man to say die till a patient came to the preterite. Throughout the
whole, and knowing all, he had behaved in the noblest manner, partly
from his own quick kindness, partly from that protective and fiduciary
feeling which springs self–sown in the hearts of women when showers of
sorrow descend, and crops up in the manly bosom at the fee of golden
sunshine. Not that he took any fees; but that his professional habits
revived, with a generosity added, because he knew that he would take
nothing, though all were in his power.

Suddenly Mr. Pell came in, our old friend Octavius, sent for in an
urgent manner, and looking as a man looks who feels but cannot open on
the hinge of his existence. Like a thorough gentleman, he had been shy
of the cottage, although aware of their distress; eager at once and
reluctant, partly because it stood not in his but his rectorʼs parish,
partly for deeper reasons.

Though Pell came in so quietly, Bull Garnet rose at his entry, or tried
to rise on the pillow, swept his daughter back by a little motion
of his thumb, which she quite understood, and cast his eyes on the
parsonʼs with a languid yet strong intelligence. He had made up his
mind that the man was good, and yet he could not help probing him.

The last characteristic act of poor Bull Garnetʼs life, a life which
had been all character, all difference, from other people.

“Will you take my daughterʼs hand, Pell?”

“Only too gladly,” answered Pell; but she shrank away, and sobbed at
him.

“Pearl, come forward this moment. It is no time for shilly–shallying.”

The poor thing timidly gave her hand, standing a long way back from
Pell, and with her large eyes streaming, yet fixed upon her father, and
no chance at all of wiping them.

“Now, Pell, do you love my daughter? I am dying, and I ask you.”

“That I do, with all my heart,” said Pell, like a downright Englishman.
“I shall never love any other.”

“Now, Pearl, do you love Mr. Pell?” Her fatherʼs eyes were upon her in
a way that commanded truth. She remembered how she had told a lie, at
the age of seven or eight, and that gaze had forced it out of her, and
she had never dared to tell one since, until no lie dared come near her.

“Father, I like him very much. Very soon I should love him, if—if he
loved me.”

“Now, Pell, you hear that!”

“Beyond all doubt I do,” said Octave, whose dryness never deserted him
in the heaviest rain of tears; “and it is the very best thing for me I
have heard in all my life.”

Bull Garnet looked from one to the other, with the rally of his life
come hot, and a depth of joyful sadness. Yet must he go a little
further, because he had always been a tyrant till people understood him.

“Do you want to know how much money, sir, I intend to leave her, when I
die to–night or to–morrow morning?”

Cut–and–dry Pell was taken aback. A thoroughly upright and noble
fellow, but of wholly different and less rugged road of thought.
Meanwhile Pearl had slipped away; it was more than she could bear, and
she was so sorry for Octavius. Then Pell up and spake bravely:

“Sir, I would be loth to think of you, my dear oneʼs father, as
anything but a gentleman; a strange one, perhaps, but a true one. And
so I trust you have only put such a question to me in irony.”

“Pell, there is good stuff in you. I know a man by this time. What
would you think of finding your dear oneʼs father a murderer?”

Octavius Pell was not altogether used to this sort of thing. He turned
away with some doubt whether Pearl would be a desirable mother of
children (for he, after all, was a practical man), and hereditary
insanity—— Then he turned back, remembering that all mankind are mad.
Meanwhile Bull Garnet watched him, with extraordinary wrinkles, and a
savage sort of pleasure. He felt himself outside the world, and looking
at the stitches of it. But he would not say a word. He had always been
a bully, and he meant to keep it up.

“Sir,” said Octave Pell, at last, “you are the very oddest man I ever
saw in all my life.”

“Ah, you think so, do you, Pell? Possibly you are right; possibly you
are right, Pell. I have no time to think about it. It never struck me
in that light. If I am so very odd, perhaps you would rather not have
my daughter?”

“If you intend to refuse her to me, you had better say so at once, sir.
I donʼt understand all this.”

“I wish you to understand nothing at all beyond the simple fact. I shot
Clayton Nowell, and did it on purpose, because I found him insulting
her.”

“Good God! You donʼt mean to say it?”

“I never yet said a thing, Pell, which I did not mean to say.”

“You did it in haste? You have repented? For Godʼs sake, tell me that.”

“Treat this as a question of business. Look at the deed and nothing
else. Do you still wish to marry my daughter?”

Pell turned away from the great wild eyes now solemnly fixed upon him.
His manly heart was full of wonder, anguish, and giddy turbulence. The
promptest of us cannot always “come to time,” like a prizefighter.

