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Dewey Donnell Booh Fund

A gift to ths
STANFOED UKI¥IS§iW UilM

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SJhu "Slttf-hll" S^t\m

THE DISTURBING ELEMENT

\

THE

DISTURBING ELEMENT

OR

(|hi[0nii[lf» 0f Ihf JIu^-^II J^oddg

BY

CHARLOTTE M. YONGE

Author of "The Heir of Rbdclyffe"

Sllustrateti bg ^nq^ jWacquotlr

■J ^.^^m

ILonlron:

MARCUS WARD & CO.,67,68,CHANDOS STREET

And royal ULSTER WORKS, BELFAST

1878

1

AUKf52.-:i.

CONTENTS.

CHAP. PACK

I. — True Blue, ..... 7

II. — The Bells, . . 21

III. — Penny Wise, . . . . .36

IV. — Dr. Knowall, .... 49

V. — Geological Researches, . . -73

VI.— Gaffer's Hole, .... 90

VII.— The Lecture, . . . . .121

VIII.— Crying Wolf, . . 138

IX.— Penny's Ride, . . . . .148

X. — A Midnight Vestry, ... 163

XI. — Very Watery, . . -177

XII. — After the Deluge, ... 195

XIII.— A Penelope's Web, .... 206

XIV.— Prize Hyacinths, .... 222

Jllu^tption^.

PAGE

Penny's Ride (p. 155), . . . Frontispiece,

Plan of Poppleton St. Barbe and Vicinity, . 12
The Deputation, ..... 14
Philip Harcombe attacking Mr. Sneyd, . 152

Winifred and SIephen St. Barbe, . . 186

THE DISTURBING ELEMENT.

CHAPTER I.

TRUE BLUE.

MS an invalid, I am always supposed to
have more time than any one else, I am
not sure that it is the fact, for languor
makes work go slowly even at the best, and,
besides, those who are supposed to do work for
everyone sometimes end in doing work for no one.
However, my friends are so kind to me that I
am glad to be able to show my good-will in
working for them, and fortunately my invalidism
is not very severe of disabling, being chiefly a
weakness of spine, which prevents my walking or
driving for more than half-an-hour at a time, and
— connected with that, as they say — an asthmatic
affection which will not let me breathe anywhere

f

8 The Disturbing Element.

but at this little place of Poppleton St. Barbe,
and not much there at night when the wind gets
into the north-east.

My sister Susan and I stumbled into it by a sort
of chance, when, on the break-up of an old home,
we were trying all the world round for a place that
would agree with me; and as my breath grew better
here, and my bones rebelled at the notion of going
up all the hills that fence it in, " we wintered and
summered it," as our maid Rebekah says, and
ended by setting up our staff, ^>., by taking a long
lease of this house, which we did not name " Violet
Villa." Indeed we did our best to alter the name,
so much did it disgust Susan's love of common
sense ; but custom has been too strong for her, and
I see her dating her letters from V. V. without the
slightest compunction.

Poppleton St. Barbe is an odd little town. It
would fain be a watering-place, but fate is against
it. The nearest station is twelve miles off, and
between lie no less than three tremendous hills.
Barbe Torr hill generally needs four horses to
draw up a tolerably well-filled fly, and the leaders
appear to be in a nearly perpendicular position
above the head of the inmate. Ben Boldre, who
shuts in the eastern side of our little bay, is not so
severe, in spite of his name, but then he leads to

Tme Blue.

no particular place, and till the railroad shoots out
the threatened branch, we are not likely to have
incursions on that side.

There is another objection, namely, that our
beach consists of nothing but pebbles, big pebbles
and small, varying from the size of a pea to that
of a bombshell, all rolling about un^er the feet of
the walker, so that only practice can make perfect
in the art of avoiding the getting the ankles and
insteps crushed among them. Susan used to come
home with her feet black and blue the first year we
were here, and though there is a nice smooth walk
and carriage-road along the top, where, alone, I
can take my walks abroad, it is only half-a-mile
long, and storms and spring tides are apt to make
such havoc of it that we have to pay heavily to
keep it in repair. Moreover, it is only a narrow
shelf, deposited, as the learned tell us, by the Boldre,
and a very little way out the sea becomes so
extremely deep that bathing is very dangerous,
except in one tiny cove behind Barbe Head, where
an enterprising old woman keeps two machines
and a-half.

So it was a failure when, some forty or fifty years
ago, a bold speculator, the same who began the
great reservoir on the moor, added to the original
little town half-a-dozen lodging-houses atvd ^"v\Tv5iv^

10 The Disturbing Element

villas with fine names. He ruined himself, poor
man, but the buildings have their use. The few
who know Poppleton are passionately fond of it,
and we dread nothing so much as that it should
get a general reputation for being a quiet and
unsophisticated place, and all the world should
rush down on it together and spoil it. There is
one London family connected with the county,
who always come here as regularly as the vacation
comes round, and sometimes are met by other
relations, and it is the established haunt of sundry
old-fashioned friends who like to meet here in the
winter, and escape the fall of the leaf at home.
Other visitors we have, when holiday children want
a little sea air, and the old boatmen and bathing
women have plenty of custom from merry young
folks. Everybody knows everybody ; we think
ourselves extremely select, and glance at outsiders
as if they were the skirmishers of an invading
army.

The Boldre comes down from the moors, rising
in a long ravine, or gully, between our two hills,
with a beautiful course through woods and rocks,
foaming, sparkling, and leaping, and causing his
visitors to rave almost as much as he does on a
stormy day, when he tears down, all yellow water
and foam, roaring into the sea and overflowing all

Trtie Blue, ii

his bed, spreading over the road, and bringing
fresh instalments of stones to the shingle.

The stream divides into two branches, on either
side of a sort of delta. I fancy this must once have
been one of those rocks, with a gradual slope
towards the land and a precipice towards the sea,
which form islets, and that the river enlarged it
gradually by the deposits it brought down,
lengthening it in the rear, raising the ground
below the precipice, and filling up the gorge,
while the south side was raised by two successive
elevations of coast, forming two shelves above the
beach and under the cliff, so that the island, as
our little nephew Edward used to delight in
calling it, contained about fifty acres. On the
summit, with a dark grey precipice coming nearly
sheer down from the south-eastern buttress of its
chancel, most picturesquely perched, is our church,
with a magnificent high square tower, with one
tall staircase turret pointing up like a finger,
intended to serve as a landmark at sea, and certainly
worthy to be St. Barbara's symbol. The church-
goers from the eastern side have to go up a grand
flight of stone steps, most beautiful and picturesque,
but the descent of which is formidable to skirts in
wet weather. On the east side, below the church-
yard, slopes the Rectory garden ; on IK^^n^'sX^X^^X.-^

12 The Disturbing Element.

Lodge, a very pretty and beautifully arranged house
with a tiny farm, belonging to Captain Walton ;
on the south, on the uppermost shelf beneath the pre-
cipice, and with two small terraces below to secure it
from spring tides, our own Violet Villa. The Rectory
lies behind in the fork of the stream, standing high,
and its garden sloping down.

The main body of the river — not that it is much
in summer time — goes to the east of this islet of
ours, and there is a bridge, that generally looks
ridiculously high and large, connecting the church
steps with Brackenridge, Mr. Arrowsmith's house,
and the hamlet beyond. The other branch is gene-
rally a mere thread of damp among stones and
greener grass, though it too has a bridge in case of
accidents, and to lessen the ascent of the hill. The
side of Barbe Torr is beautiful park, golden with
gorse, purple with heath, and here and there with
glades of turf, studded with trees. The chief part of
the town lies curving in rows, connected by steep
lanes on the lower, south-western corner of Ben
Boldre, looking very pretty from this distance,
though within, I fancy it is very fishy. The gentry
live in terraces above it. and there is a little iron
chapel for the fishermen at the further end.

We think ours the most charming situation of
all. The church is just above our heads, delightful

Trtie Blue. 13

creepers and ferns cover the clifiF behind the house,
and we have the benefit of Captain Walton's
precious pines. Our magnolias and myrtles never
perish, and our terraces are lovely with all kinds
of rarities. My window looks on the sea, and my
music, as I sit alone or wake at night, is the plash
of the ^Y^ves, and the rush and rattle of the pebbles
on the beach.

Not that there is much sitting alone. Susan is in
and out all day long about her various occupa-
tions concerning house, garden, and parish, where
long habitation and usefulness have made her a
kind of authority.

But this is all aside from the mark. My purpose
is to write the history of the Blue-bell Society.

It was one hot June day, when the blinds were
keeping out the glare of the sun, and I was sitting
half-asleep over some idle reading, that I heard a
rippling and a babbling, over and above the noise
of the pebbles and the sea, coming up the garden
walk, warning me to settle my hair, put away my
book, and take up my knitting. I heard the bell, •
and I also heard through the open window the
fresh, and I must confess rather loud, young voice
of Lettice Arrowsmith, declaring she knew Miss
Webster was out, but was Miss Frances well
enough to see her?

True Blue, 15

Morland, but her voice was lost in the general
castigation that fell upon Penny for her precipit-
ancy, which was supposed to have alarmed me, and
she was suppressed, and ordered to leave Lettice
free to explain the matter.

" The fact is, dear Miss Frances," said she, " that
we all feel that we are wasting a great deal of
time in a desultory manner, and we want to arrange
some scheme for working together with a view to
the local examinations "

It was a great way for one speaker to have gone
on uninterrupted, and Winifred Walton plunged
in, " So we thought of forming a society —

a

"Because Winifred doesn't belong to societies
enough already," broke forth Penny. " Let me
see," counting on her fingers, " she gets up by the
Early Rising Society, that's one ; she reads by the
Half-hour Society, two ; she practises by the
Classical Musical Society, three ; draws by another,
four; walks by the Out-of-door one, five; works
by the — is it two or three working ones, Winifred 1
— Sewing, Knitting, and Fancy Work, and an
Essay Society besides "

" The Essay Society has broken up," said
Winifred, in the unconcerned tone of one far too
intent on her purpose to perceive a joke. " That's
the thing "

1 6 The Disturbing Element.

" So you see," added Penny, " poor Winny
having only eight societies is obliged to come
begging for a ninth. I believe she will soon not
be able to cut her nails without a society to tell
her when."

" Perhaps some people's tongues need a society
for their repression," I CQuld not help putting in.
" Here is Lettice burning to go on with her speech,
and myself on tenter-hooks to know what you want
to do with me."

" To make you our critic," cried out the general
voice, while particular ones explained, " To get you
to look over our essays;" "To let us meet here
once a week ;" " To direct our readings ;" " To look
at our questions."

" For," explained Winifred, " that was the rock
we split upon. One of our girls asked the history
of the Reform Bill, and as some of them were
tremendous Tories, and the critic an awful Liberal,
there was such a row we could not go on together.
We had been nearly as bad before about the
character of John Knox, and then we made a rule
to have no party questions, whereupon this girl
declared that she didn't know that there were two
opinions about the Reformation."

The injured way in which Winifred related all
this, as something far too sad and serious for a

True Blue, 17

spark of fun to be visible in it, set all the others
into screams of laughter, from the midst of which
came Lettice's voice, entreating that the whole
might not be turned intp nonsense, when Winifred's
grave assurance that she had said nothing — ^it was
not her fault— reduced Penelope to a choking
state.

" I knew how it would be if she came," sighed
Winifred; on which Penny started up with, " Ladies
and gentlemen, I appeal —

n

Here, however, Lettice got up a cry of " Order,
order," in which Dora Morland and Marjorie
Carstairs both joined, and we came to an under-
standing — for as all the voices impressed on me at
once, " it was no joke." They did really wish to
form a Mutual Improvement Society, and to study
with some method and object. Several of them
wished to go up for one of the local examinations
for women, and all thought that it would be best
to work together, " With some one to keep us in
order," added Lettice.

Their present notion was to give out some
subjects once a-week, work them up at home, and
meet to correct and compare results, and they had
unanimously fixed on Violet Villa as the best
place of. meeting, and my stupid old self as the
president, critic, or, as Penny called it, cricket^ wVvo

B

1 8 The Disturbing Element.

was to chirp comments on my own hearth, and
serve as a kind of centre.

Well, I was flattered — I was touched. I liked
to have the young things about me. I am glad if
I can help them. I think it will be fun. Only
what will Susan say? However, that suggestion
was overwhelmed by, " Oh ! she'll be all right !"
"Never mind;" "I'll tackle Miss Webster" (this
from Penny the undaunted) ; and then I was called
a dear, delicious, darling Miss Frances, and my
head was nearly hugged off — my apology for a cap
quite so.

Then we subsided, and I was told of the other
four members, and of a few more who would
correspond. Then what were we to call our-
selves?

"Z^ salon bleu** suggested Winifred, looking
round at the room, which had lately come out in
a summer garb of chintz with a running pattern of
blue coral all over it, to agree with a blue brocade
arm-chair and curtains to match, which were relics
of an old home.

" No, no," I protested ; " Tm not going to set up
for a Hotel Rambouillet. We should soon be
known as the Pr^cieuses Ridicules.**

" I think we had better steer clear of blue,*' said
Dora.

True Blue. 19

" And I think we had better take the bull by the
horns, and call ourselves the Bos bleu at once,"
said Winifred.

I thought that would sound rather pretentious,
but the girls had, it seemed, set their hearts on
having each a little blue badge, and using the name
of some blue flower as their nom de plume. Such
fancies, half play, half poetry, must go along with
girlhood's plans, and very merry all were over the
cjioice of names. Ours was then to be the Blue-
bell Society, and our first Bell was Canterbury-
bell, i,e,y tall, bright, cheery Lettice Arrowsmith.

Winifred chose the Gentianella, and nearly
relinquished it, because Dora was overheard mutter-
ing, " Darkly, deeply, beautifully blue;" and Penny
exclaimed, " Really> Dora, you should be Viper's
Bugloss, you have such a sting ! "

"I meant it, thank you," said Dora, with her
accustomed sang-froid. "I particularly admire
Bugloss."

Maisie Carstairs could of course be only the
Harebell, or Blue-bell of Scotland, and Penny
began by appropriating the Shamrock, and being
reminded that it was not blue, proposed the
Sapphire, because it was the next thing to aaj
Emerald. " Oh, Penny, Penny ! you'd better tato
care they don't drum you out of the &QCNftX>j

A

20 The Disturbing Element.

altogether," cried Lettice, as she heard Winifred's
indignant whisper of " How can you be so silly!"

" You had better be Forget-me-not, as a whole-
some reminder," observed the Viper's Bugloss.

"Not I," rejoined Penny; "TU leave that for
some one more sentimental. No, I mean to be the
Blue-bottle, that is always buzzing in your ears."

There was another outcry, but Penny proved
that Blue-bottle was really the popular name of
the wild Hyacinth, and was left in peace therewith.
After all, she was not nearly so Irish as her name
appeared, and as she chose to affect to be. Her
father's family had been settled for several gene-
rations in England, her mother was purely
English, and she had never seen the Green Isle ;
her brogue was studied out of books, and though
inherited nature had done something in making
her what she was, enthusiastic imitation of every-
thing Irish had done more. Nothing made her so
angry as to tell her so, and I was thankful that it
did not occur to Dora to do so, before a message
came in that Miss Dove had called for Miss
Carstairs, and, silent member as she had been, this
broke up the conclave, and I was left to face my
sister Susan.

CHAPTER 11.

THE BELLS.

FOR. my sister Susan is seven years older than I
am, and she is the head of the house, and of
me too. We have never changed in that matter,
since she was my little mamma in play, before in
sad earnest, when my dear mother bade Susan take
care of the little ones, and told us to look up to
her and obey her. I am her last home-bird, and I
don't like doing what she does not heartily
approve — not only for afTection and duty's sake,
but because she is really so much better and wiser
than I am, and I always observe that nothing she
really dislikes turns out well.

So it was with some trepidation that I awaited
her return from her Mothers' Meeting, and ran(
the bell at the first click of the latch of the gate,!
sure that she would be thirsty after all her cxittvK?.

22 The Disturbing Element.

out and talking, though Jane Morland is reader.
And I was prepared to hear on her entrance,
** Frances, what have you been doing ?"

"What have you been hearing?" I asked, and I
found that she was in a bewildered state, Jane
Morland, our Vicar's eldest daughter, having told
her that Dora was going with half-a-dozen more
girls to get me to consent to It Jane could not
understand what It was — ^great nonsense, Dora said,
and she thought so too. Then Miss Dove had met
her in the street and told her that she did not
half like Ity and would not have permitted It, if
Miss Frances had not taken It up. Next, Pene-
lope Ryan had danced round her on the Parade,
beseeching her to be a dear, good, darling Miss
Webster, It would be so jolly with Miss Frances at
the head of It ; and lastly, Winifred Walton had,
with a solemnity that alarmed her more than
all, shaken hands with her, saying that they were
infinitely obliged to Miss Frances, and considered
Its future as secure. No wonder poor Susan came
in startled, and desiring to know what I could have
been undertaking.

" Suppose I had a Daughters' Meeting while you
have a Mothers' .?" said I, trying to put a good face
upon it; and then we came to an explanation as far
as I understood the scheme, for many details had

The Bells. 23

yet to be shaped, since tjie whole had been a good
deal contingent on her consent. She was not
much delighted.

" I don't see any sense in it," she said ; " you
will have all these girls for ever rushing in upon
you and talking you to death."

" It won't be for ever, only on Tuesday after-
noons, and I mean to be a dragon of a chair-
woman, and ring my bell at all extraneous chatter.
It will be very entertaining, and, indeed, Susan," I
humbly added, " I should like to be of some use."

"What use?" said Susan (she was very thirsty
still, for the water did not boil, and we could not
get any tea) — " what use but to make those girls
more pretentious and noisy than they are already.
I really was quite ashamed of the disturbance
Penelope Ryan was making."

"Poor Penelope," said I (for Susan did not
love " foolish names") — " I should like to give her
a little ballast."

"Do you expect to do it in this way?" said
Susan. " Much the same sort of ballast as the
feather of a bit of thistledown !"

" I told them I could promise nothing without
you, and if you think it would only do harm —

»

" That is going too fast. I never said anything.*
Here the tea came in, in the dear old daisy-

24 The Disturbing Element.

patterned cups, whose very touch was soothing,
and by the time Rebekah had drawn up the blind
at the south window, and reported a message left
at the door, Susan was in a much less disturbed
frame of mind.

" All I wish," she said in a voice pitched much
lower than before, *• is that you should not under-
take too much, and let yourself be at the mercy of
all the girls in the place ; but if you really have
a fancy for it, and it amuses you, I can have no
objection."

" Thank you. Miss Webster," and Lettice Arrow-
smith's bright laughing face came dipping under
the blind that still kept out the westering sun.
" Indeed I haven't been listening. I only came this
moment. I've had to go on and order some fish,
and I thought you would sustain me with some tea
before crossing the bridge. Papa said he should
be late to-day."

I suspected that this was a little coaxing art on
our Lettice's part. She is a great favourite with
Susan ; of late from a fellow feeling, for it was three
years since she was left to be the stay of a mother-
less family, and she has owed a great deal to the
help and sympathy she has always had from Susan.
Mr. Arrowsmith is the chief partner of the County
Bank at Warchester, but he bought some property

The Bells. 25

and built a house at Brackenridge, on the lower
ground of the ravine, just on the other side of the
river. The gardens slope down to the bank, and
the lodge gate is close to the bridge, and the
plantations run up the steep slope of Ben Boldre
behind. His flowers are the pride of the country,
and he spends all his leisure days on them and his
model farm, giving most of his time, however, to
Warchester, and sometimes looking in on the little
branch bank in Poppleton.

Lettice was, at this time of which I am writing,
twenty-five — a tall, brisk, fresh-coloured creature,
with a pleasant look of health and energy. She
was the only one of the elder half of the family
who had been spared by a grievous visitation of
diphtheria, so there was a great gap between her
and her fourteen-year-old brother, after whom there
came another boy and two little girls. We had, and
still have, a little vision about Lettice, but I don't
know whether it will be fulfilled. At anyrate, she
is such an excellent young mother that it was a
wonder to see her without her two little sisters, and
Susan enquired after them.

" I left them to play in the garden to-day," said
she. " I had some calls to make, and, besides, I
wanted to talk over this matter."

" My dear Lettice, you don't mean that you

26 The Disturbing Element

are bitten with these schemes?" exclaimed
Susan.

Lettice made a droll shrinking gesture, and put
up one hand between herself and Susan.

" I am sure you have enough to do!" said my
sister.

"Not so much as I had before Jamie went to
school, and now Mary and Bessie have a governess.
You know papa wished it, now they are growing
too old to be left to servants whenever we go out
to dinner; and, besides — now we come to the point
— I do know so very little that I'm not fit to
teach."

" My dear, I thought you had a first-rate educa-
tion — a German governess and masters!"

" I do know German pretty well, but I know my
French accent is horrible. I have read a good
deal, but in an aimless sort of way, just because the
books came to hand ; and though I have kept up
by working with the boys till they went to school,
I found, even in Tom's last holidays, that he was
getting beyond me, and that I soon shall not be
able to help him. While as to the girls, I find I
don't know anything really and properly as a
teacher ought to do, when I get above the merest
foundations; and the worst of it is," she added,
laughing, " that Miss Coles seems to me to know

Tlie Bells. 27

less still, and not even to have arrived at perceiving
that she does not know."

" But you are not to be a governess, and you are
not bound to Miss Coles for ever?"

" No, but I like her ; the children are good with
her ; papa is interested in her family, and would not
like a change, which would be wholesome for none of
us. I had rather make something of her. Now if
I was to propose to her to work up for the local
examination by herself, she might very likely think
it a burden ; but if I did it with her, and it became
the means of introducing her to something pleasant
and lively beyond the schoolroom, I think she
would take to it, and really be improved."

"And what is to become of the children in the
meantime.?"

" Oh ! she has plenty of time in the evening, and
I in the morning. You see we have to breakfast
early for papa to get off to the bank, and I shall be
very glad to have an object now that I have so
much less to do for the children."

"You won't go up for one of these examina-
tions.?"

"I don't know how papa may like it when it
comes to the point, but, at anyrate, I shall have
done the work for it, and that's the important point."

" I am glad you think so," said SusajL

28 The Disturbing Element.

" Besides," added Lettice, " I was really anxious
to make the thing succeed when Winifred Walton
spoke to me about it. It would be so good for
some of the girls here to have something sensible
to think about."

It was quite true, as we had always said. The
parish work was pretty well disposed of between
Mrs. Morland, her daughter, the curate's wife, with
Susan, and a few other ladies, for Mrs. Morland
preferred having district visitors of a certain age,
and except that some took classes in the Sunday
school, there was nothing for the girls to do, save
that Lettice looked after some cottagers on her
father's property, and Penelope after the mining
families among whom her father lived. There was
Dora, as we all knew, getting quite cross and
bitter for want of interest and occupation ; there
was Penny attempting all sorts of things in her
slap-dash vehement manner, and getting opinion-
ated for want of some standard to bring her to
book; there were Edith and Alice Parnell, a pair of
sisters, who were a grief to Susan's eyes, because
they seemed to do nothing but pace up and down
' the Parade drying their hair after bathing, Then
there was Emma Lacy. Lettice and I looked at
each other drolly, read in each other's eyes that we
had received her confidence, and straightway

The Bells, 29

betrayed it, thinking it good for my sister to hear
it. Poor Emma Lacy was always sending manu-
scripts to magazines and always having them
rejected, and she had secretly appealed to both
Lettice and me to know why it could be that
editors should be so cruel. To me she had shown
a poem entitled, "My crushed buds," written in
the person of a mother who had lost all her
children in infancy ; and to Lettice a romance on
some early Christians, who, fleeing from the per-
secution of Caligula, got into a cavern on the sea-
coast of Sicily, and were nearly drowned by a spring
tide, but beguiled their sufferings by singing the
Ambrosian hymn and reading the Book of Revela-
tion. When Lettice had made certain suggestions
as to the nature of the Mediterranean and the
chronology of the early Church, she found the
would-be authoress quite ignorant of such trifling
details, and destitute of books whence to supply
them.

Susan had come the length of allowing that it
would be much better for these damsels to have
something rational given them to do. Only, she
continued, that she would not have me worried
and tired, though she should be less afraid on that
score if Lettice undertook to look after me, and
she further stipulated that the members should

30 The Disturbing Element

never be more than the nine proposed, or she knew
it would be too much for me. We were thankful
for having gained this much, and acknowledged
both her wisdom and her goodness, knowing well
that her consent went much against the grain.

Moreover, I was to have a secretary, and the choice
was left in my own hands. It was not a very wide
field, for there were only four of the Blue-bells
whom I knew to be capable, and of those Lettice
was too busy, and Dora had a temper I did not
trust, so that only Winifred and Marjorie remained.

Winifred was the moving spring and author of
the whole scheme, and perhaps had the first claim;
but, to say the truth, I was a little afraid of her, she
was so methodical and dictatorial, and had such a
lack of fun, that I did not want to give her the
power of dragooning us all. Her life was really, as
Penny said, portioned out by societies, and she
seemed to have very little object in life but
fulfilling their rules, so as to get prizes and avoid
fines. Her chief subjects of conversation were,
"Can you lend me a book where I can get up
the properties of light .'^" Or, "Isn't it a shame?
There is a translation not nearly so good as mine
with eight marks more. I shall write and com-
plain." Or, " Good-bye, I can't stay, or I shall not
have had my open-air hour."

The Bells. 31

Dora said she was nothing but an automaton
with brains, and cared for nothing but stuffing
them. It was not untrue, but Winifred's was a
curious position. Her father was a very- highly-
cultivated and accomplished man, who had been in
the army. He had married a very young wife,
exactly suited to him, and they had always been so
much devoted to each other and to their pursuits
that they really had no time to attend to their
daughter. They had leased Delta Lodge, with a
little land, and had made it a wonderful place for
all that is artistic. They went abroad a good deal,
and at home were always finishing up drawings for
exhibitions, gardening, and doing a little pictur-
esque amateur farming — quite inseparable, and
wanting no one else. When Winifred outgrew the
age for being a pretty plaything, she was sent to
school, and at eighteen was taken from thence,
mth a good deal more brain and less beauty than
her mother, with a real turn for study and very little
for accomplishment, and even that little diminished
by her distaste to a certain affected manner and
overstretched -enthusiasm in her mother, and by
finding what she felt to be shallow and empty
made the business of life. She was now twenty,
and had had two years of — not being told she was
de trop^ not exactly feeling it, yet of being not

32 The Disturbing Element.

wanted, and, therefore, becoming less interested in
her parents' pursuits, and more wrapped up in her
own, and living a life outside the home where she
ate, drank, and slept. Thus hers was more an in-
tellectual than a human life. She had not known
tenderness enough to be very attractive, and even
at school had made no warm friendships. Her
contact was only with fellow-members of societies,
and though I believe she had a soft spot in her
heart, I knew that, if I made her my secretary, I
should be winding up a steady-going, self-acting
machine, which would pinch my fingers as ruth-
lessly as anyone's if I tried to stop it.

I preferred the notion of Maisie Carstairs, the
Honourable Marjorie, as she was rather maliciously
called. She was a very silent inoffensive girl, with
shining observant eyes of the same colour as her
red knot of hair, and a taJl, awkward figure. The
poor thing had the misfortune to be the child of a
late, unwelcome second marriage of an old Scottish
nobleman, and, when left an orphan, had been
turned over to the care of her mother's aunt, who
regarded her as a most precious deposit, and made
such a fuss about her precedence as rendered life
a burden to her, and even prejudiced people
against the girl herself. Maisie, who had had a
winter of Edinburgh before she was consigned to

The Bells. 33

good Miss Dove's little square abode on the heights
of Ben Boldre, had really seen more of intellectual
society in that space than any of us had ever met,
and though she had never been heard to utter
a word of complaint, she must have found the
world of Poppleton very dull and dry. She was
still in mourning for her father, and there was a
look on her face that might be weariness or sad-
ness, there was no knowing which, and I once or
twice fancied her heart might be in the Highlands.
Any way, she treated my offer of the secretaryship
as if it was an inestimable favour, and the manner
in which she drew up the notices of our first meet-
ing augured well for the future.

" And do you think," asked Susan, " that you are
going to reform all these young ladies with your
Blue-bell affair?"

" Certaiqly not," I answered ; " only to give
them some infinitesimal help."

" Humph I Much they will care for it the first
time a man appears."

" When the Prince comes, Susan, to put it grace-
fully. But in the meantime, before the disturbing
element comes, let us try to make the most of the
creatures."

