, my friend," she breathed, her voice
a ghost in her own hearing ; " or does love make men
cowards too ? "
His hands fell from her at the word.
" Ah, beloved, how beautiful you are ! " he cried.
" Oh, light of my soul ! "
He let her go from him then. She moved away,
the heat of sudden anger still on her brow.
" So I have lost you ! " he said in a voice of pro-
found dejection and misery.
Her anger went. " No," she said, " I am your
friend ; I offer you all that I can give. Be wise ; do
not ask more ! "
" Yet one thing more I dare, I do ask," he said.
" If you think it wise, name it." Her gentle
tone showed her wish to make all possible conces-
sion.
" Only that you will give me the right once again
to seek what you now refuse. Surely that is a little
thing to grant ? "
" A useless thing," she sighed, yet knew that to
deny it would avail her little.
"Yet," he said, " it is like a promise of life to me
now."
196 SABRINA WARHAM
" If to live is to dream," she replied.
" I may dream ? "
" If you must, I cannot forbid you. Let us say no
more now ! "
He took her words literally, and again she felt the
gratitude which his conduct had the gift of win-
ning.
" I must be going home," she said. " Will you
come too ? "
He declined gently, letting her go alone.
This was Valentine Reddie's first wooing.
Sabrina was too much of a woman to listen
unmoved to a declaration of real passion. Nor
could the man who had revealed to her so much
of his inmost feelings remain quite the same object
in her regard as formerly. She had declared to
Valentine, almost as an accusation, that he had be-
come a different person ; but in herself also there
began a subtle change, wrought not by any growth
in her feelings towards him, but by his feelings
towards her. The woman who finds herself loved
breathes a different atmosphere, which changes the
circulation of her blood, chilling or quickening it.
She had been forced during the past weeks to
listen to angry protestations of love from Ronald,
protestations as devout as any of those she had
just heard ; and she had regarded them merely as
phenomena in the troublesome growth of youth.
But from a man like Valentine Reddie, of strong
will, energy, and purpose, they came with a dif-
ferent meaning. His cry, in answer to her demur,
" I look at you, and I say Sabra ! " touched the
profound springs of her emotions; it haunted her.
Taught by that, she knew that over one man's
heart she alone held sway, and that to him, deluded
though he might be in the notion, life with her
seemed to promise pre-eminent good. She con-
sidered his life, with all its interests, into which
she could so readily enter; she thought of her
own. In that direction a growing obligation seemed
E
n
-
LOVE AND MORALS 197
to lie, to break from surroundings which threat-
ened to change her identity, and bring her bound
to earth. How little there was in reason to keep
her tied ! Even her mother was apparently
willing to forego all claim on her, and was now
anxious that she should seek work in some other
sphere.
She was startled to find, on the day following
Valentine's avowal, that her mother knew of it ; the
information had come directly. She could not rea-
sonably reproach him for inviting her mother's coun-
tenance and aid ; yet it made her own line of conduct
ore difficult. She began to suspect others also of
knowing how matters stood; for the air of a small
neighbourhood becomes quickly infected when such
ews is once started.
Lady Berrers, on the point of flight up to Town,
came directly to the charge, as though secret infor-
mation had reached her. She embraced the girl with
even more than her usual affection, and barbed her
arrows.
" My dear, when are you going to marry ? "
Sabrina coloured under the friendly scrutiny, but
could feel no offence ; liberty of speech had become
for Lady Berrers an established privilege.
" Indeed it is a thing I try never to think about,"
she answered ; " nothing has recommended it to me
in the past." She spoke so bitterly then, that Lady
Berrers, knowing her history, was moved with tender
compassion.
" Ah," she said soothingly, " forgive me ! I do not
ask out of vulgar curiosity ; but for my own peace of
mind."
" Yours, madam ? Why should you wish me to
marry ? "
" For at least one very good reason that I may
name that nephew of mine will never settle down
to anything while you live single. See how he runs
after you ! He is absurd, of course ; but his despera-
ion is quite genuine while it lasts."
198 SABRINA WARHAM
" But he knows I can never take him seriously ! "
" Oh, no doubt. Does that make him less forlorn ?
No, poor boy ! his humility and vanity are most as-
tonishingly mixed up. He is now solemnly bent on
convincing you ; and look at the antics he goes in
for, in consequence ! Do you know half the things
he does, I wonder ? No ! that, my dear, is where I
complain of you. Beauty has no business to be un-
conscious of its attractions. You have forbidden him
to follow you about ; does it prevent his lying in wait
all day in the hopes of meeting you ? If the night
rains, or is foggy, or is in any other way unpleasant
to be out in, that's the very night he must choose to
stand at watch under your window. And there in
the morning your cousin finds him, and they go off
fishing together."
" What ? " cried Sabrina, surprised at these absurd
depths of a lover's folly.
"Yes; poor youth, he tells me everything. You
seem not to know : yet he imagines that lately you
have put a night-light for him, and lies till dawn
watching it like a star."
Sabrina could not but laugh at love's labour so lost
as this.
" It is Betty who sleeps with a night-light," she
said ; " she is afraid of the dark. She has had a cold
lately, and we have exchanged rooms ; her coughing
disturbed my mother. She complained the other
morning that a bouquet of roses fell on her pillow
and woke her with palpitations ; her window was
open, though she was sure that the night before she
had closed it."
"There, you see!" said Lady Berrers. "That's
the stage of lunacy we have now arrived at."
" You tell me all this, dear madam," replied the
girl ; " but how am I to cure him ? I do everything ;
I do nothing : but I can't help being myself."
Troubled thoughts set Sabrina's lip quivering.
Lady Berrers loved her with a hostile eye.
" My dear, marry ! "
LOVE AND MORALS 199
" I am to find a husband because Ronald can't
behave sensibly ? Indeed, madam, you give me
some right to complain."
" When you ' madam ' me, my dear, it means you
are dishonest/' retorted the lady. " Do you dare to
tell me that you don't know there's a good man
dying to have you at this moment ? "
" I don't respect a man who ' dies ' for what he
can't get," said Sabrina, guardedly.
Lady Berrers came down on her sharply. " Any-
way, that means you know who it is ? "
"It means nothing of the kind; at least it isn't
true : nobody is dying for me. Why should you vex
me by saying it ? "
" Now, be angry with me because I'm your friend.
Listen to me ! I am not a match-maker, but I have
had experience in men, and I know a good man
when I see him ; it's a gift of divination that comes
with old age." She spoke boastingly, as one still
consciously possessed of that which turns the laugh
on time. " And I tell you, Sabrina, that to throw
away a good man's love, either from pride or cow-
ardice, is a perilous thing to do. You have a chance
now of shaping your life to better ends than you
have yet found for it. A thousand pities to miss
that for a mere whim ! "
Lady Berrers aimed well a remark which might
have been taken as an undeserved slight by a heart
less sincere. Few women care to be told that they
lose worth in remaining their own idle property,
but to Sabrina the thought constantly recurred ;
and here was one, whom she loved and respected,
voicing her inmost sentiment. Yet, though the
shaft struck home, it did so unwittingly in a wrong
cause.
It surprised her, indeed, to hear so favourable
an estimate of her unnamed lover set forth ; for
what chance had Lady Berrers of knowing him so
well ? Her own mind was less assured. He had
a power which she dreaded as not wholly for good.
200 SABRINA WARHAM
There was an attraction in him, at times a fascina-
tion, and yet her heart was opposed to it, and the
fundamental prejudice was too deep to be easily
overcome.
" I have so much reason to dread marriage," she
murmured, reluctant of reference to the cause.
" Who is there that one can really trust ? "
"If you knew a little more of the world, my dear,"
said Lady Berrers, "you would find trust easier.
It is the nature of most men to have had * a past,'
though it is to us that the term in its special sense
gets applied, and we have to judge as we find them
if it has left them tempered or dissolute. When
you can see the curb in a man's character you
may let the past go. It seems unfair to us,
but so it is ; a man remains good and trustworthy
and honourable where, after like experiences, we
should not have left ourselves a leg to stand
on. Theories about equality of the sexes don't
lead to happy marriages, Sabra. We are not equal.
Man is above and below us, and we have just
to do our best to fill the gap between that is
our place. Marriage is a sort of sandwich made
up of humanity : man the bread and woman the
relish. We are only the rib still, and we shan't
get rid of our bone by gnawing it. It's no use
being angry with Creation and the Book of Genesis,
my dear."
Lady Berrers, be it remembered, thought she was
pleading a good man's cause, and women in their
pleadings are seldom quite honest. She had been
through diplomatic training, and if in discretion she
erred, in instinct she was right. She took Sabrina's
hand, knowing that touch is often more eloquent
than speech for a tale which deals with the
emotions.
" I want," she said, " to tell you some family
history. Yes ; mine as well as yours. You know,
of course, how the names of Lutworth and Lorry
are joined in local prophecy ; and having heard it
LOVE AND MORALS 201
from my childhood and seen events, I am not
ashamed to own that I have become superstitious
" < Till Lut worth give, or Lorry go,
Lutworth and Lorry shall have woe.'
" There it is, stated. And we have had woe, my
dear, enough of it in both families ! Many have
been born, and few have survived to see the future
generation established ; just enough of us live to
keep the thing going. It is said to date back to
some dispute about freehold ; and a tradition of
trespassing seems to have grown out of it not on
land only, I fear. There's a good deal under the
surface that I need not tell you of ; but your uncle's
hostility to us would be a quaint contradiction if all
that is said were true. And, then, even friendship
doesn't seem the remedy ; it leads to trouble.
Ronny makes friends with David a Jonathan friend-
ship ; imitates him even in his walk, as I dare say
you have noticed ; and no sooner do you appear on
the scene than he makes love to you. That, in spite
of its absurdity, is why I am sometimes anxious.
But you don't quite know, and it is that I want to tell
you ; Ronny is too much like his father. Over him
we had a great sorrow."
Lady Berrers smoothed Sabrina's hand in her
own.
" Have you never heard ? " she asked.
" Only what Betty happened to tell me once,"
answered Sabrina. " It did not sound very probable."
"Your mother has told you nothing? "
" I don't think she has ever mentioned him."
"No," said Lady Berrers, "I suppose not; that
is what I should have expected. Well, then, now
I tell you ; all that I, at least, know. My brother
Ronald loved your mother too well. It was a
madness an obsession terrible to witness, for I
did witness it once. She never gave him encourage-
ment, though, I think no; I cannot be sure; I
was never in her confidence. But once she came to
202 SABRINA WARHAM
me for shelter I cannot explain more, dear and
I had her sobbing in my arms till perhaps one or
other of us slept. Do you know, she has never
forgiven me for that ; never spoken of it again !
Soon afterwards she married your father : that is
your dear mother's history. Remember, if her
ideas of what is right and respectable seem now
needlessly severe, that to maintain them she once
went through fire."
" Ah ! if I could only be of any comfort or use
to her," said Sabrina, "it would make up for so
much."
Her voice trembled. Fresh pity, as always, had
sent fresh reproaches to her heart.
" I am sure your mother loves you," said her
friend, meaning to give comfort.
" Oh yes," answered the girl, desolately, " we
both love each other; that only makes it worse.
We hardly share a thought."
" She is anxious for you ; her life is not likely
to be long, and her small annuity dies with her."
"Yes," said Sabrina.
" She would be reconciled if that load were taken
off her mind."
"Reconciled?"
" To your marriage, my dear."
Lady Berrers had said her say; it was but one
of the many influences all pointing for Sabrina in
one direction. Some were insistent enough in all
conscience, giving her no peace ; Ronald's wooing
was one of these. Stronger influences gave stiller
counsel; her mother said nothing, yet seemed to
wait for a word. One, the strongest, remained
unconfessed, even to her own heart. Pride stood
in the way.
CHAPTER XXII
A SURRENDER
BUTTERCUPS were abroad "Farmer's money," to
give them their local name among school children.
A few days of rain had shot them into bloom, till
distant fields of them shone like brass ; even the
gorse, now in full blaze, was not brighter ; they set
the tone to the whole district.
Old Farmer Lorry, at the sight of them, was
seized with a sort of hay-fever, or land-hunger a
longing to go out and make final survey of the
estate, and give a last curse to his neighbour's land-
marks. Since his resignation of power he had not
once been off the farm ; he had, in fact, so nursed
himself in decrepitude that it had become almost
the object of his life : like St. Paul, he gloried in his
infirmity, and whined amazing tunes to the creak-
ing of his bones. But life had not been robbed of
its zest so long as the old antagonisms remained ;
and, with its flicker of renewed energy, his mind
woke to the fact that he had not for many months
set foot in the family pew, or fixed eye during prayer
on his enemy, the Squire.
Early one week he began ordering out the pony-
carriage, to acquire a prescriptive right to it by the
next Sunday; always, of course, choosing his time
when the pony was most sure to be wanted for
other work. Mrs. Warham, on the second day,
received an embarrassing invitation to bear him
company. Sabrina went down to see him and soften
the inevitable word.
203
204 SABRINA WARHAM
" Come yourself, then, Zabby, if you don't think
you're too fine a lady," said the old man, and packed
the stable-boy back to his work.
On the previous day Mrs. Willings had been
coerced into driving, and, reduced to incapacity by
the violence of his tongue, had run the chaise into
a ditch. The Squire, coming on them in their pre-
dicament, had sent a man down the road to help
them. This was bad; the humiliation of it still
rankled.
Sabrina was less amenable to discipline than
the housekeeper. " Take the reins yourself, uncle,
or leave them to me ! " she said, when he attempted
to demonstrate.
He gave her a look of sour regard. " You got
that from David, I suppose ? " said he, desisting
from his attempt.
" Got what ? " she asked.
" That way of abusing an old man."
She did not trouble to answer. Ignoring her
for a while, he talked to the crops, comparing their
present low value with what it would have been in
his day. Presently he came round again to his
grievance.
" There goes David," he said, pointing. " Looks
the master, don't he ? " Then, going off into a
growl, "Ay, ay, walking through it is better than
going round it ; teaches it who's master, that does !
Well, I don't suppose I shall live to see it mowed."
" Why should you think that, uncle ? "
"'Cause I'm not what I was!" he retorted.
" Ill-usage ages a man."
It was best not to question old Lorry's conclu-
sions traps set for the unwary to fall into.
"You and David are coming it pretty thick
together," he added, to show where rested the
charge. " Oh yes, I've seen it all going on. I
ha'n't got a leg to stand on now, have I ? "
" I thought you were better," said his niece.
" Further on is better, I suppose, when it's an
A SURRENDER 205
old road past mending. There's David only wait-
ing till I've got my back turned to undo everything.
Ah, I know what he'll be after then ! He's friends
with that young scamp of yours, and I know what
that means. Now, Zabby, if ever he goes to give
away what isn't his to give, mind ye, don't let him !
You say you want it it's the right place for ye, if
you only could see it. There ain't another woman
like you in all the county ; no, not even her lady-
ship, for all her smirking. You keep your place,
you do ! Lorry's Farm's the oldest house in the
parish ; we were old before ever they came into it.
What am I talking of ? Why, the pew, of course.
Squire's wanted to turn me out for years. Well,
I'm going to be buried in it, and he can sit on me
then if he likes. We've a vault there, though it
ha'n't been opened for generations, and that's where
I'll go. Whatever he may do to David, he shan't
turn out me ! "
For the rest of that drive Lorry harped on the
subject of his entombment. In this low-church
Protestant yeoman the pagan spirit of St. Praexed's
bishop found a strange echo. He worked with an
object; playing on her pity, he extracted from
Sabrina a promise that she would help him to
church and stand by him on the following Sunday.
" It'll be the last time ye'll ever see me there,
Zabby," said he ; and though she knew how ran-
corous and false was his heart, she could not
refuse to go with him. She looked forward to it as
a penance.
Nor did Mrs. Warham escape her share of the
discipline. Driving to church in the pony chaise at
Brother Lorry's side, she experienced the greatest
martyrdom she ever underwent for the faith : the
old man did his best not to spare her.
Sabrina awaited her uncle's arrival in the church
porch ; he had taken care to be late. The congre-
gation, having confessed its sins, had risen to sing
when they made their entry. Old Lorry, with his
206 SABRINA WARHAM
niece in attendance, and two sticks to hobble by,
made the most of his opportunity. They advanced
at a snail's pace, to a constant turning of heads.
Halfway up the main aisle the farmer let one of
his sticks fall with a clatter. Sabrina picked it up
for him. He stood still, gave it a few admonitory
thumps and went slowly on again. " Venite " was
over and psalms were being said before they
arrived at their pew. Sabrina all this while had
been carrying her uncle's hat for him ; he took it
to pray into, exchanging it for a stick, returned it,
and received the stick back again. Evil and deceit-
ful old man ! She knew well that this was his
hour of triumph : for this purpose he had brought
her. During the Litany she heard him joining
audibly in prayer with the minister ; and never
before had the English Liturgy sounded so hateful
in her ears.
Nor was her uncle Sabrina's only distraction
from a right spirit of worship ; if, on the one hand,
she was prayed at, on the other she was being
prayed to. Ronald, occupant with the Squire of
the Castle pew, hung across the book-rest with
pleading eyes, beseeching forgiveness of his sins.
The seats were so arranged that she could not turn
her back on him ; only by shutting her eyes could
she avoid seeing him. Readers curious to know
the exact petitions made to do double duty on that
occasion, may consult the book wherein they have
their proper weight and meaning. The Squire,
unaccustomed to hear the responses thus fervently
delivered by any member of his family, however
miserable or sinful, looked round on his grandson
uneasily from time to time, in nervous dread lest a
sudden conversion were about to take place in public
and cause scandal.
Ronald had never enjoyed going to church so
much. A feeling of goodness and exaltation came
over him when he discovered that the well-spring
of pure emotion lay in saying your prayers where
A SURRENDER 207
the beloved one could hear them. When seated,
he could see only the top of Sabrina's hat ; yet that
alone was enough to make the vicar's sermon
edifying. He wanted to cry " Hear, hear," so that
the beloved might know how he also was listening ;
and he felt ready, if she really wished it, there and
then to become a clergyman.
These searchings of a young heart are set down
that the reader may know how much uncalculated
good Sabrina did by going to church that day with
her uncle. Love is a great power for good in the
world, masters, when it takes us young enough!
Farmer Lorry, at any rate, received that spiritual
sustenance which his soul craved. Sitting in sight
of the congregation, in the seat of honour that had
been his father's before him, he faced his enemy
from the old vantage-ground for the last time.
The stare of non-recognition with which men meet
to worship a common Maker can be used effectively,
if we know how; but the eye of a stiff-backed
aristocrat takes a lot of catching, and to have our
own right facial expression all ready and waiting
makes the exercise exhausting. By the time Farmer
Lorry had seen the service through and reached
home again, he was a worn-out man. Indomitable
courage made him slow to own it. Having made
his piety a rod to the backs of others, he fell to
dinner with a more zealous appetite than his weak
condition warranted, and collapsed for the rest of
the day into comatose slumber.
Sabrina also felt a sense of reaction after the
trying experiences of the morning ; and, as soon as
the midday meal was over, she went out to seek a
restorative in solitude. She had not gone far when
Valentine Reddie overtook her.