Pearl came in, with her chest well forward, and then drew back very
suddenly. She thought her fate must be settled now, and would like to
know how they had settled it. Then, like a genuine English lady, she
gave a short sigh and went away. Pride makes the difference between us
and all other nations.

But the dignified glance she had cast on Pell settled his fate and hers
for life. He saw her noble self–respect, her stately reservation, her
deep sense of her own pure value (which never would assert itself), and
her passing contempt of his hesitation.

“At all risks I will have her,” he said to himself, for his manly
strength gloried in her strong womanhood; “if she can be won I will
have her. Oh, how I am degrading her! What a fool–bound fellow I am!”

Then he spoke to her father, who had fallen back, and was faintly
gazing, wondering what the stoppage was.

“Sir, I am not worthy of her. God knows how I love her. She is too good
for me.”

Bull Garnet gathered his fleeting life, and looked at Pell with a love
so deep that it banished admiration. Then his failing heart supplied,
for the last, last time of all, the woe–worn fountain of his eyes.
Strong and violent as he was, a little thing had often touched him to
the turn of tears. What impulse is there but has this end? Even comic
laughter.

Pell lifted from the counterpane the broad but shrunken hand, which was
on the way to be offered to him, until sad memory stopped it. Then he
looked down at the poor grey face, where the forehead, from the fall
of the rest, appeared almost a monstrosity, and the waning of strong
emotions left a quivering of hollowness. The young parson looked down
with noble pity. Much he knew of his father–in–law! Bull Garnet would
never be pitied. He drew his hand back with a little jerk, and placed
it against his broad, square chin.

“I canʼt bear to die like this, Pell. _I wish to God you could shave
me._”

Pell went suddenly down on his knees, put his strong brown hands up,
and said nothing except the Lordʼs Prayer. Bull Garnet tried to raise
his palms, but the power of his wrists was gone, and so he let them
fall together. Then at every grand petition he nodded at the ceiling,
as if he saw it going upward, and thought of the lath and plaster.

He had said he should die at four oʼclock, for the paroxysms of
heart–complaint returned at measured intervals, and he felt that he
could not outlast another. So with his usual mastery and economy of
labour, he had sent a man to get the keys and begin to toll the great
church bell, as soon as ever the clock struck four. “Not too long
apart,” he said, “steadily, and be done with it.” When the boom of the
sluggish bell came in at the open window, Bull Garnet smiled, because
the man was doing it as he had ordered him.

“Right,” he whispered, “yes, quite right. I have always been before my
time. Just let me see my children.” And then he had no more pain.

Amy came in very softly, to know if he was dead. They had told her
she ought to leave it alone, but she could not see it so. Knowing all
and feeling all, she felt beyond her knowledge. If it would—oh, if it
would help him with a spark of hope in his parting, help him in the
judgment–day, to have the glad forgiveness of the brother with the
deeper wrong—there it was, and he was welcome.

A little whispering went on, pale lips into trembling ears, and then
Cradock, with his shoes off, was brought to the side of the bed.

“He wonʼt know you,” Pearl sobbed softly; “but how kind of you to
come!” She was surprised at nothing now.

Her father raised his languid eyes, until they met Cradockʼs eager
ones; there they dwelt with doubt, and wonder, and a slow rejoicing,
and a last attempt at expression.

John Rosedew took the wan stiffening hand, lying on the sheet like a
cast–off glove, and placed it in Cradockʼs sunburnt palm.

“He knows all,” the parson whispered; “he has read the letter you left
for him; and, knowing all, he forgives you.”

“That I do, with all my heart,” Cradock answered firmly. “May God
forgive me as I do you. Wholly, purely, for once and for all!”

“Kind—noble—Godlike——” the dying man said very slowly, but with his old
decision.

Bull Garnet could not speak again. The great expansion of heart had
been too much for its weakness. Only now and then he looked at Cradock
with his Amy, and every look was a prayer for them, and perhaps a
recorded blessing.

Then they slipped away, in tears, and left him, as he ought to be, with
his children only. And the telegraph of death was that God would never
part them.

Now, think you not this man was dying a great deal better than he
deserved? No doubt he was. And, for that matter, so perhaps do most of
us. But does our Father think so?

CHAPTER XVIII.

Softly and quietly fell the mould on the coffin of Bull Garnet. A great
tree overhung his sleep, without fear of the woodman. Clayton Nowellʼs
simple grave, turfed and very tidy, was only a few yards away. That
ancient tree spread forth its arms on this one and the other, as a
grandsire lays his hands peacefully and placidly on children who have
quarrelled.