I am sorry to say Susan was so inconsistwit as
to laugh herself into tears at my way of mentiotvvcv^

34 The Disturbing Element.

the other sex as the disturbing element. For
Poppleton society certainly did resemble a story
we used to read in our youth, called " The Daughter
at Home," in which the only masculine character
was the carpenter who came to mend the door.
The male sex was conspicuous only by its absence,
and in the aristocratic quarter of the church an
isolated grizzled bald head or two rose from the
mass of gay bonnets and hats like solitary grey
rocks in the midst of a flowery plain, such brown
bare heads as there were being too much below
the surface of the feminine head-gear to make any
show. Indeed, Mr. Morland used to tease Susan by
saying he should have to make her churchwarden,
since Captain' Walton systematically avoided all
unpleasant duties.

Poppleton was a place where widows and maidens
did congregate, and though, like other people, we
had our clergy and our doctor, lawyer, banker, &c.,
they were all married men, and chiefly figured as
parents to the Blue-bells. Even our curates were
married. One was elderly and had a very hard-
working wife, the other had brought a rather silly
little bride with him. We had a squire, but only in
name, for his predecessor had involved the estate
so much, that it had only been saved by his early
death, and the long minority that had ensued. The

The Bells. 35

house had been shut up, for it was too much out of
repair for letting, and there was no power to repair
it ; and Mr. Ryan, whose wife was a St. Barbe, and
first cousin once removed to the young squire, lived
in a house on the moor on the opposite side of the
park, trying to nurse up the estate into good order
again, and looking after a copper mine, which
had ruined a good many people, and was at last
beginning to be profitable.

Meantime, young Mr. St. Barbe was only heard
of occasionally as salmon-fishing in Norway, lion-
hunting in Africa, or cricketing in Australia, and a
beautiful library, which by some strange irony of
fortune had descended to this very unliterary
house, served as valuable pasture to the intimates
of the Ryan family. The Waltons, who were the
only people who had any love for books, haunted
it a good deal — the parents for art literature,
Winifred for whatever she wanted to hunt up. Mr.
Ryan would not sanction the taking home of
books, but his daughter. Miss Arrowsmith, and the
Waltons could take anyone there whom they
liked.

CHAPTER III.

PENNY WISE.

1AM compiling this history from the minutes
drawn up by my invaluable secretary, Maisie
Carstairs, otherwise the Harebell, who sat in her
comer, with her little table before her, speaking
seldom, but recording as faithfully, and almost as
quickly, as a reporter,

I 6nd that our first meeting took place on the
19th of June, 1S7 — , and that it was then agreed
that the Oxbridge local examination would suit us
best Only two of the girls, Edith Parnell {alias
Speedwell) and Mary Morland (Borage) were
young enough for the juniors, who must be under
eighteen ; all the others had to prepare for the
higher one. We were to write to the head of
the committee for information, and in the mean-
time, as Winifred had found out from one of
her correspondents what play of Shakspere's was

Penny Wise, yj

to be worked up, we could begin upon that, each
bringing a Shakspere next time. Most of the
girls were very anxious for a subject to be given
out for an essay. The prudent doubted whether
there would be time for this when the classes were
arranged, and Winifred was pathetically saying it
would be nothing if it was jjot an essay society,
when my sister came in with the tea, and asked if
we had finished, and how we were getting on.

" We only want a subject," said Winifred. " If
our president would only give us a question I"

" ril give you a question," said Susan. " Why
did none of us ever see a new moon rise .^"

" Ah I but that's a catch. Miss Webster," cried
several voices.

" Not at all," she said smiling, as a majority of
voices declared that it could be only because one
was never up in time, and Emma Lacy (Forget-
me-not) added —

" Indeed, Miss Webster, the new moon was just
rising when Hilda Bevan was lost in the wood
in the middle of the night. Wasn't it, Alice ?"

"In 'Hilda's Dream Voices,' in the Maidens'
MontMyl' Alice Parnell (Lobelia) confirmed her.

"My dear, can you find it anywhere but in
' Hilda's Dream Voices' ?"

" I've seen it !" here burst in Penelope,

38 The Disturbing Element.

" What, in the Maidens' Monthly r

" No ! In the sky — the horizon, if you please."

"My dear Penny," observed Lettice, in the
gentle voice she put on when Penny was in one of
her rampant states of positiveness ; but it was^ to
no effect.

" Yes, indeed, Letty. Do you think nobody can
ever look out of their window or make observa-
tions when other people are asleep. I assure you
I saw it with my own eyes, and a most beautiful
sight it was."

"The new moon ?" said my sister,

"Yes, the new moon, I do assure you. Miss
Webster. It was at five o'clock, I know, for I
heard the bantam cock beginning to crow, like a
jolly little darling that he is ; and I know it was
last March, for I saw my old white alpaca hanging
up just like the ghost of a banshee I And there
was the moon rising over the moor. I can't think
why you won't take my word for what I've seen."

"No one doubts your word, my dear," I here
managed to say, " only we want to know how you
knew it was the new moon."

"Why, because it was!" reiterated Penny; "it
was the dearest little scrap of a moonie, like a tiny
slice of a red gold melon, coming up gently, gently
over the cliff of Hark-tor-mire, and getting first gold

.A.

Penny Wise. 39

and then silver and then white. I can't think
what's the matter with you, that you should think
I don't know the new moon when I see it."

" How do you account for it ?" gravely asked my
sister.

" Oh ! every beginner can do that. The moon
makes phases every month. What are you laughing
at? She is always exactly opposite to the sun,
and rises when he sets, and vice versa^

" So the sun set at five o'clock in the morning ?'*
interposed Viper's Bugloss.

" No, nonsense ; you know what I mean. I said
vice versa. The sun illuminates the moon when he
shines upon her back, and then she is a crescent.'*

" Well, Blue-bottle," I said, " if you will write us
an account both of your sight and its explanation,
It shall be preserved in the archives of the Blue-
bells. Let the question be, *Who has ever seen
the new moon rise, and why?'"

A good many hard words were spent on the
positive Penelope that evening, but Lettice con-
fessed that, though she knew the impossibility, she
could not account for it without looking it up, and
we suspected that everybody was in the same case
except Maisie and Winifred, of whose comprehen-
sion we were informed by the face of the one an<
the tongue of the other.

40 The Disturbing Element.

The next morning we had not quite finished
family prayers when we were aware of a scuffling
and a crunching outside, and just as the servants
filed out of the room, two wonderful faces were
seen at the window, one over the other, the
lower being that of the Ryan pony. Leprechaun,
wriggling his mouth with intent to devour our
jessamines, with a black bristly tuft of hair over his
forehead, and a great fern leaf over that to keep off
the flies, both wringing wet with dew ; above was
Penny's face, not much less shaggy or dewy, for
that hair of hers was loose and dank with dew, and
so was the fur trimming of an old hat with a fox's
brush in it, which she was wont to wear in private
moments, and which she had further decorated
with another frond of fern. But oh ! the dancing
of her eyes and the flashing of her smile, as she
called out —

" Miss Webster, Tm come to beg your pardon,
and call myself ten million donkeys for making
such a goose of myself, and contradicting you."

" So you've fcumd it out," I said.

" Yes. 'Twas the old moon that I saw, poor old
dear! Well, really, I couldn't believe it, till I
turned out all the astrononiy books I could get,
and when I saw what an obstinate mule I had
been, I couldn't rest till Fd come to tell you how

Penny Wise. 41

sorry I was for standing out against you. Please
say you forgive me, Miss Webster!"

"Of course I do, you silly child," said Susan,
quite melted by the charming eyes and coaxing
voice, " on condition you'll come in, dry yourself,
and eat some breakfast."

" And that I can't do, thank you. So you must
forgive me without that. Papa wants me to
help choose a horse, and mamma will want me
to preserve the strawberries, and they don't know
I'm come. You must give me your pardon without
conditions, there's a good Miss Webster."

" There, then," said Susan, handing her out a
roll spread with marmalade, " I'll only make one,
and that is, that, whenever you feel most sure and
certain of anything, you'll stop and count twenty
before you asseverate it." *

" I'll count twenty before I asseverate that
marmalade is made of oranges, or that Miss
Webster's the dearest jolly old lady in the world."

"You'd better," said Susan. "Do you know
what the grocer's errand boy answered when they
offered him marmalade at the school feast ? — ' No,
thank you, ma'am, I've seen it made.' "

With which parting shot we saw Penny ride off,
shaking her merry head.

Our next meeting produced a capital account of

42 The Disturbing Element

the changes of the moon, illustrated with neatly-
drawn diagrams from Maisie, and other answers
in a varying scale, from Winifred's clear cut-and-
dry style, Penny's clever poetical answer, with the
inevitable bit of inaccuracy, down to Edith Par-
nell's copy from some schoolroom catechism, and
Emma Lacy's protest in verse —

" Who ever saw the new moon rise ?
And would you ask me why?
And in the secrets of the skies
And the earth bid me pry?

" In secret opens forth the flower,
In 45ecret falls the dew.
Secret the insect's rising hour,
Hid from man's searching view.

" Veiled is each working of the earth —
Her marvels rich and rare
Delight in a mysterious birth,
Hid from the day's broad glare.

" I would not with dissecting eye.
And curious hands and rude.
Thus into Nature's secrets pry.
In scientific mood.

" No, leave me the poetic thought,
The dear fantastic dream —
Nor call them tales of the untaught,
Who see things as they seem.

Penny Wise. 43

" Tell me not of a huge machine,
Going like a clock upwound;
All measured out each space between,
Marked out each weary round.

** I hate such cold and dreary talk,
No such vain lore I know ;
Let Lady Moon in brightness walk,
In secret turn her bow.

" Seek not from me the reason why,
I love too well to ask ;
Or make the wonders of the sky
Only a schoolroom task."

"Awfully jolly I" was, I am afraid, Penny's
exclamation, echoed by Alice and Edith Parnell;
and others of us said " Very pretty ;" but Winifred
demanded, " Is this all the answer .?"

" Yes," responded the poetess, simpering a little^
with the evident conviction that no one else had
done as much. "You could not expect more of
poor little me."

Being afraid of what Winifred might say, I
assumed the didactic, and observed, "We are
obliged for these pleasant verses, but of course we
cannot take them in earnest, for we know how
much more really wonderful and poetical the works
of creation are when we even know them in ^art.

44 The Disturbing Element,

No fear that they will lose their mystery. It only
goes deeper."

Lettice took her cue from me, and would not
let Winifred scold or Dora sneer, but carried the
session on to further business. We had our orders
from the headquarters of our corresponding class,
and knew what we were to work at. We really
were to go on principles of mutual improvement
Lettice was to manage the German class, Miss
Coles (Chicory) the French one ; Winifred was up
in English grammar and analysis ; I thought I could
undertake guidance in history and English litera-
ture, but arithmetic and algebra and Euclid were the
difficulty. I used to like the first of these, but my
calculating powers had grown rusty, and I knew
nothing of the more recent modes of teaching.
Maisie, however, came to the rescue. She had
worked last year for the Edinburgh examination,
though her father's illness had hindered her from
going up for it, and she believed she could help the
others.

Three faces grew longer and longer as the work
was marked out — those of the two Parnells and of
Emma Lacy. I rather expected a resignation, but
the Parnell sisters were not so high in the social
scale as some of the others, and it was promotion
to them to be associated with Miss Carstairs, Miss

Penny Wise. 45

Walton, and Miss Arrowsmith, and this perhaps
might sweeten the bitter draught of unwonted
application. Mrs. Parnell was a widow, whose
pension was only for life, and she had told Susan
that it was important that her girls should be able
to help themselves in case they should not marry
before her death. They had shared a daily
governess with Dr. Lacy's family, one who had
been tried by the Morlands, and found to make
everything she taught a dreary dull routine, hateful
to her scholars — and no wonder, for it had been
ground into her on the same system at some school,
and was the mill of her life, just endured as the
sole means of subsistence. Emnia Lacy was a
little older and a good deal brighter-witted than
either — just clever enough, in fact, to be splendidly
silly — and had a good deal of influence with them.
So I thought I had better get her alone, and
asked her to come early and help me on our next
afternoon with some little preparation for the
Shakspere class which I had undertaken to hold
on, " Coriolanus " the specified play.

She was a pretty girl, with a creamy pale skin,
large soft brown eyes, and dark hair, and she
moved with a languid kind of grace, taking thrice
the time in doing anything that Winifred or Dora
spent over it ; but she was obliging, and did all I

46 The Disturbing Element.

asked, though she looked with an eye askance at
my Roman history, my dictionaries, and notes,
and she presently took the opportunity of hinting
that she could not bear picking poetry to pieces, it
was like dissecting a flower.

" Not always," I said. " All so-called poetry does
not grow upon us by being dissected, and our sense
of the perfection of a flower always does."

" Not to me. I couldn't analyse what I loved,"
she said in a touching voice.

"Do you love Shakspere?" I asked— with, I
confess, a little malice, for I had certain suspicions.

" Oh yes," the propensity to gush prompted at
once ; then probably truth came to the front, and
she added, " I do love that scene where she sits
like Patience on a monument and sings, " By fair
Fidele's grassy tomb."

" I am afraid that is not Shakspere," I said.

" Isn't it ? It's in the book of * Flowers from the
Poets,' and I always thought it was."

" What play do you like best ?"

She hesitated, and then candidly confessed, first,
that Shakspere was a big book, and then that it
had been spoiled for her by her having been made
to recite Wolsey's speech when she was in the
schoolroom. She only liked little bits here and
there; she could not like what had been a task.

Penny Wise. 47

I congratulated her on the improbability of our
spoiling anything she already cared for by analys-
ing " Coriolanus/* and had nearly addressed her in
the words of Lewis Carroll —

" And would you be a poet

Before youVe been to school ?
Ah, well ! I hardly thought you
So absolute a fool/'

only she evidently viewed going to school as cramp-
ing her genius, and presently avowed that, if we
would not be hurt, she had rather withdraw from
the Blue-bells. She had, it was plain, expected
them to form a sort of easy-going essay society,
where one might have the opportunity of airing
one's performances, and had no notion of being
brought to book, and forced into serious study.

I attacked her on two sides ; one that, if she gave
it up, Alice and Edith Parnell would follow her
example, and would lose the chance of improve-
ment, which might be very needful for them — at
which she was a little flattered; and secondly,
appealed to her experience of editors and pub-
lishers, who seemed not inclined to accept — in her
case at least — ^productions that would not stand
analysis. I assured her that she had some native
ability, but that unless she would condescend to
learn to write good English, and obtain some accu-

48 The Disturbing Element.

rate knowledge of history, geography, and literature,
it would be of little use to her. This was not
pleasant, but she did to a certain extent believe it,
and she only objected that she was sure so much
pains would put all her best ideas to flight

" So they may for the time,'* I said, " but you
will find that when careful grammatical language
has become natural to you, and you have learned a
few more facts accurately, these ideas will return in
fuller force ''

We were interrupted, so I did not know how
far she accepted this suggestion.

However, a few days later. Dr. Lacy called, not
medically, but to express his warm gratitude that
his little girl should be taken in hand, and have
anything put into her head that was not nonsense.
He was a sensible and clever man, though rough and
hasty from being overworked, and he had no time
for guiding or sympathising with his daughter, even
if he had known how, but had left all to his wife, a
good, motherly, handsome body, but with the mind
of a housekeeper, and quite incapable of dealing
with a girl who inherited her husband's brains and
her own beauty.

I felt triumphant, but Susan said she was a little
afraid that what parents pressed eagerly became
distasteful to children.

CHAPTER IV.

DR. KNOWALL.

IN Spite of all predictions, the Blue-bells flourished.
Even our season brought very little of the
"distu'rbing element," for our summer visitors
were chiefly families whose gentlemen had gone .
ofF for more enterprising expeditions, and whose
boys were young enough to herd together without
expecting much attendance from their sisters.

However, when the time approached when names
had to be entered for the examination, there was a
panic I believe both Winifred and Maisie could
have passed, but they both aspired to extras, and
the one doubted of her algebra, the other of her
German, while the others were bogged in various
parts of the Slough of Despond.

Dora drew a picture of them — where Penny
appeared endeavouring to leap from tuft to tuft,
»nd Alice Parnell floundering deep in the atith.-

Dr. Knawall. 51

she was a little less slapdash, though she was so
droll about her mistakes that one could hardly wish
her to cease from them. Emma Lacy had worked
all the spring very well, and in history and literature
her native cleverness told as soon as she paid
attention.

And we began to have hopes of better help than
even the schoolmaster's. Lettice heard of a gentle-
man who was teaching classes at Warchester, and
who on inquiry turned out to have graduated at
the University of Bonn, and to have all manner of
certificates of proficiency.

Mr. Arrowsmith, at his daughter's entreaty, under-
took to make inquiries about him, his antecedents,
and his terms, and we began to tease each other
on every mistake by asking, "What will the
Herr Professor say?" "How will that suit Dr.
Knowall ?"

The excitement increased when we heard that
his respectability was quite unimpeachable, and
that when the Warchester schools, where he was
teaching, broke up for the holidays, he would come
into lodgings at Poppleton, and give us lessons
in whatever we pleased, at a rate by no means
extravagant

Expectations varied about him, but were of two
principal kinds. Mrs. Morland trusted that I should

so The Disturbing Element

metic swamp, whence Maisie was vainly trying to
drag her. Indeed, sums and grammar turned out to
be the worst regions of that morass, and I doubted
whether a masculine hand was not wanted to help
out even our best But it was not worth while to
ask for such aid till we had succeeded in clearing
Emma Lacy's ideas about the verbs to lie and to
layy taught her the difference between whom and
who, and brought Penny to the pitch of uniformly
remembering that three times six did not make
twenty-four, and distinguishing numerators from
denominators. If we were obliged to invoke the
assistance of the National School master, we would
not be inferior to the fourth standard, whose pro*
ficiency Susan was wont to bewail.

So we resolved to wait for another year, and
when the visitors were gone, and autumn set in,
we worked with a will — characteristically indeed,
but steadily; and by the time the year came round,
Susan declared the Blue-bells a much greater
success than she had ever expected.

Edith Parnell had developed much more brain
than her sister, and was one of our most promising
scholars, quite raised above the mere wandering-on-
the-Parade state. Dora Morland was, the family
declared, more good tempered, though we did not
think her less caustic ; and Penny — ^well, perhaps

Dr. Knowall. 51

she was a little less slapdash, though she was so
droll about her mistakes that one could hardly wish
her to cease from them. Emma Lacy had worked
all the spring very well, and in history and literature
her native cleverness told as soon as she paid
attention.

And we began to have hopes of better help than
even the schoolmaster's. Lettice heard of a gentle-
man who was teaching classes at Warchester, and
who on inquiry turned out to have graduated at
the University of Bonn, and to have all manner of
certificates of proficiency.

Mr. Arrowsmith, at his daughter's entreaty, under-
took to make inquiries about him, his antecedents,
and his terms, and we began to tease each other
on every mistake by asking, "What will the
Herr Professor say?" "How will that suit Dr.
Knowall?"

The excitement increased when we heard that
his respectability was quite unimpeachable, and
that when the Warchester schools, where he was
teaching, broke up for the holidays, he would come
into lodgings at Poppleton, and give us lessons
in whatever we pleased, at a rate by no means
extravagant

Expectations varied about him, but were of two
principal kinds. Mrs. Morland trusted that I should

52 The Disturbing Element

be very vigilant, and take care that no approach
was made to any German heterodoxies; and as
we sat awaiting our first lesson, Penny delighted
the hearts and fluttered the spirits of the Pamells
by asseverations that all German students were
Burschen, wore long beards and moustaches, drank
quantities of " krugs " of Bavarian beer, and were
always fighting duels, and called everyone else
Philistines.

"Whom is he to fight with ?" asked Miss Coles,
while Mary Morland timidly observed that duelling
was prohibited now.

" In England, but not in Germany," said Penny,
with her usual boldness of assertion.

" Penny will have to undertake him herself," said
Lettice, laughing, " if his thirst for battle can't be
slaked otherwise. A single-handed duel would be
more awkward than a triangular one."

"Serious consequences may be apprehended,"
added Dora, " if Penny adheres to her last week's
view, that Frederick Barbarossa was an Algerine
pirate."

" But indeed^* eagerly put in Emma Lacy, *they
don't fight duels away from their universities. Since
the war, they have been like the Baron von Rosen in
the ' Strange Adventures of a Phaeton,' who sung
all manner of charming war-songs, and groomed the

Dr. Knowall. 53

horses, and had a big brown beard and moustaches,
and had fought in real battles in France,"

" A very dangerous person to Bells," whispered
Lettice, with a drolly guilty look. " Dear Cricket,
what have I done ?"

"Has he been in the army?" eagerly asked
Alice. " You said he was half a German, didn't
you ? Is he a Baron ?"

" Of course," said Dora ; " all the Germans are
Barons, except the Counts."

" Well," said Winifred, " I don't care, as long as
he can carry me to the Binomial Theorem."

There was a foot on the gravel, and a thrill went
through the assembly. Edith, who was the nearest
to the window, however, whispered back the infor-
mation —

" 'Tisn't him. 'Tis only an errand boy."

"Grammar, Speedwell! a forfeit!" called out
Dora.

" Will he give us lectures on Goethe V Emma was
in the act of saying in the security that no one was
approaching, when Rebekah ushered in Mr. Sneyd.

Bvtice and I knew the name, some of the others
might be dimly aware of it, but we had all grown so
used to talking of the Professor Knowall, that the
brevity of the appellation was almost as startling
as the contrast with the public expectations. No

54 The Disturbing Element.

bristling Bursch was this ! He had no hair on his
face, scarcely even eyebrows, as they were so pale
as to be invisible, for his German . half manifested
itself in the whitey-brown hue of his very short
hair, and likewise of his cheeks. As to his eyes,
they were under his spectacles, and his size and
figure were those of a lad of seventeen; nay, Penny's
brother, Leonard, would have made two of him at
fifteen. He looked as little likely to groom horses
or sing war-songs as to fight duels, and the English
half of him seemed to manifest itself in the most
ineffable state of bashfulness and mauvais^ honte^
which seemed to make him blind and deaf, bowing
at first hither and thither, as if he were going to butt,
only did not know at which of us (so Penny said) —
clinging to his hat as if it were a rope in the hands
of a drowning man, and stammering helplessly
when inquiries were made about his transit from
Warchester.

We got him into a chair at the head of the table
at last, and his first lesson began. That moment
the mist seemed to clear away from his senses.
Very far was he from being deaf to a mispro-
nunciation of German, or blind to a mistranslation.
If he was frightfully afraid of his scholars as ladies,
no sooner were they his class than they were
nothing but pupils — mere abstractions, to whom

Dr, KnowalL 55

he uttered the plainest truths in the plainest form.
Everyone '^caught it," to use Penny's expression,
more or less, even that first time; and on the
second, when he had put all back to first principles,
and given them work to prepare for him, he was
still more uncompromising. He told Lettice, our
German authority, that she had been taught by
an imperfectly educated Austrian; Maisie, who
had been our arithmetical professor, that her
methods were cumbrous and unphilosophical.
Winifred was informed that she had no idea of the
logical construction of a sentence; Miss Coles,
that her French grammar was mere surface, just
what is called rule of thumb; Penelope, that she did
not understand one principle correctly, and did not
know what. accuracy was; Emma, that she wrote
like a milkmaid. Really, those that fared best
were the youngest, who, as their master said, had
not had time to go so far in a wrong direction.
We could not help glancing at each other in
amusement, as each had her turn of slashing
rebuke; and it was the more amusing, that though
he was such a lion of a preceptor, he was the
meekest of frightened lambs, the instant his magis-
terial work was over — nay, scarcely even like a
lamb, but rather like a newly-caught bird, afraid
even to flutter in the bottom of its cage.

56 The Disturbing Element

Yet we all felt that he had brought what we
lacked. He was lucid and philosophical, a bom
teacher, and thoroughly a scholar, taught in the
complete German manner, but with the fine choice
and discrimination of style that belongs not to the
German, but to the Englishman. The feelings of
the class were very different about it. Maisie,
Winny, and Dora were delighted and triumphant
at feeling themselves really instructed at last;
indeed, Winny was the favourite scholar, and got
the most of his very chary commendation, for
Maisie's Scotch mind went in a different groove,
and was too original to suit him so well as
Winifred's more mechanical processes. Poor Miss
Coles had not bargained for so much scolding or
such hard work, and did not like it at all ; indeed,
but for Lettice*s good management, she would
probably have seceded. Naughty Penny, on the
contrary, was greatly diverted by his horror, made
more mistakes than ever, and argued in her own
peculiar fashion, till he seemed half distracted to
find that anyone could be so foolish.

Emma Lacy, for whose gentle prettinesses of
inaccuracy he had no toleration, was one of the
displeased faction. What might have been borne
from a whiskered Baron, was offensive from a
white weak creature like this, and her nature was

Dr, KnowalL 57

of the indolent kind, which is essentially averse to
application and trouble, so the increased pressure
made her more and more slack, and we were sure
that she only went on because her father would
not let her withdraw. Alice Parnell followed her
lead, called Mr. Sneyd "that horrid man," and took
no sort of pains; while good little Edith worked
well, but looked strangely unhappy.

It was arranged that when the vacation time
began, instead of putting all his subjects into one
three hours once a-week, which was a terrible
strain, each should have an hour or more if
required every day, a subscription having been
raised among us to make it worth his* while, on
the modest terms that he asked. The classes were
held in turn at V, V., or at Mr. Arrowsmith's,
where Miss Coles could be chaperon; and those
who wished for extra lessons, as did Winifred and
Maisie, could pay for them separately. Both knew
some Latin and some logic, and they agreed to
study them with Mr. Sneyd, and take them up as
subjects in June.

Judge, then, of Winifred's horror when a fancy
seized her parents to go abroad in July, because
Captain Walton had an inordinate hatred of all
boards and committees, and had just been made a
magistrate sorely against his will !

58 The Disturbing Element.

"Just," she said, "when, for once in my life, I
have a chance of really learning something.*'

"You learn at every pore abroad," said I, in
consolation.

" It is all very well to say so," quoth Winifred ;
" but I know what it is. I have tried it twice, you
know, and the first time I liked it, when I was just
out of school, but it is nothing but mere seeing, and
then, the moment one wants to get beyond the
guide-book, being dragged on. My people care
only for sketching and pictures, and oh ! I do get
so sick of galleries, and tints, and distances, and
sitting about under umbrellas. Nothing is worse,
except getting into a bric-a-brac shop, and hearing
an endless discussion on old pitchers and bronzes —
as I firmly believe, made at Birmingham."

" Ah ! Winifred, you are despising opportunities
many would rejoice in. Seeing is a great deal
more than book learning," said my wise sister,
Susan.

But poor Winifred shook her head. The major
and minor premisses, and the binomial theorem,
were far more to her young aspiration than Alp or
Vatican.

" It is perfectly unwholesome," said Susan, when
she had left us. " Girls are getting into a morbid
state with all this learning. I cannot bear to see it"

Di\ KnowalL 59

Winifred had one comfort, namely, that letting
the house was indispensable to this expedition, and
till the tenant was found, she could continue her
studies, taking each lesson with the zest and vigour
that are imparted by the fear that it is a last
opportunity.

On the first day of the holidays at Warchester
School, a fly was seen creeping and grating down
Barbe Torr Hill. I saw it drive along the Parade,
but thought no more of it till my sister came in,
unusually excited.

*' What do you think I have seen, my dear ?"
said she, " A carriage at Mrs. Hales's lodgings — a
wretchedly poor place, you know, only just clean,
and your poor little German getting out and
helping another lad on crutches — deformed, yes,
miserably deformed. All the children were just
come out of school, and stood staring; and I had
to keep them from crowding in, or I should have
gone the other way ; but I do assure you it was a
sad spectacle. To think of that poor washed-out
rag of a youth having anything like that dependent
on him ! I wonder what we can do for him !"

To send him some of the strawberries with which
Lettice*s bounty had provided us was her readiest
idea, and while I was questioning whether the gift
would be an offence, Susan had packed a little

6o The Disturbing Element

basket, and was sending them off with Miss
Webster's compliments.

"Mr. Sneyd was very much obliged," was the
message that came back, and at the next lesson
the poor youth, blushing scarlet, managed to
mumble some thanks, but in such a manner that
I feared that I had been the one in the right, and
that benefits were galling.