" I saw you in church this morning," he said,
as a sort of explanation of their meeting. She
was glad she had not seen him.
" Do you go often ? " she asked him.
" ' I'm afraid not ' is, I suppose, the correct
208 SABRINA WARHAM
answer," he replied. " No, I go seldom. And
you?"
" I went to-day to please my uncle."
" Ah ! I went experimentally."
" Successfully, then, I hope."
" Yes ; for I saw you there."
Sabrina was silent.
" I am going away," he went on, " so I wished
to say good-bye. May I walk with you a little
way ? "
She consented, and they strolled on together in
an upward direction. To the left a blue horizon
of water, seen through the cleavage of the downs
over Amesbay, mounted beside them ; land-view
gave way more and more to sea-scape.
" I have something," said Valentine, " that I wish
to tell you. It may not interest you, and yet, again,
it may ; in any case, after what has passed between
us, you have a right to know."
" Anything that concerns you for good, interests
me," she replied.
" Well, it is not exactly for good, unless you
take that view of it. Since I last saw you I find
that I am more wholly dependent on my own
exertions than I knew. I had, until the other day,
a small settled addition to my professional income.
A claim has now come which I have to meet, and
which leaves me a poorer man than I was when we
last talked. The work on which I am engaged
does not bring me in a large income ; and now the
chance has come for me to join a scientific expedi-
tion to South Africa. It has its hazards those of
course are part of the reckoning, and are paid for :
the work may take me away for two years, and I
must decide within the next fortnight."
"Yes?" said Sabrina, understanding well enough
how this concerned her.
" To-morrow I go to London to see the author-
ities, and learn all particulars if I decide to go."
" Yes," said Sabrina, again.
i
A SURRENDER 209
" Well," he said, " if I do, I leave no one behind
to regret me. Even if I go, not to return, I have no
one to put on the conventional mourning for me ;
I am just a name cast loose into the raffle of
life."
" You have no relatives ? "
" I know of none. I wanted to tell you this too :
I do not bear my father's name do not even know
who he was. My mother you understand what
wrong was done to her happened before my day.
I know little about it."
Sabrina turned away from him the trouble of
er face. How often, in some form or another, was
he to meet this apparition of wrong which was at
e root of her fear; the war of sex against sex
smoothed over by staid conventions of society,
and all the time so near the surface ? In every life
she came on traces of it; and now on this man
also, whose friendship was pleasant to her, but
whom as a lover she feared to trust on him also
lay the mark of wrong ; he, too, was a sufferer
from the misdoing of others. It did not, as those
who have read her character may guess, count
against him in Sabrina's heart.
They reached the head of the down ; earth
and sky lay open before them. She turned and
looked at him with a glance of compunction and
solicitude.
" Why did you tell me this ? " she asked.
" I wished you to know everything."
" To know ! Ah yes ; to know is one thing. If
one could only understand ! "
"Understand what?"
"More, oh, far more! Life, myself, things in
general where right lies; and the key to it all! "
" Surely right," said Valentine, with a cheery
philosophy characteristic of him, " is in the way we
take things. Life is diversified enough in all con-
science ; there has been some folly in mine, as there
is bound to be in every man's who tries to live ; and
210 SABRINA WARHAM
yet in a way I feel that I have gained wisdom as
the result. There is one thing I know for certain,
and it is a good one for setting the mind free from
cobwebs."
" What is that ? "
" That one pays for everything one takes out of
life ; and what one pays is the right payment, no
more and no less. I don't say it as a moral, but
for an actual fact. We need not trouble ourselves
to right the balance for saint and sinner ; it's be-
yond us, and done without our help. Reward and
punishment are being measured out now to each
one of us for what we or our fathers have done.
When lovers meet and part, when the love of
husbands and wives grows cold, when the wise die
and when fools live on retribution is there, though
we may not know it."
" Somehow that seems terrible, that we should
be the victims of causes of which we know
nothing."
" Is it not just ? We sin, as you call it, also
without knowing."
" No, that can never be ! "
" Conventional theology says no ; life tells a
different tale. We love also without knowing it;
we wake up and find devil or angel already in pos-
session of us ; and when we do we are already past
escape."
" Ah, I wish " cried the girl, but she let the
thought rest unuttered.
" Yes ; what is your wish ? "
" That before trying to possess others we tried
to possess ourselves. Without that, love seems to
be more a weakness than anything."
" Perhaps it is a weakness, till it is made strong.
' Out of the eater comes forth meat,' says the
Scripture." Valentine laughed a little scoffingly over
the words.
" It seems a fearful hazard ! " she objected faintly,
anticipating what she now knew to be near.
A SURRENDER 211
" No," Valentine insisted, " there is no real
hazard in all the world. Nothing you or I can
do will alter what waits for us. We can deal with
the present as it finds us ; Fate does the rest. I
can only think of one thing now ; my brain is
full of it. If strength is your ideal, do you think
either of us will be stronger, when at your bidding
we have drifted apart ? Does life here offer you
so much, that you will risk being a coward for the
sake of it ? You see I don't flatter you as some
lovers would."
" No, never do that ! " she said. %
"And yet," he replied, "and yet I have merely
speak the truth." His eyes fell on her with the
ppeal of devouring passion. " Ah ! how beautiful
ou are ! "
She was silent. He said again, " How beautiful
you are, Sabra ! "
" If you really think so, I suppose I ought to be
glad."
" On my soul I do ! Yet, why should you be
glad?"
"That I have anything about me that can give
pleasure."
" And pain ! " he urged ; to her further silence
repeating, " And pain, Sabra ! "
"Then I am sorry."
" Again, why ? "
Her brow grew ruffled. " Because it is so dis-
proportionate," she objected. "Why trouble so
much over a thing that one holds on a ten, perhaps
only on a five, years' lease ? What can that by
itself be worth ? "
" For that," said Reddie, hot with conviction,
"to have you mine for five years only, for one, I
would give my whole life ! "
" It is so easy to offer a thing whose value is
unknown to you, for another thing whose value is
also unknown," replied Sabrina, rather bitterly.
"You mean merely that you would give to-day and
212 SABRINA WARHAM
to-morrow, and the day after, and risk the rest.
That is what a man means when he says his
* life.' '
" I would give my soul ! " cried Valentine.
" You have no right to give that."
" Yes ; for with you it would be safe ! " He
sighed stormily. " With j^<?z/, Sabra."
" Ah, how am I to believe you at all ? " she
answered, with doubt in her tone. " Did you not
begin by deceiving me ? "
" Deceiving you ? How ? " inquired Valentine, a
little startled.
She was recalling their first encounter on the
very down where they were now standing.
"When we first met," she said, "you asked me
the way. Was not that deception ? "
" If to conceal one's thoughts be deception yes.
For I did not, at that first meeting, say what I
thought what indeed I knew that I had at last
met my fate."
" No, but you wished me to think you were a
stranger to the place, and so you asked me the way ;
yet I had seen you cross the barrow almost every
day for a fortnight before that."
" You had ? " Reddie smiled at her in triumph.
"Then if I am to be so honest, be honest yourself.
You did not then tell me that you had seen me here
before, that you knew we were likely to meet, that
you had wondered who it was that came by this
path every night and all weathers. Yet that was
the full truth."
" I told no falsehood."
" Nor I ; I merely asked a question."
" Hardly a necessary one."
" Most necessary in order that I might exchange
words with you. If I had stopped you, and said,
'You are the woman I am destined to love,' it
would have been true; but would you have stayed
to hear more ? "
Sabrina meditated. " I don't fancy I should have
;
A SURRENDER 213
run away," she said at last, smiling at the scene his
words suggested.
" Yes, you would like a rabbit ! You are
ignorant of yourself, and the strength of the con-
ventions that hound you down, if you think other-
wise."
Sabrina wondered if this indeed were true; why
h'ould open speech put any one to flight ?
I am very ignorant of myself," she con-
essed, " of most things. I have found that
out"
"That is the way women are brought up," said
eddie.
She did not answer ; her eyes said, " Now you
m to be talking sense."
Reddie pursued his advantage. " You see, Sabra
I must call you ' Sabra ' ; it is by that name that I
think of you night and day the most honest man
in the world is still bound by the manners of the
age he lives in. The very fact that we wear clothes,
that we are man and woman, is the beginning of
hindrance to free speech. No woman hears a man
speak naturally of things until she is married.
You you are putting me to the rack and torture
now you beautiful cold statue! Do you know
what a man is ? Do you think you know any-
thing ? "
" I know a little." Her thoughts were upon the
tragedy of her mother's married life.
" There is the danger ! " exclaimed Valentine.
" You live in a corner, and hug your little as if it
were the summing up of all wisdom ! What is it ?
Can you put it into words ? "
"I have told you already; I distrust men it
seems to me that when they love they deceive."
" They have to ! Where is the woman they dare
tell the truth to ? "
" Let them, at least, wait for the woman they
dare not tell a lie to ! Until then "
"Poor celibates all!" cried Valentine, and broke
"~
214 SABRINA WARHAM
off quickly to say, " I have not lied to you, Sabra.
To you I will tell the truth."
" Shall I be so much the exception, then ? " she
asked a little scornfully.
He replied, "You are the only woman I have
ever loved."
"Ever loved?" There was suspicion in her
voice as she said that.
"To other women " he paused, eyed her
sharply, and let the word go. " To others I have
lied."
" I can believe it so well," said Sabrina, and said
it with no scorn or bitterness of tone, only with an
infinite weariness, as of a tale that has been already
told. " You wish me to believe you, I suppose ? "
" I wish you to know the truth," he said, and
eyed her as a gambler the losing hazard of the
game.
"Go on," she answered, "you are teaching me
more than I know."
"Oh, Sabra!" cried her lover, "don't turn your
eyes away from me. Look ! judge me with your
eyes not your thoughts only, and I will bear it.
Listen, I will talk sense and truth to you, as never
man did to the woman he hoped to win ; yes, though
you may scorn and cast me off for a reward. A
man, as soon as the stuff of life is in him what
does he do ? This ; he casts round him for his mate
that is to be. You may think it isn't so ; you see
him at his work, at his play, money-making, push-
ing his way, driving his energies hard, with a
thousand and one interests and most of you women
jealous of them all. But underneath it all he is
straining a poor, fiery driven drudge of an animal
for the one thing needful to body and soul his
mate, I tell you, his mate ! "
" Am I to say, ' Poor beast ! ' now ? " asked
Sabrina.
" Yes, say that say anything ! You, oh, you
good women, you stand on your pedestals and
A SURRENDER 215
mock ! What do you know ? With you it is
different; you grow up, you come to womanhood;
does what ' being' means trouble you at all? Have
you ever given it a thought ? Are your souls tied
to the ' poor beast ' within you, as a man's is tied ?
Is it to you in your cold independence and your
tantalizing use of the beauty Heaven bestows on
you is it to you we can tell the truth all at once ?
You judge us with foreign hearts : it is simple
necessity that drives us to speak to you in a strange
tongue."
"Is it in that strange tongue you are speaking
to me now ? " she inquired, wondering to hear him,
loubting the sense of his words.
" Yes, it is ! Try how I will, I cannot tell you
e full truth unless, Sabra, unless you will stoop
lown from your height and take me in your arms."
His voice thrilled; surrendering all attempt at
self-justification then, he lay at her feet, looking up
into her face.
She made no movement towards him, but sat look-
ing out over the bare head of down to the distant
sails of a blue and motionless sea. Valentine bowed
his face to the turf.
"Oh, Sabra, Sabra, Sabra!" he cried in thick
utterance ; and spoke no more.
Divinely, compassionately, her hand sought and
touched his. Out of a creed not her own, her heart
found words to express its weakness the weakness
to which nearly every woman so taxed must finally
succumb.
" Mother Mary, pity women ! " she said ; and did
not know how great her own need was then.
The silence endured till gently she drew her
hand back from his. He woke at separation from
her touch.
" Sabra ? " he said.
She was silent.
" Sabra ? " he cried again.
Still silence hung over him.
216 SABRINA WARHAM
" I do go away to-morrow," he said.
Once more she reached out her hand to him ; but
the compassion of her words was now as much for
her lover as for herself.
" Don't go! " she murmured, in a tone of resigna-
tion, almost of regret ; " not if you care to stay."
Thus she was won.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE DAY AFTER
MRS. WARHAM gave thanks to Providence in tears
when she learned the news. It brought relief to
her mind in more ways than one; added to the
comfort of knowing that her daughter's future was
now provided for, she had no longer to fear for her
either a romantic entanglement or a misalliance.
The last was what she had most feared, in view of
Sabrina's breach of the domestic barrier which she
herself had so carefully raised; and in her long
clinging embrace the daughter was taught to read
gratitude for favour bestowed, receiving thanks
rather than felicitation over the step she had taken.
Mrs. Warham was anxious to have ocular proof
that the thing she had longed for had really come
about, insisting that Valentine should, for a few days
at least, leave his work, and come into the neigh-
bourhood. She wished, in fact, to publish it, de-
priving Sabrina of the hope that her engagement
might for a few days at least remain her own con-
cern. She was thus brought face to face with a
duty she could no longer postpone, that of antici-
pating, in the quarter where it would strike deepest,
the news of her coming marriage. To that heart
of silent loyalty she could not hope to lessen the
pain ; neither could she imply by any word her
knowledge of the unspoken truth ; yet she could not
allow the news to reach him in such a way as to
suggest carelessness or indifference on her part.
With her mind set to the task, she went out in
,
218 SABRINA WARHAM
search of her cousin at an hour of the afternoon
when he was usually to be found at the stables.
This was on the Monday. Passing to the back
premises she did not notice that the dog Ron was
following her. To cross the garden she turned in
through a high iron gate, shutting it behind her,
a precaution necessary to keep out poultry. There
she saw, seated in a chair upon the grass plot, her
uncle, apparently dozing. Anxious not to waken
him, she stept lightly across the turf; as she
passed, she noticed that his eyes were open, his
jaw a little dropped; a small green grub was crawl-
ing across his face. In a flash came the horrible
conviction that the figure before her sat unable
to move, helpless to lift a hand ; the eyes alone
told her that he was alive. She called aloud for
help, and ran to his side, crying
" Oh, uncle, what is the matter ! "
The gate rattled sharply behind her; then an
appalling cry smote upon her ears ; the air grew
full of it; echoing walls beat back the sound.
" Ron, Ron ! " she cried, and turning about, saw
him caught fast, impaled on spikes of iron. He
had leapt at her cry, and now hung struggling,
desperate still, to get to her. There was a shout,
and the sound of some one running swiftly up the
yard, Sabrina sprang to the rescue, and took upon
her breast one-half of that load of anguish. Hands
from the other side were helping her; over the
bloodied and writhing body of her favourite she
saw David's face.
" Go to your father ! " she cried, receiving the
whole burden ; " leave this to me ! Oh, my poor
Ron ! " She knelt clasping him, for he struggled to
escape folded her skirts over him like a shroud,
endeavouring to staunch the blood. David quitted
her side ; she saw Mrs. Willings run by, followed
by two maids. " Fetch water ! " she said to one
of these, crying, " Go ; don't stare ! " when the white-
faced girl delayed, turning her head from side to
THE DAY AFTER 219
side over the double horror of the scene. In another
moment she saw old Lorry borne by in his son's
arms. At the dog, and Sabrina, and the bright
blood-stains the eyes stared from a face fixed and
stark ; just in the same way they stared at the gay
patches of colour in the flower-beds bordering the
lawn.
Long afterwards she remembered that face of
staring indifference as it looked at her across
David's shoulder while borne away to the bed from
which it was never to rise. Even in that moment
of her own grief the piteousness of the thing knocked
at her heart, saying something then that she had
not heard said so plainly before. Strange that it
should have happened to-day ! She saw David
carry his burden indoors, and turned again to the
poor maimed life struggling and crying in her
arms.
The maid came, bringing a bucket and cloths : let
it go with a clatter, and fell back faint against the
wall.
" Oh, miss, you are bleeding ! " she gasped.
" No," said Sabrina, and did not know it. She
bade her wring out a cloth, and began bandaging.
" Send me a man ! " she said presently, finding the
girl helpless. " Quick, you can at least run ! "
The maid sped on her errand. A moment later
David ran up the yard; she heard a clattering of
hoofs from the stables, and saw him ride off. Not
a word had passed between them ; but in little more
than an hour doctor and veterinary arrived together.
Ron was carried to a bed of rugs made up for him
in the painted parlour ; it was possible that he might
recover. The report from upstairs gave no such
hope for the old man ; he might linger on a few
months, or a year two years was an outside limit
after a while he might regain his speech, not the
use of his limbs. Catching sight of Sabrina's face,
the doctor ordered her to bed ; she obeyed to the
extent of lying down dressed, Betty came and
220 SABRINA WARHAM
removed some of her garments as she lay, for once
not scolding her; she scolded the dog, till her
mistress imposed silence.
Left to herself at last Sabrina lay pretending
that she would sleep ; but close her eyes, divert
her thoughts as she would, she saw always the old
man's face blank and meaningless looking at her
over his son's shoulder; and David carrying him
lightly and tenderly, as though he were a little
child ; and when at last reaction came after the long
strain, and she wept miserably, turning her face to
the pillow to deaden the sound of her cries it was
not for Ron, not for her uncle, nor for her cousin
that the tears fell. She wept as one without pride ;
and yet it was to pride that, as she looked forward,
she clung now; it was pride under the disguise of
virtue that made her refuse to look back.
At a late hour, gazing out into the night, she
saw, upon the grass plot below, a square of light
coming from a window on the ground floor. She
knew which it must be ; all the rest of the house
lay in darkness, save that the room, where her
uncle lay, showed a faint glimmer of consciousness
like that of the sick man himself. If there was
watching to be done, she felt that she ought to
share it. With Ron, at all events, she was in-
dividually concerned, her own act having caused
his injury. She descended the stairs, and, making
her way to the parlour, found her cousin sitting
bent under the lamplight alone ; across his feet
lay the wounded deer-hound, stiff, and bandaged
like a mummy. Laying a hand on his arm
" Why don't you go to bed, David ? " she inquired.
Till then, he had been unaware of her presence.
A book fell-to under his hand ; he started, and rose
with a flushed look, as though roused from slumber
or deep reverie.
" I'm on duty to-night," he said.
"But why should you be? I can look after
Ron/'
THE DAY AFTER 221
" Up there, I mean," he answered.
The upward jerk of the head indicated a double
attendance.
" Then go up at once," said Sabrina ; " I will
stay down here."
" There's no need," he answered. " I've just
been ; it's only to go in and look at him from time
to time ; he's asleep now."
" And when will you sleep ? "
" I'm to call up Mrs. Willings at a quarter to
three."
"Will you promise to go to bed then ? "
"Ay, if I'm tired I will. Don't you trouble
about me, Sabra."
" But I must : at least, while I am here," she
said, approaching what was upon her mind. Glanc-
ing round this room of quiet recollections, her eye fell
on books still lying on the mantel-shelf. " Why,
David," she said, " what a long time it is since we
last met here ; summer weather seems to have put
a stop to all our readings."