A lovely spot, as one might see, for violence to rest in, for long
remorse to lose the track, and deep repentance hopefully abide the time
of God. To feel the soft mantle of winter return, and the promising
gladness of spring, the massive depths of the summer–tide, and the
bright disarray of autumn. And to be, no more the while, oppressed, or
grieved, or overworked.

There shall forest–children come, joining hands in pleasant fear, and,
sitting upon grassy mounds, wonder who inhabits them, wonder who and
what it is that cannot wonder any more. And haply they shall tell this
tale—become a legend then—when he who writes, and ye who read, are dust.

Ay, and tell it better far, more simply, and more sweetly, never having
gone astray from the inborn sympathy. For every grown–up man is apt to
mar the uses of his pen with bitter words, and small, and twaddling;
conceiting himself to be keen in the first, just in the second, and
sage in the third. For all of these let him crave forgiveness of God,
his fellow–creatures, and himself, respectively.

Sir Cradock Nowell, still alive to the normal sense of duty, tottered
away on John Rosedewʼs arm, from the grave of his half–brother. He had
never learned whose hand it was that dug the grave near by, and no
one ever forced that unhappy knowledge on him. This last blow, which
seemed to strike his chiefest prop from under him, had left its weal on
his failing mind in great marks of astonishment. That such a strong,
great man should drop, and he, the elder and the weaker, be left to do
without him! He was going to the Rectory now, to have a glass of wine,
after fatigue of the funeral, a vintage very choice and rare, according
to Mr. Rosedew, and newly imported from Oxford. And truly that was its
origin. It might have claimed “founderʼs kin fellowship,” like most of
the Oxford wine–skins.

“Wonderful, wonderful man!” said poor Sir Cradock, doing his best to
keep his back very upright, from a sudden suffusion of memory,—”to
think that he should go first, John! Oh, if I had a son left, he should
take that man for his model.”

“Scarcely that,” John Rosedew thought, knowing all the circumstances;
“but of the dead I will say no harm.”

“So quick, so ready, so up for anything! Ah, I remember he knocked a
man down just at the corner by this gate here, where the dandelion–seed
is. And afterwards he proved how richly he deserved it. That is the way
to do things, John.”

“I am not quite sure of that,” said the conscientious parson; “it might
be wiser to prove that first; and then to abstain from doing it. I
remember an instance in point——”

“Of course you do. You always do, John, and I wish you wouldnʼt. But
that has nothing to do with it. You are always cutting me short, John;
and worse than ever since you came back, and they talked of you so at
Oxford. I hope they have not changed you, John.”

He looked at the white–haired rector, with an old manʼs jealousy. Who
else had any right to him?

“My dear old friend,” replied John Rosedew, with kind sorrow in his
eyes, “I never meant to cut you short. I will try not to do it again.
But I know I am rude sometimes, and I am always sorry afterwards.”

“Nonsense, John; donʼt talk of it. I understand you by this time; and
we allow for one another. But now about my son, my poor unlucky boy.”

“To be sure, yes,” said the other old man, not wishing to hurry
matters. And so they stopped and probed the hedge instead of one
another.

“I donʼt know how it is,” at last Sir Cradock Nowell said, being rather
aggrieved with John Rosedew for not breaking ground upon him—”but how
hard those stubs of ash are! Look at that splinter, almost severed by a
man who does not know how to splash; Jem, his name is, poor Garnet told
me, Jem—something or other—and yet all I can do with my stick wonʼt
fetch it away from the stock.”

“Like a child who will not quit his father, however his father has
treated him.”

“What do you mean by that, John? Are you driving at me again? I thought
you had given it over.”

“I never give over anything,” John answered, in a manner for him quite
melodramatic, and beyond his usual key.

“No. We always knew how stubborn you were. And now you are worse than
ever.”

“No fool like an old fool,” John Rosedew answered, smiling sweetly,
yet with some regret. “Cradock, I am such a fool I shall let out
everything.”

“What do you mean?” asked Sir Cradock Nowell, leaning heavily on his
staff, and setting his white face rigidly, yet with every line of it
ready to melt; “John, I have heard strange rumours, or I have dreamed
strange dreams. In the name of God, what is it, John? My son!—my only
son——”

He could say no more, but turned away, and bowed his head, and trembled.

“Your only son, your innocent son, has been at my house these three
days; and when you like, you can see him.”