A pale, white, thin face, a curious narrow lint-
white head, and a pair of big light blue eyes,
might now be often seen gazing between the
geraniums on the sill of the window of one of
the ground-floor rooms, sometimes let to humble
lodgers.

All of us were much moved, considerably curious,
and ardently desirous to do something for the poor
fellow, who was never seen out of doors ; but any
offers of books, fruit, or the loan of my wheel-chair,
only put poor Mr. Sneyd in an agony of blushing
refusal, so that we concluded that the unfortunate
lad must be imbecile, and therefore to be kept
from all view. Some gossip that floated up at the
Mothers' Meeting rather tended to this view. " The
poor dear young gentleman," said the woman who
assisted Mrs. Hales when she had lodgers, "he
were so aflBicted, as it was a pity to see him—
which his brother was so attentive to him, waiting

Dr. Knowall. 6i

on him like any mother on her baby — ^which he
was as helpless, a playing half the day with a lot
of little images, which both of them was like,
blessed innocents! and it was well as they had
fallen in with them which would think it a shame
to wrong anyone by a penny."

However, at the end of a week, Penelope burst
on me with, " I've seen him, I've talked to him, and
he's no more an idiot than I am. That mayn't be
spying much for him," she further laughed ; " but,
afUy way, he's got all his wits about him, and his
little images are just chessmen !"

"But how did you get at him, my dear ?"

" This way. I was coming round by the beach
with my basket full of water-lilies, that I was going
to bring to you, Miss Frances — and you mustn't
grudge them, for out of the window I saw those
two great eyes fixed on them with such a wistful,
hungry look, the next thing to tears, that I couldn't
help making Leprechaun come up to the window,
and saying, " Would you like any of them ?" And
then to see the sparkle of his eyes, and hear his
"Oh! thanks," and watch the long thin hands hold
them, and put them against his cheek, was enough
to break one's heart — I couldn't but offer to come
and settle them in water for him."

" Where was his brother ?" .

62 The Disturbing Element.

"Deep in Cicero with Winnie and Maisie, so
you needn't fash yourself about the proprieties, I
got a soup-plate off Mrs. Hales's dresser, and put
them in, and I hope they may live till to-morrow,
for the poor lad seemed just to gloat over them.
You should have heard him thank me. He is not
shy like his brother, but has a nice voice, and oh 1
such a sweet face ! He said he did so enjoy that
window with the view of the sea — it was like life
to him. He had a table by his side with a chess-
board, and a book — I think it was Schlegel's
Philosophy of History ; at any rate it was some-
thing German — and some carving tools and wood.
He said he was never at a loss for amusement. I
did not like to ask him if he ever got out, but I am
afraid he does not."

" Do you think he could go in my chair? His
brother refuses it."

" I don't see why he should not. He sits up in
a big arm-chair, and has a rug over him, but I am
afraid he is terribly contorted ; and there were a
pair of crutches, so short that he plainly can't be
able to stand up his proper height. Poor fellow! I
shall go down and see him as often as I can. I fancy
he is ten times as amenable and rational altogether
as Dr. Knowall.

" Don't get into a scrape, Penny, whatever you do/'

Dr. KnawalL 63

" I promise you I don't want to have my nose
snapped off. I shall only pay my visits when the
wise professor is chopping logic with our Gentianella
and Harebell, or tutoring Mrs. Dart's holiday boys,
which he has gone and undertaken by way of
relaxation! So you see my flirtation will have
all the charms of secrecy;" wherewith our merry
good-natured Penny departed.

Just at this time, Mr. Arrowsmith's inquiries
into the antecedents of our little tutor obtained a
full answer. He had remembered the name of
Sneyd in the Gazette of bankrupts, and, pursuing
this clue, had learnt a sad story.

Charles and Emilius Sneyd were the sons of a
man who, from being a clerk in a merchant's
office, had, by a sudden success in speculation,
become immensely rich, and, trusting too much
to the same good fortune, had ended by dying
insolvent. His wife, who had begun life as a
German governess, had died at the birth of her
poor little deformed son, just after the tide of pros-
perity had set in, and Charles had been educated
chiefly in Germany, with a view to working in his
father's office, which was chiefly concerned with
foreign railways, so that a knowledge of languages
was required. His thirst for study had prolonged
his sojourn at Bonn till the latest possible period.

64 The Disturbing Element.

and he had barely taken possession of his desk
when the death of his father brought on the crash,
and, after months of suspense and trouble, the
youth found himself utterly destitute, and with the
helpless Emilius dependent upon him. The creditors
had been paid fifteen shillings in the pound, and
^ they unanimously declared the young man to have
behaved most honourably.

Why had they not done something for him? it
was asked. It appeared that offers of employment
had been made, but such as involved separation
from Emilius; and that a proposal to obtain an
election for the poor boy to some asylum had so
wounded the sensitive and tender feelings of his
brother, that he had refused everything in a high
and cold tone of offence, and the pair had been
lost sight of It was supposed, by those who were
glad enough to be quit of them, that they had gone
to their German relations, and no one had thought
any more about them for the last half-year, until
Mr. Arrowsmith's inquiries had revealed their
whereabouts to his correspondents.

Charles Sneyd's desperate shyness and sensitive
pride had no doubt been far from prepossessing. His
father, though all called him an honourable man,
had carried speculation to the pitch of gambling,
and had no interest outside the money market, so

Dr. KnowalL 65

that he had made no friends. He had surrounded
Emilius with every luxury and alleviation that
wealth could give, giving him governesses and
tutors according as he fancied them, but was
unable to do more than pet and indulge him, and
shrank from introducing him to any one, or giving
him society, so that it was generally imagined that
he was as deficient in mind as in body.

We learnt most of their subsequent history from
Emilius himself; for when Susan heard of Penelope's
visit, she declared that she should go with her next
time. If Mrs. Ryan chose to let her daughter run
about alone to all sorts of places, she (Susan) did
not think it proper, and we were accountable for
having introduced her. Besides, that unfortunate
cripple was not to be mewed up there and
neglected because his brother chose to be absurdly
proud. So Susan watched for Penny, and trotted
down with her to Mrs. Hales's lodgings. She came
back, to the full as much moved as Penny, and
as much delighted with the attractive countenance
and manner of poor Emilius; and the passionate
devotion of the brothers.

Emilius bad none of his brother's reticence. As
we learnt, his character and mind had been formed
by a kind old motherly governess, who had made
him truly conscientious, and helped him to be

I

66 The Disturbing Element

religiously cheerful. The seclusion in which he
lived had been far more owing to the feelings of
his father and brother, and to those they attributed
to him, than to any dread of his own of meeting
people's eyes, for his small experience had been
all of tenderness, and he had a deep confidence in
kindness, especially of women.

So he expanded gratefully to Susan as well as to
Penelope, and talked enthusiastically of Charles's
bravery and kindness. Charles's vacations had
always been the sunny days of his life in their
prosperous time, and since they had been left alone
together, Charles's personal care and tenderness
had supplied all that had been lost of the attend-
ance of a household.

The elder brother had answered an advertisement
for a tutor at the school at Warchester, using his
Bonn certificates as recommendations, and had
brought his brother into a lodging there, in two
rooms, where they had lived as best they might
upon his scanty earnings — so scanty, that it had
been worth while for him to walk the ten miles
and back, once a-week, for the sake of the poor
guinea from the Blue-bells.

Would they have done better in Germany?
Emilius said Charles thought not. Living might
be cheaper, but employment was more restricted.

Dr. KnowalL 67

and teaching less well paid; and they had no
kindred left there willing to be charged with them.
" Indeed, Charles could not go among them in such
changed circumstances/' said Emilius. " He would
not like it."

There was no doubt a great deal that was heroic
about Charles Sneyd, but he was not half so
pleasant as his brother. He was all over prickly
pride, and pride requires something to carry it off
properly, and did not show off becomingly in a
small washed-out man, looking five years younger
than he really was, and constitutionally bashful to
excess. He did try to show some gratitude for his
brother's evident pleasure; but I think he had
really, secretly, much rather have been let alone,
and was annoyed that Emilius should enjoy these
attentions, instead of sharing his shuddering distaste.
However, he was better after one day, when Susan
fell upon him and gave him as thorough a scolding
as ever he gave Emma for her ill-compacted sen-
tences. He had been refusing the loan of the
chair, and declaring that indeed his brother could
not go out — it was quite impossible.

But Susan, who had seen enough of Emilius to
know his mind, came out in force. "That's all
nonsense, Mr. Sneyd — ^you know it is I You know
your brother would enjoy the air and the change.

68 The Disturbing Element.

and that he is perfectly capable of going out, and
that you are only keeping him cooped up there to
gratify your own sinful pride."

She had made her worm turn at last, and he
exclaimed, "No, no — not that, Miss Webster. I
would — nay, I do, sacrifice my pride constantly to
my brother's pleasures; but you do not consider,
nor does he, the difference between private gardens
and this public parade."

" I tell you he has no such feeling. He is too
simple and confiding, and I tell you, Mr. Sneyd,
you ought to thank God on your knees for having
made him free from your own self-conscious
sensibility, and abstain most carefully from infusing
it. I don't say that he should go out just as the
children, little scamps that they are, are loose from
school ; but a turn about eleven o'clock, when not
a creature is out but a few maids with perambu-
lators, could not lead to anything that would be
annoying."

"Well done, Susan!'* I could not help saying,
when he had yielded and fled.

" I've no patience with him," she said.

However, it was much to his credit that not only
did he consent to his brother's frequent use of the
chair, but from that time forward he treated Susan
like a kind of aunt or mother, consulting her about

Dr. KnowalL 6g

Emilius's health and comfort, and talking to her as
he did to no one else. She was so much flattered
as to grow exceedingly fond of both brothers. She
took me to see Emilius, and even brought him up
to drink tea with us and spend an evening, and very
happy he was. They were both good lads, though
Charles would only submit to a black coat while
actually in church, and lounged about on Sunday
in disreputable grey ; but there was a wonderful
charm about poor little Emilius, while it was not
easy to like Charles as much as one esteemed him.
When he talked at all, it was like a book, and he
was altogether more like a library incarnate than
a living man.

He was much like, as Dora Morland observed,
a masculine Winifred, and the two got on so
well together, and had such long and learned dis-
cussions, and such an interchange of thin shabby
German books on his side, and thick English ones
on hers, that I wondered what would have hap-
pened if he had come into these parts as Charles
Sneyd the wealthy, instead of the penniless.

Indeed, as it was, I marvelled a little at the
heedlessness of Captain and Mrs. Walton, when I
found that, on a rumour of a tenant, they were
willing to leave Winifred to stay with a succession
of friends till her course should be completed, and

JO The Disturbing Element.

the examination over. I hinted my doubt to my
sister, but I was snubbed. "I won't have such
folly talked of, Frances. Charles Sneyd has far
too much good sense and honour."

It was hard, for I never said there was any
danger now. It was only a case of ifs and ans;
but it illustrated that, even between us two, the
most innocent of the other sex could not help
being a " disturbing element."

Susan was the first to claim a visit from " that
poor neglected girl," and Mrs. Walton grate-
fully accepted it for her. "I am very glad that
Winifred should follow out her own line," she said.
" We shall never give the child any real feeling for
beauty. Hers is one of those minds that have that
realistic, scientific, ungraceful turn, which is essen-
tially out of sympathy with her father's. She would
rather botanise on a rose than admire its charm !
But it is no use to try to force nature ; only her
father must not be sacrificed. One barely exists
here — one lives in Italy."

I was not at all sure that, if the sympathy had
been really sought, Winifred would not have given
it with all her might, and that, if the admiration
of the rose had seemed to her a more true and
spontaneous thing, and, above all, if her partici-
pation in it had been really sought out of love

Dr. KnowalL ^\

and affection, she would not have given it with all
her heart.

At least the granting of her wish so easily had
mortified her, unreasonable though it might be.
** Oh yes," she said. " I am very welcome to stay
at home, like the cat and the pony,"

" My dear, if you wish it, I am sure " I began

hesitatingly, and I was cut short.

" No, I don't wish it. It would be rather worse
abroad, with nothing to do but drag about en tiers'*

Presently she softened a little, and looked up
with moistened eyes. "I seem very ungrateful.
I really am thankful to stay with you, dear Miss
Frances. I think you can tolerate me more than
most people can."

I ventured to ask whether she could not throw
herself a little into these tastes of her parents. " I
wish I had tried more when first I came home from
school," she said ; " but I am quite sure to like the
wrong thing; and lately, when I do make any
little attempt, I am told, * My dear Winny, you
are far too material. Your turn is for physical
science. You can't appreciate this.* You see they
are sufficient for each other, and don't want to
train me, even if I could be trained into caring, and
not pretending. And yet, they little know how-
much I care for them, though I can't care for a

72

The Disturbing Element.

trumpery old sham pre-RafTaelitc or a bit of Dutch
crockery."

It was an unusual burst for Winifred, and she
was probably sorry for it when the hoped-for
tenant failed, and the journey was put off; for she
was more brief, dry, and mechanical than ever.

CHAPTER V.

GEOLOGICAL RESEARCHE&

SOME more certain and profitable occupation
for Charles Sneyd, than acting as preceptor to
the Blue-bells, needed to be found. Mr, Arrow-
smith and Mr. Ryan were both in search of employ-
ment for him. In the meantime, Mr. Morland
proposed to try his powers as a lecturer in the
parish reading-room. Shy as he was, he did not
seem to object to the idea, for, as Emilius told us,
if he shut his eyes and once started, he could
always go on. What should be the subject } He
wrote out a list for Mr. Morland to choose from.
They were —

"The Relative Balance of the Intellectual
Powers."

" Goethe and Shabspere compared."

" Geology in its Primary Elements."

74 The Disturbing Element

" Frauenhoffer's Lines."

Mr. Morland did not think even the senior
pupil teachers likely to enter much into the Relative
Balance of the Intellectual Powers, or even into
Goethe and Shakspere. He shook his head at
Frauenhoffer's Lines, though Penny averred that
"you might see them in any sunbeam," and Wini-
fred " that they were as simple and interesting as
the day."

Geology, he said, might serve the purpose, but
he stipulated that the lecturer must steer clear of
all perilous controversies, and he suggested that
specimens collected from the somewhat rich
mineralogy of the district would interest and edifjr
the population. Thereupon began a zealous
collecting. Penny set on her miners, of whom a
selection were to attend the lecture, and Susan, in
her zeal, actually started off on an expedition to
which politeness urged her in general only once
a-year, to call upon the clergyman's wife in the
next bay, her chief inducement being to borrow a
geological map of the district, which she had seen
in the Parsonage hall. For a misgiving was growing
on us, though it would have been high treason in
me to utter it, that Mr. Sneyd knew the strata much
better in the map than in real life, and without its
assistance would not have known whether the

Geological Researches. 75

cliffs before his eyes were limestone or sandstone,
chalk or cheese.

Susan toiled back at last, very hot and tired,
with the map rolled up under her arm, for on " safe
bind safe find" principles she had declined all offers
of sending it by possible fishwomen. She said as
the tide was out she had come home round the
point, preferring the shingle to climbing the hill on
its worst side, but fatigue hardly accounted for her
discomposure, the cause of which she did not im-
part to me till we were settled after our evening
meal, and Rebekah's ministrations were over. And
then she began —

" IVe found out what's the matter with your
Blue-bell, Frances."

"Which?"

"That Lacy girl. I never thought she would
come to much good."

"But what's the matter.^ I know she has not
worked so well lately, but I thought it was only
that we are feeling the difference between play and
earnest"

Then Susan narrated how in a little cove on her
progress she had heard a giggling, and expecting
to come on some maid-servants or dressmakers*
apprentices out for a holiday with their young -|
men, she had beheld, sitting in a little boat that

y6 The Disturbing Element.

was moored to the shore and rocking with the
water, two pairs of young people. In the girls, she
recognised Emma Lacy and her friend Alice
Parnell ; in the young men, the sons of a " gentle-
man farmer," whose farm stretched from the moor-
land to the coast I could hardly believe it, for the
elder one, Philip Harcombe, was a regular ne'er-do-
well, always at the low varieties of sports that
Warchester afforded. He had been tried at
various professions, but had always been returned
on his father's hands, bringing home a little
external polish, but, as was feared, a good deal of
knowledge of the world of the wrong sort

" I could not be mistaken." said Susan ; ** I knew
his black moustache and long whiskers. He's
exactly the sort of looking man to captivate a silly
girl like that Emma. I believe Mrs. Parnell is a
sort of cousin of the Harcombes, too. Mind you, I
don't think Alice Parnell was flirting on her own
account. Her companion was only one of the
younger boys. I think she only comes as confi-
dant"

" And depend upon it," I answered, " that good
little Edith has refused to have anything to do
with it, and does not know how to stop it, or
whether to speak, and that is the reason she looks
so worried and unhappy."

Geological Researches. jy

The next thing was to consider what was to be
done. Susan was sure that she had been seen, and
therefore it seemed best to speak to the girl, and to
find out how far it had gone, affording her the
possibility of the grace of even involuntary confes-
sion, rather than at once letting her parents know.
How was it to be done? was the question. " For,"
said Susan, " you may be sure that in her present
state of mind she looks upon us as nothing but a
pair of old cats, to whom all lovers are necessary
hateful."

" Disturbing elements," I said. ** Yes, she would
regard you as a sort of Queen Bess, and me as a
governess, both equally beyond the pale of human-
ity. We had better ask Lettice to speak to her. I
think she has more influence with her than anyone
else."

Poor dear Lettice ! She did not like the mission
at all, but she undertook it at last. She was at first
relieved to find Philip Harcombe was connected
with the editor of a Warchester paper. He had
contributed to it himself, and had promised to
introduce some of Emma's poetry to it But
Emma herself was too much delighted with the
fact of having a lover not to volunteer that poetry
had not been all that occupied them. That cove
had been the trysting-place for the last six weeks-,

78 The Disturbing Element.

and Emma thought herself a model of discretion
for always bringing Alice. Philip Harcombe was
a hero of romance in her eyes — /.^., of that modern
type of romance which makes dissipation a part of
manliness, and has turned muscularity into coarse-
ness. Emma, however, believed herself to be in-
fluencing him for good. He had called her his
good angel, talked of what he could be if she was
always at his side, and told her — perhaps in full
sincerity — that when with her he longed to rise to
her level of innocence and purity — but no, that was
possible for women, not for men.

The poor girl declared, with tears, that if Miss
Webster thought proper to interfere and bring her
father down upon them, the ruin of Philip, body
and soul, would be on her head. Lettice had been in
great difficulties how to answer, but she had stuck to
her point, that what was underhand and disobedient
could not prosper, , and that she was lowering
instead of raising Mr. Harcombe's ideal by stooping
to act a deceit for his sake. Emma had of course
the rooted idea that secrecy was a charm, and that
love ought to be conducted like the changes of the
moon; but when Lettice told her that the Miss
Websters* mind was ruthlessly made up, and they
would certainly tell Dr. and Mrs. Lacy if Emma
did not do so herself, she cried a great deal, but

Geological Researches^ 79

allowed that it would be better if she told her own
story, and finally promised that she would make her
confession to her mother, and have it out with her,
if only Miss Webster would not speak to her father.
* " Humph," said Susan, but she was obliged to
abide by the decision of her plenipotentiary.

We had not long parted with Lettice before
there was a laughing scuffle, and Penny, with the
peculiar rippling accompaniment of laughter that
would have put anyone else out of breath, dragged
in Winifred, solemn, rigid, blushing, and confused,
but with a bigger book in her arms than she could
well carry.

"Oh! oh! what do you think our Gentianella
has been taken for?" was Penny's cry. "Oh! I
shall die of it ! What a pity I was there, so that it
won't go down to generations hence as a proof of
the march of intellect. The literary housemaid !
Oh dear!"

With all her good-nature, Penelope did not
always know when to stop, and seeing that Winifred
was evidently annoyed, we tried to check her, and
get a rational account of the adventure.

"All in character with the housemaid," still
laughed Penny.

" It was very wrong of Penny not to have given
me warning," said she, gravely.

8o The Disturbing Element.

** Housemaid's language 1 There! And how could
I, when rd none myself?*' said Penny. " He came
like greased lightning on the wings of his telegram,
which we rescued half-an-hour after from being
drowned in the reservoir."

"Who came?"

" Why, the true Prince — Stephen St Barbe him-
self. Yes, I assure you, in propriA qua maribtis — no,
I mean propriA personA — he walked up to our door a
couple of hours ago, just as mother and. I were
nailing up the roses. Luckily, mother knew him
by his likeness to all his belongings, for he is
altered to the last degree since he was a little boy
in knickerbockers, has got an immense yellow
beard, and is as brown as a berry. Well, we sent
for father, and regaled him with luncheon, and
heard how the friend he had been going with to the
moors was hindered by the trifle of losing his
mother, so that he bethought him that, while
waiting for him, he might as well run down and
take a squint at the old place. He had telegraphed,
he declared, and by the same token, when we set
out to walk down to the House, as we were coming
along the bank of the reservoir "

" Is the reservoir the new Irish way to the
House ?"

" No, but Stephen was not to have or to hold but

Geological Researches. 8i

he must go to see the reservoir, to see if the place
in the embankment was there where he and
Johnnie and I were caught making a cavern, as
part of the furniture of our desert island. I believe,
if we had not been discovered in time, of our bones
would, long ere this, coral have been made. At any-
rate, I then had my first and only taste of a whip-
ping, and Johnnie and Steffie were both sent off to
school as perilous to society at large, nor had we
met since. Well, as we indulged in reminiscences,
I undertook to show him the stones which had
built up our hole. As we went, we heard a wail,
and discovered a small black cap bound with red
floating on the vast inland sea ''

" My dear Penny, the boy-^ — "

" The boy had been incapable of withstanding
the delights of making ducks and drakes on such
a surface as that So engaged, some of the miners'
boys on the way to school had caught him, and on
the *'eave arf a brick at un* principle, had come
behind him, twitched off his cap, and shied it into
the water. A telegram without a cap could not be
delivered you know, and, besides, the stream carried
it so enticingly near the bank that the deluded
victim hoped to recover it, as of course Stephen
did immediately with his stick. No sooner was it
on his head again — ^wet as it was — than with

32 The Disturbing Element.

repaired brass (I beg the company's pardon for
my lapse ; I've been keeping bad company, you see)
the youth presents his orange-coloured envelope to
my father and demands his fee, as fearlessly as did
Davie Mailsetter. So, having had adventure the
first, we proceed to the home of Stephen's fore-
fathers, through the overgrown gardens, grass-
grown courts, &c., which, by-the-bye, took his fancy
greatly. We enter the hall, echoing to our tread,
peep into the darkened chambers, Stephen im-
mensely impressed, papa studying disconsolately
the increased inroads of dry rot. He was making
me assist in poking out the extent of it, when
Stephen, who had grown tired of that department
of the subject, and wandered off to look into the
rooms, came suddenly back, exclaiming in a low
voice, *I say, there's a literary housemaid in the
library, and such a pretty one 1' Rushing in then
and there, I perceived Winny elegantly poised on
the library steps, with an enormous atlas before
her. I say, Winny, were you altogether wrapped
in the book, the book, the mighty book, all the
time he was wandering about the room ?"

" No, but I thought he was the man that winds
up the clocks, and that he wasn't bound to see

me.

" Oh ! oh ! oh 1" cried Penny, going off into fits

Geological Researches. 83

■

again. " Fancy anyone winding up the old clock
that has been dead these fifteen years !"

« I didn't think of that. And he looked just like
the man that does ours."

" Now you are quits," cried Penny. " Just like
Joseph's foreman ! I must tell him 1"

" I beg you will do no such thing," said Winifred,
seriously.

*' Ah ! you didn't add a note of admiration as he
did 1 You should say he was the most courteous
of clock-winders. It was very ungrateful of you,
for he not only laid all his books metaphorically at
your feet, but actually lugged down this huge one
to this very door for you."

"Yes," said Winifred, "he was very kind,
and when he offered to lend me Johnstone's
Physical Atlas, I thought I had better bring it here
than take it home, because Mr. Sneyd can consult
it here, and I know he wanted to make out the
formation of this part of the coast. I was trying to
do it for him."

I could not help glancing mischievously at
Susan. There was something very droll in the
two ladies starting in opposite directions, both for
geological maps for the young lecturer; but Susan
pretended to be quite unconscious, and observed
in an unconcerned way, "So Mr. St. Barbe is

84 The Disturbing Element.

come home I I suppose it is only for a day or
two."

" So he said. He only came to wait till his moor
is ready for him, but I fancy he cares a good deal
for the old place now that he has seen it. He has
never set eyes on it, you know, since he was sent to
school. His mother went away and died the year
after, and I think he dreaded coming home. You
can't think how nice he was, and how things seemed
to strike him as they never had done before.
Hurrah for StefBe 1 I say. I expect he will stay
and rebuild the house, and be a jolly blessing to
the place, as he was meant to be."

I made a foolish little attempt at admonition by
suggesting that, if such were the case, it would be
perhaps as well to drop the habit of calling Mr.
St. Barbe "StefBe," but I underwent the usual fate of
the remonstrant on such occasions — I was hugged,
and called a dear old thing of the last generation.

So— as if all the rest had not been enough —
here was another stone dropped into our once
quiet waters. Yes, no other than the Prince of
Poppleton himself I

Nor were we surprised, after the character we
had heard of his sudden and vehement impulses,
that after walking about his estate with Mr. Ryan
and Penelope all the next morning, and seeing so

Geological Researches. 85

much game crying out to be killed, his boyish afTec-
tion for the old place revived.

Penny came in tumultuously just before luncheon.
"You'll give me some food, please, dear Miss
Webster, to be ready for the class. Papa has taken
Stephen St. Barbe to the Waltons, and we thought
three of us would be too much for Mrs. Walton's
equanimity — and her small cutlets. We wanted to
show him that we can really boast of a male
person — a gentleman at large. For, do you know,
he told me at night that he was quite undeceived.
He had always set down Poppleton as a horrid
stupid little hole, as dull as ditch water, with
nothing in it but women and skates' tails and
big pebbles."

*• I should not say he was so far wrong," I
answered. " Has anything happened to make him
alter his opinion .?"

" That's what I can't anyhow see," said Penny,
gravely. " You haven't a hat hanging up in your
hall to deceive the housebreakers as they did at
Cranford, have you ? No, the fact of the matter is,
it is Some, you know — ^his home ; and though he
has galloped all the world over from sheer fear of
facing it again, all alone as he is, poor fellow, now
he has come, the spell of it is upon him. He
would be made of worse than granite, or fel-

86 The Disturbing EUment.

spar, or gneiss, or whatever is hardest, if he
could withstand the welcome everyone gives
him. He says he can't think, now he sees it
again, how he ever came to stay away so
long. And he is going to send for an architect
on the spot, to build up the old house just as it
ought to be."

Penny's tongue rattled on all luncheon-time,
and then she declared she should come to utter
grief if we didn't let her have ten minutes to her-
self to finish the translation she took, all crumpled,
out of her blue serge pocket.

She sat down, but for one word she wrote she
chattered twenty, and she could hardly have done
more than scribble a sentence when up she
bounded, " There he is, I declare ! Why, Stephen !
Yes, with papa and Winifred !"

So they were ! We were gratified by the call,
for we had liked and pitied the young man's gentle
widowed mother, and had known him as a merry
young pickle. A fine-looking bronzed man he was,
big and powerful, with locks of a curious variety
of shades, a brown neck, reddish beard, and quick,
keen blue eyes — and he was courtesy itself, carry-
ing all Winifred's store of books."

They had come, it proved — to our great delight —
to ask the address of an architect, whom Mr. Ryan

Geological Researches. 87

had mentioned at second hand, from our brother's
mention of his abilities.

** Fm to be your neighbour, too, Miss Webster,"
he said. " Captain Walton is good enough to let
me rent his house while my own is in the builder's
hands."

" Does he ! Oh, what fun ! " cried Penny. " Then
you come and live among the Blue-bells."

"Come, get up. Penny," said her father, "and
don't talk nonsense. Give me your pen. I dare-
say Miss Webster will allow me to write here, and
save the post, as we are going round by Har-
combe's farm, and shall not be at home till too
late."

" But don't you want to write for the post too.
Penny?" asked Mr. St. Barbe, as she made way.

"Far from it," she laughed, holding up her
German book.

"Doing impositions — eh? Going to school
still ?"

"You'd better take care! We're all in classes
here. Miss Frances and Winny will put you to
school too. It's a dangerous place to live in."

"Are you much alarmed?" somebody asked —
Susan, I think.

" Not much. Learning would never stick upon
me."