" Yes," he answered, " I suppose it's that ; there's
less time for biding quiet nowadays. So happens
I was reading a bit before you came in."
" Do you go on reading, then ? " she asked, with
a sort of compunction, for it was rather as a result
of her own private judgment than of his increasing
occupation that their readings had terminated. It
was at least three months now since they had last
met for the purpose.
"Yes," he replied; "I do generally read now
when I've the chance."
She took up the closed volume that lay at his
elbow, saying
" How far have you got now ? "
It fell open between her hands as she spoke ; a
small blue ribbon marked the page. Recognizing it,
her eyes grew dim.
"Yes ; that's where I am," said David.
" Let us read a little now ! " she said, and passed
222 SABRINA WARHAM
him the book. " Show me up to where you have
read."
He returned it, pointing to the passage ; the
ribbon was then out of sight.
Sabrina sat down, and, lifting the book to her
face, began reading; before she had finished a
sentence, she laid it down again : it was best to
get the thing over at once. A faint moan from Ron,
recognizing her voice, and inviting sympathy, gave
her an excuse to bend down, and avoid her cousin's
eyes while speaking.
" David, do you know that I am going away
soon ? "
" I didn't know," he answered ; " but I didn't
expect otherwise."
" You expected me to go ? "
"I never thought of your staying it seemed too
unlikely. Why, it has been almost a year already,
though it hardly seems so long."
" No ; time has run on so quietly. Now my life
is going to be quite different formed altogether
on a new plan. I am going to change my name."
She shrank from putting the news in more direct
form, and now, faint at heart, sat waiting, wondering
what he might have to say to her.
" That's a big change, to be sure," he remarked,
in an even contemplative tone, as though some
weighty calculation occupied his mind. " So it's
settled, is it ? "
"That I am going to marry Mr. Reddie," she
said in a low voice " yes."
There was a dead pause.
" Does the news surprise you very much,
David ? " she inquired timidly, when the silence
grew difficult to bear.
"Oh no," he said, "not so much. There's
nothing to surprise one, when one thinks about it.
No ; it seems quite natural now you've told it."
These seemed cold words ; she waited to bear
more.
THE DAY AFTER
223
I
" I wished to tell you of it myself, David," she
said, when waiting proved vain, " because I value
your friendship and your good opinion so much.
There is no one here I owe so much to as I do
to you. Will you not say you wish me joy ? "
" Ay," said her cousin, " I do that, you know
I do."
" And what may I wish you, David, in return ?
Here is trouble and sickness in the house, and I
shall be leaving you with all that extra care and
responsibility. It seems unfair that I can claim
none of it, when you, by your thought and kindness,
have done so much for me. When I first came here
it seemed like a prison : and now I have begun to
love the place ; yes, I believe I shall be sorry to
go. You have helped to make it home. Can I say
a better word for it than that I, who in all my
childhood, never had one?"
"Well, I hope you'll always make it home,"
replied David, heartily. " Here it is, whenever you
wish ; there's more room in it than we are ever
likely to want. When do you say the marriage is
to be ? "
"We have hardly settled that yet; these are
early days. Mr. Reddie Valentine wishes it to
be soon 'before the heather is over,' he says, and
then he plans taking me abroad with him."
" Oh ay ; that'll suit you fine ! " said David,
remembering the wish she had once expressed.
"Yes," said Sabrina, "it is indeed something to
look forward to."
Yet her anticipation was not so glad as it should
have been ; she could no longer view the future
without some feeling of regret for the past For
almost a year she had been in this place, and had
found by degrees that it had interest, physiognomy,
and life. Looking at it first with dull or discon-
tented eyes, she had come gradually to feel its
power, even its danger ; it had oppressed her with
a growing sense of bondage. Now at Ia3t when
224 SABRINA WARHAM
the die was cast and the danger removed, she saw
it in a truer light: the light of a tender regret.
Yet the place remained what it always had been,
what, thanks to its remoteness from the world, it
might always hope to remain. It was she herself
who had changed; how changed, she had not
realized until these last few days, until, that is to
say, she had decided to cast her lot in another
sphere.
" You will always live here, David ? "
"Ah, I suppose."
" Even if you had your choice, you would never
think of going elsewhere now, of doing anything
different?"
" It's too unlikely to think about," he answered.
" Well," she said, " I hope you will not, and I
did not always think that. You and the place seem
to belong to each other now; when I think of it,
it will always be with you here, indoors and out,
having an eye to everything, directing all that goes
on. I have come to think that the simplest solu-
tions of life are the best, and to envy those who can
order their own lives accordingly ; they want for
little. The people who are really in want are those
for whom the world is too small, people who are
restless and discontented, as I have been. You,
David, are the most contented man I know, and so
I have come to think of you as the wisest."
Her cousin stared at her with a quiet, speculative
gaze.
"Ay," he answered, "I suppose I've as much
cause as most men to be contented, in reason. Will
you mind," he added, "biding alone here for a bit,
while I go up and see if my father wants for any-
thing ; that is, supposing you meant staying for any
time. I'm sorry to go, and seem so rude."
He left the room, and Sabrina sat intending to
await his return ; but in the solitude of her own
thoughts grief rose unbidden. Before she knew,
her eyes were overflowing with tears, and her
THE DAY AFTER
225
breast was heaving in the effort to control an
emotion which she could not explain. She told
herself that she was overwrought by the events of
the day, and therefore not behaving sensibly ; and
the more she assumed this to be the reason, the
less it helped her to become calm.
At the sound of his returning step in the small
lobby, unable to let her face be seen, she escaped
by the other door ; standing in the passage without,
she bade him good night, and heard in his quiet
answer no note of disappointment or surprise at
her sudden desertion of his company. She passed
upstairs to her own room, but did not sleep till the
twitter of birds in the early dawn told that the long
night-watch she had been sharing was over.
I
CHAPTER XXIV
CREATURE COMFORTS
RONALD LUTWORTH was missing. Leaving behind
him scattered traces of a state of mind unanswer-
able for its actions, he had taken, to all appearances,
a despairing dive out of existence. Farewell tips
to the servants, mementoes to friends, all ticketed
with their names, and a bed that had not been slept
in, these were a few of the tokens he had left
behind as evidence of the irrevocable nature of his
flitting. Short of finding a suit of clothes lying
derelict on the shore, his family had sufficient
material given them for imagining that the dis-
appearance was final. Lady Berrers, however,
knew her nephew better than he knew himself;
and the letter which brought word of his disap-
pearance contained a far greater shock for her.
Sabrina had been made the recipient of his farewell
message to civilization, to love, to life, to human
intercourse, to religion, to the virtues, to every-
thing apparently but tobacco ; from the amount of
the fragrant weed which he had carried away with
him, scrupulously selecting the better blends, it was
evident that smoke was the chosen medium of his
dissolution. Informed of these resolves, Sabrina
transmitted to the Squire as much actual news of
him as she could disentangle from the nonsense of
his griefs. To Lady Berrers, absent in Town, she
wrote more openly, her letter serving a double
purpose.
226
CREATURE COMFORTS 22;
"Ronald has heard," she sent word, "that I
am engaged to be married I hardly know whether
this ought to come first or second and has
gone into hiding in order to establish a crisis.
I hope you will not feel anxious. I reason with
myself trying not to be, and do at times succeed,
though he declares we may expect to hear of
him again 'when the sea gives up its dead,' and
suggests no earlier date for his reappearance. The
note came in through my window tied on to a
bunch of passion-flowers, and it was a beautiful
morning, which all helps me to feel about it as
I think you will; but the page was much blotted,
and I fear the poor boy was really unhappy while
he wrote it. It makes me miserable, in spite of
myself, though not deeply anxious or alarmed. In
telling you this I have told you my other news,
what you have long been wishing and asking for;
I am to be married to Valentine Reddie before the
summer is over. My mother is glad, as I know
you will be; but I want to hear that you forgive
me as regards Ronald ; and then I shall feel free to
write about my own concerns. The Squire is angry
with me, holding me responsible for the loss of his
best cigars, of which Ronald has made a clean sweep.
That is really what decides me not to be anxious ;
but until he returns to make restitution I am to be
shut off work, if I may judge from the locked doors
that greeted me this morning on my arrival. Every
day that goes will add to my offence, for of course
Ronald is smoking them somewhere, and I can get
no clue as to his whereabouts. Pray for me a little,
dear madam, not about this at all ; but that the future
may give happiness to deserving hearts to which I
may have brought pain. You will let me see you
once again, I hope, before I cease to be
"SABRINA WARHAM."
I
Thus abruptly ended a letter which Lady
Berrers dropped when halfway through its perusal,
228 SABRINA WARHAM
and resumed only with a stunned sense that things
had gone very wrong indeed.
As a cover no doubt to the real cause of lamen-
tation, she wrote reproachfully of Ronald's last
vagary.
" No, I am not anxious in the least, but angry
more angry, my dear, than I like to say. You have
been proud and stupid and blind wilfully blind ;
I discover that you are incorrigible, and have
moments of wishing that I did not think you
lovable. Yes ; I pray that you may be happy, and
for all deserving hearts; and I think the prayer
will be needed. Please find Ronald for me ! Mean-
while I am sending the Squire a present of cigars,
having far more consideration for your interests
than you deserve."
Sabrina read in this missive the anxiety which
the lady denied. In her wish to restore the youth
to his home she went to David for advice; did he
know where Ronald might be found?
David's gaze turned sea-wards ; he admitted that
he had a notion.
" Are you under any promise not to tell ? "
" No, I've not seen him at all to speak to."
" But you did see him ? "
" No, I didn't ; but the small canvas boat has
gone and hasn't come back : if he took it, I reckon I
know where to lay hands on him."
" Could you take me ? "
" Yes, if you wish ; not just now, though. We
could do it to-morrow morning on the tide. Can
you be out early ? "
" Any hour you like to name."
" I mean five o'clock in the morning."
"Then I mean it too," she answered. " Where
is he?"
" Maybe I'm wrong," said David. " My notion is
he's out yonder."
He pointed over the sea towards a dark speck
now scarcely visible, at night a known beacon,
CREATURE COMFORTS 229
marking for mariners a dangerous shoal six miles
off shore, where the spool's current ran fiercest.
" You really think he is there, then ? "
David nodded. Sabrina began smiling to her
thoughts.
" When we go," she said, " we must take plenty
of food with us. He's a dear foolish boy, but never
was any one more human. That is why he has to
run away ; it helps him to remain absurd more
comfortably. When I am gone you will look after
him for me, won't you, David; and make him be
sensible ? He couldn't have a better object-lesson
than you."
David looked at her, and slowly the colour
mounted to her face. He had acquired, she knew
not how, the power of making her blush.
" I'll see he doesn't disgrace himself," said
David, speaking in a queer tone, half to himself.
They were out together the next morning at the
appointed hour, and caught the sun low down
upon the sea. David made his companion eat
biscuits before starting.
" You think yourself a good sailor," said he ;
" you'll find you are mistaken if you come off shore
this time of day without eating."
Standing out from the land they fell in with
keen sea-breeze ; Sabrina steered while David
indled the sail.
" You will find it a bit sharp ; I ought to have
>rought you some wraps," he said, and gave her a
coat to put over her shoulders. At first she refused
it, but was glad of it as they drew more out into
the open bay.
The sea was lively, soft and glittering to the
eye ; in movement and colour and sound it conveyed
the impression of youth, of high health, of jollity.
The waves capered ahead of them, romped back,
slapped hard on the gunwale of the boat, ducked,
and swung away ; came roguish and contrary, and
fell off- chuckling and bobbing by the stern. A
I
230 SABRINA WARHAM
million needles of fire danced on the eastern wave;
sea-birds circled and hovered, swinging alternately
to shadow and sun for a morning bath in the light.
One or two of them dropped in the boat's wake to
swing with the tide ; and as she watched them
Sabrina became aware at what speed wind and sea
were carrying her on. Far astern the shore began
to unfold like the opening fingers of a hand, reach
after reach of cliff, inlet, and point and jagged
archway of storm-hollowed rock, a changing flat-
tening perspective, drawing slowly away from
the eye, giving full face in exchange for profile.
Gradually colour took the place of form, a long
undulating line of grey cliff, broken here and there
by green hollows, reared a cold obstruction be-
tween the eye and the familiar inlands. To Sabrina
it was as though she saw for the first time some
stretch of foreign coast; and yet she had often
stood above those naked rocks and gazed sea-wards,
knowing nothing of their warder-faces, their scars,
their huge dismemberments. The small sand-
martins that lodged in the cliffs, the rabbits that
ran on their higher terraces, knew more of them
than she did; and the sense that she had been
living all this time behind a closed door struck her
again with fresh force. Her eyes ranged east and
west over the long line of sea-wall.
" This is England ! " she murmured in reverie,
and wondered was it thus that foreigners learned
of her, feeling rebuffed by the high arrogance oi
her sea-ward visage, having never known the
soft melting mood of her green fields, the im-
memorial peace of her homesteads, and the slow
cow-like placidity of the British race when it turns to
the tilling of its own fields. She was beginning to
feel that this peace-loving disposition was the
fundamental quality in the building-up of England's
empire; that at the root of all her adventurous and
fighting blood was this quiet faculty for shaping a
field out of rough ground, for finding pasture in
CREATURE COMFORTS 231
the wilderness, and wherever field and pasture
there a home, and rest for her migrant breed.
Sabrina's eye turned with her thoughts to David,
sitting there so near her. Yes, he was, as he had
once said, " English enough " for all the touch of
foreign that lay in his origin. Blood, like bread, is
one of England's free imports, and she absorbs it
to make Englishmen. Here was one of them, and
he too, like the land of his birth, had a sea-face to
show. At the taste of the brine his pastoral look
went, and that touch of the bird of prey, which
Sabrina had noted in him, grew strong. She
endeavoured to trace it out, and found it less in
the face than in the glance ; it was keenness, not
predatory instinct, the hawk's eye, not his talon
or his beak, which gave the look she admired;
she saw in it a high aloofness, an unconcern in
things near; horizons seemed rather to be its
aim.
Prompted by the thought, "Can you see far,
David ? " she inquired.
" About as far as most," he said.
" Then you can see the light-ship ? "
" And some one on it," he answered. For Sabrina
it still lay invisible behind morning haze and the
toss of waters.
" Any one you can recognize ? "
"I'm not sure."
A few minutes later he faced about and said to
her, smiling
" You come under the sail and let me go aft."
Clearly his eyes had told him something.
" Oh yes, it's him right enough ! " he nodded in
answer to her interrogating glance. " They don't
wear white flannels on board light-ships as a rule, I
reckon."
Before long Sabrina could herself distinguish a
lively figure bobbing industriously to and fro on
the light-ship's deck. The great strong tub, with
its bare, stunted mast, rolled loutishly on the tide;
I
232 SABRINA WARHAM
it dipped its deck to view and swung up again
till not even a head was visible over the bul-
warks.
" If I have to go on board that I shall be ill ! "
said Sabrina, not relishing the sight of those heavy
lunges on a frisky sea.
Peeping from under the sail as they drew near,
she saw the boy's light hair tossing capless in the
breeze, saw him glance round at the coming boat,
and stoop down again to the business which occu-
pied him.
" What is he doing ? " she asked.
" Deck-swabbing," said David ; " seems cheerful
enough, doesn't he ? See, there he goes with his
bucket ! " As he spoke he put the tiller across ;
the sail swung.
" How fast we come on ! " cried Sabrina, as the
dark hull rose before them. " And the water is all
like oil ! "
" Yes, we are well in the spool now," said David.
" I must be quick out with a line ; there'll be no
getting back else." He stood up, steadying the
tiller with his knee. " Light-ship ahoy ! " he sang,
as the boat drew alongside, and flung off a long
coil of rope.
Ronald, dropping his mop, leapt, caught the end
of it in flight, and made fast.
"Smartly done," said David, with an approving
nod. In a moment the sail was down.
" Hullo, David ! " cried the youth, " what brings
you " and got no further ; his mouth fell open
at a gasp.
Sabrina met his eye with a severe gaze. " Ronald,"
she said, " I think you are very unkind ! "
He hung lantern-jawed over the light-ship's side,
and looked at her, his head a little askew, very
ridiculous and charming, with open throat, bare
arms, and damp, tousled hair.
" Why am I ? " he asked.
" You must answer that question for yourself.
CREATURE COMFORTS
233
I can't say why ; I only know the trouble you are
giving me. What are you here for ? "
" Because I want to be alone."
"Alone? What have you done with the
crew ? "
"Oh, those fellows don't matter they don't
know. I'm here because this is where wrecks
come." He tried to look like one.
Sabrina smiled incredulously. "Well, I am a
wreck too, then," she said. "I am famished."
" What ! Have you had no breakfast? "
" A mere scrap. How could I have any appetite
till I knew what had become of you ? "
" Ah ! " said Ronald, " have I made you very
unhappy ? " He expressed the pious hope with an
unutterably sad countenance.
"What you have done to me doesn't matter,"
she answered. " I can easily get over it. But you
are making your aunt anxious, and the Squire
cross cross with me, I mean," she added, seeing
how little he was concerned.
" Whatever for ? "
" He holds me responsible for the loss of his
best cigars ; so, while you come here and enjoy
yourself, I have to do penance."
" Enjoying myself ! " cried Ronald, as though
the notion were an outrage on his feelings.
you think I can find any ' enjoyment ' here ? "
indicated the walls of his prison.
" I do," said Sabrina ; " I imagine you eat, and
drink, and smoke."
One of his two ship-mates, hearing voices, had
come up on deck ; a cigar between his lips told of
good comradeship on board. Seeing a lady along-
side, he pulled a forelock, and grinned, shooting a
queer side-glance at the youth.
" You think I have no real soul," said Ronald,
not to be diverted from his theme.
" No real sense, is what I accuse you of," said
Sabrina. "Tell me, have you any hot water on
" Do
He
234 SABRINA WARHAM
board? We have brought tea with us, and I begin
to want some badly."
Ronald sprang to do service, and disappeared
down the hatch.
The man came and leaned over the ship's side,
looking communicative.
" A rum go ! " he remarked, with a jerk of the
head, indicating the absent youth. " And a real
gentleman he is, too." He drew out his cigar,
contemplating it as one who knew a good thing.
" Our ' parlour-boarder, ' my mate calls him," he
went on. " What's he been a-doin' of ? 's been
up to something, I can see that with half an eye :
soon as he's asleep he begins mewing like a tom-
cat all forlorn. Oh, I don't want to ask no ques-
tions ; he's doing very well where he is very
well."
David, the immediate recipient of these obser-
vations, was meanwhile busying himself with the
boat-tackle, hauling in under shelter of the light-
ship till they now lay close, straining on a short
leash. " Tide turns when ? " he asked the man.
Not for a good hour he was told.
Sabrina had already brought out the provisions
when Ronald reappeared with a steaming kettle.
David fetched it across on a boathook.
" Don't scald yourself ! " cried Ronald, anxiously,
seeing Sabrina, unsteady of balance, preparing to
take it in hand.