“When I like—ah, to be sure! I donʼt like many people. I am getting
very old, John. And no one to come after me. It seems a pity, donʼt you
think, and every one against me so?”

“You can take your own part still, my friend. And you have to take your
sonʼs part.”

“Yes, to be sure, my sonʼs part. Perhaps he will come back some day.
And I know he did not do it, now; and I was very hard to him—donʼt you
think I was, John?—very hard to my poor Craddy, and he was so like his
mother!”

“But you will be very kind to him now; and he will be such a comfort to
you, now he is come back again, and going away no more.”

“I declare you make me shake, John. You do talk such nonsense. One
would think you knew all about him,—more than his own father does. What
have I done, to be kept like this in the dark, all in the dark? And you
seem to think that I was hard to him.”

“Cradock, all you have to do is just to say the word; just to say that
you wish to see him, and your son will come and talk to you.”

“Talk to me! Oh yes, I should like to talk to him—very much—I mean, of
course, if he is at leisure.”

He leaned on his stick, and tried to think, while John Rosedew hurried
off; and of all his thoughts the foremost were, “What will Cradock my
boy be like; and what shall I give him for dinner?”

Cradock came up shyly, gently, looking at his father first, then
waiting to be looked at. The old man fixed his eyes upon him, at first
with some astonishment—for his taste in dress was somewhat outraged
by the Broadway style—then, in spite of all the change, remembrance
of his son returned, and love, and sense of ownership. Last of all,
auctorial pride in the young manʼs width of shoulder, blended with soft
recollections of the time he dandled him.

“Why, Cradock! It is my poor son Cradock! What a size you are grown, my
boy, my boy!”

“Oh, father, I am sure you want me. Only try me once again. I am not at
all a radical.”

“Crad, you never could be. I knew you must come round at last to my way
of thinking. When you had seen the world, Crad; when you had seen the
world a bit, as your father did before you.”

And so they made the matter up, in politics, and dress, and little
touches of religion, and in the depth of kindred love which underlies
the latter; and never after was there word, except of migrant
petulance, between the crotchety old man, and the son who held his
heartʼs key.

All this while we have been loth to turn to Mrs. Corklemore, and
contemplate her discomfiture, although in strict sequence of events
we ought to have done so long ago. But it is so very painful—and
now–a–days all writers agree with Epicurus, in regarding pain as the
worst of evils—so bitter is the task to describe a lovely mother
failing, in spite of all exertion, to do her duty by her child, in
robbing other people, that really—ah well–a–day, physic must be taken.

At the time of her dismissal from the halls of Nowelhurst, Mr.
Corklemore had been so glad to see his pretty wife again, and that
queer little Flore, who amused him so by pinching his stiff leg, and
crying “haw,” and he had found the house so desolate, and the absence
of plague so unwholesome, and the responsibility of having a will of
his own so horrible, that he scarcely cared to ask the reason why they
were come home. And Georgie—who was not thoroughly heartless, else how
could she have got on so?—thought Coo Nest very snug and nice, with
none to contradict her. So she found relief awhile, in banishing her
worse, while she indulged her better half.

Let me do the same by suppressing here that evil tendency to moralise.
In Georgieʼs case, as well as mine, the indulgence possessed at any
rate the attractions of change and variety. But, knowing how strictly
we are bound by the canons of philosophy to suspect and put the curb
on every natural bias, that good young woman soon refrained from
over–active encouragement of her inclination to goodness. Rallying
her sense of right, she vanquished very nobly all the seductions of
honesty, and, by a virtuous effort, marched from the Capua of virtue.

She stood upon the wood–crowned heights which look upon Coo Nest, and
as the smoke came curling up, the house seemed very small to her. What
a thing to call a garden! And the pigeon–house at Nowelhurst was nearly
as large as our stable! And oh that little vinery, where one knew every
single bunch, and came every day to watch its ripening, and the little
fuss of its colouring, like an ogre watching a pet babe roasting.
Surely nature never meant her to live upon so small a scale; or why had
she been gifted with such large activities?

She turned her back upon Coo Nest, and her face to Nowelhurst Hall, and
in her mindʼs eye saw a place ever so much larger.

Then a pleasant sound came up the hollow, a nice ring of revolving
wheels coquetting with the best C springs and all the new improvements.
Well–mettled horses, too, were there, stepping together sonipedally,
and a footman could be seen, whose legs must stand him in 60_l._ a year.