88 The Disturbing Element

" Like a duck's back," said Penelope, who
seemed intent on showing off her wild beast.
'* Now, Stephen, tell me true. Exclusive of * Brad-
shaw,' what was the last book you opened, and
when ?*'

" Oh ! I never open * Bradshaw.' I let the railway
fellows do all that for me."

" Then what was the last book ?"

"Let me see — * Leech's Caricatures,' I think.
And when ? When I was waiting at the dentist's."

"So you have a few human weaknesses, after
all ! Your teeth are like other people's."

" If you must know the truth, some brutes of
niggers stoned us at the N'yanza, and I got a
tooth broken."

Then enquiries elicited that the stoning had been
incurred, with, indeed, far worse perils, in rescuing a
missionary party in danger of their lives, but whom
the little hunting party had brought off success-
fully. When we read it in the missionary's own
narrative some time after, we found that Mr. St.
Barbe had been a far greater hero than he had
implied in the brief, rather facetious description
that Penelope obtained from him, and which at the
time shocked me a little by terms applied both to
negroes and missionaries — but perhaps that was
our want of comprehension of the language of the

Geological Researches. 89

period, for Penny looked exultant, as if she had
done it all herself, and Winn/s eyes shone, bedewed
with moisture, as one who had found something
real at last

They lingered on and talked, till Mr. St. Barbe
gave a great start, exclaiming —

"Hullo I here are a dozen more ladies coming
up to the house ! Is there any way out here ?
Excuse me. Good morning."

And he fairly fled into the garden's deepest
recesses, put to Right by the dozen ladies as he
certainly would not have been by a lion, and leaving
us laughing almost as much as bis cousin Penelope.

(

CHAPTER VI.

gaffer's hole.
If R. SNEYD was duly grateful for the maps,
■'■•■^ and studied them intently, nearly sweeping
them with his eyelashes. The " disturbing element"
had not yet made as much difference as might have
been expected. It was true that Penny's written
performances were more wonderful than ever, both
in what they said and what they omitted, and that
Winifred was a good deal taken up in helping her
parents put away their objects of " virtue and
bigotry," by special desire of their incoming tenant,
who declared that he should be among them as a
bear in a china shop. This did not last long ; the
Waltons were soon ready, and Winny was handed
over to a succession of friends, among whom we
came first

Gaffer's Hole. 91

However, our zeal was unabated, and the out-
come of it was, that the lecturer must, before his
lecture, see the curious rocks high up in the ravine
of the Boldre, and most especially Gaffer's Hole,
a cavern of stalactites above and stalagmites
below, which Penelope and her brothers had
explored once in the prosperous days of the St.
Barbe estate, when it was lighted up for a party at
the house, and which she had ever since believed
to be the rival of the Peak caves, if not of those of
Policandro.

A picnic should be had, the miners should be
employed to light up the cavern, and there should
be no end of fun. Mr. St. Barbe, in spite of
his dismay at the sight of the Blue-bell inroad,
obeyed the spur of his cousin, placed his park and
cavern at her service, and only stipulated that he
should neither be obliged to give or to hear the
lecture on Gaffer's Hole.

"Unless you are going to give it,' he said,
turning to her and Winifred as they stood together.

Winifred gravely said "Oh no," and Penny,
"Wouldn't you like to hear it ? This cavern, ladies
and gentlemen, was hollowed out by the action of
antediluvian — I mean submarine — rivers dripping

92 The Disturbing Element.

with limestone, and of such wonderful ingenuous-
ness — no, ingenuity, which is it ? — that they have
constructed statues of Gaffer himself — supposed to
be the forefather of all the St. Barbes — as well as
of all the remarkable preachers, statesmen, poets,
including Homer, Venus, Nebuchadnezzar, and
Gladstone, &c., just like a new underground Madame
Tussaud."

"Well, really, I did see such a likeness of the
old Duke of Wellington as fairly made me start,"
said Mr. St. Barbe. " Oh no, not in this place. It
was in the Rocky Mountains — a place where we
sheltered for the night when we had lost our way."

He went on, the eager eyes of the two girls
drawing out his description, almost at unawares to
himself, of one of those majestic caverns, scarce yet
explored, where the most wonderful freaks of
nature in the form of statuary occur. Finally,
Winifred, with a long breath, said, " Thank you,"
and Penelope laughed and said, " Never say you
can't lecture again."

He looked greatly discomfited, and entreated,
"Now, Penny, there's a good girl, you won't say
anything about it."

Apparently he, like her other friends, had found

Gaffer s Hole. 93

out what it was to put himself in the power of
Penny, who was almost as trying sometimes as
Dora, not from irony, but from her inconsiderate
love of fun, and she went on teasing him now.
For the interview took place in our garden. He
was leaning over the low wall that separated it
from Captain Walton's domain, of which he had
just taken possession, while Penny and Winifred
were standing by the garden chair where I sat
under the shade of the pear-tree. It was very odd,
considering his distaste to ladies, that the sound of
voices in our garden always brought Mr. St. Barbe
to reconnoitre. I could hear him rustling in the
laurels, and smell his tobacco, even if — with his
pipe pocketed — he did not make himself visible,
with his elbows on the wall.

He never did so when our companion was either
Maisie Carstairs or Dora Morland, not often even
when it was Lettice. This we thought somewhat
bad taste in him, but we could not help being rather
glad, for there was a certain castle deep down in
our hearts that we never mentioned to one another
save in our most confidential moments.

For we were like all single ladies of a certain age,
in that the hero of our souls was our nephew. Our

94 The Disturbing Element

n&p\itvf par excellence — for we had plenty more, only
they were less interesting — ^was our clerical brother's
eldest son, Edward Webster, a civil engineer, now
about twenty-eight years old. Of course I need
not say that we deemed him one of the ablest, best,
and dearest fellows in the world, for was he not the
only one of them all whom we had known intim-
ately during the first five years of his life ? had he
not performed two quarantines with us in his
school days, and voluntarily made us flying visits
whenever business brought him anywhere into what
he called our neighbourhood ? Nay I I shudder to
think of it, he had once driven the express train
at extra speed down to Warchester to be able to
surprise his aunt Susan on her birthday at dinner.
Of course he had a permit from the managers, but
we thought Miss Dove, who happened to be in the
train, would have died afterwards of fright at the
perils she had unwittingly run.

Latterly we have fancied ourselves not the only
attraction. We are sure that Edward and Lettice
are pleased to meet, and though not a word has
ever been breathed, we think that the dear fellow
was only waiting till he shall have realised enough
to offer her, and till she is a little more free of

Gaffer^s Hole. 95

home claims, to make his afTection more evident.
Thus, all things considered, we did not regret that
her fresh cheeks, sensible face, and ready, alert
manner did not seem to attract Mr. St Barbe,
though he was always ready to fight sharp battles
with Penelope, or to answer Winifred's enquiries
about the places she had read of, and he had seen ;
or to look out the books she wanted, either in his
own house or in hers.

Still, when Mr. St. Barbe was being invited to
dinner parties all round the neighbourhood, and
Mr. Arrowsmith in especial had ordered Lettice
to have all the grandees within reach to meet him,
and everything en grande tenue, and when the
picnic scheme was acquiring more brilliant pro-
portions every day, we more than once wished for
Edward to take care of his own interests; but
he was hard at work superintending the throwing
a suspension bridge across a Scottish firth, and we
had not seen him for more than a year.

Behold, however, a letter from my brother,
whose present incumbency is in a great manufac-
turing town, telling us not to be alarmed — Edward
had been hurt by a splinter of stone which had
flown into one eye, and had had to be kept in the

g6 The Disturbing Element,

dark for a week ! His sight was now adjudged to
be safe, provided he would give both it and his
whole self complete rest, relaxation, sea air, and
bathing for the next six weeks, and abstain from
touching pen, pencil, or compasses. Of course he
was coming straight down to his aunts* the very
next day, and fortunately we could easily make
room for him without turning Winifred out. We
were glad he was coming wheo so much was going
on to amuse him, and, privately, I was glad it waa
the day of the Arrowsmiths* dinner-party, to which
Susan was chaperoning Winifred, so that I should
have him all to myself the first few hours. He was
to join them in the evening if he was well enough,
and t)ff they went, Susan grumbling a little in her
state grey satin, and Winifred looking better than
her best, her bonnie brown hair tied with a bunch
of blue ribbons. He walked into the house, with
shaded eyes, about half-an-hour later ; he seemed
far too tired to think of it. He looked ill and
jaded, allowed that he had a headache with travel-
ling in the heat and dust, and did not feel up to
the lights and chatter. " Besides," he said, " one
wouldn't have a chance of a word with anyone in
the crush."

Gaffer* s Hole. 97

So I had him all to myself, and found out that
he had been thwarted, overworked, and worried,
and that all this had conspired to make a slight
disaster tell seriously upon him. He let out as
much in his cheerful, uncomplaining way, showing
how exceedingly he enjoyed the perfect calm of the
gentle rush and ripple of the ebbing tide and the
soft summer breeze, after the clash, and jar, and
screech, and scream, and rattle around his home.

When he had enjoyed his duck and green peas,
his shrimps and cream cheese, and, above all, the
pie and the grapes that Lettice had sent down
(hypocritical maiden) as my share of the feast, and
when he had heard all my news, and told all his
own, leaning back in the basket-chair in the window,
with the tabby-cat purring on his breast, and the
lamp shaded, so that his eyes could be set free, he
looked more like his dear old self, though he had
much more hair in his brown beard than on his
head, which was too bald for his years ; and when
the church clock struck ten, he rose up and said
that he thought he would go and see "Aunty
Sue" home from Brackenridge.

I waited, writing a report of him to his father and
mother, till the party should come home, peeping

G

98 The Disturbing Element.

out now and then at the shimmering moonlight-path
over the sea, seen between the dark projecting
shoulder of Barbe Torr on one side, and the lights
of Poppleton clustering like glow-worms on Ben
Boldre, listening for them, often hearing only the
lap of the tide, the carriages rolling away, but soon
catching now and then the far-away call of some
fisherman putting out his boat for a night's work^
I did not wonder they had tarried, when I saw them
at last, Susan all silvery in her greys and whites
hanging in perfect content on her boy's arm, and
just behind, our big and bearded neighbour
exchanging good-nights with Winifred, who came
into the light with the hood of her cloak over her
head. It is wonderful how becoming those hoods
are to some people. Winny's usually formal and
sedate little visage was quite beautified now that
it both softened and sparkled, and she had a lovely
colour as she apologised for having kept Miss
Webster waiting, but the moonlight was so lovely
over the bridge, and Mr. St. Barbe had been telling
her about the expedition to the Pacific for ob-
serving the great eclipse.

No, neither of the others had perceived that she
had kept them waiting. They had been the last

Gaffer's Hole. 99

to depart, and after Lettice had wrapped them up,
she had come out to the door with them, and
refiT^shed herself, after the hot evening's task of
playing hostess, by accompanying them down to
the gate of the drive. Thus, when Susan and I
found ourselves alone, we did not at all agree as to
our nephew's looking worn and depressed.

The details of the picnic at Gaffer's Hole had
been discussed and ratified, all the better, Susan
said, because it was a sort of select committee,
none of the other Blue-bells being at the party but
Dora, and Maisie who came in the evening.

Mr. Arrowsmith had not allowed Lettice to have
her to dinner, because Miss Dove would have been
furious if she had not gone in to dinner with Mr.
St Barbe, next after Lady Elizabeth, the Member's
wife, and that would have been a dire offence to
two portly married ladies of baronet blood.

Mrs. Morland, Susan, and the four Bells had dis-
cussed the matter. Mr. St. Barbe had wished to
make it altogether his party, and let it serve as an
entertainment to all his neighbours, but this was
not to be thought of. We did not want the neigh-
bourhood, and we did want those Blue-bells who
were of too humble a growth for him to have yet

loo The Disturbing Element,

discovered. " Besides," said my sister, " if it were
his party, I do not believe that Mr. Sneyd would
be got to it."

" That would be very foolish."

" I don't say it is wise, but one must feel for a
man who was brought up to be as wealthy as any
of them, and now feels himself in what people look
upon as an inferior position. He had learned to
like us, and be happy with us before Mr. St. Barbe
came; and now, poor fellow, it has put him all
wrong again, and he is more depressed than ever.
Emilius was telling me this afternoon that it is
lucky he is bound to deliver this lecture, for getting
it up is the only thing he seems to heed when
he is at home, poor fellow."

Something I said of jealousy made Susan fire up
on behalf of her prot^gd. It could not be anything
so foolish or unworthy, but assuredly there was
something trying to a young man of so much
cultivation in seeing everybody running after a
mere big hunter of beasts, without three ideas in his
head.

I said that was hardly true of our neighbour. He
might be no reader, but he was a thorough observer
and thinker too. " Oh no," Susan said that she

Gaffer's Hole. loi

was only repeating what poor young Sncyd called
him, " and no wonder."

No wonder perhaps that the first and sole male
specimen did not like the second. How would he
get on with the third ?

The picnic was to be on the ensuing Thursday.
This was Tuesday. Susan herself had made up
her mind to go, feeling the charge of Winifred, not
to say of Mr. Sneyd, and likewise being far more
enterprising now she had Edward. Besides, Mrs.
Morland had begged for her assistance, no one
being sure of what Penelope might do in her
present state of excitement. Miss Dove had
declined for herself and niece, though Maisie was
quite independent enough to have her own way
if she chose. Mrs. Parnell never went anywhere,
but her daughters were sure cards, and indeed there
would be a numerous young fry, between the other
members of the Arrowsmith, Morland, Ryan, and
Lacy families, and the Darts and Rowans, our
holiday visitors.

Of course the Lacys had to be asked, though
Emma scarcely deserved it in our eyies, for we
were nearly certain that she had not fulfilled h
promise of confession to her mother, and there w

I02 The Disturbing Element.

a poem in the corner of the Warchester weekly
paper on the subject of crabbed age misunder-
standing lively youth, and forcing on its code of
conventionalities.

Oh, let the wild rose freely stray.
Wave to the winds each fragrant spray,

Her tendrils twist around.
Far better so than tortured back.
Stretched, tied like martyr on the rack,

By gardeners pruned and bound.

Age cannot legislate for youth;
Its tender mercies are, in truth,

Mistaken e'en when fond.
Only the sympathetic eye.
Should venture into hearts to pry.

Or to impose a bond.

Even without the signature, "Forget-me-not,"
the remarkable fact of wild roses having tendrils
would have betrayed the authorship. Emma had
missed one meeting at the Blue-bells, and in the
next, when we had to compare our drawing of
maps, had provoked Dora to tell her that she
evidently thought all outlines of countries ** only
conventional signs."

They could not but invite her with the others
of the family, and, as we had feared, her mother

Gaffer^s Hole. 103

sent the younger ones under her care, which meant
under nobody's.

Penelope, who did nothing all the next day but
ride backwards and forwards in the wildest state
of excitement, making and unmaking arrangements,
came rushing up to assure Susan that Emilius had
set his heart on going to the ravine, and would be
awfully — most awfully — disappointed if he did not;
and she could manage it as easily as possible, by
harnessing Leprechaun to my wheeled chair; he
never kicked, the darling, he didn't; Miss Frances'
chair would go anyivhere, and where it wouldn't^
what were arms like Steffie's fit for, but to carry
him across a difficult bit ?

The consequence was that my sister — ^far from
convinced either of the capabilities of the chair, or
the other trifles Penny made so sure of — ^set forth
to ascertain whether Emilius was really so ardently
set on going, and whether it could be made feasible.

They found him sitting, as he had become wont
to do, in one of the boats, whose kind owner used
to lift him into it every fine day, and where he spent
hours under a red German umbrella. Either there,
or under Mrs. Hales's small verandah, he had become
quite an institution ; no one dreamt of molesting

I04 The Disturbing Element.

him, but many halted to talk to him, and even the
children used to run up and bring him scraps of
sea-weed, or bits of brick ground into pebble shape
by the waves. He was far happier than in the
Warchester lodging, where he knew no one and
never went out ; and his brother was thinking of
keeping him here, at least till winter, and himself
walking backwards and forwards to Warchester,
when the holidays were over.

When he saw his friends coming, he caused the
friendly sailor to lift him back to the beach, and
struggle up the shingle. Poor little fellow, he waa
about fifteen, but his head was no higher than that
of a child of twelve, and his malformed legs were
quite useless, so that he moved entirely by his
crutches, not with pain, but with great effort. His
brother had already shown him how impossible it
was for him to share the expedition, but vehement
Penny had swept along his wishes with her, and he
confessed that, kind as it was of her, he wished it
had not been put into his head. Indeed he begged
that no more might be said. It had been a foolish,
unreasonable wish, and Charles had been vexed at
his entertaining the notion for a moment.

The end of it was, that Susan invited him up to

Gaffer^ s Hole. 105

spend the day with me, and went in to force out
consent from Charles, who had lapsed into his most
dreary and defiant mood, and declared that he had
no notion of joining the party. It might once have
been thought of on his account, but it had changed
its character, and he was not going to intrude on
ladies' and gentlemen's pleasures. He should return
to Warchester. That was the best place for them
both.

Susan gave him a good scolding, such as always
braced him, and extracted a reluctant promise that
he would not fail to bring his brother.

The weather had been taken at such short notice
that it had not time to break ; and in the midst of
the loading of the donkey, whose panniers were to
carry Susan's pitt^es and cakes, in lieu of their
usual load of fish, Charles, with a dolorous face,
pushed up Emilius in my big perambulator. Mr.
St. Barbe was showing how they loaded donkeys
in South America, and I am not sure that Charles
would not have taken flight again, if Edward, who
had promised to do his best for him, had not pro-
posed to him to walk forward and have a smoke
up the valley, while Winifred drove my sister in the
Walton pony-chair, as far as it could go. Strict

io6 The Disturbing Element.

economy kept the poor youth short of that vital
atmosphere, tobacco, and perhaps half his prime
discontent might be due to his deprivation of what
his German breeding made second nature. At
any rate, he walked off so placidly, that for once
we were grateful to Edward's smoking propensities.

I had been ordered not to make Emil a bur-
den to me, but give him books and prints, and
let him amuse himself. I obeyed this order for the
first hour or two, by way of setting him more at his
ease, and then, after luncheon, I took him into the
garden.

Poor little fellow, how happy he was on the turf
among the verbenas! He sunned himself, and
admired, and talked of Charles, his one hero;
telling stories of his Bonn life with much zest, and
consulting me whether there was any kind of work
he could do, copying, carving, or translating, which
would lighten the burden on his brother's shoulders.
Indeed, he was copying a translation of Charles's
into German. I promised to ask my nephew, which
delighted him greatly. I found, too, that he had a
burning desire to hear Charles's lecture, and, though
I dared not excite his hopes, I resolved to see if it
could be managed.

Gaffer^s Hole. 107

By-and-by Maisie Carstairs came in. She said
it did not seem worth while to distress Aunt Maria
by going to the picnic. She knew the Glen per-
fectly well, and walked there, whenever she wearied
for a shadow of Scotland. The real cause of Miss
Dove's refusal was — as we all knew — because she
thought it beneath the Honourable niece's dignity
to join a party got up for a poor tutor, and
including the daughters of a deceased officer in
the Coast Guard.

"Poor Aunt Maria," said Maisie, "it is not
worth while to cross her about little things, when
I have to go against her in great ones ! "

Nor did Miss Dove know how Maisie was delight-
ing the poor tutor's little brother, singing to him the
Scottish songs that had been but romantic names
to him, and answering enthusiastically, in her
sweet, soft, Scotch voice, all the questions prompted
by years of feeding on Walter Scott. Never had
I heard quiet Maisie say so much, or show herself so
deeply and tenderly moved; and when we both had
begged for Auld Robin Gray, when she came to —

'' To make the crown a pound, my Jamie gaed to sea,
And the crown and the pound, oh 1 they were baith
for me,"

io8 The Disturbing Element.

she fairly broke down and ran out at the window,
coming back soon again, with a blushing, half-
choked apology — "Old songs would bring old
scenes," she said, trying to smile.

Plainly there was a Jamie in the case, and, I
think, but for Emil's presence, she would have
told me about him then and there.

The party were to be back, at latest, by eight,
the last hour to which Lettice could defer her
father's dinner. Susan had expressed a hope of
getting them home long before; but the August day
had long darkened, and we had absolutely counted
nine by the church clock before any sounds were
heard coming over the bridge, and I went out to
the door and met my sister and Winifred.

"Emil," said Susan, advancing to him, "your
brother is quite safe and well," but he has had a
wetting, and we thought it wise for him to go
straight home with my nephew. Miss Walton
will drive you down, and tell you about it by the
way."

So Susan and Rebekah helped him into the low
pony-chair, after a few anxious questions and eager
reassurances ; and Susan and I were in the little
vestibule, but, true to her regular custom, hot and

Gaffer* s Hole. 109

tired as she looked, I could not get a word out of
her beyond that it was all right, and no harm done,
thanks to dear Edward, till she had trotted up to
her own room, taken off her things, and made herself
spruce, and having further informed Rebekah that
Mr. St Barbe would probably come in to supper,
and taken out the " company " claret

So that I knew nothing till the carriage had
come back, containing not only Winifred, but Mr.
St Barbe, who, it appeared, had walked down with
our nephew and Charles Sneyd, ostensibly to lift
Emilius out when he came home. Supper was
ready by this time, and Winifred made a far briefer
toilette than my sister's. We sat down, still minus
Edward, who, Mr. St. Barbe said, had gone in "with
the poor little cripple." Then my curiosity began
to be gratified, though the first sentiment was
startling. "Well, boys ought to be abolished!"
to which Susan responded more moderately —
"such boys as the Lacys and Darts 1"

The story came forth, as such adventures always
do, wrong end foremost, telegram fashion; but I will
rectify that as far as I can. The gully had been
found as delicious as had been predicted, especially
after it narrowed into a goyle fas it is here termed),

no The Disturbing Element.

and the party pursued a narrow path beside the
sparkling rushing stream, leaping over the stones,
where the enterprising followed its example, and
danced from one stone to another.

Little waterfalls added to the charm, and the
rocky banks sometimes almost closed in overhead,
sometimes sloped back, adorned with rowan trees
bearing beauteous berries amid their feathery
leaves, with ferns, and now and then late honey-
suckles, while huge trailing wreaths of ivy and
traveller's joy formed exquisite drapery in the
steeper parts. It was so delightful that it was
hard to believe that they had walked about three
miles, and the traveller electrified us all by deliber-
ately pronouncing it the loveliest spot he had ever
beheld. No other place, neither the Dargle nor
the Trosachs, no, neither Switzerland nor Yosamite,
could hold a candle to its own peculiar individual
charm ! It was lucky, considering that he was the
proprietor, and at that moment it flashed over
me-— or else I saw it in Susan's amused eyes —
what that peculiar charm might chance to be,
though I am not certain whether he had found it
out by that time. After climbing some steep steps
by the side of a waterfall, which so daunted Mrs.

Gaffer^ s Hole. iii

Morland that she never would have been pulled up
without Edward's help, while the unfeeling Dora
only chaffed her, they came to a delightful little
glade, where there was a kind of fairy parlour, well
known to Penelope and her select acquaintance.
There was just mossy turf enough to afford space
for the feast, shut in by rocks, and shadowed by
hazel and rowan trees, and by ferns growing up
as high as their heads. Here preparations had
been made, and the meal was held, with the cloth
laid on the grass, and all, as even my sister allowed,
delightfully managed by good Mr. and Mrs. Ryan,
who met them there by an easier route. It was
their head-quarters, and they were to drink tea
there after viewing the cavern, which was half-a-
mile further up.

And how had Mr. Sneyd got on all this time ?

Oh ! poor little chap, pretty well on the whole,
Mr. St. Barbe said. Penny was uncommonly good-
natured, and hauled him over the rocks; and as
long as she had him in tow, it was all very well,
though the notion of his giving a lecture was
perfectly ridiculous. Those scamps of boys were
actually making him believe that the ants were
young bees.

112 The Disturbing Element

" But, indeed/' said Winifred, " he does know all
the theory. It is only that he does not know things
by sight— and is so short-sighted besides."

" Miss Walton is quite right," said Edward, who
had come in meantime, and was vigorously cutting
cold beef. "He is a thorough book-scientific
man. I learnt a good deal from him ; but we
ought to have kept him safe from those wretched
boys."

" I thought Penny was doing so," said Mr. St.
Barbe ; " she seemed to have adopted him as her
own peculiar pet. Indeed, I am not sure that is
not what riled her brothers."

" You never can reckon on Penny when she is in
one of her excited states," said my sister, sighing ;
" and, indeed, I didn't think the boys could have
been so unfeeling."

However, " the boys " had considered themselves
aggrieved in every way by the poor man's presence
at the party. All scorned him as a German, and
as a teacher of women, in the abstract ; most hated
him as engrossing their sisters' time and attention ;
and the Darts abhorred him with a special and
individual abhorrence, as being set to drive holiday
lessons into them ; and his ignorance of common

Gaffer s Hole. 113

matters increased their contempt So, being all the
more intolerant, because their sisters had presumed
to say the party was made up on his account, they
viewed him as fair game. All sorts of ridiculous
natural curiosities were gravely presented for his
study, and traps were set, from which Penny's
vigilance saved him, and often caught the mis-
chievous setter in his own springe.

At last, however. Penny's vigilance was diverted,
partly by the need of giving the signal for the
lighting of Gaffer's Hole. While she was con-
cocting it with her cousin, Mr. Sneyd detected her
least brother, with the Darts and younger Lacys,
making a raid on a basket of fruit which had been
reserved' for the evening — Hugh Ryan having
been, as he afterwards tearfully owned to his
sister, induced by the Lacys to believe that such
thefts were part of the gallant licence of school-
boys.

Not at all shy with them, Mr. Sneyd had hotly
exclaimed that he was astonished at such behaviour
in English boys. Numbers emboldened the boys,
who were at their most impudent age, and some-
thing outrageous and intolerable had been said.
Hugh had confessed to having called him no better

H

114 The Disturbing Element

than a swindler's son, but in extenuation (?) added,
"You said so, sister, as I told him; and that wasn't
the worst No, indeed it wasn't ; for Dick Lacy
told him he ought to be at home minding his
hunchback little brother ; and I never could have
said that, sister."

The consequence of these amenities, which were
not suspected at the time, was that the poor youth
lagged, and drew apart All his special patrons
were otherwise occupied, and no one specially
attended to him. The cavern was reached after
a pretty, scrambling walk thorough bush, thorough
brier, during which Susan confessed that she had been
totally absorbed in the misdeeds of a kitchen-maid
whom she had recommended to Mrs. Ryan. Penny
had the little ones of the Lacy family on her hands,
Emma and Alice having wandered away together
no one knew where, and Edith, though she did
her best, being quite inadequate to manage them.
The youngest had a screaming fit of terror at the
notion of entering the dark cave, and Penny had
to carry her back and deposit her with these senior
ladies who had a very decided dislike to subter-
raneous doings.

The miners had placed sconces, and at all the

Gaffer's Hole. 115

remarkable points these were reinforced by the
magnesian wire Edward carried; Winifred was
enthusiastic about the strange natural statuary,
wonderful alabaster columns, and the beautiful
white groined roof of one of the chambers ; but
keeping the boys within bounds had been anxious
work. They would wake the strange silent vaults
with horrid varieties of whoops and cries, very
likely as much in defiance of their own awe as
in mirth or bravado, but very startling to some of
the par'-y, and exceedingly unpleasant to all. The
Arrowsmiths behaved well; but all the others were
nothing better than a nuisance ; and Penny tried
in vain to reduce her brothers to order, excited as
they were by the presence of older and worse lads
than themselves.

Nobody was sorry when the exploration was
over, and there was a general dispersion among
the pretty flowery banks until tea-time, when, at
the appointed signal from Mr. Ryan's key bugle,
all assembled at head-quarters.

Then, in the midst of the dispensing of tea and
cutting of cake, Mr. Sneyd was missed. While
inquiries for him were passing round, some one
overheard one boy's suggestion that he had gone

ii6 The Disturbing Element.

home in a wax, and another declare that he had
seen him in the cavern, and had roared to "put
him in an awful funk." There was no doubt that
he had gone into the cavern. The ladies outside
had seen him, but it was equally clear that no one
had seen him come out again. If he had gone
home, he must have passed this spot, where the
servants had been left in charge, and they were
certain that he had not been there. There were
grave looks, and Edward and Mr. St. Barbe got
up and declared that they must go back and look
for him. Mr, Ryan sent his elder boys to
summon the miners back to assist, and a great
suspense of alarm and self-reproach fell upon most
of them.