" Won't you come over and help me ? " she said,
making for once conscious use of look and voice.
In an instant Ronald was at her side. Putting
trust in his steadiness of hand, she held the teapot
under the spout for him. David climbed up on to
the light-ship, leaving the two alone. There, under
her wing, with all the adorable emanations of her
presence about him, touched now and again by the
brim of her hat, by her hand, by the hem of her
raiment, Ronald found himself all at once defence-
less ; he stood exposed, cut off from retreat, a
CREATURE COMFORTS
235
naughty boy expecting to be chid and with no
answer ready. The dreaded attack did not come;
Sabrina was too magnanimous to extend her
advantage further; she asked him if he had been
fishing, if he slept upon deck, how often the
light-ship took in fresh provisions, was it his first
experiment ? She was, in a word, altogether
matter of fact over the youth's truancy; and the
more she ignored the situation, the more ridicu-
lously ashamed of himself did the poor lad become.
His self-consciousness became at once pathetic and
comic. When the picnic meal was over, habit
prompted him to smoke ; yet though he wished to
he could not : it was out of character. Not know-
ing what to do with his hands, he grew shy, till,
to his confusion, he found himself fingering his
cigarette case, and Sabrina watching him, with her
eye on it.
" Yes, you may smoke, Ronald," she said, smiling.
" Are you waiting to ask my leave? "
There was no drawing back then : to protest
when there were actually cigars on board to con-
vict him of a retained habit was ridiculous ; and
with the lighting of that first cigarette, in the
presence of the hopelessly adored one, the heroic
pose of his life's crisis was over. Tripped by his
instincts, he realized what is in fact a true phe-
nomenon of life how much easier it is to nurse a
broken heart in vacuum in absence, that is to say,
from the cause of it than in her sweet bodily
presence. The imaginative romantic heart must
go round a corner to die; it wants no voice but
echo to answer its dying tones, no eye but soli-
tude's to watch its wan dissolution to the shades.
Irrevocable loss cannot so well be conjured up
under a benignantly smiling eye : youth's charmer
has but to treat him with a little sense, compre-
hend without probing his mind, and horrible con-
valescence seizes him. So Ronald now sat up and
revived, greatly against his will ; he could not go
236 SABRINA WARIIAM
on dying with Sabrina sitting there watching him,
for the simple reason that she could not see he was
dying ; and the actor cannot act who wins neither
the plaudits nor conviction from his audience.
Sabrina, as the time for returning drew near,
treated her visit as a picnic, fellow to his own.
"When," she asked, "may I tell the Squire that
you are coming back ? "
And he answered, as though his mind had not
been made up for him by any outside agency
" I did think of going over myself, to-day or
to-morrow."
" Why not to-day ? " she inquired. " If you can
be ready without keeping us waiting too long.
David has to get back to his work, and we are
hindering him." Haste was a help to the remedy.
The boy dived below for his belongings, and,
after a few minutes' skirmishing, returned curiously
laden. Did ever hermit retire from the world with
so jumbled an assortment of luxuries and neces-
sities ? Dumb-bells, boxing-gloves, fishing tackle,
a shaving mirror, a backgammon board, a thick
overcoat, a mackintosh, and two changes of raiment :
these the eye could count up as he came trailing
them. Provisions and perishables, except for a
remnant of the purloined cigars, he was leaving
behind as part-payment to his shipmates. They
came grinning and smug from the settling-up of
accounts, and over the ship's side bade their guest
a hearty farewell, offering him the same berth and
board should he at any future time need sea-air.
"We'll drink you and your lady's good 'ealth,
sir," was their parting cry. It was to be hoped
that the sea-bacon would know that night how to
look after itself.
Ronald was very happy temporarily ; he and
Sabrina sat aft side by side, and shared the steer-
ing. Only once during the return voyage did he
demonstrate. David's back was turned; quick at
the opportunity he dipped his head, and laid sad
CREATURE COMFORTS
237
homage upon the third finger of Sabrina's left hand.
After a patient moment, she drew her hand away.
"Ah!" he sighed wistfully, "had you only let
me keep that finger for you, I would have given it
back when you wanted it when you really wanted
it." Boyish, foolish, and fond, he had, by discern-
ment, managed to touch uncomfortably at the truth ;
the implied accusation went unanswered. Ronald's
gaze turned in the direction of his thoughts ; Sabrina's
went out to sea.
Arriving at home, she found that Valentine had
come early, and had gone in the direction of the
cliffs to look for her; she wondered how it was
that they had missed each other. Expecting him
soon to return, she kept a look-out, and saw pres-
ently, on the lower slope of down, over Amesbay,
David Lorry turning his sheep into fresh pasture.
The day had grown hot and clear, with the spar-
kling brilliance which precedes rain. While his
dog did the work, David sat on the top-rail of a
fence gazing out sea-wards. Presently she saw him
stand high on the rail, shading his eyes with his
hand : all at once he leapt down and ran for the shore.
After the master went the dog, but a moment later
came flying back to his duties, and, when the last
sheep was in, mounted guard over the gate he could
not close.
David was then out of sight; Sabrina did not
see him return.
CHAPTER XXV
A PREDICAMENT
AMESBAY shingle runs down steeply to the sea.
Three strides takes a bather beyond his depth ; yet
the water is so clear that the eye still sees the
pebbly formation of its bed, and, further out, among
the rocky ruins of cliffs fallen centuries ago, trails
of brown seaweed swaying over their own shadows.
In hot weather revealed depth offers a double re-
freshment to thirsty limbs : even the soft oozy touch
of weeds too compact for entanglement becomes a
delight.
It was nine o'clock, and the day was already
warm : in places sheltered from the wind the sun
was strong enough to cause a burning of the skin.
The pebbles of the shore had begun to throw up
heat in vapours that flickered like flame, giving to
distant objects a vague sense of motion, of departure
from their solid form.
As far as the in-shore side of the huge archway
known as " Abbot's Door," the bay was a safe one
for swimmers. Beyond this the eye could glimpse
tier behind tier of broken column-like boulders, over
which sprang now and again sharp jets of spray,
where sea-currents pent among rocky alleys smote
upon rugged walls and projecting cornices of stone.
Since he had been in the neighbourhood, Reddie
had bathed at Amesbay on several occasions on the
side furthest from Abbot's Door. The discovery
that a small stream which here flowed into the bay
chilled the water in its vicinity by nearly a degree
238
A PREDICAMENT 239
was his reason to-day for shifting ground ; he un-
dressed and took his first dive from shelter of the
rock, whose last stride sea-wards is the flying buttress
we have just described.
A twenty yards' swim gives a very different per-
spective to the object approached from that which
it presents when seen from shore ; and Valentine
had no sooner swum into the sharp shadows cast by
the great archway, than its immense bulk and breadth
of span gripped his imagination. Impelled to a further
venture for view of its sea-ward aspect, he was well
rewarded in the initial stage of his progress by the
awe-inspiring beauty of the rock as he came im-
mediately beneath it. So viewed it seemed on the
verge of utter downfall which a single strong wind or
tide would suffice to bring about. These thousand
tons of rock suspended above his head appeared as
though upheld by mere caprice, a freak contrary
to the law of gravity : the ponderous bar of matter,
rugged and monstrous, leaning slightly from the
perpendicular, divided the sky above into two bright
hemispheres ; and the whole weight of the decom-
posing structure rested on a foot which, where it
entered the sea, showed clearly the wear and tear of
the tides that were slowly undermining it. It was as
though an invisible shackle had fretted it to the
bone, and that this last support of all required but
a blow that should cause it to snap, and hurl every-
thing to ruin.
Valentine was familiar enough with the more sav-
age front of nature, where her beauty and strength
merge and become terrible ; but he had seldom felt
of so little account, so much in the grip of powers
disproportionate to his own, as when he swung on
the inwash of the tide under the dark beetling crag,
and realized in the smooth heave of its waters
what iron force and determination there lay latent.
Though a swimmer of fair average, he found, to his
surprise, that his ordinary strokes merely kept him
stationary, bringing him no nearer the goal for
Ci
240 SABRINA WARHAM
which he aimed. Thus thwarted of his object, he
took up the challenge, breasted the current man-
fully, and before long had beaten his way through.
Return would of course be easy : yet it was wonder-
ful to look back and know what an ambush of power
lurked in that narrow passage.
Reaching the open he turned about, gazing up
at the archway out of which he had emerged. " My
heavens, that was an eye-opener ! " was his half-
dazed reflection. He was a little intoxicated by his
victory, and began looking ahead for fresh adventure.
On the further side of a short space of clear water
stood a jumble of shattered uprights, all of which in
their day had formed part of the solid cliff : he swam
forward, examining the many troughs and gullets
through which the tide swirled. Wiser now, he
directed his course toward a broader opening,
fetched a compass, and so bore round again from
the sea-ward: thus, reckoning on the tide to help
him, he thought to explore the channels and make
his way through and back to the Abbot's Door.
He swam to a point where entrance seemed easy ;
borne on a soft swell he passed in between two
closely abutting rocks, and was just thinking
" Here I am, then ! " when the rush of a counter-
eddy caught hold of him and carried him backwards.
In the surprise of it he lost his head : feeling his
chest brushed by a tangle of seaweed, he seized
hold of it with slipping fingers, lighted on a jag of
submerged rock, and clung. Blind walls of rock rose
on either side : down swirled the sea in a cataract
about his ears. Waiting for the force of the retir-
ing wave to expend itself, he still thought that the
rest of the way would be easy : but a vague con-
sciousness that he had been a bit of a fool began to
take hold of him, and with it vexation that he had
allowed the unexpected to startle him out of his
composure. So far he had got when a sudden shock
hurled him forward : he felt as though his knees
had struck under his chin: a big sea took him by
A PREDICAMENT 241
the scruff and forced him down, a weight of water
swept over him. " Am I drowning ? " he thought,
struggled up desperately, and for a moment was
able to draw free breath.
Then he became aware of a numbing sensation
in one of his knees : the hand that he reached down
when he drew it back bore marks of blood. He
was now in a narrow channel with rocks about six
feet high on either side of him : some jagged, mostly
smooth ; if he could climb one of these he might
rest, and have a look round to discover a safe way
out of his predicament, but the difficulty was to
find a footing ; the current here, though it was
gradually carrying him on, knocked him this way
and that, did almost what it liked with him ; though
he might guard himself from side blows, there was
still the danger of sharp jags below to be reckoned
with. A perplexed angry wonder took hold of him,
a startled query as to what the end might be. The
thought of death now stared him in the face as just
possible, and yet really as preposterous. He had
not done with life : it was absurd ; he knew too
much of affairs, had too much in him vigour, hope,
prospects, plans, things to do, things which he had
left undone; why, there were letters, even, that he
had not answered ! Unanswerable in the midst of
these thoughts came the buffeting seas. Wishing
to know how much he bled, when a momentary
lull came in the surging of the waves, he threw
himself over and picked his knee out of water.
The sight was sufficiently ghastly; brine was its
best unguent ; he let it go under again.
A pool-like widening of the channel through
which he was making his way gave him a certain
respite, a choice of ways opened before him, which
was yet no choice ; wherever rocks pointed an exit
a swirl of waters seemed to forbid entry ; there was
no knowing which way was preferable. Just ahead,
near and yet far, lay the line of cliffs crowning
Abbot's Door ; and about them he knew much : all
R
242 SABRINA WARHAM
their formation and geological history, the names
of the plants that grew there, and the mews that
lodged in their crannies; knowledge was there
staring him in the face, and it was all profoundly
useless and ironic ; he was utterly ignorant of the
right means for saving his life ; was ever such igno-
rance as that ? It angered him ; he felt that he was
a fool a dullard. He laughed defiantly, laughed
to hear himself laugh, to show that he could laugh.
No, he was no fool, he would live ! He was too
lucky a fellow to die thus in a trap, in an almost
smooth sea to go under to that! He struggled on.
Fortune favoured him ; he came on a rock which
afforded a precarious foothold at its base if he
could only get to the top of that ! Well, even if he
could, he remembered that the tide would presently
cover it, and the tide was coming in fast. All the
same he did climb it, climbed it dragging a maimed
leg, so far as to be able just to look over it and see,
fifty yards away, Abbot's Door, and through it, like
a small framed canvas, a green patch of field under
the downs, with sheep passing in through a gate, a
man sitting on a rail, and a dog running foolishly to
and fro, barking. The sound carried faintly to his
ears, prompting hope. The question was, if he
could hear the dog bark, could the man hear him
call, would he see him? He shouted and threw
up a hand.
He did this at intervals, without apparently
attracting notice. He began to despair; as soon as
the sheep were through, the fellow would shut the
gate and go, and his last fair chance would be over.
The bulk of the flock had already passed in ; the
man made a gesture to his dog to bring in a
straggler. "You fool!" Reddie apostrophized him,
as he watched the animal bound off to fulfil the light
behest. Yes ; it was done ; the fellow's head was
turned again sea-wards. Again Valentine shouted
and flung up an arm. " Presently I shall be scream-
ing, I suppose," he thought; "and that ass will
A PREDICAMENT 243
think it's a sea-gull!" He felt a little hatred for
the man who sat there in safety, looking his way,
yet never straight at him. Once more he threw up
his hand in despair.
Ah ! had the fellow seen him at last, then ? He
seemed to be at attention ; yes, was actually sighting
him ; was getting down from that confounded perch
of his, was running, heading straight for the shore.
He disappeared in a dip. Valentine did not see him
again, he had passed out of the canvas ; but help was
now on its way, and delay became bearable.
As he waited a sickening sense of foolishness
came over him. A man who feels helpless feels
also humiliated ; he is caught looking like a fool.
Valentine, clinging to the rock, supporting himself
mainly on one leg, within near view of the shore,
cut off by so small a barrier and yet actually help-
less and dependent for his life on another's efforts,
became infinitely more alive to the shame of his
predicament than to its more serious aspect. He
felt like a man in the pillory, a poor vagabond in
the stocks ; there he had to stand in a ridiculous,
constrained attitude, waiting to be helped down, for
he doubted now whether with his damaged knee he
could get off unaided.
A couple of minutes passed; then, under the
Abbot's Door, a dark blot appeared upon the water,
the head of a man swimming towards him. He
swam well, mastering the passage without difficulty ;
and now with a racer's strokes was crossing the
narrow belt of clear water which divided the strewn
rocks from the shore.
Valentine again held up his hand in signal.
" Mr. Reddie, is that you ? " called a voice.
"Yes," he answered, and knew then who was his
rescuer.
The knowledge did not please him, though it as-
sured him of delivery. He had not long held the
position of favoured lover, and while dubious as
to his chances, his eye had been jealously sharp.
to nis
244 SABRINA WARHAM
Sabrina's warm regard for her cousin had not es-
caped his notice ; and for any but physical reasons
he was the last man to whom Valentine would have
chosen to be indebted for service.
In a short time David had reached the rock upon
which Reddie was standing.
"Are you all right ?" he called.
" I've knocked my knee," said Reddie.
" Can't you get down ? "
"I'm not sure; it feels pretty beastly just
now."
David caught hold of the ledge of rock which was
the other's foothold.
" Let yourself down on my shoulder," he said ;
" never mind how ! Then I can tow you out."
" If you can you are a pretty good swimmer,"
said Reddie. " I don't want to drown you too. What
an unholy place this is to get into ! "
"Ay; it's awkward for those who don't know
it."
Valentine took the remark as an accusation of
folly, and made no reply. Without much trouble
David got him down.
" Lay yourself out straight," said he ; " you
mustn't mind if you get knocked a bit; the flow
comes up these narrows uncommon strong when
once it begins."
" So I've found," replied the other.
No more words were exchanged till the difficulties
of the passage were over.
" I'll swim myself, now," said Reddie, when they
found themselves again in clear water : " if I can,
that is ; just leave me to try."
Unable to use his crippled knee, his progress was
slow and painful ; David now and then gave him a
helping hand.
Passing under the Abbot's archway, Valentine
had no longer an eye for its picturesque grandeur;
he was looking at the shore. The steep slope of
grey shingle backed by green mounds of turf was
A PREDICAMENT 245
beautiful to behold ; even the sight of his own
garments filled him with a strange pleasure like a
meeting of old friends ; and then the impression
changed, and the whole thing became a dream, a
passing incident, rather absurd except for the
damage to his knee.
" You have had a good deal of practice at this
sort of thing, I suppose ? " he remarked, as he
mounted the beach with the help of David's arm.
" Yes, a good deal, once upon a time."
"Well, it has come luckily for me, and I'm sure
I'm ever so much obliged to you. You were at sea
for some years, were you not ? "
"Yes, I was."
" I remember Miss Warham mentioning it."
"Very likely."
" Anyway, I owe you a thousand thanks. You
are a fine swimmer ; I only wish I were. It's a big
thing to be able to say you've saved a man."
" Maybe, if there's danger in doing it ; but here,
you see, there was none, so there's no occasion to
speak of it to any one."
"That is what I feel," said Valentine, quickly;
"very much better to say nothing if you don't
mind. Of course it doesn't alter my gratitude ; I
am under an obligation I can't express."
"Oh no," said David; "you needn't think any-
thing of that sort."
" I shall always remember it, and shall hope
some day to pay it back. By Jove, you strip well ! "
He eyed David's figure with a half-hostile admira-
tion. " It's no wonder you're a swimmer ! " he said.
" There's a statue of your namesake standing in the
great square of Florence, done by a big chap named
Michael Angelo ; and I declare you are like it ; head
just a bit smaller, that's all."
David accepted this description of himself with-
out comment; having carefully "bandaged Valentine's
wounded knee, he finished dressing, and strolled
back to the gate where his dog stood waiting his
246 SABRINA WARHAM
return. He had been gone hardly more than half
an hour.
Some time later Valentine met Sabrina for the
first time that day. He walked lame.
" I gave myself a nasty knock while bathing this
morning," he said in answer to her inquiry.
CHAPTER XXVI
SABRINA REDDIE
[N the beginning of August Lady Berrers came
down from London, and learned with a sinking
heart that the wedding was to take place within
the fortnight. Her gaze upon Sabrina when they
met was tenderly reproachful.
" Oh, you dreadful dear ! " was her first greeting,
" Are you happy ? " her first inquiry.
Sabrina bore the scrutiny well. " Happiness
is only a mood," she said. "I am contented. Is
not that better ?"
" Oh yes, I suppose so ! " her friend assented.
"The shocks you give others seem to have only
a soothing effect upon you. I never can calculate
now what you will be doing next. Yet you never
come unawares on yourself, I imagine ? "
"Yes," said Sabrina; "lately I have been a little
surprised at myself; but surely I have not sur-
prised you ? This is what you always wished and
expected."
"Is it? Did I?" The expression of the lady's
face became complex, a little wistful ; discretion got
the mastery. " Oh, well, I pray Heaven's bless-
ing on you, always, always ! If your mother is
satisfied, if you are, I ought to be. And, my dear,
I say it to forgive you, not to reproach you, I know
it is for the best that you should go. Ronald really
does love you with all that dear, poor, foolish heart
of his ; and nothing but you married, with a married
woman's etceteras about you, will cure him. I see
that now. Who is to give you away ? "
248 SABRINA WARHAM
"My
"Wh
r hat ? She will be well enough ? "
" She says so."