“That odious old Sir Julius Wallop and his wizen–faced wife come
to patronize us again and say, ‘Ha, Corklemore, snug little place,
charming situation; but I think I should pull it down and rebuild;
no room for Chang to stand in it. And how is my old friend, Sir
Cradock, your forty–fifth cousin, I believe? Ah, he _has_ a nice
place.’ I havenʼt the heart to meet them now, and their patronizing
disparagement. Heigho! It is a nice turn–out. And yet they have at
Nowelhurst three more handsome carriages. And it does look so much
better to have two footmen there behind; and I do like watered linings
so. How nice Flo did look by my side in that new barouche! Oh, my
darling child, I must not give way to selfish feelings. I must do my
duty towards you.”

Therefore she proceeded, against her better nature, in the face of
prudence, with her attempt to set aside poor Sir Cradock Nowell, and
obtain fiduciary possession of his property. Cradock was lost in the
_Taprobane_,—of that there could be no doubt; and so she was saved all
further trouble of laying before the civil authorities the stronger
evidence they required before issuing a warrant. But all was going very
nicely towards the commencement of an inquiry as to the old manʼs state
of mind. Then suddenly she was checkmated, and never moved a pawn again.

One afternoon, Mrs. Corklemore was sitting in her drawing–room,
expecting certain visitors, and quite ready to be bored with them,
because they were leading gossips—ladies who gave the first complexion
to any nascent narrative. And Georgie knew how to handle them. In the
county talk which must ensue, only let them take her side, and all the
world would feel for her in her very painful position.

After a rumble of rapid wheels, and a violent pull at the bell, which
made the lady of the house to jump, because they had just had the
bell–hanger, into her sanctuary came with a cooler than curcumine
temperature, not indeed Lady Alberta Smith and her daughter Victorina
Beatrice, but Eoa Nowell and her cousin Cradock.

For once in her life Mrs. Corklemore was deprived of all presence of
mind, ghostly horror being added to bodily fear of Eoa. She fain would
have fled, but her limbs gave way, and she fell back into a soft French
chair, and covered her face with both hands. Then Eoa, looking tall and
delicate in her simple mourning dress, walked up to her very quietly,
leading Cradock as if she were proud of him.

“I have taken the liberty, Mrs. Corklemore, of bringing my cousin
Cradock to see you, because it may save trouble.”

“I trust you will forgive,” said Cradock, “our very sudden invasion. We
are come upon a matter of business, to save unpleasant exposures and
disgrace to our distant relatives.”

“Oh,” gasped poor Mrs. Corklemore, “you are alive, then, after all? It
was proved that you had lost your life upon the coast of Africa.”

“Yes, but it has proved otherwise,” Cradock answered, bowing neatly.

“And it would have been so much better, under the sad, sad
circumstances, for all people of good feeling, and all interested in
the family.”

“For the latter, perhaps it would, madam; but not so clearly for the
former. I am here to protect my father from all machinations.”

“Leave her to me,” cried Eoa, slipping prettily in front of him, “I
understand her best, because—because of my former vocation. And I think
she knows what I am.”

“That I do,” answered Georgie, cleverly interposing first a small
enamelled table; “not only an insolent, but an utterly reckless
creature.”

“You may think so,” Eoa replied, with calm superiority; “but that only
shows your piteous ignorance of the effects of discipline. I am now so
sedate and tranquil a woman, that I do not hate, but scorn you.”

Cradock could not help smiling at this, knowing what Eoa was.

“We want no strong expressions, my dear, on one side or the other,” for
he saw that a word would have overthrown Eoaʼs new–born discipline;
“Mrs. Corklemore is far too clever not to perceive her mistake. She
knows quite well that any inquiry as to my dear fatherʼs state of
mind can now be of no use to her. And if she thinks of any further
proceedings against myself, perhaps she had better first look at just
this—just this document.”

He laid before her a certificate, granted by three magistrates, that
indisputable evidence had been brought before them as to the cause and
manner of Clayton Nowellʼs death, and that Cradock Nowell had no share
in it, wittingly or unwittingly. That was the upshot of it; but of
course it extended to about fifty–fold the length.

Mrs. Corklemore bent over her, in her most bewitching manner, and
perused it very leisurely, as if she were examining Floreʼs attempts at
pothooks. Meanwhile, with a side–glint of her eyes, she was watching
both of them; and it did not escape her notice that Eoa was very pale.

“To be sure,” she said at last, looking full at the Eastern maid, “I
see exactly how it was. I have thought so all along. A female Thug must
be charmed, of course, by the only son of a murderer. My dear, I do so
congratulate you.”