The waiting was long — ^very long, and it was
then that poor little Hugh's attempt at manliness
gave way ; his sister found him sobbing under the
fern, and he made a full confession, in such piteous
fear lest his small spite had led to Mr. Sneyd being
drowned in a horrible black pool he had perceived
for a moment in the cavern, that, indignant and
terrified as she was, Penny could only comfort
him.

The search had been anxious and tardy, for the

Gaffer's Hole. 117

cavern was very extensive, and had numerous
passages. It was a fearful underground labyrinth,
where the travellers* habits of exploration, the
miners* subterranean experience, and the engineers*
expedients, were all alike heeded even for their own
safety. It was not for a full hour that they were
relieved by hearing a feeble call in answer to their
shouts, and even then it was long before, amid the
winding passages and blocks of stalagmite, they
succeeded in letting their light reach the captive,
who, drenched, shivering, and scarcely able to speak,
at last stumbled up to them, when, as all declared,
they were fully a quarter of a mile from the entrance
of the cavern.

They had taken a flask of hot wine and water,
which Mr. St. Barbe had kept warm within his
waistcoat, and this revived him a little. Everybody
was waiting at the mouth when they emerged, and
demonstrative Penelope, in floods of tears, rushed
up to Mr. Sneyd, dragging little Hugh with her,
and vehemently asking pardon for the child's
wickedness. I confess I thought Penny must have
overdone it, for neither gentleman could hel|
laughing a little at the desperation of her mann<
and the confusion of their poor little drowned rat

ii8 The Disturbing Element.

However, it was luckily nearly dark, and there
were not many strange spectators.

It appeared that in trying to hold aloof from his
tormentors, the boys, and creeping away from the
people — after the discovery, as he fancied, of how
they regarded him — poor Mr. Sneyd had wandered
astray, so that he could not recover the traces of
the rest — ^had no guide but the little guttering
candle he carried. After some vain wandering, he
stumbled and fell into one of the black pools that
had haunted Hugh's imagination. Happily, it was
not deep, and he scrambled out, but with candle
extinguished.

However, to his surprise, the darkness was not
total. There was a glimmer of light at some
distance, and likewise a continual patter, as of
dropping water. He made his way with much
difficulty and caution towards the light, but only
to be disappointed. There was only the merest
crack between the rocks, far too narrow for any
chance of climbing, and there was a continued
oozing drip down the sides, forming another pool
below.

There, halting under the light, such as it was, he
tried to recover his forces, and consider whether

Gaffer's Hole. 119

escape from so dreadful a fate might yet be possible;
trying to dry his fragment of candle so as to rekindle
it with his cigar lights, he had at last heard the
shouts of the seekers, had called back again, and
finally,aftermuch disappointment and vain attempts
to meet them, had found his way to their friendly
lights and hands.

He was so wet and cold, that when they had
hastily given him food, Edward had thought it
best to see him home without more delay.

" I wonder," said I, "whether his lecture will be
the better for his experiences."

" He takes in more than you give him credit for,"
said Edward. "Besides, he and I are going there
again without all the boys and ladies to distract
us."

" My dear Edward," cried Susan, " don't be fool-
hardy. Pray don't run risks in that dreadful place.
We have had quite enough of that"

" Never fear. Aunt Susan," said he. " We shall
have the company of that old mole, the miner,
Captain Jem, who seems to me to know his way
better below ground than above."

" Mine likewise, if you please," said Mr. St Bar

Those two were becoming great friends. Th

Tke Disturbing Element

walked up and down the garden together for a
long time that summer night, and we wondered
whether anything but curiosity led them to this
new exploration, and whether Charles Sneyd would
venture with them. If he did so, he would show
a "pluck" in which his patroness, Susan, would
rejoica

CHAPTER VII.

THE LECTURE.
/^UR gentlemen did not tell us when they were
^ going to explore the cavern, and as we heard
nothing of it the next two days, we were in hopes
that it was forgotten ; but on Monday morning
Edward was missing at breakfast, and Winifred,
who used to get up to accomplish her studies at
preternatural hours, deposed that she had seen him
from her window shortly after seven o'clock, in a
very shabby old coat and hat, joining Mr. St Barbe
and Mr. Sneyd in the garden.

We were all rather worried about it, though we
professed the utmost confidence. I know I had
made up my mind that, if they did not appear by
twelve o'clock, we would send to Mr. Ryan to
institute a search in Gaflei^s Hole, and Susan

f

122 The Disturbing Element.

proved to have come to the same determination,
while Winifred set herself vehemently to prepare
her algebra, and could make nothing come right.

However, by half-past eleven the steps were
near, and Edward was heard inviting in the other
two with assurances that his aunts would insist on
their coming in. Certainly the boy did know he
might do anything with his aunts; and when
he represented their ravenous condition, the
cold tongue, the bread, cheese, and beer were
at their service. They had pockets full of
specimens of choice bit§ of spar and stalactite, and,
in reply to our enquiries, said they had pene-
trated to the place Mr. Sneyd had mentioned, and
looked up to the light through the crack between
the rocks. Where did they think this opening
was } we asked. It was making this out that had
made them return so much later than they had
intended, and it presently appeared they had been
actuated by something much beyond curiosity.
Edward had suspected that the opening could not
be far from the reservoir, and thought that the drip
of water which Mr. Sneyd had mentioned must be
therefrom, since the genuine drip of the roof was
impregnated with lime, such as formed the

The Lecture. 123

stalactites, whereas that which came from Mr.
Sneyd's crack was, by analysis, exactly the same
with that of the reservoir. They had brought
home bottles of water from the pools, which, they
said, proved this guess to be correct, and had gone
on to examine that side of the embankment of the
reservoir. Edward looked grave about it, and said
he had serious doubts whether it was safe.

It may seem odd, but we were not in the least
alarmed. As Susan said, some one of the gentle-
men who have a turn for terrifying women in a
quiet way, was sure to predict about once a-year
that the reservoir would break out, but we had
lived at Poppleton for fourteen years without
damage, and we had come to regard it as the stock
wolf of the neighbourhood.

Edward did not press on us the alarm we were
so slow to take, but enquired whose affair it was to
attend to it, a question that none of us could
answer, and he was referred to Mr. Ryan, to whom
he and Mr. St. Barbe set off as soon as nature had
been refreshed, and our Blue-bells began to muster
for their German and English literature.

I asked Lettice if she knew, and she answered,
"Yes, it belongs to the Warch^ster Waterworks

124 The Disturbing Element.

Company. Papa is chairman of it. Oh, I hope
Mr. Webster does not want to talk to him about
that. People have so often worried him about
such nonsense that he can't bear the sound of it,
and it always turns out that Harcombe has not
been opening the hatches properly."

It made Lettice look annoyed, and we knew that
Mr. Arrowsmith, though a very good man, was
opinionated, and could be very trying when he was
crossed. So we devoutly hoped that Edward
would come home satisfied.

No such thing. He had made out all about the
reservoir. There had originally been a little tarn
or mere, high on the moor, the source of a tribu-
tary of the river that flowed by Warchester, and of
the stream on the other side of Ben Boldre point4-
the Boldre itself rising in its own ravine some w^y
below. The Warchester Waterworks Compsi^y
had — some thirty years before, in the time of Mr.
Arrowsmith's father — extended this mere into a
great reservoir, about half-a-mile long and a
furlong broad, very deep indeed where the original
lake had been, and considerably so even where it
had been dug out. There was a great embankment
all round, with a walk along the top. On the

The Lecture, 125

north side was the whole apparatus for conveying
the supply to Warchester; on the east, where
Harcombe runs up, a set of hatches regulated the
needful watering of the mill and farm below, and
were also arranged to drain off any danger of over-
flow, in case the winter rains made the reservoir too
full. Harcombe itself belonged to the family who
took their name from it, but their patrimony was so
small that they rented the chief part of their farm
from the St Barbe estate, and would have pur-
chased it, if Stephen's extravagant father had
lived a little longer. This always made them feel
themselves aggrieved, and as the Ryans by no
means admitted their claims to equality with them,
there was a standing soreness, which rendered it
difficult to deal with the various questions that
arose between agent and tenant. Whenever any-
thing went wrong about the reservoir, it was
customary to charge it on the Harcombes; but
Edward exonerated them in the present case. He
said that the water was filtering through the side of
the reservoir into the top of the cavern, and if not
stopped in time would make itself a wider way ; but
he did not dwell much upon the matter to us, and
when we repeated what Lettice had said, and

126 The Disturbing Element,

exhorted him not to provoke Mr. Arrowsmith,
he only smiled, so that we thought he had taken
our advice.

He seemed to be chiefly taken up in the prepara-
tions for the lecture, and, though himself debarred
from books and drawing, was superintending most
efficiently the great diagrams of the formation of
our coast, which Winifred was drawing and colour-
ing, to be hung on the wall, with the sea in brilliant
blue, the red sandstone fearfully red, the lime-
stone wondrously marbled, the vein of tin
actually touched with silver, and the fossils of
gigantic proportions patent to every eye. We
also thought he prepared the lecture, but that he
indignantly denied.

The lecture was to be given in the school, a
conveniently expansive place, built before the
prohibition of wooden partitions, so that S. P. G.
meetings, magic lantern exhibitions, concerts, and
penny readings could take place there without
too much crowding.

It had a little class-room, built in the first dawn
of such luxuries, and since superseded by much
larger ones. It was most incorrectly called the
Black Hole, and was used as a cloak-room on great

The Lecture. 127

occasions, and it was now proposed that Emilius
and I should be installed there to hear the lecture.
It would not have hurt me to sit among the multi-
tude, so long as I had a comfortable chair; but my
being there would make it more possible for that
poor lad to have his great wish fulfilled of hearing
his brother.

Nothing could have been kinder than people
were. Two luxurious arm-chairs almost filled the
littk room, when I came down before dark, and
found Emil already installed. The school-
mistress kept on coming backwards and forwards,
bringing us cups of tea, and instructing us in the
ways of the curtain, by which we could be secluded
from public gaze. Her chief regret was that there
was nowhere to put a candle, but as the outer
room would be well lighted, and we had a window
behind us, we did not want any such thing.

Emilius was delighted, and not at all nervous
about his brother's performance. He said Charles
had been in much better spirits ever since his
adventure in the cavern, everyone had been so
kind to him, especially Miss Ryan. It was so good
to be here I They had never guessed that there
was anyone so charming outside a book. Did

128 The Disturbing Element.

think there were many people in the world equal
to Miss Ryan ? No heroine of fiction came quite
up to her in nobleness or kindness. So I concluded
that if Penelope's apologies had been overdone,
they had healed a wound. Might they only not
make another and a deeper one !

There was not much more opening for confidence,
for the sight of the people assembling was a comedy
in itself, to two such recluses as we were. Emil
had never seen anything like it, nor had I for a
period longer than that poor boy's life had been.

There was the sound of the gathering crowd
without, chiefly of children and lads — ^some the
proud possessors of a ticket, but most merely
attracted by the fact of something going on.
When the doors were opened, there were plenty of
characteristic actions to be watched. There were
the two scrambling, trampling herds of boys and
girls, whose chief care was to keep together in
their own kind, and who seemed to be furtively
handing about eatables, till Jane Morland took up
a commanding position in their very midst, render-
ing the exchange of apples such a service of diffi-
culty as only to be attempted by the more daring
and hardened of the boys, who most nearly

The Lecture. llg

approached a troop of young fishermen who
sauntered in, in an easy-going fashion, as if pre-
pared to patronise the entertainment just so far as
it might suit them. Dora and the elder curate
were a species of keepers to them.

Then there was the old woman with the green
umbrella, who always came to everything, ap-
parently under the impression that it was a
Methodist meeting, for she used to sigh and shake
her head at intervals in her placid slumber, and
always said at the door, even after a rampantly
comic penny reading, that the dear gentleman
had made a most moving discourse; also spruce
maidens, accompanied by their young men, and
intelligent-looking fathers of families ; and then,
with much clatter of heavy feet, Penelope trium-
phantly marched in with a troop of the mining
men and boys, fine-looking fellows, if they had not
all put themselves into black garments, as if they
would fain imitate Dissenting ministers. These
were a picked set, and very decorous, looking with
severity on the rollicking fisher lads.

The humours of the occupants of the reserved
seats were quite as observable. There was an
obvious tendency to sit down in the outermost seat

130 The Disturbing Element.

nearest to the gangway, making oneself as square
as possible, so as to add to the difficulty of passing
by. Indeed, I have been informed that there is a
peculiar sort of nervousness that affects some
persons, and makes them unable to occupy any
other seat, especially in church. Then there were
the people who could not sit near a closed window,
and the people who could not sit near an open one ;
and, as a general rule, those who feared draughts
always seemed to be put into them, and those who
dreaded suffocation were shoved into the least airy
places. Here crouched a gentleman with a pocket
handkerchief on the top of his head ; there gasped
a lady, divested of mantle and scarf! Then there
were the meek, who dropped into any sort of place
as if on sufferance; and the bold, who marched up.
as high as they could go, and spied out the best
unaqE)propriated seats. Then there were those who
snorted at the inner rows of doubly-reserved seats,
and questioned the right to shut them off; and
there were others who dreaded conspicuous places,
and regretted having to sit in front of anyone ;
while others stood up and gazed round in criticism,
or to look out for their friends and acquaintances.
Mr. Morland and Mr. Bennet settled all in their

The Lecture. 131

seats, except those inveterate late-comers, who
very often, according to their boast, got the very
best places of all, which have been kept for some
grandees who have not come. And lastly arrived
the dress circle, the half-crown ticket-holders, who
might pass the last dividing line. Our hearts
exulted to see that it would be nearly full. Everyone
had done his or her duty, and brought some guest
Even Lettice had prevailed to bring down her
father. There was his crisp white curly head, with
his two little girls in front of him, and Susan
sitting by his side. Dr. Lacy had promised his

presence, but did not appear, and I was sorry for it

•

— partly because his boys, with the Dents and some
others unknown, had got together in a herd, quite
as riotous as, and less easily checked than, the
poorer boys ; and partly because, all unaware of her
proximity to me, Emma was sitting just on the
other side of my curtain, her hand tenderly clasped
in Alice ParnelFs, and a varying glow on her face.
Some benches off was a tall, flashy, black- whiskered
young man, ^rith a supercilious air ; and I needed
no one /td inform me that this was Philip Har-
combe, even without the turning of Emma's head,
and the glances that passed between them.

132 The Disturbing Element.

There was a sort of platform, where Mr. Mor-
land always took the chair on these occasions and
introduced the lecturer, chiefly, as he said, that he
i^ight get a general view of the audience, and repress
the unruly, of whom he was more in doubt than usual,
as they had, by the course of comic penny readings
in the winter, been demoralised into impatience of
anything that was not facetious. By way of lending
eclat to the thing, and commencing squirely duties,
Mr. St. Barbe was, however, persuaded to be
nominal chairman. He undertook it somewhat in
the spirit in which he had drunk coffee with
Turkish pashas, or smoked pipes with negro chiefs;
but there he was in his proper place, rejoicing Mr,
Ryan's heart.

He and Mr. Morland had chairs on either side
of the table, with Winifred's great diagram above
their heads, and two lesser ones on easels on each
flank, in the midst of the table with the inevitable
green baize cloth and glass of water. Then the
three gentlemen marched up the gangway, and Mr.
St. Barbe stood forth, producing a great stamping
and clapping by way of welcome. He said a few
words, in good taste, of thanks at being thus
hailed, and said that Mr. Morland had requested

The Lecture. 133

him to introduce Mr. Sneyd, who would kindly
tell them what their dear old home was made of,
since, as everyone knew, what ought to be most
familiar was often very imperfectly known.

Then the lecture began. He was all the lecturer
now. There was no shyness, no hesitation. He
went at once to the subject, and told the history
of the gradual growth of our rocks and soil in a
popular but perfectly accurate manner. Those of
us who had read " Madam How and Lady Why"
saw the model he had formed himself on, but that
did not matter — there could not be a better. We
thought Edward must have criticised his style, it
was so clear and simple, and free from German
involvements ; but Emilius told me that he had
read the lecture to Mrs. Hales's grandson, a clever,
intelligent youth, and altered whatever he saw by
the boy's eyes was not comprehensible. The young
fellow might be known by his dancing eyes and
air of proprietorship. However, the rougher sort
no sooner found out that they were hearing infor-
mation, not drollery, than a murmur of chatter and
cracking of knuckles began to be heard. It wasi
checked, then it began again, and this time not
with the fisher-boys, but in the gentle-boy quarter*

134 The Disturbing Element

—

Another hushing, a moment's calm, but then came
a crowing like a cock. Then Mr. St. Barbe rose
up from his chair, and his eyes glanced so, that
there was a silence of dismay,

" I have been into many countries," he said, " I
did not expect to come home and find worse
behaviour than I have seen among savages. Let
those who cannot sit still to listen to a gentleman
who has taken great pains to give them interesting
information go out at once, without disturbing
others."

A few sulky lads near the door did go out, but
there was a fresh whisper and commotion among
the "young gentlemen" — something about "a
dirty little German," They thought themselves
beyond all power, but Mr. St. Barbe's keen eye
was upon them, and he still stood up, saying, " I
request that Mr. Sneyd does not continue till the
chief offenders have left the room. Go, if you
please, sir ! and you ! We expect people here to
have good breeding."

They were boys of the dge sans pitii — a
young Dent and a Lacy, the two whom he had
observed as the worst on the picnic day, and to
.them was added a Harcombe, who had been

The Lecture. 135

making faces all the time, not unmarked by that
keen eye. They tried looking up impudently, but
it would not do. The boys had been a nuisance so
often, that everybody was thankful that somebody
had strength of mind to put them down, and the
awful silence fairly compelled them to slink away.
Then Mr. St. Barbe turned to the lecturer, and
with a few kind words of compliment, and apology
for the interruption, begged him to proceed.
Nothing could be quieter than the whole audience
afterwards, and the lecture was concluded with
great spirit and prodigious applause, partly arising
from relief after the long constraint, but really
well deserved. Emil fairly wrung my hand with

delight, as one gentleman after another shook

hands with his brother and congratulated him.
At that moment, to my no small dismay, Philip

Harcombe came striding over benches and putting

chairs out of the way to speak to Emma Lacy.

" The' brute ! " he muttered.

" I'm sure poor little Alfie was no worse than the

rest," she said.

"Aristocratic insolence I He means to ride it

rough-shod over us, but FlI show him that won't

do."

136 The Disturbing Element,

" Emma!" I said, feeling very uncomfortable; but
I was not heard. She was saying, " Oh, don't," at
some unseen endearment. " One moment, my
sweet," he answered, and that instant, as one
familiar with the place, she took his hand, and
drew him, as she thought, into concealment under
our curtain. They were almost falling over us,
when I grasped her, saying, "I am here, Miss
Lacy."

"Listening!" Mr. Harcombe cried, with some-
thing like an oath.

>**Oh! hush! hush!" she whispered, in terror.
"It is Miss Frances Webster! I beg your
pardon."

They were both gone the very next moment,
leaving Emilius laughing, so that he could hardly
keep in the sound, at the looks of utter astonishment
which we could see, though ourselves unseen.

" Is that the way people make love ?" he asked,
poor fellow, in his odd, boyish simplicity.

I could only say, " I am afraid so."

By that time, however, all the strangers were
gone, and there were only our own immediate
party, so I drew back the curtain and came
forward, while Charles Sneyd, brightly blushing

The Lecture, 137

and happy, hastened to see whether his brother
was tired.

It had been a very successful evening on the
whole, and we were sorry Penny had not stopped
to talk it over, but she and her father and brothers
had walked home with their escort of miners, for fear
they should fall victims to some of the lower delights
of Poppleton. She told us afterwards that as soon
as they got out of the town they had sung " Hold
the Fort" in chorus all the way over the moor
under the harvest moon, and it was the most
beautiful thing she ever knew.

Still, our enjoyment had its drawbacks. Mr.
Arrowsmith had said to Susan, " What absurd
nonsense has your nephew got into his head about
the reservoir ? There's no end to the stuff young
men talk now-a-days ! I thought better of
Webster. As if Whitmarsh and Gardiner did not
know their business/'

So Edward had been so naughty as to plague
Mr. Arrowsmith after all our warnings ! Well, it
might be his own look-out, but we thought he had
cared for Lettice better than to do such a thing as
that!

And how about that foolish Emma ?

CHAPTER VIII.

CRYING WOLF.

AFTER what I had seen, I made up my mind to
write to Emma Lacy and beg her to come and
talk to me ; but the note was still on my table
when her father was ushered into the room in
much perturbation. It was not, usually, in his
rough and ready nature to make apologies, but he
did so now, for he was really a gentleman, and
worthy of a better family, if only he would have
looked after them more.

The misbehaviour of his son had come to his
ears, and when he was preparing to punish him,
the youngest girl, who was vehemently fond of her
brother, declared that it was not fair that he should
be punished when Emma was much worse, letting
Phil Harcombe kiss her behind the curtain in the

Crying Wolf. 139

Black Hole, so that they both tumbled into Miss
Frances Webster's lap. Emma had vehemently
denied this vulgar accusation, and the poor man,
weary of the recrimination, had taken up his hat
and come to me to learn the truth. There was
enough exaggeration in the mode of telling it to
account for Emma's denial ; but I could give the
poor doctor no comfort, and could not wonder that
he was very much disgusted with us for having
kept the secret for a fortnight or more.

He knew far worse of Philip Harcombe than we
did, scouted the notion of his even thinking of
marrying his daughter, and was chiefly disturbed
at the duplicity and folly Emma had shown. I
implored him not to be too angry with her, and
give her cause to feel herself a heroine. To send
her away would be best^ but he said he did not
know where to send her. She would only learn
worse mischief among her cousins, and not be
out of the fellow's reach either. I thought a good
German school might answer, as she was only
twenty; but such a matter could not be decided
on the instant, and Dr. Lacy had to go home to tell
his wife, and speak to his daughter.

He asked leave to send her to talk to me, but

I40 The Disturbing Element,

she never came, and I only learnt afterwards, from
Edith Parnell, that she would not hear of giving up
Philip Harcombe, nor believe a word against him.
Edith came alone to her classes, and in rather a
quaint voice she said that Emma and Alice had
cried, till both had such dreadful headaches, that
they could only sit hand-in-hand in Emma's room,
smelling each other's salts.

" I think," said little Edith, drily, " I should like
to go out as a governess. I don't think there's
enough to do here to keep one out of nonsense."

She was not at a sympathising age, and looked
on lover's troubles as supreme folly. She had
grown immensely in sense in the last year, and was
a pupil to whom we could feel that the Blue-bell
Society had been really useful.

Philip Harcombe was as good as his word, and
put a very disagreeable report of the lecture into
the low Warchester paper. At least all supposed
that it was his work. Meantime we had our own
vexations, for Edward would not let the reservoir
alone, but continued to irritate Mr. Arrowsmith,
all the more because Mr. St. Barbe was of the same
mind. It seemed to be our nephew's one great
hobby, in his enforced cessation from work. He

Crying Wolf. 141

went to Warchester, and tried to work up the other
shareholders to attend to it, but they got rid of
him by telling him that nothing could be done till
their meeting in October.

Mr. Arrowsmith was exceedingly angry at this,
and, as report took care to tell us, called our
nephew a meddling prig, who came about prying
in search of a job. He left off asking him to
dinner, as he had been doing about every third
day, whisked his daughter off after church too
quickly to exchange a word, and even told her he
would not have her always running down to Violet
Villa while that young Webster was loafing about.
He took it very ill, in a lad that he had always
been civil to, to try to stir up opposition in a
company that had always gone on harmoniously,
and to put them to endless expense for some of
his fads. It came of the over teaching of these
days. Classes! no! He would not have Lettice
go on with them. He had allowed far too much
of that already ! Lettice submitted, and sent Miss
Coles down alone, though she spoke as affection-
ately to us as ever when we did meet her.

It was a great blow to our classes, this defection
of Lettice's, and when autumn came round again,

142 The Disturbing Element.

and names were to be sent in as candidates for
the local examination in winter, my hopes were
less high than they had been last year, before " the
disturbing element" had come in. There were
Maisie Carstairs, Miss Coles, the two Morlands,
and Edith Parnell, all very steady, and unaffected
by the confusion, but Alice Parnell had fallen off
altogether; and though Emma Lacy's father insisted
that she should go on, paid the fee, and sent in her
name, she regarded it all as the mistaken tyranny
of elders, and ourselves as horrid old maids and
informers, well meaning, perhaps, but unable to
appreciate, &c., &c., &c. Besides, it was barbarous
to make a persecuted broken-hearted creature think
of analysis and decimal fractions ! So, though she
came in the body, because she could not help it,
she made it manifest that she had no spirit with
us, scarcely prepared anything, committed the most
absurd blunders, and was so languid that Mr. Sneyd
ceased to think it worth while to scold her, and
except that much might happen in three months, it
seemed to be a mere mockery to send in her name.
As to Penelope, nobody knew what she would do.
She showed plenty of zeal, but she was more
inaccurate than ever, and sometimes fought battles

Crying Wolf. 143

royal with her master, to the universal amuse-
ment, in defence of some extraordinary statement.
Besides, something had come over both her and
Winifred, that made the one more excitable (if
possible), and the other much less like a machine.
Indeed, poor Winifred bemoaned herself that she
was getting quite ruined in fines, for she could not
keep up with her societies, and found it very
expensive. Yet she did not seem much concerned,
and a sweet sensitiveness had come over that
once stiff formal face, and had changed her so
much, that one would hardly have known her.
She did go on with her various studies for the
examination, and with attention while she was
about them, so that she acquitted herself well before
Mr. Sneyd; but she no longer seemed to think and
care for nothing beyond, and had an appreciation,
both of the droll and of the beautiful, such as had
always been wanting to her. She was so pleasant
and homelike with us, that we were sorry that it
had been arranged that, as soon as the holidays
wereover,she should go to the Morlands'; though the
Rectory was so near that she continually dropped
in in the morning, because she said it was so much
quieter to sit with me, and prepare for her classes.

144 The Disturbing Element.

I am afraid she fled from the strange wrangle in
which the Morland sisters, though good girls, and
fond of one another, contrived to live. She was
too honourable to accuse them, but she used to call
our room a haven of peace, and once she said she
was cured of wishing to belong to a large family.

Then she was a strong partisan of the reservoir
alterations, and used to come down to hear about
them. Indeed, she knew much more about them
than we did, for Edward avoided the subject, not
wishing on the one hand to work up our terrors*
and on the other, knowing we were distressed by
the Arrowsmith opposition, and not choosing to
argue the point. But Winifred and Penelope used
to discuss it eagerly together, and seemed to think
that all Poppleton would be swept into the sea
some fine (or rather some wet) day, owing to Mr.
Arrowsmith's pig-headedness, as they did not
scruple to call it, and the more offensive obstruc-
tiveness of Harcombe the elder. Mr. St. Barbe
and Mr. Ryan had both spoken to him about great
attention to the hatches which conveyed away the
surplus water, and had insisted on their being put
in repair, and an efficient person placed to watch
them in a cottage near the reservoir, who was to

Crying Wolf. 145

open them on the least token of unusual pressure.
The cottage had been underlet to Harcombe, who
had in it his wife's washerwoman, with some sons,
on whom he professed to depend, and at any
rate no change could be made till after Michael-
mas.

Mr. Harcombe was in a state of surly offence and
opposition on all accounts. Dr. Lacy had spoken
to him about the flirtation between the two young
people, and, though far from desiring the affair to
go on, he much resented the interference and
manifest contempt for his son, Mr. St. Barbe's
expulsion of the younger boy from the lecture was
another offence. Then the return of the young
landlord, and his resumption of preserving, after
many years, when the shooting had been in com-
paratively indifferent hands, led to the aggravation
of old disputes about poaching, trespass, and
rabbits, and there was much bitterness and
hostility.

Mr. St. Barbe had first his architect, and then
some sporting friends with him early in September,
and we saw rather less of him ; but he was kind in
taking Edward out shooting with him, and did
many good-natured things by us. Indeed, we

K

146 The Disturbing Element.

never feasted on so many partridges as we had
that autumn.