" Ah, that means much, then ! In one direction at
least you have given unexpected happiness."
. " Indeed, she is always telling me so : somehow
it troubles me to see what a load has been lifted
from her mind. I feel that I have been blind to
how much she thought and cared for me."
" I always told you so. Yes, she will miss you
now."
" No, very little," said Sabrina. " It is not my
company, but my future, that she is anxious about.
I ought to be thankful that it is so, since we have
now to part."
"Others will miss you as well; more than you
think, perhaps. You never will allow yourself to
see how much people become attached to you."
" Do you mean Mrs. Gage ? " asked Sabrina,
smiling a little bitterly, for her ministrations in
that direction had never lost their penitential
character.
"Ah, poor woman, no! She is a bitter soul. I
hear that she is really dying at last."
" Yes, the end is near now ; it has seemed a cruel,
useless delay."
"How can we tell that ? Have you ever heard
more of Lottie ? "
" Not a word."
" I almost think that I saw her in London the
other day ; I could not be sure, as I was driving at
the time. Poor girl ! I wonder what has been her
fate."
" Did she look well cared for ? "
"Yes, but thin and much older; that is what
made me doubtful."
"I had hoped," said Sabrina, "that some day
I might hear from her; but her uncle, who knew
something at first, has no longer any news. She
and he had a liking for each other which she used
SABRINA REDDIE
249
to conceal from her aunt; and I have told him to
let her know that I am her friend if she ever is in
need of help. But it seems very unlikely that we
shall ever hear anything of her now."
" And your uncle, my dear," said Lady Berrers.
" What about him ? Does his sad condition make
him a great burden on David's hands?"
"I cannot say," answered Sabrina; "you know
what David is, how little he shows what he feels.
My uncle is quite helpless, and will be up to the
end. Did Ronald tell you of the other thing that
happened about Ron, I mean?"
" Yes, he wrote as if it had been himself ; he
took it how shall I say ? symbolically : the iron
had entered his soul also. It was the day of the
news."
Sabrina said, " I have to leave Ron behind me ;
and David offers him a home. Will Ronald forgive
me if I explain ? "
" If it were any one but your cousin, I think he
would not," said Lady Berrers. " But to David's
interests he has always been passionately resigned ;
and this will but be in keeping with the rest."
Sabrina did not ask to be told what exact meaning
lay behind these words : her own thoughts in that
direction were too grave and tender to be lightly
touched upon.
A few days after this conversation a veil of the
finest Brussels lace reached her with a promise of
orange blossoms to go with it on the day. It was
Lady Berrers' gift to the bride's loveliness ; her taste
for high wedding ceremonial making her wish to see
Sabrina attired in a way befitting her beauty.
For love of the sender Sabrina wore it on the
day of chimes, but as a scarf folded across her
shoulders, with the orange flower pinned to her
breast.
Valentine, holding lightly the convention of pre-
nuptial aloofness, came down to see her before she
started to church. The choice simplicity of her attire
250 SABRINA WARHAM
won his taste, though he laughed, calling her " a
Quaker in cream," and declared that, for a bride, she
was in " half-mourning."
All the village turned out to see the bridal peep-
show pass by. Sabrina and her mother drove to-
gether in the open carriage which was presently to
convey the wedded pair to Warringford station.
David himself, having business to do in the town,
was to start with the luggage immediately after the
ceremony, and was thus excused for an early de-
parture from the scene of Sabrina's leave-taking.
There was quite a crowd at the church door to
see the bride get out. She was the beauty of the
neighbourhood, and the great lady's favourite ;
Valentine Reddie, also, had achieved popularity,
and the match was approved by all. A small cheer
went up from a group of school-children, handker-
chiefs were fluttered by the women, hats were waved.
Mrs. Warham, seeing her daughter so honoured,
stepped that day with a gentle subdued majesty
which brought out a certain likeness in herself to the
quiet beauty of the bride. For once their station
was recognized : peace and contentment were in her
heart
" Oh, you ridiculous humdrum darling ! " cried
Lady Berrers, embracing the girl within shelter of
the porch, "why will you be so barefaced? Have
you no blushes to conceal ? " She indicated her gift
of lace unbridally disposed of. "Yet you look
beautiful and entirely yourself, as no one else could
make you ! Don't be alarmed when you get inside,"
she added in a whisper; "poor Ronny has been
enjoying himself, and it's just like treading on
caterpillars ! I thought I would come to warn you.
Wait till I get back to my place ! " She returned
in stately haste to the Castle pew, picking her
steps up the aisle over the litter of her nephew's
symbols.
He had, indeed, been enjoying himself. From
the porch to the place where the bride would kneel,
SABRINA REDDIE 251
the floor was strewn with long tails of "love-lies-
bleeding," dark crimson knots and tangles, sprawl-
ing about like star-fish, and, as Lady Berrers had
remarked, very like caterpillars to walk on.
A triumphant wail of music from the gallery
greeted the bride on her entry.
" Ronny is at the organ ! " whispered Lady
Berrers, in arch commiserating tones, as Sabrina
passed by on her way up to the altar.
In spite of its choral character the service did not
take long ; neither just cause nor impediment was
declared against the union of Sabrina Warham and
Valentine Reddie. Up in the tower the bells began
chiming, overhead the sun shone without a cloud ;
handfuls of rice were cordially showered on the
happy couple as they emerged from the church
door.
Lady Berrers prayed to be delivered from tears,
and was saved with difficulty. Mrs. Warham wept
comfortably. Everything was of happy augury ;
everybody was pleased. The great lady drove Mrs.
Warham home in her own carriage, letting the mar-
ried pair go ahead.
" A very charming fellow ! " she said, flattering
the widow's ear with praise of her new son-in-
law.
" I find him a very good young man," said Mrs.
Warham, "and quite a gentleman. My daughter
has not married beneath her. A great weight is off
my mind, and I have much to be thankful for."
Lady Berrers found a blessing to say on more
outward things.
"They are the handsomest young couple I have
ever seen ; I hope they may be the happiest ! "
Following her own line of thought on the ceremony
just concluded, " I did not see David there ? " she
said. "Was he?"
" I believe he sat somewhere behind," said the
widow, " near the rest of the farm men. They were
given a holiday for the occasion. Yes, David has
given a
252 SABRINA WARHAM
always behaved very properly ; he has never tried
to intrude on us."
"He is a true gentleman," said Lady Berrers,
speaking with emphasis. " Would that there were
more like him men independent of our small
divisions of class ! And I only wish I could see
anywhere a wife good enough for him."
" He will have no difficulty in finding one, I
imagine," said the widow. " When his father dies,
considering his position, he will be well off."
In the afternoon Sabrina and her husband drove
along the road under the down. Her hand lay in
his ; the happiness of giving happiness was hers,
and the heart to which she had brought that boon
was, she assured herself, no undeserving one. As
an accepted lover Valentine had commended him-
self to her taste more than as a suitor. She did
not like being prayed to, preferring the sense of
equality which closer relations had brought about.
There was youth and warmth in her heart, and she
had confidence in the prospect of life and work and
comradeship that lay ahead.
Looking back for a last farewell to the place
that had become her home, she saw moving along
the side of the down near its crest a white figure
following their course at a distance. From the rate
at which it moved she could tell that the figure
was that of a man running; he ran in flannels and
without a hat: there could be no doubt as to his
identity. Cruelly kind, she drew out her handker-
chief and fluttered it in sign of farewell. The
figure stopped abruptly, evidently watching, then
slowly, very slowly, lifting a similar ensign, gave
a limp wave, loosed and let it float away on the
wind along the side of the down. It was Ronald's
last picture of himself and his despair, beautifully
done; he could have made a fortune on the stage.
" Poor boy ! " she sighed, yet could not help
smiling as well.
SABRINA REDDIE 253
" What are you doing ? " asked Valentine, catch-
ing sight of her signal and hearing the sigh.
" Only saying good-bye to some one I'm fond
of," she answered; "a dear faithful follower of
mine."
" What, David Lorry ? " he said, forgetting for
the moment that it could not be.
Her face grew rigid at the words. " No, Ronald
Lutworth," she answered in uncommunicative tone.
"I thought you knew."
Once, and twice again, she looked back as they
drove on to Warringford, and each time saw a small
white spot moving upon the downs, but did not
wave again. He was running in her thoughts for
a long time afterwards ; it was perhaps the sole
reward he had aimed for.
CHAPTER XXVII
SABRINA'S MOON
LATE that night David drove back from Warring-
ford over the same road. At the station he had
seen to the labelling of the boxes, and afterwards,
from a shelter at the far end of the platform, had
watched Sabrina's departure into her new world. On
returning to the trap he found the dog Ron, bereft
of its mistress, standing forlorn ; and learned from
the boy in charge that the lady had twice come
back from the platform to look for him, and had
left kind messages in his absence.
Reproach lay on his conscience for the omission
of a courtesy which she had gone out of her way
to seek. He had indeed deliberately avoided the
ordeal of parting words, with another standing by ;
and she, it seemed, in kind thoughtfulness, had
come alone to give him the very farewell he could
have wished for. He was full of tender regret that
his last act had been to disappoint her.
The heath, as he drove across it, loomed in solid
blackness under an opaque sky, and the moon, now
past its full, had not breasted the downs when he
turned from the hard road to the soft miry track
which skirted the wood-covers of East Gill. Here
the lonely beat of the nightjar, heard constantly
on the stillness of the heath, became merged in
the near rustlings of the surrounding undergrowth.
Now and then a rabbit, waiting till the last moment,
made a quick bolt across the lane under the horse's
feet. A faint stir in the thickets signalled the dis-
turbance of hidden life.
254
SABRINA'S MOON 255
David had not troubled to light his lamp, for
in that district police regulations carried little
weight, and he could often see better in the
natural obscurity to which his sight had so long
been trained. Presently he discerned, a few yards
ahead on the grassway that edged the track, the
blurred outline of a figure stretched motionless
upon the ground.
By its whiteness it suggested a woman ; by its
shape a man. David pulled up sharply, and heard
from just below a mingled sob of weeping and
spent breath. Divining what son of sorrow was
there seeking comfort of mother earth, he got
down, and laying compassionate hands on the
youth's shoulders, turned him turtlewise.
" Shame on you, man ! Get up ! " he said sternly,
on beholding Ronald face to face.
But bed of earth seemed still the only spot
whence the poor lad could win balm to his misery ;
he rolled once more face to ground.
" Oh, David ! " he wailed in grief, " she's married !
she's married ! I can't bear it ! "
David let the fact be as stated. "What has
brought you here?" he asked.
" I don't know," moaned Ronald, rubbing his
nose to grass. " I got here somehow, I suppose."
" You've been running ? "
The youth warmed to a recital of the exertions
into which misery had urged him.
" I've been trying to run away from myself ever
since she went," he said ; " first along the top of
the downs to Warringford, and then, after I'd seen
the train start, back again ; and then oh, then I
don't know where I went to ; until I got here. I
caught my foot in something and fell. It's all the
same whether I'm down or up. I suppose I've
been here ever since. And oh, David, I tell you
I just want to die ! I will die ! I wish I could do
it to-night ! What time is it ? "
Dayid reckoned it nearer eleven than ten, and
256 SABRINA WARHAM
forbore to waste a match in giving accurate defi-
nition to the hour of Ronald's despair. The
amorously forlorn youth lowed like a calf at the
slaughter.
"Oh, David, man, I can't bear it I can't! I
daren't think, even ! "
" Get up ! " said David, making a show of anger,
and jerked him to feet that strove to deny their
office.
Ronald hung in a love-lies-bleeding attitude, till,
shaken and let go, he steadied himself, and began
to allow outside objects to form an impression on
his brain.
" Is that Ron ? " he inquired feebly when the
dog came up to fawn on him. " So he has got over
his wound, has he, poor beast ? " an indication of
his own less fortunate state.
"Oh ay!" said his friend, "Ron's all right; so
will you be when you've put a little food inside
you. Get up, and be a man ! it's no good waiting
here ! "
Ronald, with one foot up in act to mount, took
it down again.
"It's no use," he said; "I'm not going home
to-night. "
" You'll not stay here, anyway," was David's
decision. " You've got to come along."
"Where are you going ? What d'you mean
to do ? "
"Get the mare into stable first time she was
there now. Don't make us be longer about it than
we need."
" Did she say anything to you before she left ? "
inquired Ronald, as he climbed meekly to David's
side. " Did she leave any message ? "
"Time enough to tell you all that when we've
got the mare in," said his friend, holding back the
flap for him to enter. He found him on contact
as dank with dew as the vegetation he had rolled
in. He was without coat or hat, his shirt gaped,
SABRINA'S MOON 257
and he had no vest under it; his teeth were chat-
tering from chill and general exhaustion.
David wrapped him in the cart-rug, and drove
on. "I'm sorry I have no brandy with me," he
remarked.
Ronald preferred misery without stimulant. " I
don't want any," he said, and relapsed into silence.
When he spoke again it was to point to a blister
of light among the trees, caused by the emerging
moon, and to remark in a voice hollow as a ghost's,
" I wonder if she sees that ! "
David clicked his tongue to the mare, and shook
her into a trot.
Ten minutes later they came to the corner of the
village where a gate led into the park.
" Are you going to get down ? " inquired David,
" or will you come on with me ? We can find you
a bed at the farm now."
"I don't care what I do," droned Ronald; "but
I don't want a bed."
He spoke as though a generic distaste for such lux-
uries had entered his soul.
Finding this lump of folly passive on his hands,
David took charge of it without more words, and
drove on to the Monastery Farm. When the mare
had been comfortably stabled, they entered a house
charged with the stillness of night and the noise of
slumber. A muffled roar from the nasal organs of
field-labourers in repose thundered to them from
above. David foraged for food and drink, making
the unwilling youth swallow what, though his spirit
rejected it as an indignity, his body so much needed.
Then, bidding Ronald follow, he led the way up the
side stair from the entrance hall to the left wing.
Here, opening a door, he disclosed a small chamber
whose white-curtained window lay open to the cool
night air ; the faint glow of the waning moon shone
directly in.
Ronald looked, drew back from the threshold,
and fetched forth from his bosom a tumultuous
258 SABRINA WARHAM
sigh. In another moment he had bounded across
to the window.
"What fool has been letting out her air the
very air she breathed ! " he cried, and clapped-to
the lattice. Then he turned about and stood gaping
at the central emptiness, lying so still in its shroud
of white.
David lighted one of two candles set in china
stands on the dressing-table, and at his side Ronald
stood and breathed, like a guilty child at the door
of a jam-closet. All at once he flung himself down
by the bed, clawing the pillow into a fond embrace.
" Oh, David, she's gone ! she's gone ! " he wailed.
"We knew that ten hours ago," said his com-
panion. " Can you make yourself comfortable here ? "
Ronald crouched miserably over his beloved bundle
of goose-feathers.
" I suppose so," he said ; " as well here as any-
where. No; I don't want anything else. I'll lie
just as I am."
David took him at his word, and leaving him for
a while, went down through the dark sleeping house
to the parlour below. This, of all the rooms in the
house that must always be his, was for him the one
most full of her presence. On the chimney-piece he
saw a small bookcase holding about twenty volumes ;
on it lay a written paper. The writing was Sabrina's
simply her name and his; her farewell gift to
him left there in his absence. He took down one
of the books, and opening, found it inscribed with
his name. He opened all ; his name was in each
one. While he stood there forgetful of time, the
candle which he had brought in with him burned
down to its socket, and went out. In the darkness
he felt his way out, and returning to that other
room, pushed the door open, and looked in. There,
too, the light was out. Along the foot of the bed
Ronald lay fast asleep, folding to his breast the
pillow on which he reclined. His breath was even
and undisturbed.
SABRINA'S MOON 259
David glanced at the disordered bed, robbed of its
crowning snows ; thence his eye travelled out into
the velvet softness of the night. Along the heavily
dusked shoulder of the down the dispirited moon
sank toward the glimmering sea-line that lay out
beyond Amesbay. Far off the sail of a single fishing-
boat gloomed in the brightness and passed.
No bed gave rest to David Lorry's limbs that
night. Miles out on the quietly heaving waters of
the bay he saw Sabrina's moon go coldly down before
the approach of dawn.
CHAPTER XXVIII
IN WHICH ONE CHARACTER REAPPEARS
EVERY one has heard of that delicate mechanism
of secrecy the Brahma lock, which, like the sealed
cave in the Arabian Nights, is unlocked by a word
even, one might say, by a letter, for, till the last
cipher falls into place, the key keeps its hold. So
is it often in the affairs of men, when something
as small and insignificant as word or letter comes
to disjoint the whole structure of a well-laid plan.
In the background of this history stands one, a
frail character, without strength, friends, or reputa-
tion, one incapable, it might seem, of affecting in
any material way the fortunes of others, still less of
becoming the very key which was to break open
to the rough handling of Fate the central happiness
of stronger lives.
Lottie Gage had disappeared from her native
place, drawn away by the only strong impulse that
ever entered her fair and frail nature that of love.
Her flitting marked the real close of her desperate
happiness, for with it an end had come to her
full trust in the good which the future had seemed
to hold in store. Not that she was left uncared for
in the material sense, not that she was left all at
once to lead the lonely existence among strangers
which afterwards fell to her lot ; but from the very
first she saw slipping away from her that dream
for the realization of which she had hazarded all.
Like that village maiden told of in the annals of
Burleigh, who found herself outmatched, Lottie had
260
ONE CHARACTER REAPPEARS 261
come to know that the man she loved was not of
her own class, her own way of thought or feeling;
above all, was not of that religion of love which had
enveloped and lifted her to mate her endless devotion
with his own transient passion. Very simply and
surely the truth came home to her in the first days
of her new life in a great town. Her lover did not
love her enough to marry her ; and with that blow,
like a bruise upon her tender heart, it seemed
hardly to matter that he was still kind while he
shared her life, and not altogether forgetful of her
comfort when they were parted.
Lottie's history, after she left East Gill, may be
summarily divided into three periods : the first and
briefest was one of tremulous suspense followed
by timid resignation, of love that might plead but
could not utter reproaches ; the discovery that the
man she loved was in a worldly sense too high for
her, robbed her mind of all argument against him.
In the second period her life underwent a further
change; it reverted. Business called her lover
away, and at his advice she re-entered service. She
quitted it some months later, impelled by reasons
that left her without choice, and taking quiet
lodgings in a south London suburb, passed through
her third period, essentially a waiting one. Here,
known as Mrs. Reed, she was among respectable
people ; remittances came regularly. Reddie had
bought her a wedding ring as a protection, and the
lowly state of her mind may be inferred from her
grateful acceptance of the gift. The ring was,
indeed, her treasure ; it exercised over her mind a
hypnotizing influence; looking at it she would say
softly to herself, " I am Mrs. Reed," and could take
comfort in the thought that, as the name was a
fictitious one, it remained all the more her own;
it was, moreover, the only name by which her lover
was known to her.