“Thank you,” answered Eoa, and the deep gaze of her lustrous eyes made
the clever woman feel a world unopened to her; “I thank you, Georgie
Corklemore, because you know no better. My only wish for you is, that
you may never know unhappiness, because you could not bear it.”

Saying so, she turned away, and, with her light, quick step, was gone,
before her enemy could see a symptom of the welling tears which then
burst all control. But Cradock, who had dwelt in sorrow, compared
to which hers was a joke, stayed to say a few soft words, and made a
friend for evermore of the woman who had plotted so against his life
and all his love.

Madame la Comtesse since that time has seen much tribulation, and is
all the better for it. Mr. Corklemore died of the gout, and the angel
Flore of the measles; and she herself, having nursed them both, and
lost some selfishness in their graves, is now (as her destiny seemed
to be) the wife of Mr. Chope. Of course she is compelled to merge her
strong will in a stronger one, and, according to natureʼs Salique law,
is the happier for doing so. Whether this union will produce a subject
for biography to some unborn Lord Campbell, time alone can show.

From the above it will be clear that poor Eoa Nowell was now acquainted
with the secret of the Garnet family. Bob himself had told her all,
about a month after his fatherʼs death, renouncing at the same time all
his claims upon her. Of that Eoa would not hear; only at his urgency
she promised to consult her friends, and take a week to think of it.
And this was the way she kept her promise.

First she ran up to Cradock Nowell, with the bright tears still upon
her cheeks, and asked him whether he had truly and purely forgiven his
injurer. He took her hand, and answered her with his eyes, in which
the deepened springs of long affliction glistened, fixed steadily upon
hers.

“As truly and purely as I hope to be forgiven at the judgment–day.”

“Then that settles that matter. Now order the dog–cart, Crady dear, and
drive me to Dr. Huttonʼs.”

Of course he obeyed her immediately, and in an hour they entered the
gate of Geopharmacy Lodge. Rosa was amazed at her beauty, and thought
very little, after that, of Mrs. Corklemoreʼs appearance.

“For my part,” said Rufus Hutton, when Eoa had laid the case before
him in a privy council, “although it is very good of you, and very
flattering to me, that you look upon me still as your guardian, I think
you are bound first of all to consult Sir Cradock Nowell.”

“How very odd! Now that is exactly what I do not mean to do. He never
can understand, poor dear, and I hope he never will, the truth about
poor Claytonʼs death. His present conviction is, like that of all the
neighbourhood, that Black Will the poacher did it, the man who has
since been killed in a fight with Sir Julius Wallopʼs gamekeepers. And
it would shock poor uncle so; I am sure he would never get over it if
the truth were forced upon him. And if it were, I am sure he would
never allow me to have my way, which, of course, I should do in spite
of him. And I am not his heiress now, since Cradock came to life again.
But I have plenty of money of my own; and I have quite settled what to
give him the day that I am married, and you too, my dear guardy, if
you behave well about this. Look here!”

She drew forth a purse quite full of gold, and tossed it in her old
Indian style, so that Rufus could not help laughing.

“Well, my dear,” he answered kindly, “who could resist such bribery?
Besides, I see that your mind is made up, and we all know what the
result of that is. And after all, the chief question is, what effect
will your knowledge of this have on your love for your husband?”

“It will only make me love him more, ever so much more, because of his
misfortune.”

“And will you never allude to it, never let him see that you think of
it, so as to spoil his happiness?”

“Is it likely I should think of it? Why, my father must have killed
fifty men. He was desperate in a battle. And Bob has never brought that
up against me.”

“Well, if you take it in that light—decidedly not an English light——”

“And perhaps you never heard that Bobʼs father, by his quickness and
boldness, saved the lives of fifteen men in a colliery explosion before
he ever came to Nowelhurst, and therefore he had a perfect right
to—to——”

“Take the lives of fifteen others. Fourteen to his credit still. Well,
Eoa, you can argue, if any female in the world can. Only in one thing,
my dear child, be advised by me. If you must marry Robert Garnet,
leave this country for a while, and take his sister Pearl with you.”

“Of course I must marry Bob,” said Eoa; “and of course I should go away
with him. But as to taking Pearl with us, why, thatʼs a thing to be
thought about.”