Mr. Sneyd fulfilled his intention of remaining at
Mrs. Hales's after the holidays, as Emilius was so
much happier and better there. To that poor
youth's great delight, Edward procured for him
the copying of some specifications. Soon after
this had begun, Edward said he must go to London
for a few days. He wanted to consult the oculist
wjio had before looked at his eyes, to know whether
he might begin work again ; and though he held
his tongue about it, we afterwards found that —
having found all other means fail — ^he was going
to Whitmarsh and Gardiner, the original makers of
the reservoir, a great firm of engineers, some of
whom he knew, to represent the state of the
embankment, and persuade them to send some one
to inspect it

There came, after a beautiful summer, a tremen-
dous spell of storm and rain. Wet day succeeded
wet day. Susan could not get to her district
visiting, the Morlands could not walk to school,
Winifred came scudding before the wind, and
almost drenched, even in hurrying from the Rectory
to Violet Villa ; Mr. St. Barbe, whose guests were

Crying Wolf.

H7

all gone, found no solace but in strolling in to ask
when we expected our nephew to return, and to
require sympathy and advice about the plans for
his house and grounds. He was in full corres-
pondence with the architect, and, considering how
he had gone about alone for the last five or six
years of his life, it was wonderful how much he
depended on discussion and suggestion. Though,
to be sure, as he said, he was a mere savage, more
used to wigwams, kraals, and tents, than to
civilised drawing-rooms. And certainly Winifred,
with all her professed hatred of the prettinesses of
social life, showed herself very responsive, and had
evidently profited by her training in taste, more
than she had thought fit to avow.

CHAPTER IX.

PENNY'S RIDE.
A FTER days of storm came one of bright sun-
^ *■ shine and only a few showers. The wind was
still very high, and there were splendid white
horses out at sea, while the Boldre was rolling full,
turbid, and muddy up to the crown of the arches
of the bridge. We knew there would be a spring
tide, but we had seen such things before, knew its
boundary, and were wont to be amused at the alarm
it was apt to excite in strangers. Indeed, we said
that if it had been to-day instead of to-morrow that
Edward was to return, he would certainly have
thought us all in the way of being drowned.

How shall I tell of the night that followed ?
Perhaps I had better begin with what I did not
see, but only heard of afterwards. Everyone had
hastened out that day. Mr. and Mrs. Morland and

Penny^s Ride. 149

Jane had gone to Warchester early to take the
train for an anniversary service at a church where
the rector was to preach, and they were to stay all
night. They had given a lift to Mr. Sneyd, whose
day at Warchester it was, and he was so much
occupied there with his various classes as not to
set forth on his return till nearly sunset.

The most direct way for a pedestrian lay up a
steep hill leading to the moor, then along a bit of
old Roman road, from which there diverged a foot-
path lying along the top of the embankment
of the reservoir, and then leading into a long and
fearfully steep rocky lane, descending into our
valley almost like a staircase. Mr. Sneyd knew
it would very likely be a torrent in parts, but he
was anxious to get home to his brother, and he
really was much more manly than we had thought
him.

He had reached the bank of the reservoir just at
twilight, and, to his amazement, heard a call to him
to make haste. It was a well-known voice, and he
hurried towards that western dangerous end of the
lake, which was so full that it was almost over the
causeway on which he walked.

Penelope had been one to take advantage of the

150 The Disturbing Element.

fine afternoon, and had ridden to see after a sick
woman in a lonely cottage on the moor. She had
come home by way of the reservoir, which had
begun to have a certain fearful fascination for her,
so that she liked to keep a watch upon it, " Look
there,'* she said, and pointed. What had been an
almost imperceptible ooze from the bank of the
reservoir to the crack above the cavern, was now a
thread of water, not large, but very rapid, rushing
from between the large stones that built up the
rampart of the reservoir, and there was a strange,
hollow sound beneath their feet, nay, they thought
they felt a trembling of the bank, as the wind,
working up for another shower, brought the swell-
ing waters towards them.

" Is it coming ?*' she asked; and he answered, " I
think so."

Then came the counsel what was to be done.
To give warning of course, but what would miti-
gate or avert the catastrophe must be done
instantly — ue,y to open the flood-gates, and let off
as much as possible towards Harcombe, which
might lessen the pressure long enough for the
repair of the bank, or, iat anyrate, carry off some of
*the flood by the channels prepared for it. Penny

Penny s Ride. 151

had already been to the cottage and found it
empty. The flood-gates were far beyond single-
handed strength, but there were hatches in them
that were raised by drawing them up by an iron
bar inserted in the holes of a sort of long handle
projecting above them. The question that brooked
no delay was, whether it were better to try with
insufficient strength to work at these, or to hurry at
the utmost speed to give the inhabitants of the
ravine warning of the catastrophe as inevitable.
The two made one attempt on the lever of the
flood-gates, and found it entirely vain. Then they
came both at once to the decision. Mr. Sneyd
should stay opening the hatches, which he found
he could do, and Penelope should ride as swiftly
along the goyle as possible to the nearest cottages
and send the men up to his aid, then hasten down,
giving everywhere tidings of the danger.

It was all settled in less than a minute, and as
Penelope turned her horse's head, she called out,
" Ah ! there's some one coming. You'll have help
in five minutes." Then, slapping up the pony to
his utmost, she shot down the hill to the cottages,
where three or four of the miners lived, full in the
course the flood must take, if it broke loose.

152 The Disturbing Element.

4

She was out of sight before the new-comer
approached. It was no other than Philip Har-
combe. About a quarter of an hour before, Dr.
Lacy, from the window of a sick-room, had
perceived him making extremely evident advances
to the smart daughter of a low public-house
opposite, and coming down suddenly on him, had
given him his opinion of his behaviour in no
measured terms.

He was on his way home, furious with the whole
Poppleton faction, and with senses just enough
obscured by liquor to be incapable of comprehen-
sion, and when he found the little German tutor
meddling with the hatches, his passion found vent.
With savage oaths, he commanded immediate
cessation ; and when Charles Sneyd pointed to
the state of the embankment, and tried to
reason, the only effect was to make him wrest
the iron bar from his hand, and strike at him
furiously.

When the men, at Penny's summons, well know-
ing the danger, came running up the embankment,
they found young Sneyd lying senseless upon it,
and Harcombe flourishing the iron bar, and defying
them to touch it !

Penny's Ride. 153

And the leakage which Penny had seen as a
thread was now a stream of water, and the quaking
and rumbling were far more evident and ominous.
A few minutes later, Mr. Ryan, attracted by the
thunderous sounds, had met some terrified women
and children running from their houses, and,
hurrying towards the reservoir, had found a foaming
cataract, breaking through the embankment, and
rushing headlong down the gorge of the Boldre,
while a couple of men were standing near the
uninjured part of the bank over Charles Sneyd,
who was struggling back into consciousness^ with a
bleeding head and a broken arm.

As soon as he was aware of Mr. Ryan's presence,
he stretched out his other hand, striving hard to
speak of something. "She — she — ^go to her."
Then one of the men explained, " It is our young
lady, sir, bless her ! Her come down on her pony
to warn us, or we might have been dead men, with
our wives and children, by this time ! And she is
rid down the gully to let the rest of 'em know.
God be with her and save her!"

Then Mr. Ryan knew that his daughter on her
little pony was riding a race for life or death with
that rushing, swelling, hungry flood ! Nothing was

154 The Disturbing Element.

possible to be done. Pursuit would be utterly vain,
rescue impossible, and he knew she might be over-
taken, carried down to the sea, and nothing more
ever be heard of that bright, merry being, the
light of his house !

He could only bid the men carry Mr. Sneyd to
his own house, while he walked beside, and after
telling all to the poor wife, he left her trying to do
her best for the patient, and striving to hope for
the best, while he — unable to rest — ^set forth by the
longer way round to Poppleton, to see if he could
find Dr. Lacy, and to seek for tidings of his
daughter ; but when, with horror, he remembered
that there would be a spring tide, his heart sank,
and he had little expectation of any relief to the
agonising suspense till morning.

Dear Penny, meanwhile, had been riding — as
Dirk rode with the tidings to Ghent — knowing, but
not dwelling on, the danger she encountered as she
went-7-not by the path by which we had ascended,
for she knew that would be under water, but along
a shooting path on the edge of the ravine — on
the Ben Boldre side — where, as it became less
steep, there were most houses.

Presently, at the point where the rocks so nearly

Penny's Ride. 155

came together over the river, she heard a gun,
quite near at hand on the other side. She drew
her rein for a moment, and gave a loud, shrill cry.
The bushes crackled, and Mr. St. Barbe appeared
in the dim light on the top of the opposite preci-
pice, startled — afraid for the moment he had hit
some one. She pointed back to the water, put her
hands to her mouth, and shouted, " The reservoir !
It is breaking out!"

"It is! Good heavens, so it is!" as a sudden
fierce rush of the water between them confirmed
her words. " Shall I go up and see what is to be
done?"

"I think it is too late! Warn those on your
side !" she said.

"And it is the spring tide! You are right!" he
cried, and he rushed down as fast on his side as her
pony was bearing her on hers.

The thunderous rush warned her to speed on.
She knew that there must soon be a crisis, when
the incoming spring tide, which she had forgotten
till that moment, but which would be aggravated
by the strong, stormy south-wester that was bring-
ing up heavy clouds, would meet the torrent
rushing down the valley, and raise a wave of

156 The Disturbing Element.

frightful height, probably beyond all experience.
She pressed her pony on, as she thought — she owned
— above all, of Emilius Sneyd in that house almost
on the beach, feeling as if she had cheated him of
his natural protector.

As she came out of the woods, she was on the
low ground between Ben Boldre and the river,
where the cottages clustered thickly, and further
on lay Brackenridge House, with only the garden
between it and the river, all shut in by the steep
planted side of the hill. With some difficulty and
loss of time she roused the cottagers to the danger,
and badethe woman at the lodge hasten to the House
with the tidings that the reservoir was breaking.
The water was beginning to tell its own story, and
when she had passed the end of the bridge, she
already saw, through the wild beating of the rain,
that the sea had risen above the usual mark, and that
the waves were rushing in, and running up nearly to
the houses on the beach. Her pony was happily
used to be ridden up to the tide to be washed, so
that she was able to force him on through the con-
fusion, while she made a rush, telling to everyone
she saw her terrible fact that the reservoir was
breaking^ and advising them to leave their houses.

Penny^s Ride. 157

It was not yet dark, and she could make out one
house from another, but the wind drove the spray-
wildly against her, and there was a fearful howling
as she struggled on, reiterating her warnings as she
went, but not half sure whether she was understood or
heeded among the throngs of people, who were used
to spring tides, and thought themselves secure. So
at last she reached Mrs. Hales's, and found Emilius
alone. His landlady had gone out to her daughter
an hour or two before, and, as we learned, had not
been able to get back, and the poor little fellow's
face was at the window, already dashed with
thickening spray, watching in terror for his brother,
and feeling himself utterly deserted, as indeed he
was. " She was more like an angel than ever," he
said. Penny durst not open the front door, but
called to him to go through the window, go round to
open the back door, and take hat and cloak by the
way. It was well she did so, for the house made a
sort of shelter from the furious lashing of rain and
wave, though the water was so rapidly deepening
that Penny felt a certainty that what she had
dreaded had actually taken place. By the time
she, without, and Emilius, within, had reached the
door, he told her, with teeth chatterifrg with

iS^ The Disturbing Element

alarm, that the water was over the floor, and oh !
where, where was Charles?

Charles was all safe, answered the unconscious
Penelope. He was doing all he could to stop the
flood, and she had come to save Emil. She would
take care of him, but he must let her help him on
the pony. How she did it she could not tell, for
he was not light, but the people around were far
too busy saving themselves and their goods to see
or aid anyone else. The darkness too, and the
storm, and the deepening water, were utterly con-
fusing and bewildering. But, somehow, Emilius
was on the pony's back, she holding him on, with
an arm round, and bidding him put an arm round
her neck. And so they pushed on, the water up
to her knees, and everyone in the dark so rushing
and pushing, that there was no small danger of
being driven down into the deeper water before
they could get to the end of the row, and begin to
climb the hill into safety. At last the wall of houses
came to an end. They could turn upwards. Penny
urging her tired pony through the water with her
free hand, and often jostled in the throng ; but she
saw lights above her, and struggled upwards,
feeling at last the water certainly getting shallower,

Penny s Ride. 159

though she was almost exhausted, with her
drenched skirt clinging about her and "dragging her
back, and she had to lean heavily against the pony
for support, as the brave little thing breasted the
hill. Endless did the time seem before they were
high enough on the hill-side to be really out of
the flood. The lights in the house windows
were all they saw, for the gasometer was under
water, and the supply cut off. Penny had paused
for a moment to consider where she should go, or
what she could do with her helpless companion.
Her longing was to go home, for, though she knew
her father's house to be high and dry, out of reach
of either the river or the sea flood, she could not
bear to think of the anxiety that would be felt for
her. However, she did not believe that she could
get home in her present condition, and she was
exceedingly anxious for all of us.

Just then the lamps of a carriage were seen, and
Dr. Lacy came driving home, gathering intelli-
gence as he went. No sooner did she hear his
loud, good-natured voice, pitched in accents of
dismay and consternation, than she made herself
heard. " Oh ! Dr Lacy, would you let me leave
Emilius Sneyd with you?*' In extreme amaze,

i6o The Disturbing Element

the good doctor called out, " Miss Ryan, is it you ?"
and came to her side. A few minutes more, and
the two were in the warm, hospitable, well-lighted
hall, high up on the hill, Mrs. Lacy and Emma
coming down in eagerness to help and dry them
as l4ie doctor carried in Emilius, whose crutches
had been lost in the flood, and who looked more
dead than alive when brought into the light
There was no doubt that he ought to be in bed,
and thither the doctor took him at once, but Pene-
lope resisted Mrs. Lacy's endeavours to consign
her to a like fate. It was utterly impossible, when
the fitful glances of the moon through the clouds,
as they careered wildly past, revealed from the
window the whole gully filled up with water, out
of which looked lights in a few windows, and there
was a certain mellow red and blue light above the
lowest depth which was known to come through
the stained windows of the church. Cries and
shouts mingled with the thundering of the waves
and the roar of the wind and rain, and Penelope
found herself the first person to bring a clear idea
of what was the cause of the inundation, which had
been supposed to be only the effect of tide and
the storm. Mrs. Lacy and her girls were terribly

Penny's Ride. i6i

frightened, and could only be convinced by the
doctor's assurances that they were out of reach of
the flood, and they implored him not to leave them
when he was about to set off to see whether he
could be of use, and what had become of their
friends.

Penelope, in Emma's clothes, was just coming,
downstairs, when she heard her father's voice at
the door, and was with him in a bound.

He could hardly believe in his exceeding joy
when, in life and limb, she flew into his arms.

" My brave, good girl," he called her. " Thank
God! my child, you have saved many lives to-
night. Thank God that you are spared to us,"

The doctor was ready to go at once to young
Sneyd. He said that his time for being of use at
Poppleton would not come till morning, and as
Emilius was safe in bed, and shut up for the night,
there was no need that he should know anything
till the morning. So his brougham was brought
round, and Penelope went back with him to her
mother, through the splashing lanes. One view
they had when the moon shone out brightly for a
moment as they turned the shoulder of the hill. It
was a very awful one. It showed theni the whole

1 62 The Disturbing Element,

space between the hills filled up with tossing,
tumbling waters, only the church tower, with its
lights, standing up on -the island.

"Oh! I did bless God for those lights," said
Penny.

Mr. Ryan rode on before, with the tidings that
filled his house with thankfulness. Mrs. Ryan was
soon hanging round her daughter in tears of joy,
and Charles Sneyd, who had refused to leave the sofa
for his bed, and had been lying there in an anguish
of mind which almost extinguished that of his
bodily frame, sprang up as she came into the room.
She was at his side in an instant. " He is safe,'*
she said. "Emil is quite safe. But oh! that I
should have left you to that wretch."

Charles held out his hand to her, and fainted
away.

CHAPTER X.

A MIDNIGHT VESTRY.

QUSAN sa3^ I have so arranged this last chapter

:>

that anyone would think we had been swept

away in the flood. However, that we are here to
tell the tale is owing in great measure, under
Providence, first, to that dear Penelope's race for
life and death, and then to Stephen St. Barbe.

We were taking it all quietly. No spring-tide
had ever come above the level of that little terrace
of ours, and so we had shut out the wild dreariness
of the evening with our shutttfrs, and our tea was
on the table, instead of the late dinner we had been
having to please our young gentleman. The whole
world seemed full of strange howls and noises of
waves and winds, which had made us put up a J
silent prayer for poor creatures in perils of waters, '

1 64 The Disturbing ElemenL

without guessing how this was already our own
case, when w^ suddenly heard a loud roar, and
were debating whether it was thunder, or whether
it was not too continuous. Just then our door was
opened, and Mr. St. Barbe stood there, having
come in from the kitchen, and in three rapid words
he bade us lose no time, but take anything warm,
or any food we could, with us, for we must spend
the night in the church.

Something Susan said of " the others," and
" Winifred." " Fm here," answered Winifred, from
the passage. "I was getting Rebekah to fetch
some blankets and rugs."

I believe Susan asked what it was, and was told
reservoir and spring-tide, but all I am sure of was,
that I heard a surge of waters against the window,
and that we reached the back-door in haste, servants
and all, to find the house standing in a sheet of
water. It had risen even in the few moments since
Mr. St. Barbe and Winifred had come in. They
had come dry-shod ; now, the first step was over
the ankles — not that I took it, for the next moment
I found myself, with the cat in one arm and 'my
bird-cage in the other, raised in Mr. St. Barbe*s
strong arms, and carried up the hill to the church-

A Midnight Vestry. 165

yard. We had only just reached the porch, and he
had just set me down, when in a gleam of moon-
shine we saw the most awful sight I ever beheld.
The Boldre, swelled to a great river, was rushing
down, already submerging the bridge, when, meeting
it, in there came the full force of the sea. It was
half-past seven, the flood-tide — and there rose
between river and sea an awful wall-like, foaming,
crested thing — a monstrous ridge or wave, higher,
higher, higher, seeming to come forward as if it
would devour everything. I don't think it exactly
broke so much as spread^ but the light was so fitful
one could hardly tell. It was a tremendous struggle
between the incoming wave and outcoming flood
from the moorland, the pent-up waters of the lake
rushing down. No wonder our forefathers knew
such awful waves as the avenging sea-god's chariot.
In one more minute, perhaps, the water had risen
almost to its level, and was heaving almost up to
the top of the churchyard steps, where Dora and
Mary Morland stood with their servants. There
were only eight steps uncovered, but Mr. St. Barbe
told us that he did not think that the waters could
run much higher. The whole gorge around us was
choked with rushing, tumbling, struggling waters.

1 66 The Disturbing Element

sea-waves being pushed back by the force of the
down-coming currents, and both together eddying,
swirling, sweeping along. Only the roof and
chimneys of our low two-storied cottage appeared
below our feet. The churchyard was one island
above the two huge rivers that made the quiet cove
into a fierce estuary. Fragments of cottage roofs,
and of stacks of turf, came rushing, tossing, and
eddying in the flood, and some poor drowned
sheep and pigs; but Mr. St. Barbe said that, thanks
to Penny's warning, he had little fear but that the
people had had time to escape. It is odd to
remember the first thing people say in " supreme
moments." His was, "There! I never saw any-
thing to equal that!" And Susan's, "Then Edward
was right after all ! He really was the cleverest."
While Rebekah wailed aloud, "My carpets, my
poor carpets ;" and a corresponding moan came
from the Waltons' cook, "And Mr. St. Barbe's
dinner!" But it was Winifred who cried, "Oh I
the Arrowsmiths. Can anyone see their house V

"Penny was sure to warn them," said Mr. St.
Barbe. "They would have time." "I see some
lights where their windows are," added Mary.
Winifred, meantime, was trying to comfort the

A Midnight Vestry. 167

sobbing, frightened maids, and showing them where
to put their burdens down.

Then came clouds blotting out the moon ; a
roaring wind and spray dashing at the wall. Susan
cried that it would be my death of cold, and we all
retreated into the church, of which a key had
happily been in the Rectory. Mr. St. Barbe assured
us that we were safe there. It was at least four
feet, he reckoned, above the present level of the
water, and, lighting a candle, and comparing his
watch with the almanac in the vestry, he assured
us that the tide had reached its height, and he
thought the reservoir had done its worst. We did
feel wonderfully protected by him, and the perfect
coolness he displayed, together with his extreme
kindness.

" Is everyone here V^ he asked, and candles were
lighted that we might count heads. Winifred, the
two Morlands, and their four maids; from Captain
Walton's house, three maids and a rheumatic old
butler; from ours, our two selves, and Rebekah and
the cook. The girl under training slept at home.
We could only fear for her. All the cats and dogs
were safe ; Mr. St. Barbe himself had brought up
Winny's doves, as he dashed through the temporary \

1 68 The Disturbing Element.

abode to the Rectory, calling the servants ; his horses
were at his own stables. Every live thing, except
perhaps the poor cocks and hens at the Rectory,
was in our refuge, and with foundations deep in
the rock, we had no fear of being washed away ;
only Mary Morland exclaimed, "Old Moddy
Harmer!" and then we recollected that on the
point of the end of the bridge, between Delta
Lodge, there was a cottage, in which dwelt -a
solitary old pew-opener, by name Modesty Harme'r,
with no kith or kin likely to come to her rescue.

It was a fantastic Swiss-cottage-looking place,
luckily with two stories, but built only of wood,
and rough cast, and in great danger of being swept
away. "O for a boat !" said the young Squire. He
had thought of one, but had rightly feared to take
the time necessary for opening the boat-house, and
now of course it was swamped. From the north
chancel door he satisfied himself that there was a
light still burning in that direction, and then said
he must make a raft.

There were still half-a-dozen high pews, his own
among the number — Mr. Morland's despair; with
a dexterity born of his many adventures, he un-
shipped their doors, Winifred and Dora brought

A Midnight Vestry. 169

forward from under the tower that frame on which
coffins are laid over a gr^ve, and the ropes for
lowering; for though there is a cemetery on the hill,
there are a few occasional funerals in our church.

He lashed all together in true sailor fashion,
saying, with a smile, that he had crossed rivers
on rafts in Africa, and had been in a wreck. We
looked on in something like awe, most of the maids
in floods of tears, the three girls excited, and trying
to be helpful, Dora and Mary went up to the
ringers* chamber and brought down two coils of

rope, offering if needful to cut the bell-ropes, while

•

Winifred gave efficient help as a holder.

The handle of the Turk's-head- broom, a long
pole used for lighting the corona, and the staff* of
St. Barbara's banner, were brought fqrward for his
choice. None were as strong as could be wished,
but he chose the last, unless he could find some-
thing better outside. Here Dora recollected that
her brothers had stored away some oars in the
coach-house, which stood above the Rectory, and
could be reached by wading. With a candle in
his hand to light when he reached the place, Mr.
St Barbe made the expedition, and brought back
two oars and a boat-hook. He was going to fasten

170 The Disturbing Element,

the spare oar as best he could to the raft, when
Winifred said, "Let me have that; I know how to
punt"

He turned round in amazement, and there was
a short colloquy of dissuasion and insistance. She
said he could never get the old woman on the raft
without help, and he could not deny that it would
be difficult ; but — how could he think of allowing
her to run any risk ? Suppose

"You. don't think — you don't think," cried Wini-
fred at last, in an agony, "how much worse it
would be to see you and be left behind."

" Do you mean tkaty Winifred?" he said, looking
full at her, as the colour mounted in her face. *
" Then, indeed, we will make our voyage together,
and, by God's blessing, it shall be for life."

It was a shame to have heard, but I was sitting
by in an open seat, and could not help it. Winifred
was already tied up with a hood-like handkerchief
over her head, bound tight down to a sleeved water-
proof, which ishe had belted round her waist. Her
skirts were tucked up, and she looked thoroughly
ready, and there was a wonderful light and resolution
in her face, though I don't know whether she realised
more than that she was accepted to dare the peril

A Midnight Vestry. 171

■
with him, and not see him set out alone. But when,

for one moment, she bent her knee, and put her

hands over her face, he did the same — as if it were

an after-thought, indeed, but most willingly — and

then took her hand.

They had to take the raft out through the great

"west door. The moon was out again, and it was

just striking nine. The two girls and some of the

servants went down to see them launch their frail

bark, and watch them; but one of the Walton maids

was crying so violently and hysterically about her

young lady being drowned, and no one stopping

her, that we had to hush her by any means we

• could. Praying for the dear child was, indeed, all

that could be done; but, strangely enough, the doing

it seemed to fill the poor foolish young thing with

despair, and as her sobs and cries broke out afresh,

Rebekah pounced on her to come and light the

fire in the vestry, and have something warm ready

against they came back. This roused Susan to a

sense of the need of attending to creature comforts,

and they went off to review their stores, leaving me

alone in the chancel. How strange it all looked

and felt I One candle had been lighted in the choir

stalls near me, but it was quite unable to cope with

172 The Disturbing Element

the darkness, making it, indeed, almost more visible,
as one faintly traced the outline of the great
chancel arch. One pillar had a strong gleam of
light which fell on the floor, the rest of the nave
was utterly undiscernible; but from time to time a
long ray of moonlight came slanting in from the
south corner of the great east window upon the
floor, making the contrast the greater, and seeming
to be snatched away one moment — then restored,
but paled — then bright, then gone. The while
came the howling whistling roar of the wind, the
thunder and splash of the waves and waters, the
shrieking of the storm round the tower. They
drowned the sounds from the town, which the girls
outside in the churchyard heard plainly enough.
Presently, Mary ran in to tell me that the raft was
safe over the current that set down the stream, Mr.
St. Barbe punting with his oar, Winifred making
a helm of hers. Then Mary ran back to her post
of observation, but only to be driven in by a g^st,
with rain on its wings, which had nearly borne
away the watchers. The light was out — what did
that mean ?

They stood at the door watching, and the
moment the rain abated, dashed forward again!

A Midnight Vestry. 173

Oh, what might not that blast have done ? A few
minutes more — ^most terrible ones^ — and there was a
rush to the door. "All right! they are coming
in — ^we are to throw them a rope." In this they
had been instructed, and as the whole native popu-
lation had somewhat of the needful knowledge
and dexterity, the rope was thrown, the raft hauled
in, and there appeared in the little doorway Dora
and Mary supporting the old woman between them,
drenched, poor old thing, and utterly bewildered,
mumbling something about the blessed young lady
and gentleman. Indeed, I am not sure that she
did not think she was dead when she found herself
in the church. Behind came Mr. St. Barbe and
Winifred, each bearing an oar, dripping wet indeed,
but oh ! with such radiant faces. They had been
really just in time. One side of the flimsy cottage
had given way with a crash, just as they were about
to steer up to it, the light had been extinguished,
and only Moddy*s screams had assured them that
she had not gone with it. Without Winifred to
help her on board, while Mr. St. Barbe kept the
raft steady, Moddy could hardly have been saved,
since the plan of mooring the raft to the gallery
had failed. There had been a narrow escape, too,

1/4 The Disturbing Element.

from a floating tree — otherwise all had been, as
Winny said, " quite delightful," and I verily believe
it was so. I never saw more joyous eyes return
from a voyage on the smoothest sea on the finest *
day. She was not even wet under her wraps, and ,
Mr. St. Barbe was only looking for some one to
whom to describe how brave and dextrous she
had been.

Susan and Rebekah here insisted that everyone
should come into the vestry. I was glad to leave '"
those two young people lingering in the church for a
moment behind the rest. I think there were bended
knees there ; but in another minute we were all round
the vestry table, where, Robinson Crusoe fashion,
were the resources of our desert island. The fire
was burning, and there was a big scuttle of coal,
enough to last till morning. There was a tea-
kettle full of water, two teapots full, three loaves,
a cold tongue, three parts of a cold leg of mutton,
and a decanter of claret; also, one tumbler,
and no knives at all. It was nine o'clock, and
everybody had missed their evening meal, by
whatever name they called it, except indeed oy
Moddy, who always went to bed with the sun.
She had had the first turn of the tumbler with the

A Midnight Vestry. 175

. . _

hottest claret and water, which, I believe, she
thought very nasty. Susan wanted to dose Wini-
fred with the like, but she scorned needing any-

* thing extra.

Mr. St. Barbe's pocket-knife, which had done
good service with the ropes already, came into
play. I fancy it was well used to cutting miscel-
laneous food. He said it was the one thing he had
not been able to give up to his good friend the

* negro chief, with the name of seven syllables
beginning with Ng, and he rather thought he
had been nearly murdered for it by the Arabs of

« Bashan.