In this time of waiting, she grew so fond over
the notion, that at last she came to believe in it;
262 SABRINA WARHAM
that she was, in truth, the wife of Frederick Reed,
stonemason. She began to dream of a return to
her native place, with marriage lines to show
surely they would not be hard to procure when the
thing was so nearly true, ring and name, and
maintenance all there. At her East Gill home
things had run so smoothly; words so like promises
had been breathed in its covered solitudes, pledged
silence had made promise seem doubly sure. And
he was a stonemason ; no deception was there,
locally, at least, it was true. The first time she
ever met him was on a summer excursion into
Wedport; and she had seen him come out of the
new harbour-works, powdered white with stone
dust. That had been the beginning of things. She
did not care if he was anything else to the outside
world, so long as in that one place he was really a
stonemason, not so far above her after all. If she
could live there and he come to her now and then,
she would not care much, or would try not to care
no, not even for what the world might say about
a husband who was so much away. She was Mrs.
Reed ; in no part or thought of her being was she
less than his true wife.
Thinking thus, she wrote at last to the address
her lover had given her, pleading that she might
be allowed to return, as near, at least, as Wedport,
to her old home, and to be known there as Mrs.
Reed. Yet her very claim had more of submission
in it than insistence ; she wished only to know his
will.
His answer was not the negative she had feared ;
he told her to wait. " I hope soon to make a home
for you," he wrote, "and Wedport will probably be
the place." This was actually set down in black
and white, a postscript at the end of his letter. It
meant, then, that her hope was to be realized after
all! Greatly daring in the first flush of her excite-
ment and pride, she wrote to her uncle, sending
through him news to the neighbourhood. " Tell
ONE CHARACTER REAPPEARS 263
them I am married, and have been for some time ;
and now I am soon going to come back and see
you all. How is poor Aunt?" There were many
questions in this letter that gave no address.
For some time after this she was too much
occupied with herself to think of anything so far
away as her home ; all thoughts of coming or going
were postponed. On the first day of convalescence
she sat up and wrote to her parted lover a few
tender and artless words, giving news of the arrival
of her little son. She received no answer. Money
now reached her regularly from an indirect source.
She comforted herself by re-reading the letter
whose postscript promised her a home. That
meant to her as much marriage as her humble heart
claimed. The time was coming ; perhaps just now
he was busy, or absent. She would have no doubt
but that the summons would presently arrive.
And then?
What woman, seeing her lover's eyes in those
of a new-born child, doubts the exceeding strength
of an argument in which, for her, soul and body
are summed up ! Foolishly glad, brimming with
new pride, she wrote again to her uncle, giving him
her latest news. Without in the least knowing it,
she had made a bold stroke for establishing her
credit in the neighbourhood. The rather reticent
announcement of her marriage, coming late, followed
by more triumphant word of the completing event,
routed any larger suspicions those who knew her
might have formed. Morals were easy in that part
of the world ; and it was guessed that Lottie had
merely been a little lax about placing the ceremonial
of marriage at the full distance ordained by con-
vention from the subsequent registration of a birth.
It is a point gained when the currency of local
gossip passes through unmalevolent channels; and
Tarn George was not one who ever tried his hand
at the wrecking of reputations.
This partial rehabilitation of Lottie's character
264 SABRINA WARHAM
came just at the time of her aunt's death, too late
for that prophetess of evil to hear her worst pre-
dictions as to her niece's fate discredited.
Gage walked at his wife's funeral, sober and in
decent attire. He was in pocket by her death to
the amount of seven shillings weekly, and could not
be thought, considering all the circumstances, to
have suffered a great bereavement. But he satisfied
the conventions, wore a weeper, wept, and the
next day became the unconcerned man he had a
right to be.
Rendered sociable by the event, he paid, then,
one of his periodic visits to the Castle Arms, to
receive the condolence of his fellows, which took
form in curiously divided speech the upshot being
that it was a bad business this of losing a wife whom
you don't want, and who doesn't want you ; but
that it was all very much for the best, and not the
less good for having been so long expected.
One of the company called to mind how in East
Gill deaths and marriages had always had a way
of coming in pairs.
" Not such a very close pair this time, though,"
observed Long John. "Your wife was too slow
with her dying ; while that young married couple
got ahead with their business and out of the parish
almost before we knew it was settled."
" Ay, and I hear they'll be on their way back
before long," remarked another. " Be that true,
Tarn George?"
The carrier was always thus appealed to for the
confirmation of any fresh news ; if he had not heard
of it the rumour lost credit till further corroboration
made it good.
Of this item of intelligence Tarn George had
already heard.
" Not," said he, " that they be altogether coming
back, either. Two months from now, so I been
told, they be going abroad. Oh yes, Mr. Reddie
and his wife mean to be great travellers ; we shan't
ONE CHARACTER REAPPEARS 265
see much of them now, I reckon. He only did
come here to win her, so to speak. Ah ! and it was
my cart he come in, talking of valentines, too, I
remember, meaning himself all the time. Artful
that, now, wasn't it ? Well, and that's what he is ;
as artful and pleasant a gentleman as you med wish
to see."
Reddie's name was popular with all, and those
present agreed in Tarn George's estimate of his
virtues. The marriage was still a topic of interest in
the neighbourhood.
" Why, then, be they coming back here at all ? "
inquired Sam Carter.
" Well, it isn't exactly here that they are coming,"
answered the carrier. " Mr. Reddie, you know, keeps
his collections over at Hawk's Point ; and, except
for them, the place is now all empty and deserted.
So he and the young missis are going there for a bit,
just to clear things out of the way, and I dare say
to have a bit end to their honeymoon. For any other
time of matrimony 'twould be a lonesome place to
take a young wife to ; but Dan Curtis, who was there
last, he told me it was so arranged."
" Ah, she won't mind that ! " remarked Long
John ; " she's always had her silent ways and solitary
goings, unlike other young women. It always did
seem her one idea to get up on to they downs and
stick there."
"Well," observed another, " Hawk's Point '11 be
a very suitable place for her, then, till she tires of
it. And you say there is nobody there now, is
there ? "
" No ; they are all settled at the new station
now," said Tarn George, " every man Jack of 'em.
The married pair '11 have nobody within two miles of
" Ah, well, we shall see how sweet they are on
each other by the time they stop there," remarked
Giles. " I wouldn't give 'em more than a fortnight
f it, I wouldn't."
266 SABRINA WARHAM
" Now, that, Giles, just shows your ignorance,"
said Tarn George, severely. " People of their sort
don't get over the first sweets of matrimony as soon
as we do. They got more money and time to spend
on it than we have, and it's easy to waste your wits
when your pocket's full. Why, I've know'd cases
one, I mean among the real gentry, where the
newly married pair didn't become sensible again, not
for more than a year afterwards. And then it came
very sudden indeed, and the wife up and ran away.
That happened twenty years ago, the old doctor at
Warringford was the man ; and he took to his bed
and died of it."
At this conspicuous example of sudden sense
intervening to break up the happy follies of
matrimony, the company maintained a respectful
silence.
After a while Long John spoke up. " Talking of
marriage," said he, " when's David Lorry going to
take to himself a wife ? It's about time he did
something that way now he's his own master, so to
speak."
"Ah," said Tarn George, slowly tapping out the
ashes of his pipe. " You think so, do you ? "
" Well, neighbour, don't you, now ? "
Tarn looked mysterious ; he nodded darkly away
from his audience as though in the direction of
things known only to himself.
" I don't mind saying this much," he said ; " but I
won't say more till it's proved. You'll find that
David Lorry is not a marrying man."
CHAPTER XXIX
A BOND OF UNION
LESS than two months after her marriage Sabrina
was on her way back to East Gill. She travelled
alone, Valentine remaining in Town to make certain
arrangements for an expedition of scientific research,
charge of which had been offered to him, and in
which his wife would be allowed to join. This was
their first parting, a matter of a few days only.
Sabrina' s plan was to take up her old quarters for
a couple of days at the farm, get everything ready
at Hawk's Point for her husband's arrival, and for
him then to join her. To require double accommoda-
tion would, she declared, cause upset to her mother's
domestic arrangements ; but she had also her own
considerate reason for thus returning alone, a per-
sonal not a domestic one. Valentine protested; but
Sabrina only laughed.
" Do," she said, " let us begin by being sensible ;
let us show that a newly married couple can be ! "
" They will think we have quarrelled ! " he ob-
jected.
" Let them ! We can afford to, Val, can we not ? "
The young wife made gentle merriment over the
enforced separation ; over him, too, so rueful at the
notion that he was become again like the violently
agitating suitor who, in the first days of his wooing,
had flung himself in storm at her feet.
" Come, come," she said, rallying him, " I shall
think presently that you are not sure of me ! You
forget how I am longing to prove myself a house-
267
268 SABRINA WARHAM
wife : is not that why we are going to Hawk's Point
at all ? No ; we shall not be complete till we have
shown that we can separate just for once. I don't
want to feel that I have become a parasite, but I
promise that I shall miss you. Will you be satisfied
with that?"
Of course she got her way ; indeed, Valentine was
himself open to the attraction of a short interval in
those days of bliss ; there would be the romance
of flying back to her once more. His wife's grave
affection for him, different from a passion with
which he was more familiar, had captivated all
that was best in him, maybe because it was a
form of love of which he had never before been the
recipient. It promised a new element in life, one
of a daylight comradeship, that he had not fore-
seen from his own more passionate anticipations ;
and with its promise of endurance it did nothing to
dull the romance of their early union. Once, at a
sudden manifestation of warmth on his part, inter-
rupting some slight employment in which she was
engaged, he had seen Sabrina smile, with a world of
tender mockery in her eyes.
" What are you thinking of ? " he asked her.
" Of you."
" If you are thinking only of me, you are laughing
at me."
" Of you," she said, " and of myself, a comfortable
five or ten years hence."
" And what then ? "
" When I shall be more a wife, I hope, and less
a bride."
4 'You could not be more my wife than you are
now ! " he declared, too full of his passion to believe
that the years held increase.
" Could I not ? how can you know ? We are
too busy making love, Val, to know anything really.
When people are most wise, love makes itself."
" But you do own do you not ? " - he urged,
" that we are ' making love ! ' Tell me you tell me
A BOND OF UNION 269
so little tell me that I am really winning your
love! Is that yet true? It was not quite mine
from the first."
"Yes," she said, "yes, I believe it to be true;
but I am hungry for time to prove it. You love
me too much, Val. I want your heart to settle
down ; mine can't keep pace. Life is not this, you
know."
Her grave beauty as she looked at him was so
tender and kind that the ardent lover in him was
not cooled by the half-wistful restraint and prudence
of her words. In these early days his boyishness
of demeanour sometimes disconcerted her, causing
her to declare that she was too old to be his mate.
"You are two people," she said, "and I have
not yet got you together. You do rash things
needlessly; yet you seem to have a calculating
mind. Some day you will fall between these two
parts of yourself, and then I shall lose you."
There had been a case in point only two days
before. They were paying a visit of inspection to
some mineral works where a truck, heavily laden,
had by some chance been left too near the top of
a steep incline ; a blow from an over-shunted wag-
gon in the rear sent it rolling. Valentine seized the
situation at a glance ; while others stood agape,
he ran, sprang on from behind and applied the
brake, even so barely averting disaster. No ques-
tion of life-saving was involved when he thus risked
his own. His pluck was loudly applauded, and the
management thanked him. Sabrina did not.
" You might have left me a widow ! " she com-
plained, meeting him with a pale face on his return.
That it had been a rare sporting chance was his
single excuse : it was the thing he could not resist.
There was the man. He had strained his wrist
with the exertion of holding on to the brake, and
Sabrina heard with some impatience as she band-
aged it his talk of the intoxicating delight of those
few moments of suspense the rush through air;
2/0 SABRINA WARHAM
the doubt whether the brake would act; the ques-
tion when to drop it and leap; the growing belief
and final assurance of mastery; and at last the
proud knowledge that he had pulled the thing
through. She gathered that her own presence also
had rather impelled than held him back, and felt
that it would be necessary to cure him of thinking
that she had any admiration for rash things if she
was to be a safe companion for him on future
expeditions.
In Town he was less likely to meet with such
adventures ; and her mind was free from care con-
cerning him as she travelled down to Warringford
by the afternoon express. Her preoccupation was
rather on her own account : a little shyness at the
meeting of relatives and friends under changed
conditions, and a wonder whether poor Ronald
would be away, or already on the road to an easy
cure of his malady. Her doubt on that head added
to her wish to get over to Hawk's Point without
delay. If she could secure help, so as not to be
left single-handed and solitary, she determined to
move in on the morrow.
On arriving at the local junction, she had a wait
of twenty minutes. The train of the Warringford
and Wedport branch stood on its siding, and the
few country folk who travelled by it, making sure
of a sure thing, were already in their places.
Sabrina delayed taking hers ; till, as she walked
up and down the platform she saw the face of a
girl, alone in one of the compartments, turn toward
her with a look of recognition.
In another moment the face, losing its first
strangeness, became familiar ; it was Lottie Gage.
"Why, Lottie!" she cried, "Lottie, what has
brought you here ? Where have you been all this
time ? " As she spoke her eye fell upon things
which seemed to give indication of past events.
"What!" she said; "you are married, then ? And
is this your baby ? "
A BOND OF UNION 271
"Yes, miss," said Lottie, humbly, letting the
one answer cover both questions.
Sabrina smiled at hearing herself thus addressed.
With colour slightly raised she said
"I am not 'miss' any longer, Lottie; I also am
married now."
"Are you indeed, miss ma'am, of course, I
should say," cried Lottie, instinctively pleased at
the news ; it seemed to bring them nearer together
again. " Well, I should never have thought it ; you
don't look a day different! May I ask who you
are, ma'am ? "
" My husband is Mr. Valentine Reddie ; you
would not know him; he only came to these parts
after you left, and our engagement was a short one.
And what is your name now, Lottie? "
" I am Mrs. Reed," said the girl.
Sabrina recognized the name. " Oh," she cried,
" I am glad ! So it was all right, was it ? Your
way of going off so suddenly made many of us
very anxious. That was wrong of you ! Why did
you never write ? "
Lottie was not good at undergoing cross-exami-
nation ; she quailed a little under the searching of
Sabrina's glance.
" I couldn't," she said. " I was ashamed to.
And then, and then, you see " she caught at the
first straw of excuse that occurred to her "I didn't
want Dan Curtis to know."
" No news did not make your going away easier
for any one who cared about you," said Sabrina,
reproachfully.
" No ; I'm very sorry," said the girl. " But
please be kind to me, dear ma'am, now I have
come. I have had a great deal of trouble to bear."
The gentle foolish face told its own tale.
Lottie's was not a character one could be hard
on ; her beauty was that of an April day, not
lasting, grief made a wreck of it. It was pity to
see already how much it had aged.
272 SABRINA WARHAM
" Where are you going now ? " asked Sabrina,
in gentler tones.
"To Wedport"
"To your husband?"
" No ; yes to wait for him. I wrote to say I
was coming. I have not seen him for a long time ;
oh, not for ever so long! nor heard from him,
either ; so at last I had to come ! "
A look of such vivid distress crossed her face,
that in a moment Sabrina's belief in Lottie's
domestic welfare was shaken.
" Then you are not even sure that he is there ? "
" No ; but he will come I know he will ! He
wrote to tell me oh, a long time back that he
was getting a home ready for me."
" Then you have not had a home yet ? "
"No; not a home, it wasn't. I've been living in
London."
" Do you know where you are going now ? "
" I know of some lodgings in Wedport."
"But when you go there you will have nothing
to do."
" No ; not until he comes to me."
Her voice was so forlorn, her face so sad and
wistful in its pallor, it was difficult to believe that
any such thing as home lay within her prospects.
Sabrina hardly liked, at this their first meeting, to
make too many inquiries. Moved with pity for
one so obviously helpless and astray, she offered
what was the most within her power, temporary
employment and companionship.
" Will you come to me, Lottie ? " she asked,
" for a few days, until I have settled myself ? I
could just manage to take you in ; or you could
come over from Wedport for the day."
She told the girl of her plans.
Lottie accepted the offer with eager gratitude.
" Oh yes, ma'am," she said, " if I might come and
work for you, it would be almost like a home-
coming, already."
A BOND OF UNION 273
" Then, let it be so ! " said Sabrina. " Can you
be over at Hawk's Point by eleven o'clock to-
morrow morning ? I believe there is a carrier
from Wedport who goes within a mile of the
place."
Thus it was arranged, when at Warringford
they parted. So the two ends of this thread of
circumstance came together, and began to tie a knot
that no human power could afterwards undo.
CHAPTER XXX
NEW LIGHT
SABRINA was the first to arrive next morning at the
place of meeting. She called for the keys at Mrs.
Owens', who had now moved into new quarters,
and coming alone to the small bare barrack which
was temporarily to be her home, herself unfastened
the shutters to let in the light, and threw open
doors and windows to the morning sun. For some
days past Mrs. Owens had been lighting fires in
preparation for her coming, but the rooms still smelt
musty and damp.
All was just as Valentine Reddie had left it
the tables were strewn with the small articles,
implements, and papers of which he had made daily
use. From a peg hung old wearing-apparel, left
there preparatory to being finally cast aside ; it was,
in fact, a bachelor's chamber, and a carelessly
disposed one at that. Sabrina smiled leniently at
all the muddle and rubbish waiting to be swept
away under her dispensation.
While she was still engaged on this preliminary
survey, Lottie knocked and entered.
" So you have come," said Sabrina. " You have
been walking fast ; sit down and rest ! I shall be
back in a moment; I am just going to take off my
things."
But when she returned a few minutes later,
Lottie was still standing gazing strangely about
her. It was as though something out of a previous
existence had presented itself to her eye, some-
274
NEW LIGHT 275
thing whose meaning she could not take in. Her
look was too strange to escape notice.
" What is the matter ? " inquired Sabrina.
Lottie turned round and looked at her, still with
a dazed and puzzled air.
" He has been here ! " she said at last.
" Who has been here ? "
"My my husband!"
" What makes you think so ? "
"There are things of his here. That's his, and
that," she pointed ; she went near and touched, as
though to make quite sure of them. " Oh, do you
know where he is ? Tell me, tell me ! "
She turned round, her eyes wide with piteous
inquiry, and saw Sabrina's staring at her out of a
mask like death.
At last the lips opened for the words to come.
" Lottie, you lie ! " she whispered without breath.
The girl shrank back, terrified, putting up her
hands as if to fend off something she saw coming.
" No, no," she pleaded, " indeed I do not ! They
are his ! "
" You are not married to him ! " cried Sabrina,
terribly, in a wild voice of anger and despair.