However, they got over that, as well as all other difficulties; Sir
Cradock Nowell was at the wedding, Mr. Rosedew performed the ceremony,
and Rufus Hutton gave away as lovely a bride as ever was seen. Bob
Garnet spied a purple emperor, who had lost his way, knocking his head
in true imperial fashion against the chancel–window, and he glanced at
Eoa about it, between the two “I wills,” and she lifted her beautiful
eyebrows, and he saw that she meant to catch him. So, after signing the
register, they contrived to haul him down, without letting John Rosedew
know it; then at the chancel–porch they let him go free of the Forest,
with his glorious wings unsoiled. Not even an insect should have cause
to repent their wedding–day.

And now they live in as fair a place as any the world can show, not
far from Pezo da Ragoa, in the Alto Douro district. There Eoaʼs
children toddle by the brilliant riverʼs brink, and form their limbs to
strength and beauty up the vine–clad mountainʼs side. Bob has invested
his share of proceeds in a vineyard of young Bastardo, and Muscat de
Jesu; moreover, he holds a good appointment under the Royal Oporto
Company, agricultural of the vine. Many a time Eoa sits watching with
her deep bright eyes the purple flow of the luscious juice from the
white marble “lagar,” wherein the hardy peasants, with their drawers
tied at the knee, tramp to the time of the violin to and fro, without
turning round, among the pulpy flood. Then Bob, who has discovered a
perfect cure for oidium, and knows how to deal with every grub that
bores into or nips the vine, to his wife and bairns he comes in haste,
having been too long away, bringing a bunch of the “ladiesʼ fingers,”
or the Barrete de Clerigo, or it may be some magnificent insect new to
his entomology; or, still more interesting prize, a letter from Pearl
or Amy, wherein Mrs. Pell, or Nowell, gossips of the increasing cares
which increase her happiness. Yet even among those lovely scenes, and
under that delicious sky, frequent and fond are the glances cast by
hope, as well as memory, at the bowered calm of the Forest brooks, and
the brown glamour of the beechwood.

And when they return to dwell in the Forest, and to end their days
there, even Bob will scarcely know the favourite haunts of his
boyhood—to such an extent has Cradock Nowell planted and improved,
clothing barren slopes with verdure, adding to the wealth of woods many
a new tint and tone, by the aid of foreign trees unknown to his father.
In doing so, his real object is not so much to improve the estate, or
gratify his own good taste, or even that of Amy; but to find labour
for the hands, and food for the mouths, of industrious people. Sir
Cradock grumbles just a little every now and then, because, like all
of us Englishmen, he must have his grievance. But, on the whole, he is
very proud of what his son is doing, and thoroughly enjoys his power of
urging or repressing it.

And if on theoretic matters any question chances to arise between them,
when one says “no” to the otherʼs “yes”—as all true Britons are bound
to do upon politics, port wine, and parsons,—then a gentle spirit comes
and turns it all to laughter, with the soft and pleasant wit of a
well–bred womanʼs ignorance. For Amy still must have her say, and still
asserts her privilege to flavour every dull discussion with lively
words, and livelier glances, and a smile for both the disputants. Then
Cradock looks at his dear young wife with notes of admiration, and bids
her keep such piquant wisdom for the councils of the nursery. Upon
which pleasant reminder, the old man chuckles, as if some very good
thing had been said; then craftily walks with a spotted toy, capable of
barking and exactly representing Caldo or Wena, whichever you please,
to the foot of certain black oak–stairs, where he fully expects to hear
the prattle of small Clayton.

To wit, it has been long resolved, and managed with prospective wisdom
down the path of years, that the county annals shall not be baulked of
a grand Sir Clayton Nowell. And a very grand fellow indeed he is, this
two–year–old Clayton Nowell—grand in the stolid sageness of his broad
and steadfast gaze, grand in the manner of his legs and his Holbein
attitude, grander still in stamping when his meat and ale are late, but
grandest of all, immeasurably grand, in the eyes of his grandfather.

Hogstaff, whose memory is quite gone, and his hearing too of every
sound except the voice of this boy, identifies him beyond all cavil
with the Clayton of our story. Many a time the bowed retainer chides
his little master for not remembering the things he taught him only
yesterday. Then Cradock smiles at his sonʼs oblivion of the arts his
uncle learned, but never reminds old Hoggy that the yesterday was
rather more than five–and–twenty years ago.

Is it true or is it false, according to the rules of art, that the
winding–up of a long, long story, handled with more care than skill,
should have some resemblance to the will of a kindly–natured man? In
whose final dispositions, no dependent, however humble, none who have
helped him in the many pages of his life, far less any intimate friend,
seeks in vain a grateful mention or a token of regard.