Each had a hunch of bread and some slices of
meat, and the tumbler was passed round. Each
began with wine, and ended, after the food, with
tea; and as we were sure of relief in the morning,
we did not put ourselves upon rations. We were
in very good spirits on the whole, for we accepted
Mr: St. Barbe's assurance that there was no need
to fear for life, and as to the state of our houses,
we would not think about it. Indeed, there was
^hilaration enough in the sight of those two
beaming faces to carry us through a great deal,
and Mary, as she sat with feet dangling on the end

176 The Disturbing Element

of the great vestry table, pronounced this "the
jolliest fun she had ever had" Her sister was not
slow to reprove her, and the dread of a Morland
squabble made me propose what I had been
thinking of, that Dora should play the organ and
let us sing, "Eternal Father, strong to save;" then
to beg Mr. St. Barbe to read one or two prayers
and thanksgivings for us. He hung back at the.
notion, more from shyness than anything else ; and
when he found that Winifred really wished it, he
complied.

Then, as nothing more could well be done, Susan
insisted on everyone lying down and trying to get
some sleep. She was very anxious about me, but
this was not the kind of wind that hurt me; so I
was really quite well, and was ashamed of being
the first object of care — after poor old Moddy.
They made me up a sumptuous couch with rugs
and cushions in the great St. Barbe pew, and
there — little as I expected it — I slept till dawning
daylight

CHAPTER XI.

VERY WATERY.

IT rHEN I awoke, the first tbing I heard was, that
''' Mr. St. Barbe had been out while the tide
was at the ebb, had secured the boat, baled her out,
and moored her up to the churchyard gate. Storm
and darkness had hindered his doing any more
. then, and he had come in and slept till noon, when
he, with the young ladies, had all gone up to the
top of the church tower to take a survey, before
deciding on what ought to be done.

Presently he came down, declaring that it was
the most wonderful sight that had ever been seen,
and we must come up and look at it ; yes, even I —
it was worth my while, and he undertook — kind
man that he was — to get me up.

And he did ! And I am glad of it, for it was

1/8 The Disturbing Element.

indeed a scene marvellous to remember. The sky-
had cleared in the last and most furious storm, and,
though there was a very high wind, was cloudless.
The sun was just rising behind Barbe Torr, bringing
out the rocky crest in a hazy glory of purple,
against a golden background shading into blue
above; and the sea responded, all shimmering,
splashing gold to the eastward, then green, then
blue, but everywhere rising into white-crested
waves, all running and breaking in towards us, for
the tide was again coming in, driven rapidly by the
wind.

Northward were the purple moors. The ravine
was still full of turbid, muddy water. It had indeed
sunk a good deal during the night, but there was a
broad river still on each side of us, and only the
topmost crown of the bridge could be seen. Our
poor cottage stood in water up to the door-step,
and would soon have another flood in it, and merely
the roofs of the lowest row of houses on the beach
could be seen. A few men were going about in
boats, though with much difficulty, for the strife
between the river and the ocean had begun to rage
again, though less furiously, and the little boats
seemed to dance up and down like cockle-shells —

Very Watery. 179

now rising, now falling, on the great breakers that
were rolling in. The rush, dash, and tumble was
of course at its worst around this island of ours,
and I do not believe anybody could have reached
us from the town, as the wave rose higher and
higher.

There was a torn, washed, dragged look about
the trees, many branches broken, many strange
things sticking in them, and stranded on the
Rectory garden, whither Dora proposed an expedi-
tion, but was advised to the contrary by Mr. St.
Barbe, who said no one could guess whether the
bore might not again rise suddenly and perilously.
I have described all this before what we really
looked at first of all, and with most anxious eyes,
namely, Brackenridge. The house was there, but
the water reached even now above the ground floor
windows, for the walled garden seemed to have
ponded it back upon them. We had trusted that
there had been full time for the family to have
made their escape, but even as we gazed, we beheld
a handkerchief waved from one of the attic windows.

We knew we were visible on the church tower,
and waved back again, while Mr. St. Barbe and
Winifred both at once exclaimed that they would

i8o The Disturbing Element.

take the boat to their help. " But see," cried Dora,
*' there is a boat going to them — a big one — putting
out from Prospect Terrace, where they won't have
to cross the current as you would from here. You
won't have all the heroism, Winny.'*

We saw — moreover those in the boat saw us, and
waved salutations to us, and as it moved forwards
into fuller view, we perceived with sudden joy
that it was steered by Mr. Ryan, and that one
of the rowers was our nephew Edward. They
were trying to shout to us, but the wind carried
away their voices, though a mighty cheer and
"Airs well," from Mr. St. Barbe, and a vivid
pantomime, pointing to us, must have set Edward's
mind at rest respecting us.

Mr. St. Barbe persisted that he should go across
and help, desiring Winifred, however, not to come,
as she would only be another person to fill up the
boat, and the Arrowsmith household was a large
one. " And," said he, as his head vanished through
the little door, " I shall try to ^et them, as well as
all of you, to come up to my place."

Indeed he had arranged all this with Susan in
the evening. The commencement of the work at
his house had been deferred by delays of builders,

Very Watery. i8i

and part was still habitable, the furniture not having
been as yet removed ; and, as he had earnestly
represented to her, it would be much better for the
whole island company to take up their abode there,
servants and all, while investigating the damage,
and getting their houses into order. She had given
a sort of consent, chiefly for my sake, I think ; but
at this moment we were absorbed in watching the
big boat carefully making its way over the curious
shoals and snags of out- houses, trees, and bushes
up to the windows of the house, while the little
boat from our island, under Mr. St. Barbe's vigorous
strokes, went up stream a little way, breasting the
current, then crossed it, and reached the windows
not much later. It was a curious sight to watch,
with breathless anxiety, first one little girl, then
the other, handed down into Edward's outstretched
arms, then maid after maid. Miss Coles and some
servants meanwhile were taken in by Mr. St. Barbe,
and they moved off, not to us, but towards the
town, whence the large boat had started. No doubt
it was both safer and better for them, as they
needed refreshments we could not give, but it was
disappointing.

Before the boats came back, the crisis of the

1 82 The Disturbing Element

tidal wave had raised the water to the very verge
of the windows, and made our house a sorry
spectacle again, but we thought little of anything
then but the flutter of -a handkerchief from the
Brackenedge windows. Here were the boats
again, and now at last Lettice was to be seen, then
men-servants, and finally, Mr. Arrowsmith. Staunch
old man ! He had stuck to his ship to the last !
We saw him shake hands with Edward, and then
all again went through the shoals to their landing-
place ; but after a brief interval, during which the
waters, though very high, were growing calmer
every minute, Mr. St. Barbe and Edward came
merrily rowing back to us.

We hastened down to meet them at the porch,
to which they came laden with such viands as they
had been able to procure at the first baker's
and grocer's shop.

"Another vestry picnic," Mr. St. Barbe said,
" and then TU take you across, ladies. Ryan will
meet us with his carriage at the first place possible
in a couple of hours' time."

Then they answered whether everybody was
safe. Yes, under Providence, thanks to that brick.
Penny ! And we heard how she had saved Emilius

Very Watery. 183

Sneyd, and had scattered her warnings far and wide,
so that nobody was, as yet, known to be missing.

As to the Arrowsmiths, the woman at the lodge
had fulfilled her orders, ^nd had come up to the
kitchen with the tidings, and the solemn butler had
entered the dining-room, and, as he set down the
soup, had gravely said, " Sir, Mrs. Brown has come
in with the information that the reservoir is
commencing to bust, sir."

"The reservoir! Nonsense! Who said so?"
asked Mr. Arrowsmith.

"It was Miss Ryan, sir, who rode down to the
lodge with the information."

On which Mr. Arrowsmith set it down as simple
nonsense of Penny's, and reproved his daughter for
her panic, declaring that, if anything was the
matter with the reservoir, it was the fault of those
who had not been content to let it alone.

So they went on with their dinner, in spite of
gurglings and rushes that made Lettice very
uneasy, until the little girls rushed in to say
that the water was out all over the garden. Next
came the servants, driven up by the flood from the
kitchen, and before long the water spoke for itself,
and sent them all to the stairs, where that great

1 84 The Disturbing Element.

Egre, or tidal wave, that we had seen from the
churchyard, had been so pent in by the sides of the
valley, that it had actually driven them to the
roof, where they had spent the first half of the
night upon the leads, crouching under blankets
and rugs against the chimneys (a very undesirable
form of chimney corner), and at times feeling the
whole rock ominously. When, at the ebb, they
had ventured to the attics, they found them dry
enough for the shivering children to be put into
their cribs, and some of the nursery appliances
revived poor chilled Mr. Arrowsmith, who had
groaned many times, "Heaven help me; this is
my doing !"

As to Edward's appearance on the scene, it was
accounted for by the weather having made him so
uneasy that the dear fellow had resolved to come
down by the last train to see about us. At War-
chester, he met the tidings of the outbreak of the
reservoir, and had made his way across to the town
with great difficulty, falling in with Mr. Ryan on
the way. They found the town in helpless and
dire confusion, such that no one had any clear idea
of how their neighbours had fared, and Bracken-
edge had been absolutely forgotten. So it really

Very Watery. 185

was as a rescuer that Edward appeared to poor
Mr. Arrowsmith, who had, like the straightforward
old man he was, received him with, "Ah! Webster,
if I had heeded you !" Moreover, worn out and
spent as Lettice was with attending to the
needs of father and sisters through the dreadful
night, her bonnie brown eyes seemed to say that
the joy of the morning made up for all.

So our vestry breakfast was as cheerful as it was
odd, and after it, Mr. St. Barbe ferried us over in
divisions, all except the Morlands, who expected
soon to have their lower story clear enough to be
entered. Nothing could be done in either of the
other two till the ebb, so the servants, who were
beginning to get very miserable, were put over
first, to meet the keeper's wife, and make what
preparations they could for us, and then we crossed,
and were driven to Barbe Torr House by Mr.
Ryan. He said his wife was sorry not to be there
to meet us, but poor young Sneyd was very
feverish and in a good deal of pain, and she could
not leave him wholly to Penny to nurse. Certainly
not But whereas it was the first time we had
ever heard of any cautious scruples at all on her
part, it rather startled me, as a discovery that she

1 86 The Disturbing Element.

had suddenly made that her daughter was neither a
boy nor a baby.

Under any other circumstances, perhaps, we
should have thought Barbe Torr House worthy '
of being pulled down and refurnished — very fusty
and very faded, the ugliest and weakest parts
being the most modern, /.^., of George IV/s time ;
but we were too thankful for a return to civilised
life at all to be very critical, and everything did
seem delightful, in the odd freedom of the time.
That four-poster, with its white counterpane and
dull green and yellow draperies, looked very
inviting after a night in a family pew ! And one
was too glad to wash one's face at all to be critical
about the landscape in the bottom of the basin.
My sister wanted me to occupy that sanie four-
poster, when she set off on her return to see after
our household goods, but I was far too anxious to
put myself out of the reach of intelligence, and
came down to the library, which was by far the
most habitable room.

Winifred was at the writing table, Mr. St. Barbe
kneeling on one knee by her. I believe they had
no ink, and only one pencil between them, and an
ancient sheet of quarto paper. Perhaps we came

Very Watery. 187

in too soon, but then we must have come some
time or other, and it would have always been too
soon ! However, we felt frightfully shy, and tried
to carry it off by asking Winny if she was sending
her parents an account of the catastrophe.

" Ah ! poor mamma," she said, blushing, smiling,
and trying to look sorry.

"I wonder you 'don't wait till you can tell her
the extent of the damage."

" I shall do that when I have been down to see
about it," said Winifred ; " but — ^but we — that is,
Mr. St. — Stephen — thought it better to send off a
letter by this post, in case it should be mentioned
in the Times, and we can't telegraph, because I am
not sure where they are."

He had got hold of the pencil while she was
speaking, as inconsequently as Penny, and in a
moment or two had finished. " There," he said,
"you'll do it better now alone. Get rested, you
know. Miss Frances, make her rest before she
comes down. Now, Miss Webster, I am at your
service."

So they went, and as soon as the door had shut,
•Winny looked up at me, and then — just like any
girl who was not a member of nine societies —

1 88 The Disturbing Element,

exclaimed, " Oh, Miss Frances, it was jusf here I
saw him first!"

" The literary housemaid, and a very pretty one !
How glad he must have been to find it wasn't a
Itisus naturcBT

I wanted to know what had passed, but of course
could not ask, more than whether that note which
lay on the table was from him to her father. And
then it came out that so it was. She had found
him searching everywhere for ink and pen, and he
had told her at once the cause of his need. He
said — oh ! he said — he had loved her ever since the
literary housemaid day, and " Oh, he need not have
told me," said Winny ; " I felt something I never
felt before, whenever I found his eyes on me,
or he spoke to me! Oh! Miss Frances, I had
always thought I was too disagreeable and dried-
up for any living creature to care one rush for
me. Nobody ever did before! And that it
should be he! Oh, it is so sweet to know and
feel it!"

Yes, indeed. She had been an absolutely
different being ever since that sun of love had risen
upon her, hungering and withered for the lack of
even family love. I asked whether she had guessed

Very Watery. 189

what was coming, and she said, no; she had
only felt so very, very happy, like treading upon
air, and only fearing something must disturb it —
until that answer of his about going on the raft
together. Then the whole revelation came in one
flash. This was — as I really believe — ^the only
formal offer he ever made, save and except the
writing that letter before her eyes. Ah ! it was a
fine thing to see anything so fearlessly, undoubt-
ingly happy, with no fears of any objection on any-
one's side, and all smooth before them — means, con-
nection, and all, as suitable as could possibly be, even
if Stephen St. Barbe had had any relations to have
been consulted. Captain Walton was the younger
son of a family of the same county honours as his
own, and his wife was well connected, and had a
fair fortune. And as for their unlikeness in a turn
for intellectual pursuits, that gave me no uneasi-
ness. Mr. St. Barbe was very far from being a fooL
The playtime of his life had been spent blamelessly,
and in learning by actual experience much that
others learn from books, and he had shown himself
ready to take up work and duty when he found it
before him. His solid reality was one of the very
points that had attracted Winifred, when weary of

ipo Th$ Disturbing Element.

shallow glitter, and she would care little if her
parents did think him a young barbarian.

By-and-by Mr. St. Barbe gravitated back to his
magnet, to tell her that the house was clear of
water, and to ask if she could come and tell what
was to be done about the locked drawers where the
water rattled ; and away she went with him, scolding
herself for not being able to care more for all the
treasures so dear to her parents, leaving me to a
little qualm of something like jealousy, as I thought
how easy things were to some people and how hard
to others, and likewise to a few fears as to how
Penny would take it — Penny, the playfellow of his
boyhood, and whose familiar manner with him had
caused Miss Dove and Co. to say, all these weeks,
that she was running after him.

Penelope herself appeared, when, in spite of all
the excitement, I had fallen fast asleep over the
letter I was trying to write to my brother with the
pencil. Her looks did not reassure me, for she
was pale, tired, and had no rattle about her. Her
mother had sent her to see whether we wanted
anything that could be supplied from her house,
and I fancied she had not come very willingly.
She said Mr. Sneyd was suffering a good deal, and

Very Watery. 191

though Dr. Lacy said he would soon be better,
Emilius was so wretched about him that they could
not keep him in the same room. His crutches had
not yet been replaced, and he felt his helplessness
exceedingly. Penny did not want to leave him
long to himself. Mother was doing everything in
the sick-room, but she had the wants of the house-
less to provide for, and she had, besides, been
shocked by hearing that the flood had not been
entirely harmless to human life. Some idle-
children who had been trespassing in the ravine
had never been seen again, and were thought to
have been carried out to sea ; and a poor little boy,
a special favourite of Penny's, whom for his health's
sake she had rescued from the mine to work in the
Brackenridge gardens, had been found drowned in
his bed. in a little house attached to the conserva-
tory.

It had grieved Penelope very much, though of
all people she was the one who had least to
reproach herself with. Her ride had saved many
from the like fate, and would have saved this little
lad, if Mr. Arrowsmith would have taken the
alarm.

She was sobered and toned down altogether, and

192 The Disturbing Element.

I wondered whether she had heard the news, m
I knew I ought not to tell before the fathei
mother had heard it But I found she was ii
same doubt, for when I asked her to take bad
letter and bestow on it an envelope and an adi
in ink, she said, " As I did to Steffie's and Wini
That was a feeler, and then the laugh came
her eyes again, and I allowed mine to respon
she said in her own droll way, "Ah, well!
Princess's experiment ended in a drowning s<
It is the way of such things. Dear Winny.
capital for all of us, isn't it ?"

She was hearty about it. Nobody could c
that she was hearty and affectionate, but I <
not make it entirely out, for I was sure she
sad and uneasy, and that was altogether a cor
to the joyous way in which we had all take:
disasters. Did the illness in her house, the soi
she had heard of and seen, account sufficient!
all ? or was her maidenly pride rallying to h
disappointment she could not entirely con
Yet the simplicity and absence of all flighting
her demeanour made me hope otherwise, thoi
never hit on the right explanation, in spi
wondering over it till our own party retun

Very Watery. 193

with doleful stories of ruined carpets and papers,
of soaked cushions and salted stores, but very
cheerful over them, considering all things. Susan
said she had never realised that a flood would not
be a clean one, for our poor rooms were full of* a
mixture contributed from the kitchen garden above
and the beach-refuse below. " But," she resolutely
said, " we meant to new-paper next year, and the
dear old blue brocade was so shabby, that it is a
very good thing that it is done for."

Winifred's chief fear was that her parents would
much mourn for their pictures — now water-colours
indeed. She had brought up the portfolios with
her to spread the contents on the floor in empty
rooms, but they were melancholy spectacles. The
other curiosities were happily less susceptible of
harm. Mr, and Mrs. Morland had come home in
exceeding anxiety, and had found that they had
suffered comparatively little. They meant to sleep
at home, but had consented to come up to dinner at
Barbe Torr. This had been procured from War-
chester, and was in a style of which our dresses were
by no means worthy. Every rag we possessed*
except what we had on, was hanging up some- J
where to dry !

N

194 ^^ Disturbing Element.

Nevertheless, there never was a more cheerful
dinner party. We were relieved of fears for our
friends. Miss Dove had been horribly terrified,
thoy^h the water had come no higher than her
cellars ; and the worst of it was, as she said, that
she had been forced to consent to Maisie's offering
an asylum to Mrs. Parnell and her daughters,
whom she had always treated as mere bowing
acquaintances ; but she had been very kind to them,
and would have kept them another night, if their
relations, the Harcombes of Warchester, had not
claimed them.

The loss of property had been considerable,
especially Mr. Arrowsmith's, but there had been so
many merciful escapes, that Mr. Morland said he
should make a special thanksgiving service on the
morrow.

And a nice, quiet, calming Sunday it was. The
river was only a little fuller than usual, and it was
hard to believe how it had raged only two days
ago. We resolved not to look at any of our spoilt
goods, and kept our resolution, to our own peace
and that of others.

CHAPTER XII.

AFTER THE DELUGE.

'T^HE great event of the ensuing day was the
■■■ inquest on poor little Gcoi^e Thompson. His
corpse alone had been found, though there was no
doubt of the little idlers having perished. The
inquest sat in the lai^est room of the hotel, and
was attended by all our gentlemen, and many
besides. Mr. Arrowsmith came over from War-
chester, whither he had gone the day after the
flood with all his family, but he looked very sad
and shaken, hardly tit to come out, and said he had
a sick household for that. Lettice alone seemed
unhurt by the exposure. There was something very
brave and noble in his thus coming, for it was in
the determination to confront to the uttermost the
consequences of the obstinacy which he so bitterly

196 The Disturbing Element

rued. The tears came into his eyes when people
came and shook hands with him. and he made
Edward come and sit by him.

Of course the gist of the matter was the enquiry
why the Boldre had overflowed. That the boy
had been drowned was certain, but the coroner
went back to the original construction and security
of the reservoir, and how it had come to com-
municate with the Boldre. Mr. Arrowsmith then
said that his attention had been called by Mr.
Webster to the leakage into the cavern.

Edward, who had meant if possible not to come
forward, had to describe in detail the appearances
he had seen in the cavern, and the conclusion he
had formed that the water was eating its way
under the embankment, and would soon open a
way into Gaffer's Hole, and thence into the gully
of the Boldre. Mr. St. Barbe corroborated this,
and when the Directors of the Company were asked
why they had taken no notice of the warning, Mr..
Arrowsmith was the first to express his regret that
he had supposed that this leakage was merely the
drip so common in limestone caverns. Then as
Edward had not said so, the generous old man
added that he had pooh-poohed his young friend's

After the Deluge. 197

modern science, which had shown that the water
of the pool was not impregnated with lime, as such
oozings would have been.

The next evidence was that of one of the miners
who had been summoned by Miss Ryan, and had
come too late to do any good, but had found the
young philosopher, as they called him, lying un-
conscious on the bank, and Mr. Philip Harcombe
with the iron bar in his hand, daring anyone to
touch the hatches. He should say Mr. Harcombe
was not sober.

An attorney who was watching the case for the
Harcombes began to be on the alert, and obtained
leave to demand whether this evidence were to the
point cLS to how George Thompson came by his
death. The coroner decided that it was, since it
had already appeared that the danger of excess of
water in the reservoir was provided for by the
opening of these flood-gates, which let it off towards
Harcombe.

Who was in charge of the gates? Mr. Har-
combe was responsible, and the person actually in
charge was Thomas Wall, who, being called on,
said he was coming home from work on Mr. Har-
combe's farm-yard at the time, and described the

198 The Disturbing ElemenL

state in which he had left the gates. Knew the
rules were to open them when the water stood at a
certain height. Why were they not opened ? The
master said they were not to be till Combe Meadow
was fed off.

Miss Penelope Ryan — ^with her cheeks dyed to
the deepest red — ^gave a clear account of her finding
the water visibly oozing through, as Mr. Webster
had foretold, and her immediate endeavour to draw
off some of the water, and give warning. She had
tried knocking and calling at Wall's cottage in
vain. She had then seen Mr. Sneyd coming, had
shown him what to do, and then ridden off to give
warning.

She sat down, with the thanks and compliments
of the coroner, who told her that his melancholy
duty would have been far more onerous but for her
promptness and courage.

The Harcombes — father and son — appeared in
no satisfactory light. They defended their habit
of only opening the hatches when it suited their
convenience, and maintained that it had done no
harm until the cavern was meddled with and
openings made, no doubt to the injury of the
reservoir, by the curiosity of strangers. Philip

After the Deluge. 199

Harcombe knew he had knocked the fellow down
who was meddling with the hatches. He did so
in anger, since much mischievous and impertinent
interference had lately taken place.

In fact he was under a summons for the assault,
which Mr. Ryan had caused to be served on him,
but the case had been put off from Saturday's
petty sessions because Mr. Sneyd was not well
enough to appear. The allegation against the
alarmists could, however, be easily confuted by the
miner and Mr. St. Barbe, as well as Edward, who
could prove that not a stone had been loosened,
not a sod disturbed, in embankment or in cavern.
Indeed, when Mr. St. Barbe would have done so,
he had been withheld by the others, lest greater
harm than he knew should be done. The discovery
of the danger had been entirely based on the
testing of the water of the drip, which had been
shown to be the same with the spring water of the
reservoir, not the lime-impregnated water of the
other pools of the cave.

There were two more questions — one, as to the
difference that the opening of the flood-gates would
have made to the height of the inundation ; and
the other, how far the spring tide had swelled the^

200 The Disturbing Element.

flood. For on this, the coroner observed when he
instructed the jury, depended the actual cause of
the boy's death, and it would rest with them
whether to bring in such a verdict as would lead to
further proceedings against the Harcombes for
manslaughter, as well as the damage that had been
caused.

The verdict returned was, however, only
"accidentally drowned," because it was really
uncertain whether the opening of the hatches at
the last moment would have done any appreciable
good in lessening the mass of water, and likewise
whether the tide had not really been what made
the overflow fatal in this individual case. Still,
strong censure was expressed of the careless
management of the reservoir by Mr. Harcombe,
and still more of the conduct of his son. Both
might be liable to an action for all the injury done
to property.

So ended the inquest. Whitmarsh and Gardiner
had sent down an important member of their firm
to give evidence on the construction, and to watch
the proceedings, and the first thing he did when
they were over, was to beg for an interview with
Edward, and offer him, on behalf of his company,

After the Deluge. 201

very handsome terms for the superintendence of
the repairs, and of the new arrangements to be
made for the water-supply of Warchester. "In
fact/' he said, " your fortune is as good as made.
Such a hit as that is not forgotten."

"There, Aunt Frances," said our boy, "that's
what I owe to the Blue-bell Society."

He found us on our island. I could not stay
away from the investigation of all our properties.
Every drawer had to be turned out Luckily, it
was a fine sunny day, and we could spread things
out in the garden. Winifred was superintending
the like employment in her own domains, and
talking to us over the hedge, when we saw some
figures coming over the bridge, which had been too
much shaken to be used by wheel carriages for the
present We called Winifred, who descended by
the new-fashioned stile, consisting of a chair on
either side of the boundary wall, and, flying
forward, was clasped with passionate joy by her
parents.

They had been told at the table d'hote on Satur-
day at Genoa of a telegram that the Warchester
reservoir had overflowed, with terrible loss of life.
They had been travelling day and night in dread-

202 The Disturbing ElemenU

ful anxiety. It had been so far mitigated, on their
arrival at Warchester, that it was known at the
station that only one body had been found, and no
one of any name or note had been lost; but a
negative was hardly enough to satisfy parents who
had left a daughter without any natural protector
in what they knew to be the centre of the danger.
All the apparent coldness had been swept away by
the alarm, and in their joy when Winifred stood
between them in life and health, there was a cure
for ever for the sense of being unloved. Even when
she said, "I am so sorry; there was not one moment
to take down the pictures, and the frescoes are
almost washed away," the answer was, " Oh, my
dear child, I can't think about frescoes or anything
else, now I find you safe."

The three sat all together, Winifred in the middle,
on my sofa, which was out drying in the garden,
and there they were, when again figures were seen
on the bridge, and this time the sight brought
Winifred's colour into her cheeks, and made her
say, "You didn't get our— the letter !"

No. That wonderful pencil letter was paste
restante still, if, indeed, it had reached its post
office. So Mr. St Barbe had his own tale to tell,

After the Deluge. 203

and, in process of time, Captain Walton strolled up
to me as I sat busy over some of the scattered
fragments of our properties. '* Well, Miss Webster,"
he said, "our island has had its 'Tempest,' and our
'Tempest' its fit conclusion. *I, too, have lost a
daughter.' "

"And to the Prince!" I said. "I congratulate
you."

He bowed, and replied with a careless kind of
irony, " Well, yes, I suppose so. The native Prince
has a certain distinction."

I believe he wanted me to apply "the native
Prince" to Caliban, and to protest, but I would not
give him that satisfaction. They were always
affected people, and both Susan and I thought that
they were depreciating their son-in-law to obviate
all suspicion of satisfaction in such an advantageous
marriage. " Of course, if Winifred likes it, we can
have nothing to say," quoth Mrs. Walton in her
turn ; " but between ourselves. Miss Webster,
though Winifred has never had any artistic taste
or feeling, I should have expected something more
refined and intellectual. Are you quite sure the
dear child is not making a mistake — carried along
a little by the romance of that night } Will she find

I

204 The Disturbing Element.

him a companion, after what she has been used
to?"

I satisfied her of my opinion on that score, and
told her that I was convinced that Mr. St. Barbe's
sunburnt neck was the only unrefined thing about
him, and that he was an able, clear-headed, sensible
man.

" I am delighted to hear you say so. I am an
ungrateful mother, am I not? to pour out all these
misgivings on you, instead of — as most mammas
would — thanking you for this brilliant achievement
as a chaperon. But, you see, she is my only child,
and I do not look on these things in the ordinary
point of view."

I could have shaken her — above all, when pre-
sently she observed, " Really, if that good man had
had any feeling for art, he might have saved our
poor little gem of a Mantegna."

I represented the lack of time.

"Ah! but he did save those stupid doves of
Winifred's, and the worthless little miniature of
her as a child."

" Did he save that ? I did not know that."

"Oh yes, he kept it in his breast pocket, and
offered it to me just now as the greatest imaginable

After the Deluge, 205

treasure. Poor, dear, good man ! I told him he
was welcome to keep it, and he went into raptures
on the spot."

N.B. — The lamented picture was held by Edward
and others only to resemble Mantegna in its utter
disregard of anatomy and perspective.