" No, no, I'm not ; I know I'm not ! " cried the
startled girl, her defences breaking down before so
tremendous an assault ; " but I almost am ! he almost
promised me he would. He gave me this ring, he
gave me his name, he gave me everything he could
give me to make me seem honest in folks' eyes ; he
almost did marry me ; and he wrote to me that he
was going to make a home for me. Perhaps he will
marry me after all when he comes back, when he
sees what I've brought him. You won't tell, you
won't tell anybody that I'm not married to him !
because it wouldn't be quite true ; for I am married
to him : I must be loving him as I do ! Oh, dear
Miss Sabrina, you won't tell of me ? Say you won't
i tell ! "
During the whole of this impassioned outburst,
2;6 SABRINA WARHAM
this prayer to her pity, her sense of mercy and
justice, Sabrina had stood without moving, gazing
into the other's eyes. Alas, she saw only truth
there, inexorable truth, too simple for falsehood to
hide under ; and yet she demanded to have it verified,
to hear it restated, till her brain could take in its
full meaning. She came near and caught the girl
hard by the hands, holding her as though she feared
she might try to escape.
" Lottie," she whispered, " Lottie, tell me ! Is this
true ? "
" Yes ; it is true. Don't punish me ! "
" True as God sees you ? "
" Yes, oh yes ! "
" True even if there is no God to see you ? True,
even if nothing else is true in all the world ? "
" Oh, miss, don't look so ; you frighten me ! "
cried the girl. " It is true ; God help me, it is ! I've
told nobody else of it but you ! "
"How can you prove it's true ? " cried Sabrina,
desperately.
The girl looked round her all lost for a word.
" If you don't believe me, I can't," she said at last.
" But why should I tell you what's not true, you
who've always been so good to me ? And, yes, I
can prove it ! I've got his own writing where he
says See here where he says yes ; I've got
it where he tells me he's making a home for me,
and that I've only got to wait. Only I couldn't wait
any longer, you see."
She drew out and handed to Sabrina the letter
she had received. Sabrina had but to glance at the
writing ; she did not need to read the words.
" Yes," she said, " yes, I see you are telling the
truth." A sudden fit of loathing seized hold of her;
she shuddered, and became ice.
" And you won't think it's because I'm really bad
that he hasn't married me," Lottie went on, " or that
I don't love him enough. No ; it's only because I'm
not good enough for him; I don't know enough.
NEW LIGHT 277
You see, he's quite different from anything I thought
he was ; he's a gentleman born, and that made all
the difference. But even if I'd known it I should
have loved him all the same ; I couldn't do anything
else. Oh, you will forgive me, you at least will
forgive me, ma'am, for you've always been a kind
friend ! "
"What did you say?" inquired Sabrina, scarcely
attending, when at last the girl paused in her
pleading.
" I ask you to be kind to me, only that ; not to
cast me off as everybody else would."
Lottie's tears now flowed freely not passion-
ately, but miserably, penitently : she was so sorry
for herself, and yet, as she said, she could not have
done differently.
Sabrina set her gaze as though she would draw
out Fate's inmost meaning from that dim tear-stained
visage with its wrecked childish beauty. She read
there the traces of love, of passion, of meek sur-
render, of a forlorn and desperate devotion, and for
all the difference of their two natures, she could
understand now, and could sympathize. A woman
before she is married argues of the unknown in
terms of the soul ; a married woman feels and thinks
with body and soul. It is as though the early ideals
had changed substance, had stepped down from their
pure white pedestals and become flesh ; and as flesh
and blood transcend in beauty mere stone, so also
are they exposed to a more terrible pollution.
Their beauty may grow corrupt and rot ; forms of
stone can only crumble and break. So is the tragedy
of married life greater than all the unmated tragedies
of the world.
Lottie stood like a culprit, sorrowfully weeping;
and what could Sabrina do or say to condemn or
comfort her?
"Oh, Lottie," she said, "you have done a dread-
ful thing, a dreadful thing to yourself ! " And to
her own case the same words applied ; she, too, had
278 SABRINA WARHAM
done a dreadful thing. She saw it now as something
immovable towering dark above her, blocking her
way, shutting out the whole horizon of life ; what
was it possible to do ? She was helpless in this
tremendous grip of Fate.
So she stood, thinking desperately, trying to get
away from herself yet into herself, to know quite
clearly what it was that she must do. She did not
speak ; time ceased to exist. Presently she saw
Lottie move from where she stood, cross the room,
and with a sudden tender movement of love and
grief, hide her face in one of the rough working
garments that hung behind the door.
"Oh, I couldn't help it! I couldn't help it!"
came the words in a muffled cry.
Sabrina's thoughts had hitherto been concerned
with the inward aspect alone, with her own hidden
experiences and emotions. Now, at that sight of
the fair head resting on the canvas coat, memory
and a vision of outward happenings grew quick in
her ; they dealt her a new wound.
" Lottie," she said, " he used to come to you
over the downs, did he not over by Amesbay ? "
" Yes ; he did that at first."
" Every evening he used to come, and you used
to go and meet him, when it was thought you were
still with your aunt ? "
" Oh yes ; but don't blame me for it too much !
I couldn't miss meeting him when I loved him
so well."
" And he came, he came regularly, did he not ?
And once you could not go, and I took a note for
you, and put it under a stone. My God, I did that !
I did that ! "
' " You always were kind to me. Yes ; I deceived
you too."
" And then," went on Sabrina, " then he stopped
coming ? "
" Yes ; no. He hadn't been for quite a long
time, and I couldn't bear to be away from him,
NEW LIGHT 279
and so I went where he took me; that was how
it was."
Sabrina's face had grown stern. " And then ? "
"Then I was with him for a little while in
London, and then he went away, and I only heard
from him now and then. I never saw him again
after he once went away. But he wrote to me and
helped me, and I wrote to him ; and then, when
I told him what was going to happen, he got me
this ring, and sent me to lodge with quite respect-
able folk : I've been with them ever since. It was
there he told me to call myself Mrs. Reed ; I didn't
do it till he gave me leave. Don't you think that
I am almost married to him, when he lets me use
his name, though I know it isn't his real name ? "
Sabrina could bear no more. " Oh, Lottie," she
cried, " I can't listen to you ! Go away ! Go away !
Don't come again till I send for you ! There, you
needn't be frightened, I don't mean what you think ;
I'm not angry with you. I could kneel down and
pray to be forgiven for all this pain and misery
that's come on you, as though it were my own
doing. Only go go ! Don't wait now ; put on your
bonnet and go ! I must be alone ; I can't think or
do anything."
She hastened the trembling girl, lending assist-
ance as she spoke.
" Oh, Miss Sabrina ma'am, I mean," cried Lottie,
lifting a scared face, "you aren't sending me away
for good and all, are you ? "
" No ; not for good. You shall come back
again."
" Will you kiss me, ma'am ? I shall believe it
then."
Sabrina, with a sudden cry, threw open her arms.
Lottie fell to her breast sobbing, satisfied in the
midst of her grief.
" Oh, Lottie dear, pray for me ! " cried Sabrina.
" I will do all I can."
CHAPTER XXXI
THE TUG OF WAR
SABRINA'S instinct to secure solitude had been too
imperative to resist; the strain of concealed know-
ledge had become unbearable. A mind in agony
turns to the body for deliverance, there are times
when to cry out is the only safeguard of reason.
So it seemed to her now : she must be free to
move, and think, and utter her thoughts aloud, so
as to get respite from the horror which had sud-
denly overwhelmed her.
Yet when the relief came reaction had already
set in ; tremulousness of limb and a faint sense of
sickness were the only physical signs of the ordeal
through which she had passed. Instantly her mind
grew strong ; she was free now from acting a part ;
eyes of piteous revealing ignorance had no longer
to be duped ; thought could go straight to its mark ;
pride and scorn, love, indignation, and pity could
meet and strive together for the mastery of her
will.
It was her will more than her heart over which
the controversy now joined. What she willed to
do, not what she wished, was the question. Strange
separation ! almost a juggling of words ; and yet a
whole gulf seemed to lie between those two aims ;
antagonistic, they remained contrary, not to be recon-
ciled, opposers of each other like the doctrines of
predestination and free will a manifest contradic-
tion ; and yet in her brain both lived and fought
and struggled the one with the other. Protean in
280
THE TUG OF WAR 281
their changes, she could keep them neither fixed nor
apart.
What she willed to do, not what she wished.
Surely her will was to do right or was it to satisfy
pride ? Or, then, if she wished to forgive, was that in
her power ? She could not yet even forgive herself.
Bui; there was one, at least, who did not need her
forgiveness, against whom she had no claim. Had
thav one, then, any claim against her ? If she chose
to admit it yes! She must: she stood too deeply
committed to deny it. Fact after fact rose up to
accuse her; unwittingly she had played her part;
but now she knew what her share had been, and it
was of now that she had to judge. She, without
strong need of her own, had stepped in and sup-
planted one of humbler degree, a girl whom she
had befriended and helped to her own undoing, of
whose vanishing hope and vain expectation and
final misery she had unknowingly been the cause ;
in the way of whose happiness she herself was still
the greatest obstacle. The thought of it sent her
to the dust. And it was against Lottie, poor frail,
foolish Lottie, that she had done all this ! Had her
rival been one of less feeble substance, one more
strong to maintain herself and her own cause, she
could better have endured it. But Lottie, by her
looks, her words, her humility, her trustfulness,
her prayer to be forgiven, her expectation of aid
Lottie, by all these things had disarmed and left her
weak, defenceless of her own right. There could
not be right for both not right of possession.
In small things constitutionally slow to act, Sa-
brina was capable in emergency of large resolves.
She had sent Lottie away because for the moment
her presence was unendurable; she determined
now to recall her and face the matter out in all
its bearings. Going to the house near the main
road, at which the carrier would call on his return,
she left there a missive which might by good
chance reach Lottie that evening. The message,
282 SABRINA WARHAM
kindly worded, bade her return at the earliest
opportunity, and bring her belongings with her.
At the same time she despatched a telegram to her
husband, asking him to come if possible on the
morrow. It spared her the writing of the letter
which in the ordinary course he would be expecting.
Full of her purpose, she now set herself with
energy to the task of making everything ready for
his arrival. Having dismissed Lottie, she was obliged
to do the work single-handed. She had not gone far
when she was met by a domestic difficulty which
she had not foreseen; the accommodation in each
tenement was limited to a couple of rooms, and
the furniture of these was in proportion to their
modest dimensions. The rooms had been cleared
by their former occupants, and nothing now remained
but the few articles which Valentine had hired for
his own use. She had brought with her some of
her mother's household linen, together with a few
things necessary to domestic comfort ; but, in spite
of these additions, the furnishing was of the most
meagre description, suggestive rather of a few days'
camping-out than of a settlement, or even a fort-
night's occupancy.
Sabrina paused, discouraged, in the midst of her
labours. The house was her husband's ; he had as
much right to come to it as she to go ; but she was
very reluctant by any overt act to anticipate the
breach which might result upon their meeting ; she
must at least stay and let him hear from her own
lips the cause of her departure. Then she remem-
bered that in the museum, the second room across
the passage, was a small couch or chair-bed, piled up
with books, bird-cases, and general litter. This sup-
plied her want. She set to work at once, feverishly
preparing it, although it would not be wanted till
the following night. Occupation alone could make
the inevitable time of waiting seem tolerable; and
though she had toiled almost continuously since
Lottie's departure in the morning, she. would not
THE TUG OF WAR
283
allow herself time for relaxation, even when the fail-
ing light caused interruption and a search for candles.
Night brought a chill into the air ; she closed up
the windows that had all day stood open. It was
then nearly eight o'clock ; she was still busy with
her preparations in the small museum, when she
heard the opening of the outer door and a quick
step in the passage. In another moment her hus-
band entered, all glowing and out of breath in his
haste to meet her.
The event had given Sabrina no breathing space,
no time to think or prepare herself ; he was there,
in another moment she would be in his arms. A
table bearing a couple of candles stood for a bar-
rier between them. She blanched, gazing at him
speechless.
His eager laugh of pleasure changed as he caught
sight of her face.
" My God ! What has happened ? " he cried. " Is
anything the matter ? "
Checked for an instant, again he advanced with
open arms.
"Yes," she said, desperately to the point, letting
the word go : "I have seen Lottie Gage."
That name held him; he stopped dead. He also
gazed with blanched face into hers.
"Ah!" There was a long pause. "And that
means ? "
"It means that I know."
Again neither of them spoke for a time. Reddie
stood eyeing her compassionately.
"Well, you know, then," he said at last. "Some
one has told you, I suppose ? Had you asked me I
could have told you, too."
" Do women dream of asking their husbands things
like that ? "
" Not if they are wise," said Reddie.
"Then, if they do these women who are not
wise "said Sabrina, with rising scorn, "do their
husbands dream of telling them the truth ? "
284 SABRINA WARHAM
" Not if they are wise," said Reddie, again ; " but
they may if they love much. I should have told
you."
" So you would take credit for that ! But, apart
from any question of wisdom, do you not think that
a wife has already the right to know ? "
" Not everything ; not of things which came
before which could not concern her. Ah ! dear
wife, don't look so bitterly at me ! To you, from
the beginning, I told the truth about myself."
"No doubt; it was safe to tell me then," she
answered in cold disdain, " since it is only now that
I know what it means."
"Ah, yes!" he said with bitter tenderness; "and
because you were ignorant then, do you think you
have the more right to punish me now ? "
"There is no question of punishment," she
answered; "it is the mere fact the relation in
which we now stand, you and I."
"Whatever it be, you are still my wife."
The word stung her to sudden anger. "Can I
even be sure of that!" she cried. "Who is this
man, this ' Frederick Reed, stonemason ' ? the
name and the calling have a familiar ring! who
lets a woman bear his name, who maintains her,
who bids her wait and promises her a home; who
gives her a wedding ring that she may say she is
his wife and be believed ? Why should I not
believe her too ? If you have lied to her, why
should you not also lie to me ? Do you expect me
to believe anything you say now ? "
"You will believe me," he said gently, "though
you may wish not to. You, Sabra, the only woman
in the world I love, you are legally my wife."
" You say that to remind me that I have no es-
cape," she replied in a dull accent of pain. "Yes,
I am your wife, but she has a claim I have not ; she
is the mother of your child. Yet you hardly pretend
to think of her."
He caught eagerly at what he believed to be in
THE TUG OF WAR
285
her mind ; it was his axiom that all women must be
jealous.
" I swear to you," he said, " that, except for that
obligation which I must continue to discharge, she
is nothing to me now ; she never was to me what
you became from the first time we ever met. Since
I set eyes on you, you have been my one and only
desire. You should not find it hard to forgive what
happened before you came into my life."
His voice was tender and low, he had allowed
nothing she said to anger him ; in the midst of
contention and strife he was her wooer still.
She had seated herself, discovering an utter weari-
ness now that her brain only, not her body, was
employed. He came and stood near her, seeking to
touch her hand.
" Beloved," he said, " you break your heart for
an idea that is not possible. You do not know what
men are ; till the one woman comes who has power
to guide them right, their lives won't stand looking
into as yours will. Believe me, that since I saw
you I have loved one woman only that before I
allowed myself to speak to you of love I had for-
saken all others to follow you. Will you not believe
that?"
" That you forsook her for me ? Yes, you seem
to have a genius for doing what is wrong ! "
" If I wronged her, still I have not wronged
you."
" Oh ! " she cried, " did you not marry me ? "
" Say also, Sabra, have I not loved you enough ? "
A physical horror came upon her; her lips grew
white.
" Too much ! " She struggled from the thought.
" Have I the less cause to complain ? "
" Yet I told you what I had been. Through you
I have become a different man. From that which
you condemn you saved me."
" Do you think that you were worth so much
saving, at such a cost ; she and I to be sacrificed
286 SABRINA WARHAM
for you ? Are you sure that you feel saved now ? "
She had not spoken so bitterly before.
" Ah, you are too cruel ! " he cried. " Whatever
wrong I committed I have done my best to make
good, more, far more, than many would have done
in a like case. And if she is satisfied, why should
you cry out ? "
" Oh," said Sabrina, " I should be glad indeed to
hear that she is satisfied! Sometimes, it seems,
she writes to you. Do you answer her, ever ? "
" I have answered her when there has been any-
thing to answer. Here ; you can see for yourself !
I will hide nothing from you; this is the last I had
from her. She makes no complaint; there is not
a word to suggest that I have left unpaid any debt
that was due."
Sabrina said, merely looking at the letter, not
reading it, " She was crying, poor thing, when she
wrote this." She stood up in a sudden heat of
impatience; the memory of Lottie as she had seen
her last came clearly back to mind. " Listen to
me ! " she said. " The past is nothing, it is dead.
Of what lives I know more than you. This is what
I saw, only to-day, in this room : a woman, standing
over there with her face pressed to that old coat of
yours, crying over it, kissing it, comforting herself
with it, because it was once yours! And she has
been waiting for weeks to hear from you, for weeks,
for this home of which you write to her, and in
which she believes. And she does not complain of
you : she does not think hardly of you ; she thinks
that what you do is right! And if I had said to
her, ' Go ! do not come here again to trouble me ! '
if I had said, ' I am his wife and you can be nothing
to him now,' she would have gone do you under-
stand ? She would have gone ! Now, can you not
see what I see ? Oh, my God ! are you so blind ? "
She ceased, and, in her agitation, began to walk
up and down ; twice she passed him, seeming to for-
get his presence, then turned from the far end of
THE TUG OF WAR 287
the chamber and faced him once more. Her anger
burned high as, from a distance, she looked at
him.
"You do not you do not really mind!" she
cried; "that is the intolerable thing, the thing that
divides us most ! You only mind because / mind !
You had a quiet conscience ; you were happy. You
had put out of sight all this suffering that you had
caused : yes ! you thought you had done with it ; for
you it simply did not exist! While, for me, it is
the only thing that does ! I tell you, Val, that the
woman whose tears are on this letter stands between
us all the more because you do not do not mind !
Ah ! I could almost forgive you if you could only
see how base that is ! "
Valentine, too, was on his feet now. " Be silent ! "
he cried; "you have no right to speak to me like
that ! "
" I have not ! I have not! " she said; " for I am
not truly your wife."
" It seems to me you are mad ! " he broke out,
losing patience at last. " Ah ! I could not guess
how cruel and unreasonable a good woman might
be made by jealousy ! I did not know you, it
seems."
" Nor do you now, if you speak of jealousy ! "
she answered. " Do you think I am envious of
her ? I should be low, indeed, if I were that now !
You tell me I have no right to speak; let me go,
then, and I will be silent enough to please even
you: I promise you I will tell nothing!"
" What is the good of your saying these things ? "
said Reddie, restraining himself once more. " Merely
to anger me ? That is a poor triumph, my dear ; is
there any use in that ? "
" No," she answered ; " but I wish you to under-
stand. Let me ask you only this : had you known
of me what you know now how ' unreasonably ' I
should fee) and act in such a case, would you have
risked your happiness by marrying me ? "
288 SABRINA WARHAM
" I would have married you," cried Reddie,
" though I had to go to hell for it afterwards ! "
"But I," she said, "had I known all would not
have married you. You spoke once of the payment
which Fate exacts merely as the inevitable result of
what has gone before. Can you complain now that
it has come your way ? "
" Payment need not be enforced usury," said
Valentine. " No doubt we do pay, you and I."
"/ mean to," Sabrina said.
" Well, if knowledge is only to work mis-
chief," he replied, "concealment were indeed true
wisdom ! "
" So you thought," said Sabrina ; " and now you
have to pay for thinking so. Is not that just ? "
Reddie looked at her sharply, suspiciously.