Be that as it may, any writer who loves his work (although a fool for
doing so) feels the end and finish of it like the signature of his
will. And doubly saddened must he be, if the scenes which charmed him
most, and cast upon him such a spell that he could not call spectators
in,—if these, for want of skill, have wearied eyes and hearts he might
have pleased.

For surely none would turn away, whose nature is uncancelled, if once
he could be gently led into that world of beauty. To rest in the
majesty of shade, forgetting weary headache; to let the little carking
cares, avarice and jealousy, self–conceit and thirst of fame, fly away
on the wild wood, like the piping of a bird; to hear the rustle of
young leaves, when their edges come together, and dreamily to wonder at
the size of things above us.

Shall ever any man enclasp the good that grows above him, or even offer
to receive the spread of Heavenʼs greatness? Yet every man may lift
himself above the highest tree–tops, even to the throne of God, by
loving and forgiving.

And verily, some friends of ours, who could not once forego a grudge,
are being taught, by tare and trett, how much they owe their Maker, and
how little to themselves. First of these is Rufus Hutton, quite a jolly
mortal, getting fat, and riding Polly for the sake of his liver and
renes. And all he has to say is this: first, that he will match trees
and babies with those of any nurseryman; next, that as I have a knack
of puffing good people and good things, he begs for reciprocity on the
part of superior readers. And if this should chance to meet the eye of
any one who knows where to find a really first–rate Manilla, conducted
on free–trade principles, such knowing person, by addressing,
confidentially under seal, “R. H., Post–office, Ringwood,” may hear of
something very greatly to his own advantage.

Now do we, without appeal to the blue smoke of enthusiasm, know of
anything to the advantage of anybody whatever? Yes, I think we do. We
may highly commend the recent career of the Ducksacre firm, and Mr.
Clinkers, and Issachar Jupp the bargee. Robert Clinkers and Polly his
wife are driving a first–rate business in coal and coke and riddlings,
not highly aristocratic perhaps, but free from all bad debts. You may
see the name on a great brass–plate near the Broadway, Hammersmith,
on the left hand, where the busses stop. But Mr. Jupp flies at higher
game. He has turned his length of wind, that once secured the palm
of victory in physical encounters, to a higher and nobler use. In a
word, Mr. Jupp is a Primitive Christian upon and beside the waters of
Avon. There you may hear him preaching and singing through his nose
alternately—ah, me, that is not what I mean—for either proceeding is
nasal—every Sunday and Wednesday evening, when the leaks in the punt
allow him. He gets five–and–thirty shillings a–week, as Sir Cradockʼs
water–bailiff, and he has not stolen twig or catkin of all the trees he
convoys down Avon. In seven or eight more summers, little Loo Jupp will
probably be the prettiest girl in the Forest. May we be there to see
her!

The best and kindest man of all who have said their say in my story,
and not thrust their merits forward, John Rosedew, still leads his
quiet life, nearer and nearer to wisdomʼs threshold, nearer and nearer
to the door of God. His temper is as soft and sweet, his memory as
bright and ready, and his humour as playful, as when he was only thirty
years old, and walked every day to Kidlington. As for his shyness, that
we must never ask him to discard; because he likes to know us first,
and then he likes to love us.

But of all the people in the world, next to his own child Amy, most he
loves and most he honours his son–in–law, Cradock Nowell—

Cradock Nowell, so enlarged and purified by affliction, so able now
to understand and feel for every poor man. He, when placed in large
possessions and broad English influence, never will forget the time
of darkness, grief, and penury, never will look upon his brethren, as
under another God than his.

It is true that we must have hill and valley, towering oak and ragged
robin, zenith cloud overlooking the sun, and mist crouching down in the
hollows. And true as well that we cannot see all the causes and needs
of the difference. But is it not still more true and sure, that the
whole is of one universal kingdom (bound together by one great love),
the high and low, the rich and poor, the powerful and the helpless? And
in the spreading of that realm, beyond the shores of time and space,
when at last it is understood what the true aim of this life has been,
not greatness, honour, wealth, or science, no, nor even wisdom—as we
unwisely take it—but happiness here and hereafter, a flowing tide
whose fountain is our love of one another, then shall we truly learn
by feeling (whereby alone we can learn) that all the cleaving of
our sorrow, and cuts into the heart of us, were nothing worse than
preparation for the grafts of God.

                               THE END.

                                LONDON:

            PRINTED BY C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND.

                         TRANSCRIBERʼS NOTES:

—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.

—A Table of Contents was not in the original work; one has been
 produced and added by Transcriber