"What are you meaning to do?" he asked.
" Oh, nothing rash ! " answered his wife; with a
slight inflection of scorn ; " nothing the world need
know. I am going home for a while ; no one knows
yet that you are here. You are already under
an agreement that binds you ; it turns out that I
cannot go with you, that is all. Afterwards, when
you return six months hence, if you wish it, I will
keep house for you; we still have interests enough
in common, and I shall be glad if I may be of use.
Don't expect more from me, Valentine; you may
possibly have to take less."
Reddie, looking at his wife, read in her cold
face the full meaning of her words. Again anger
got the better of him.
" Sabrina, this is wickedness, sheer pride ! " he
exclaimed.
"Perhaps," she answered. "I do not find hu-
miliation a very easy thing to bear."
Valentine was gentle again in his reply.
" It is not asked of you," he said. " You cannot
be humiliated where you have done no wrong."
"I am a supplanter," she said ; " I have to remem-
ber that."
THE TUG OF WAR
289
He sighed despairingly ; further argument seemed
so useless.
"Listen," he said, ."I will do anything to give
you present comfort. You shall go home ; I will
take you there myself, to-morrow. And then, tell
your mother of all this, consult her ! "
He spoke urgently ; faith in the advice of tender
old age hung a sudden star in his sky.
"You will tell her all, dear, all; keep back noth-
ing of what you know; yes, I would submit to be
judged by her to wait even till you learned to see
as she saw."
Sabrina fixed hard eyes at him, saying nothing;
a sudden fear laid hold of her, the fear lest her
mother had known, had been told, and, satisfied,
had kept silence. She feared that blend of Christian
resignation and worldly wisdom which summed up
her parent's view of life.
" Perhaps I shall not tell her," she said, an
undertone of defiance marking the utterance.
" Then I shall ! " he replied resolutely ; and
Sabrina drew a sharp breath of relief.
" Let us say no more about this now," he went
on, and, coming nearer to her, added in a tone of
tender regret, " Can you not, dearest, say one kind
word to me to-night, before we part? It commits
you to nothing. After the first short parting of
our married life, what a meeting this is ! Who could
have believed it possible ? "
" Who could ? " she murmured, looking back over
that gulf of a few short hours.
" Remember, Sabra, my love, at all events, has
not changed. Your message to-day brought me on
wings; it was so natural that you should send for
me and that I should come ; how could I keep away?
I thought of you, of this, as my home."
He looked round the room as he spoke ; his eye
fell on the provisional accommodation she had there
made for him. How coldly she had foreseen every-
thing ! It struck a chill to his heart.
290 SABRINA WARHAM
Sabrina read his mind, and without compunction
was still able to feel pity for him.
"I hope you will be comfortable here," she said
in a low voice. " I have done all I could. Will you
have something ? something to eat, I mean, though
I fear there is very little in the house."
He came to divine one cause of her manifest
weariness. " You must ! " he said ; " you have not
eaten, to-day."
"I will look after myself," she answered. "Will
you have it here, or over in the other room ? "
He elected to stay in the quarters she had
arranged for him ; his wish to give ease to her
mind was abundantly evident; he refrained even
from offers of assistance, remaining there to unpack,
and coming out presently to find a table all ready
laid for him. The closing of the further door as he
entered indicated his wife's withdrawal for the night ;
there they were to be, two solitaries under one roof.
Sabrina crossed the entrance-way to the sitting-
room which before had been Mrs. Owens'. She
looked at her watch ; it was then half-past nine.
Utterly weary, she sat down to rest ; all excitement
had gone from her brain, a dull bodily ache that
remained told the stress of the last few hours. It
was a comfort to her not to move, merely to lean
over the table and let the weight of her head lie on
her arms. She sat thus for the better part of an
hour ; wishing to go and lie down, she had not the
energy to rise. So little initiative remained to her
that, with no other bidding than her own will, she
might have remained there half the night.
Outside the window she heard a step ; a low tap
sounded at the door. She went to open it. There
stood Lottie Gage.
\y\7lT 1 XT r\T
CHAPTER XXXII
UNDER ONE ROOF
WITHOUT a word Sabrina drew the girl into the
room she had just quitted, and shut the door.
" So you have come back ? " she said in a half
whisper, though there was little chance of her voice
being heard elsewhere. " You were quite right ; but
why at such an hour ? "
" I couldn't wait," said Lottie, in a miserable
pleading tone. " I was so lonely, I had to come !
I heard the mail-cart would be going this way, so
I came by that. Did you really mean me to
come ? "
" Yes, yes ; sit down and warm yourself ; you
are shivering ! The fire is almost out, but I can
soon light it again. Is it very chilly outside ? "
Lottie was wrapped in a shawl, disposed in such
a manner as partly to relieve her arms of the weight
that was in them. This she now unfastened with
precaution, peeped in to see if all was well, and
finally disclosed her burden.
" He's asleep," she said. " You meant I was to
bring him too, didn't you, ma'am ? ''
She turned to Sabrina with a look of shy ex-
pectancy, of timid invitation ; she wished her baby,
as one of those fortunate beings to whom love at
first sight is due, to be admired, and praised.
Sabrina stood, looking down on the two in a
cold wonder at herself at them striving to
detach her mind from the actual circumstances in
which all were now involved as in a net, trying
291
292 SABRINA WARHAM
to remember what she had really meant in telling
Lottie to come.
"Yes," she said at last; "I meant you both to
come."
And as she spoke she realized that a reversal of
the bidding that had brought them was no longer
possible ; she could not send them away now.
Fate had manifestly taken up the conduct of affairs,
and the event no longer lay in her hands to decide.
The sense that this had come about through her
own instrumentality, yet without her willing it,
cleared Sabrina's mind for the part she had to play,
for the deliberate act of renunciation which she
had until now only dimly foreseen. The situation
seemed indeed to make a fitting parallel to that
which had led her into this strait. Fate, working
through her hands, had brought desolation and
desertion on another ; now it would perhaps reverse
the act. Her part was but to stand aside, and mark
the event.
In her present state she could recognize no law
save that of her own feelings ; and the call to abide
by it seemed the more sacred and imperative, be-
cause there was yet a struggle going on in her breast
against it. She knew that she was loved by this
man, perhaps with all the love of which he was
capable; and she was not yet so divided from the
past as not to feel a response when she stood on
the verge of annulling her own claim in favour of
another. She felt the crisis in her blood, and feared
lest it might presently affect her brain, and alter
her resolution.
She allowed herself no time for further thought.
Before her she saw only a weary woman, flagging
and dispirited, nursing an infant asleep, and, in
spite of her weariness, proud and tender towards
its cause. Pain seized her heart-strings.
" Lottie," she said abruptly ; " come, I will put
you to bed ; it is very late. Give me the child !
Yes; he looks as if he were a fine, beautiful boy;
UNDER ONE ROOF 293
but I cannot see him properly till he has opened his
eyes."
" Ah, he has his father's eyes ! " murmured the
fond mother.
Sabrina looked at the puckered flesh, of the shut-
up lids, and wondered if indeed this longing to see
what they concealed were not, after all, the jealousy
she had so passionately denied.
Lottie submitted readily to the direction of the
stronger will.
" Oh, that's comfort ! " she sighed, yielding her
worn-out body at last to the embrace of the cool
sheets, with her baby cradled in pillows at her side.
" How tired I am ! I didn't know it till now."
" Promise that you will sleep, then, if I tell you
something before I go," said Sabrina ; " perhaps I
have good news for you."
" If it's about him, I shall sleep better," said the
girl, eagerly. " It's only the thought of never seeing
him again keeps me wakeful."
" You will see him again to-morrow, that is cer-
tain," answered Sabrina. " He will be here."
Lottie's face became luminous, a thing of beauty.
Sabrina turned away ; its joy struck her a blow.
" Oh, ma'am, will he indeed ? I couldn't believe
it if any one else told me ; but I know what you
say's true, and I know it's all your doing. Oh, you
have been good to me, you have indeed ! "
" No, no," said Sabrina ; " don't say that ! We
don't know anything about it yet. Wait till you
know before you begin thanking me. You will not
be frightened if he comes, even if he is a little angry
with you ? He may be."
" No ; for I shall know you sent him to me. And
then you will be here ? "
"Perhaps not. I had better leave you alone
together at first. But he will know it is all my
doing, your being here. Yes, he will know that.
If he forgets, you must remind him ; remember
that, Lottie that it is not your fault. What are
294 SABRINA WARHAM
you thinking of ? " she added, seeing a new light
in the girl's face ; and Lottie smiled out.
"I'm thinking," she said gladly, "that it doesn't
so much matter what he thinks of me now; he'll
see his boy, and he'll have to be proud of him. Oh,
don't you think that'll make it all right, ma'am, when
he sees my boy ? "
Sabrina bowed her face into shade, as she
arranged the bed-clothes over that unconscious
pair.
"It ought to make it so, Lottie," she said; "but
don't go thinking too much ; say good night, now,
and sleep ! "
Once more Lottie reached up her arms for an
embrace, which the other could not refuse.
" I don't feel that I'm so very wicked when you
kiss me," murmured the girl, in the tone of one
waiting for reassurance.
" No, no, you are not ! " Sabrina replied sooth-
ingly.
She could say no more ; taking up the light, she
passed quickly into the adjoining room.
It was past eleven o'clock ; the fire had sunk to
a faint glimmer, a damp chilliness seemed to hang
about the walls. She put on cloak and hat, and
began noiselessly to make preparations for depar-
ture. Her flitting was not to be yet, but she wished
to have everything ready, and off her mind before
seeking repose. Placing a few articles of personal
use in a small hand-bag, she put out of sight, in the
boxes which she had begun to unpack, all her larger
belongings; then, having tidied the room of its
litter of work, she sat down to the table and began
writing.
But though other things requiring a mere
mechanical performance had been easy, this new
task proved difficult beyond anticipation. Thought
and the written word would not go together ; no
sooner was a sentence written than it ceased to
convey her meaning : she destroyed it, and began
UNDER ONE ROOF
295
again. A second and a third attempt were no
better; she simply grew more utterly weary of the
strain while no nearer to what she wished to
express.
At last she broke off, and gave up in despair.
" I am trying to say two things," she told herself ;
" and they are not for me to decide. What right
have I to interfere ? I am an interloper ! To say
nothing at all is best ; that, at least, will be a true
statement of what I mean."
She looked at the clock. It was then past twelve.
As a mere matter of prudence she felt that she
must now take some rest. Thinking was done
with ; her decision was irrevocably made. A deck-
chair, spread out to its fullest extent, would give
her all the rest she needed. Only when she had
put out the light did it occur to her that if she slept
at all she might not awake till too late. To make
sure of an early rising it was necessary that she
should open the outer shutters.
She went softly out, leaving the door ajar, and,
having arranged matters, returned. Scarcely had
she re-entered the house, when her ear was attracted
by a sound in one of the rooms upon her left : the
creak of an inner door being quietly opened. This
was followed, after a while, by a touch on the handle
of the one leading into the passage. She started,
and braced herself for the encounter.
Presently the door opened; all was pitch dark-
ness. She heard strong breathing that stopped and
then went on again ; her husband had halted at
the threshold to listen before venturing further.
Thus they stood side by side, divided only by
the night. Had Valentine reached out a hand in
her direction he must have touched her : they were
so close that she could almost feel the warmth of
his body, the stir of his breath. The faint pad of
an unshod foot on the flagged floor told that he had
advanced another step, and paused again.
All at once his breath broke in a sigh, tender,
296 SABRINA WARHAM
emotional, charged with passion a sound she knew
well. He spoke; so near were the secretly uttered
words it seemed almost impossible to believe him
unaware of her presence.
" Oh, my darling, I must, I must come to you ! "
Her mind became illumined ; he was on his way
to her, to seek a reconciliation. She need only
reach out her hand to his to be clasped, and drawn
to his breast, to become again his wife, and win
back all which she had intended for ever to
renounce. Reaction had set in ; she had not re-
pented of her resolve, but her spirit was dull and
heavy ; the flame of her resentment had died down ;
she was cold, she was lonely ; and she had seen
and held in her arms the crown of another woman's
love, a thing which atoned, surely, for all the shame
and misery that had gone before. Yes, for that
other there was compensation now, an object in
life, a source of happiness of which none could
deprive her. Lottie had that; but what had she,
out of all this wreck of her life and prospects, to call
her own ?
Probably at no time since her marriage had
Sabrina felt so passionately the right and the need
to possess as she did now, and she had but to lift
a finger to secure the satisfaction of her claim. She
saw even, with a sort of terror, the delicious joy
of abandoning all her pride and scruples in order
to assure herself of that love which she was on the
point of casting away, to surrender body and soul
and reason to the guidance of the husband who,
according to Scripture itself, is the woman's head.
That, surely, was a woman's ultimate right the
right of her own limitations ; it was her nature ;
was she not justified in that ? She knew that the
world and religion would approve.
But even while that struggle went on in her, she
saw that matters had come to the supreme test
which she had worked to bring about ; and that it
was not for her to decide. She had resigned all
UNDER ONE ROOF
297
claim : Valentine must learn first his own freedom,
and by his conduct then, she would let his cause and
her own be judged.
With cold resolve she fought back those instincts
of her woman's nature which cried to be satisfied,
and let the opportunity pass by.
She heard Valentine, moving softly from her
side, go forward on a vain quest. He entered the
sitting-room. For a moment, as she waited and
listened, she felt tempted to follow, ready to be
there in case of need; but as she realized all that
the next few moments held of disastrous shame and
discovery, the position became too much for her
endurance. As one fighting for air in which to
breathe, she turned from where she stood, and
leaving the door wide, made her escape into the
night.
CHAPTER XXXIII
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
THE following evening at the Castle Arms, Giles the
rabbit man spoke to having met Mrs. Reddie on the
downs in the grey hour of dawn.
"Well, now, that's strange," said Long John;
"she must be at the farm still, then. I heard tell
she was over at Hawk's Point expecting Mr. Reddie
down. But what an hour to be out, eh, neigh-
bours ? "
" Ay," said Giles, " and it did give me a turn to
see her, coming like a ghost there out of the mist.
' Oh, you been at that trick again, have you ? '
thinks I, for I know by now who it was got at my
traps last year. Mr. David he just asked me the
number I reckoned to have lost, and paid for 'em,
so I said no more about it. But, seeing her up at
that hour, naturally I'd my fears, and I didn't say a
very pleasant ' Good morning.' I'd taled half a dozen
rabbits already, and sighting her, thinks I, at once,
' What about my traps ? ' '
" Did she say nothing to 'ee, Giles ? "
" Never a word ; looked strange at first, as if she
didn't know me. And then, as if, the sight of them
rabbits was bad for her conscience, she gave a queer
fetch to her breath, and turned off and ran sharp
down the hill. No, she never answered me when I
spoke."
" And did you find any traps tampered with,
Giles ? " inquired one of his auditors.
" Now, that's the cur'est thing about it : no, I
298
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER 299
didn't, not one! Either she'd not come on 'em, or
she hadn't had time. I watched her go on down
to the farm, and then I see Mr. David meet her in
the field half-way. And that's all I know."
"Well," said Long John, "'tis plain she be still
there, visiting. She's always been strange and
wandering in her ways ever since she first come;
but you'd 'a thought matrimony ought to 'a' settled
her. It's a pity, now, don't ye think, neighbours,
Mrs. Warham's health being what it is, and old
Farmer Lorry so laid by, that they couldn't have
fixed matters for her to stay on there for good. But
David, not being a marrying man, stopped all chance
of that. It's a real pity, though; she'd 'a' done
nicely for 'n."
So, by general consent, the matter stood. Hawk's
Point giving the world no news of sudden arrivals
and departures, Sabrina's reappearance at the farm
caused no further comment in the neighbourhood.
Could Mrs. Warham have realized that, there would
have been more comfort during the ensuing days
both for mother and daughter.
Youth is regarded as the age of passion, and for
those who find existence summed up in the activity
of the senses, this may be true; but the age of
reason does not necessarily follow on the dulling
of the emotions, nor is it to be found where feelings
have merely acquired the indomitable force of
habit. The main difference between the passions
of youth and old age is that those of the former
are transient and subject to disillusion, while those
of the latter have become irremediable and per-
manent.
Mrs. Warham could not, even in her youth, have
been described as a woman of hot blood, yet all her
life she had harboured a guilty passion, to which
the main tragedy of her history and the division of
sympathy between herself and her daughter owed
their origin, a passion for respectability.
Sabrina's unsanctioned return to the Monastery
300 SABRINA WARHAM
Farm was the signal for Mrs. Warham metaphori-
cally to draw down the blinds as though the house
contained a death. That she was in great trouble
the young wife had owned at their first meeting ; it
did not take long for her to know from her mother's
soft severe aspect that she was also in disgrace.
Seclusion had not freed Mrs. Warham from those
social conventions of which her manner of life made
her independent; for her the world was still an
inquisition of eyes and tongues ; publicity falling on
a woman from whatever cause argued contributory
indiscretion, if not immodesty, on her part; to be
even questioned before that tribunal was less a mis-
fortune than a fault. And here, under her own roof,
was the case of a wife who had been married to her
husband barely six weeks, and was back again with-
out him.
The constrained welcome and the hostile silence
which greeted Sabrina's return, so different from
the peace she needed, hastened a plain statement,
but did not make the talk easier. Barely had the
case been put when the antagonism of their views
became apparent.
" My dear, my dear," began Mrs. Warham, all in
a hurry, " you must go back to him ! You ought
never to have come away ! "
" But it was impossible," cried the girl, " to stay
then. I must at least have time to think, to know
how I really feel ! Surely you would not deny me
that right ? "
" Time can make no difference ; it is your duty
to go back to him ; not for his sake, for your own.
I am thinking of you, my child, and of what people
will say."
" What they may say," answered Sabrina, " cannot
alter my present need ; I want to get away from all
that has happened until I can be sure of myself.
Is not home the right place, the home I can
still feel is mine? Was I not right to come to
you ? "
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER 301
" Yes, dear, quite, quite right ! "
And thereat to serve its purpose, the gentle
heart opened to her with a mothering sweetness
that she had seldom experienced before. On that
quiet breast she might lie and receive comfort and
instruction ; but no equal exchange of thought
between them was possible ; the solicitous heart
that beat there had no intelligence outside its own
code of morals. Sabrina spoke, and knew that she
was not heard; listened herself, only to receive
shock after shock of illuminating intelligence, and
to find in the reasons given fresh cause for recoil
from the course advocated. And again and again,
with or without argument, one first step toward the
remedy was urged ; she must, without delay, go
back to her husband's roof.
" But," she said at last, letting it for the first time
appear by her tone as a thing even probable, "if I
decide not to ? What then ? "
She was not prepared for the blind directness of
the answer that came then.
" Oh, child ! do you not see that in delaying
submission you may be sending him back to that
other one ? "
" You think," said Sabrina, with keen suddenness,
"you think, then, that but for me he might go
back? And if he does or does not, is all the
responsibility mine ? "
"Y