The Captain and his wife were of course
quartered at Barbe Torr, but Mrs. Walton refused
to let Susan resign to her the rdle of lady of the
house. She hated being housekeeper, and no doubt
she persuaded herself that it would be a great
deprivation to Miss Webster to resign the post;
and, the ruling passion having resumed its sway,
she and her husband spent most of their time in
doctoring up and remounting their treasures in the
empty billiard-room.

CHAPTER XIII.

A PENELOPE'S WEB.

«]l f ISS WEBSTER," said Mr. St. Barbe, coming
"^ on her as she was giving directions to the
paper-hanger at our cottage, " can you give me a
minute or two ? The fact is — is there a room up
at the house that would do to put those two poor
fellows, the Sneyds, into?"

Susan was considerably amazed, and he went
on — " I've just been up at the Ryans', and found
there had been a shindy of some sort I can't
make out what it is all about, but the elder one
has been insisting that he won't stay there a day
longer, and must go back to his old lodgings at
Warchester with his brother; and theyareno more
fit to be alone than a couple of babies. He won't

A Penelope^ s Web. 207

use his arm for another fortnight, let alone that he
nearly fainted while I was there."

" But what's the matter? Have the Ryans done
anything that has offended him ?"

"I can't think they have. He says not; but
nobody can get a word out of him when he is in
one of those states of mind. Mrs. Ryan has no
notion what is the matter, and is rather hurt about
it, and Emil looks like a ghost, and said it was all
his fault ; but then his brother gave him a look fit
to kill him, and that shut him up. Perhaps some
servant has made some remark about that poor
boy, which his brother can't digest."

" And Penny .?"

" Penny had gone to Warchester, and I did not
see her. So I told them I'd send a fly, and have
them over to Barbe Torr ; and then I recollected
that maybe there was not a room ready. Can it
be managed.? I came to see before going over to
order the carriage."

Susan saw at once both what room to use, and the
way of managing, and undertook the whole, being
very anxious to know what was the matter, and to
try to heal the wounds of that pride which might be
foolish, but which she pitied. So that evening our

2o8 The Disturbing Element,

wonderful refuge had two more inmates, but Charles
arrived far too much knocked up to do anything
but go to bed, and Emilius stayed with him. Mr.
Ryan came to dinner, but he could not tell what
was the matter, only that lads were very absurd,
and did not know when they were well off.

Not one word was extracted from Charles Sneyd
by all Susan's kindness, except this, that the Ryans
were goodness itself; he had nothing to complain
of, but honour demanded his going away. They
would have gone to London, and never been heard
of more, he said, if he had not had that foolish
faintness, and if Dr. Lacy had not forced him to
promise to appear against Philip Harcombe for the
assault.

Emilius tried to be equally reticent, but he was
too miserable not to respond when he was away
from his brother. Susan got it out of him at last,
in his repentant wretchedness. Only fifteen, and
devoted to the brother, about whom he was at
first in despair, he had been left to Penelope's care
and consolation. What could he do but pour out
all his heart, and not only his, but his brother's ?

Long before she had saved his life, Penelope had
been the dream and heroine of both lads. To

A Penelope's Web. 209

Charles she was the object of a distant worship,

which his proud silent nature, and his position

with regard to her, would probably have kept

hidden for ever, but for his brother, who knew

much, and imagined more; and when cut off from

Charles, and in utter misery about him, how could

he help letting Penny know how intensely she was

beloved? The one thing the foolish boy had

tried to save was her scratchy old exercise-book,

embellished with wild pen-and-ink sketches, because

it was Charles's treasure; and with youth's boundless

power of romance, the poor little recluse only saw,

in their poverty and distress, dragons for his knight

errant to conquer in the way of his ladye-love, and

let the ladye-love know all the devotion that was

hers. Ought Penny to have told her mother? I

only know that, when she laughed at and hushed

the boy, it was gently. But when he had thought

to gratify his brother by telling him how Miss

Ryan looked when he talked of him to her, how

he had been perfectly furious, had told him it was

a betrayal of confidence, a dishonourable act on

his part — at least it would have been if he had

known better — and it made it dishonourable in

Charles to remain a moment longer in the Ryans*
o

2IO The Disturbing Element.

house, or to continue to teach the Blue-bells. There
was nothing for it but to go away immediately, and
he rose up from the sofa, on which he had been
placed on that day for the first time, to intimate
his purpose, and in the study he had fortunately
encountered Mr. St Barbe. Susan could not do
much to comfort him, for he had been very foolish,
and the attachment seemed so hopeless that it was
a pity it should be known to Penelope. Under
the circumstances, too, it might be better that they
should go away, though her heart yearned so much
over the two friendless boys, that she decided on
writing to our brother about some opening in the
High Schools in the great northern towns. As
to our Blue-bell Society, there would not be much
left of it. It had been a clear case of " disturbing
element !"

There was Lettice nursing her father in a bad
attack of gout, or rather of remorse; and Winifred
acceding to Mr. St. Barbe's entreaties that they
should be married as soon as the settlements could
be made out; and as to Emma Lacy, it was chiefly
on her account that her father, whether wisely or
unwisely, had made such a point of the prosecution
of Philip Harcombe for the assault.

A Penelope* s Web. 211

The next day, as I was sitting alone in the
library, Penelope dashed into it, evidently looking
for some one whom she did not see, and greeting
me with rather unflattering disappointment, as she
said, " How is he ?" And when she had heard that
he was not up, and that Emilius shared with him
a room and dressing-room, whither I showed no
intention of chaperoning her, the impetuous girl
sat down on the floor beside me, and forth it all
camel — ^how she had gone to Warchester to get
things for the houseless families, and had come
home to And the Sneyds vanished, and no one
would tell her why, saying they would give no
reason. Had they given us any ?

None that was fair to tell, I answered uneasily,
while she devoured me with her eyes. " Then I
knowl" said Penny, covering her burning face
with her hands.

I had feared that this must be. She could not
suspect the parents of offending them, the only
alternative of my answer. So there was nothing
for it but to have it out She wanted to know
whether he had said anything to her parents. I
was sure he had not, and that her father, at least,
suspected nothing.

212 The Disturbing Element.

"No!" she said, "it is just like him! just like
his generous self-restraint! But, dear Miss Frances,
you'll take care that he does not go away without
my seeing him, or at least Emil."

" My dear, I don't think that is respecting his
generous self-restraint" So I said, and oh! what
an outbreak I brought! Was she to let him go
away thinking her unfeeling, fettered by all these
horrid worldly restraints, not able to appreciate
grandeur of character, &c., &c. Poor Emilius, he
was an awkward-looking Cupid, but he had driven
his bolt home effectually, and Penny was un-
measured in her expressions of that admiration,
which, if it had a little romantic glow, was so
worthily bestowed, that it was impossible not to
sympathise with the poor child with my whole
heart, even while I tried to persuade her that
Charles Sneyd had judged wisely in his honour-
able behaviour, and that, though he had only
thought of her, it was best for him likewise not
to blow the flame by outspoken words.

She could not think so ; she wanted to comfort
him ; she wanted to give him hope to sustain him.
I asked how much she had allowed Emilius to see.
** Oh, I hate to think of it," she said; " I could only

A Penelopes We5. 213

laugh at him, and tell him he was a silly boy ; and
he said that when his brother was so much out of
spirits, it was because he thought I cared for

Stephen. Only fancy **

Mrs. Walton herself could not have put more
odious comparison into the tone of that "only fancy."
All Stephen's physical heroism, which had so im-
pressed the book-learned girl, was as nothing in
comparison with Charles's moral and intellectual
attributes in the esteem of our eager, lively rattle-
pate ! It was a sad business for them, poor things,
but it seemed to me that the less development of
the passion, the better it would be for both; and
so I argued hard with Penelope that the love she
had been told he had for her would be a stimulus
and help to him, all the more for his not being
tempted to transgress the ruleofsilencehehad laid
down. I had no doubt she had let Emil guess enough
to keep up his brother's spirits; and to remain
here, or to go elsewhere, as a tutor who had gained
the affections of a pupil would be a great disad-
vantage to him. If things remained as they were,
no one need be aware; but let them go one ace
further, and her parents must know. Then even
their goodness would not make them recommend

214 The Disturbing Element

him with a free heart, if they were applied to for
testimonials. Penny had another burst of indigna-
tion at being supposed to be in any way superior —
an agent's daughter, for whom, two years ago,
young Sneyd would have been thought all too
good — and I could not but agree that it was very
hard. Still, I thought the young man's brave,
honourable reserve ought to be respected, and that
he should not be tempted to break through it, and
for the time Penny most unwillingly submitted.

" You may be sure," said I, enthusiastically, and
therefore, probably, foolishly, " that there is stuff in
him to work his way up, and then there will be
full reward for the beautiful silent faithfulness of
patience."

" Patience I oh yes, patience is very pretty when
it is over, but it is the horridest thing in the world
in the meantime," cried my poor Penny, in a tone
that did not give me much hope of the success of
my arguments in case opportunity should offer.
And at that moment there was a knock at the
door, and Dr. Lacy came in. In pity to Penny, I
asked at once how he had found his patient, and
heard that his arm was going on well, but he was
in a feverish nervous state, a good deal resulting

A Penelope* s Web. 215

from hard work and low diet, and there was
evidently much anxiety and excitement of mind.
It was always a sad case when a man felt he could
not afford to be ill, and he must be kept as quiet
as possible till the Saturday, when he must appear
against Harcombe. I thought the Doctor wished
Penelope away, and it did occur to her that it
might be a professional visit to me, so she retreated,
and he was free to say, " I mean to see him again
to-morrow, and. Miss Frances, is it too much to ask
if you would let me bring you my poor girl? Her
mother and I do not quite know what to make of
her. Poor child, I am afraid it is as much our
fault as hers."

So here was another case of acting Minnetrost
to a love with which I had far less sympathy, and
I greatly doubted whether the young lady would
come. She did appear, however, looking whiter
than ever, and with a startled, trembling, shaken
air about her, which overcame me so much, that,
right or wrong, my impulse, when we were left
alone together, was to take her into my arms, kiss
her, and say, " My poor child, you have been very
unhappy.**

She only murmured, " Oh, Miss Frances, I have

2i6 The Disturbing Element.

been so deceived," and then she burst into a flood
of tears and sobs, among which came up broken
words. ** I would have stood by him through all —
ill report, good report — ^if he only had been true
to me. And Alice, too! Everything has failed
me!"

No proof had been spared to her of Philip
Harcombe's barmaid flirtation, and, the family
feelings not being delicate, she was ceaselessly
jeered and teased by her pert younger sister and
rude brothers, and scolded by her mother.

The cruellest cut of all, however, had come from
Alice Parnell, who had been staying with the
Warchester Harcombes. They had been trying
at one time to make something of Philip, but as
they had shares in the reservoir, they were very
angry with him, and, moreover, ashamed of his low
tastes, which had baffled all their attempts to keep
him out of mischief So he had been abused and
censured by the whole family, and Emma's devotion
to him heartily laughed at. It appeared that he
had boasted of it, half in mockery, half as an
importunity, and that she had been known aniong
his cousins as " the Gusher." Her poetry had been
a by-word among them, especially some verses

A Penelope's Web. 217

called, " The Tryste by the Sea," beginning " Hush,
hush, my beating heart," which had never been
confided to anybody but Alice herself, and to Philip
— had been handed round and made the family
laughing-stock — and not one of all the jests had
been spared to the unlucky authoress by Alice,
who had really seemed to expect her to be as
much amused as herself.

Edith had, it transpired, come out like a little
tigress, told her sister she was ashamed of her, and
the cousins that they were as horrid and abominable
as Philip himself; and this only qualifying drop of
comfort in the bitter draught poor Emma had not
yet begun to taste.

It was, indeed, wholly owing to Edith that the
rude Lacy boys had not discovered this part of the
story; and as Emma had been going about the house
in sullen wretchedness, wounded on all sides, and
pretending indifference, and had thought herself
brought to me for another scolding, a little tender-
ness overcame her in an instant.

She felt like the most miserable being on earth,
and sobbed out her grief till — till I began to wonder
whether there was any secret pleasure in the fact
of being a sufferer from a catastrophe, and began

2i8 The Disturbing Element.

to observe that, when people wandered ou
of direct paths, no wonder they came amon
shoals, and that, after all, a hero was the bettc

and safer when one knew him to be really

ill

worthy man.

" Yes, I know ; but oh ! I was so sick of beate
paths, and worthy men are so utterly withou
, interest; and I thought I was influencinj

\ him."

It would be wearisome to tell, even if I coul
remember, all the reiterations and arguings in
circle we went through, or rather arguings in
spiral, for Emma did not always leave off quite i
• the same place. She did come a little nearer t
owning that she had been erring and straying, an
that it was wilful conceit and underhand dis
obedience that had brought her into this distres
and abasement. What was wanted was to cles
away the glamour of fals6 sentiment and romano
and make her see in herself, not the deceive
heroine, but the naughty girl, guilty of deceit an
.disobedience, and therefore bound to ask pardc
of her parents — yes, and of her Heaven]
Father.

I found she was much more willing to do th

A Penelope's Web. 219

last than to humiliate herself to father or mother.
She was ready to call herself all the hard names
in the Christian vocabulary, and to talk of bitter
repentance; but the one thing — of telling Dr. and
Mrs. Lacy that she was sorry she had behaved so
ill — she could not endure.

She would have written scores of verses on her
contrition, rather than give this one mark of true
repentance to those who, she said, were not capable
of understanding her. I told her how kindly and
sadly her father had spoken, but I feared it had
made no impression, when he came down for
her.

However, next day there came a note saying,
" Dear Miss Frances, I have taken- your advice,
and my father is the most generous and tender of
men!" The Doctor, who brought us this aston-
ishing testimony, told me that he and her mother
were much happier about Emma, she seemed to
see things in a right light, and to be heartily sorry
for all the past folly, so that he trusted it had been
a lesson for life to her, poor child ; but he wished
he could send her from home, for he was afraid her
brothers and sister were not at all inclined to be
forbearing.

220 The Disturbing Element.

He even thought he should consent to Charles
Sneyd's abandoning the prosecution. He did not
care about it, since Emma had come to her senses,
and it seemed so to distress and overpower the
poor young fellow in his weak state, that he hardly
felt justified in driving him on to it, and, after
all, it might only lead to further exposure and
recrimination.

Moreover, I thought of a plan. Susan was going
to London with Edward, in a fortnight or so, to
supply some of the furniture damaged by our
inundation. The Waltons were likewise going
away for Winifred's trousseau, and I was to be
left in Barbe Torn The whole design respecting
that mansion had undergone a change. The library
had grown so dear to Mr. St. Barbe and Winifred,
that it must be retained at any cost. So the place
was to be repaired, not pulled down, and this
necessitated a fresh drawing of plans, so that the
demolition was necessarily delayed. I did not see
why I might not have returned to our own abode
while Susan was away, but no one else thought so,
and she declared that she should be haunted by
the idea of my being washed away, or, at the least,
catching rheumatism. So I was to stay at the

A Penelope's Web.

Torr, and I begged that Emma might be my
companion during my sister's absence. To which
she assented, because the united force of persuasion
was being exerted to keep the Sneyds at Barbe
Torr till Charles was really well, and therefore it
would not do to have me in any way dependent
upon Penelope.

CHAPTER XIV.

PRIZE HYACINTHS.

MY plan took effect We were left, a very queer
quartette, at Barbe Tort, with Emma the only
thoroughly able-bodied person amongst us, and
very nice, good, and gentle she was. Charles Sneyd
was able to come downstairs in the latter part ol
the day, but he was very languid and silent
Penelope came over the second afternoon, but I
felt It my duty not to leave them alone together,
and we were all very uncomfortable. Penny had
a strong fit of inconsequent gabble, told us a great
number of ridiculous parish stories and speeches,
and made us feel as if we bad had a whirlwind
among us.

But I think there was a bit of her heart in the

Prize Hyacinths. 223

squeeze she gave Mr. Sneyd's one hand, for the poor
fellow's brow lightened considerably, and though
he still looked pensive, he was less oppressed.

The next forenoon, Emma and I were reading
the produce of the post, which came in late, when
we heard the tap of Emil's crutches outside the
door. It was wonderful, for he had hitherto stayed
with his brother till his down-coming, and still
more wonderful was his face of joy.

" Such a letter !** he said, as he sat down breath-
lessly — ";£'200 a year for certain! Oh! Miss
Frances, it will be all right now !"

Then we arrived at the knowledge that the paper
with the right report of Charles's lecture had been
sent by Edward to the Principal of a great collegiate
school in the north of England, and that it had
resulted in the offer of a lectureship, with a house,
a salary of £200 per annum, and permission to
take pupils' fees for individual instruction in
physical science and German. Edward had, we
found, been in correspondence about it for some
weeks, but had said nothing for fear of disap-
pointment.

Emil's happiness and pride in his brother were
beautiful to see ! He could hardly sit still in his

224 '^^ Disturbing Element.

delight that Charles's troubles and anxieties should
thus be relieved, and he seemed to think the ;£'200
boundless wealth, with an opening to anything ! I
said presently that I would go and congratulate
him, but Emil coloured up, and said he did not
wish me to take the trouble of going upstairs, for
he thought he had heard Charles coming down and

going out. He wanted to consult ^and there

the boy's endeavour failed him, and, with an in-
describable sound between a sob and a chuckle,
he hid his crimson face in the sofa cushion.

So that was to be the result ! And it was true
that a house, ;^200 a year, and an honourable and
improvable position, was more than being a teacher
with just nothing at all; and as things stood, no
doubt the youth was right to profit by his sudden
recovery of vigour. I was almost as restless as
Emilius, as hour after hour slipped away, and still
we knew nothing. If ever Emma went out of the
room, we indulged in a little speculation how Mr.
and Mrs. Ryan would take the tidings ; but we had
to eat our luncheon in ignorance, and then I devised
a commission which I begged Emma to execute in
the town, hoping she would find plenty to detain
her there.

Prize Hyacinths. 225

The manoeuvre for keeping the coast clear was
successful. Not very long after she was gone, Mr.
Ryan's dog-cart drove up to the door, and in a
minute or two Emilius was on his way to his
brother, while Mr. Ryan remained alone with me.

"Well, Miss Frances," he said, in his good-
humoured voice, as if he were trying to be angry,
" so this comes of classes, and Blue-bells, and
societies, and all that progress of women! Progress
in having their own way ! That's what it is."

"Then is Penny to have her own way?" I asked,
anxiously.

" She has always had it before, and she will have
it now ; and I can't say but that the young fellow
has behaved very well in going away without a
word to her, and coming to me first, though he let
me know he was pretty sure of his ground."

"Then you have consented ?"

"I couldn't help myself. The girl's heart was
gone, you know. I saw she hadn't been like her-
self since the flood, and her mother thought the
same, and there's nothing against the young man,
except what he can't help, poor fellow. Of course,
I'd rather he hadn't a weight round his neck like
that poor little cripple, and, as I told Penny, it will

226 The Disturbing Element.

be marrying the two of 'em, but she says she is
prepared for that. And her mother says, truly
enough, that to see what he is to his brother gives
one trust in him. He is a good, religious, sound-
hearted youth too, and with plenty of brains, and
I don't know what more one need look for for
one's daughter. And it is not coming yet, either,
for you know Penny had ;^2500 from her great-
aunt St. Barbe, and I told him when he could
match tliat he should have her."

" How long do you think he will be saving that
out of two hundred a-year ?"

" He took my bargain gladly enough, and told
me he was sure of £^ a month for a translation
from a scientific German work he had already
begun, that has been hindered by his accident
Then he has had letters asking him to give courses
of lectures, all expenses paid, clearing ten or twenty
guineas or so. Oh ! he'll do, as long as he doesn't
overwork himself."

I wondered how Mrs. Ryan took it. I don't
think she was so philosophical, and she certainly
did not bless literary societies, but she had nursed
Charles Sneyd for a week, and that had endeared
him to her. Moreover, St. Barbe as she was, she

Prize Hyacinths. 227

had married into a class where the faculty of work
and success was much more an object than lands
and three per cents. So, with slight intervals of
sighing and groaning to her cronies, she took both
the brothers into her motherly heart, and wanted
to have them back again to be nursed ; the very
next day, Penelope brought a note insisting on it
before her father was well out of the house.
Radiant and charming indeed she looked as she
fell on me and cried out, " Oh ! isn't it ! Isn't

he s. And I don't deserve it! I know I

don't, after all the naughty things I said about
patience!"

" I am afraid you will have to take patience into
your councils still, dear child."

'* It won't be such a horrid sort as that was," said
Penny. " Besides, to tell the truth, I don't think
there will be any at all. No, I don't. They both
want me so much to do for them. Don't you see }
Papa and mamma will come round. I know
mamma will never bear to let them go to that great
empty house alone."

" Dear child, do you know what you under-
take ?"

"Dear Miss Frances, I think I do," she said

228 The Disturbing Element.

very gravely, a strange new beauty coming over
her animated face. " You know that Tm not really
such a scatterbrain as I seem, just for fun, I've
thought a great deal ever since what Emil told mei
for I know it is a solemn thing to be liked by a
man who has elements of greatness in him. And
that was what Mr. Webster said of hint. I want
to be worthy, and Til take all the pains I can. I
know there will be what people call drudgery at
first, perhaps always; but if I can keep him at ease
and happy about home and Emil, so as to be free
to do great things and think great thoughts, it will
be very sweet, and I shall thank God for it !'*

As she was still speaking, with her eyes moist
with feeling, Charles and Emilius came into the
room, and I made myself scarce as fast as I could,
but not till Charles had nearly crushed my fingers
in his grasp, and I had seen the most sisterly of
kisses between Penelope and the boy.

I went to take my autumn day's airing in what
ought to have been the garden, but really to look
out for Emma, and hinder her from falling on the
scene unprepared. I was regretting that I had not
learnt whether she was to be told or not, when she
came hastily up to me, asking, " Is it true ?*' I had

Prize Hyacinths. 22^

answered " Yes/* before it occurred to me to ask
what It was. Yes, of course it was Penelope and
Mr. Sneyd. Miss Dove had met her and asked
her about it, and declared that Mr. and Mrs.
Ryan were crazy to consent, having evidently
known it at least a day before it was true.

So I told Emma the whole story, and the
contrast between true and false romance seemed to
be borne in on her. I was glad to see that she
could see the real greatness of character that
Charles Sneyd had shown, and she said that Mr.
Ryan's words about the lives that Penelope had
saved had made her feel for a moment as if the
embodiment of one of her visions of nobleness
might be before her. Only it did not seem
possible in Penny, who was always held rather
cheap, for her blundering, heedless ways, and
inattention to dress ! Happily, instead of taking
it as a contrast to pine about, Emma viewed the
incident as an instance of romance in real common-
place life, and thqught better of life accordingly ;
while Mr. Sneyd, instead of being her prosy,
grinding taskmaster, became invested with a
heroic halo.

But she was taken by surprise when that very

1

230 The Disturbing Element.

evening he asked, "When shall we resume our
classes?" I am not sure that we did not both
perpetrate a little shriek of surprise, but we found
he was in earnest. His new occupation was not to
begin till after the Christmas holidays, and he
meant to carry on his classes at Warchester as
before, expecting to be quite well enough the next
week ; while as to the Blue-bells, Penelope was hot
upon finishing her preparation and going up for the
examination. As she said to me, " It would be so
much better for Charles, in that society of masters
and masters* wives, if he did not bring a wild girl
out of the moors, but a graduate who could hold
up her head with anybody. So she meant to work
like a horse, now she had such a coach."

And, in spite of all auguries to the contrary, she
kept her word. After all, decimal fractions and
equations served as well for the language of love as
hearts, darts, or flames !

Emma looked quite thankful to hear that the work
was to be resumed. She said she had been longing
for something tough to occupy her mind, and leave
no room for the habitual thoughts and fancies.
Maisie Carstairs and the Morlands showed that
they would have been much annoyed if the classes

Prize Hyacinths. 231

had been given up, and Edith Parnell was likewise
ready to come and set to work energetically. Her
sister lazily returned, but the desolation at
Brackenridge had been greater than could be
quickly repaired, so that the Arrowsmiths could
not return till after the winter, and were going for
the present to Brighton. - Lettice came over several
times to give directions as to the rearrangement of
their unfortunate house and gardens, and com-
mitted the care of her poor people to Emma Lacy.
Mr. Arrowsmith was too much shocked and broken
for her to wish him to come near the place till it
looked more like home again, and she was glad to
get him aVay. Dear child, she was as loving as
ever, and I don't think we are silly old women in
expecting that when they come home, and Edward
is at work on the water-supply close at hand, there
may be great results. At any rate, she writes to us
regularly, and Miss Coles kept up her studies with
the class by correspondence.

There was a great outcry the first day we met
in the renovated drawing-room, for it was no
longer a salon bleu. The walls were white, just
touched with pink ; the carpet, claret coloured ; the
furniture, pink creton, with ferns in shades of grey

232 The Disturbing Element.

and white. Everyone turned on Susan and howled,
but she stood her ground, and declared that she had
beeA a victim to the blue brocade all her life, and
was resolved, now that was gone, to break out in
something fresh.

We did our work as well, or better, on theiivhole,
in the pink as in the blue, though we had the
great distraction of our Prince's wedding. Winifred
had her own way about it, though her parents
wanted it to have been in London. Neither she
nor her Stephen would hear of being married any-
where but in the church where they had betrothed
themselves over the raft for their perilous voyage,
and she likewise carried the point of having the
Blue-bells for bridesmaids, with their appropriate
flowers in their bonnets, and gentianellas in their
favours, also on the enamelled brooches with which
the bridegroom presented them. The Parnells
were there, though Alice did not deserve it, for she
had so outrageously silly a fit about some youth
at Warchester as to disgust Emma completely,
but then Edith grew nicer and more sensible every
day, so Winifred could not mortify her. Lettice
came back and spent three happy days with us,
and Edward was best man. The whole populace

Prize Hyacinths. 233

were feasted, and the rejoicings were the more
hearty that the happy pair were to return to the
Delta in six weeks to superintend their house-
building. Captain Walton had given up his leetse
to his son-in-law, and Mrs. Walton was henceforth
to live abroad, not simply to exist at home !

The last thing Stephen St. Barbe did was to
place an envelope with a cheque for new-seating
the church in Mr. Morland's hand, with the words,
" Reparation for the pew doors."

The bridesmaids' dresses were soon to serve
again, for the infection of marriage had set in, and
so had the stream of good fortune. The foreign
railway which had been the cause of the great
crash of the Sneyd affairs was brought into such
use by the Turkish war, that the shares, though two
years ago not reckoned into the bankrupt's
property, so rose, that when, by Mr. Arrowsmith's
counsel, they were sold at the right moment, they
cleared off the remainder owing to the creditors,
and left enough besides for a life provision for
Emilius, as well as to fulfil Mr. Ryan's conditions
of settling ;^Sooo on Penelope — ^half his, and half
her own — as well as to furnish the house.

Did she know what she was undertaking.? people

234 'Tf^ Disturbing Element.

asked. Ought she not to wait till Mr. Sneyd had
made his way ? But her only answer was, *' They
need me so much."

And as the good Mrs. Ryan had never let the
brothers leave her house, they had indeed learned
to depend upon Penelope. They both looked
infinitely better than when we had first seen them,
and Charles had dropped his proud defiant manner,
and though essentially a shy man, was very pleasant,
agreeable, and affectionate — less prone, too, to
attack his pupils furiously. Indeed he confessed to
Penny that he had done so from sheer fright, and
because he could not have got on at all if he had
not tried to forget that they were not boys. So he
would not look at their faces in his spectacles, and
saw nothing but their mistakes.

Thus, rather quaintly, it 'came about that the
Penny wedding, as Dora called it, was fixed for a
fortnight before the examination, and the married
pair were to chaperon the others to the hotel
at Oxbridge. The St. Barbes came home in
time to be present at the marriage. It blended
with Christmas festivities, but it was less joy-
ful, for Penelope was a very dear daughter going
far away, and the miners' families would miss

Prize Hyacinths. 235

her sorely. They gave Mr. Sneyd a cabinet with
a charming collection of the mineralogy of the
district, and "their young lady" the most fashion-
able writing-case Warchester could produce.

Mrs. St. Barbe undertook to look after Penny's
forsaken people. As Squire's wife, she would do so,
according to her organising, methodical nature,
much more regularly, and probably less popularly,
than "our young lady;" but it was pleasant to
see her sensible, thorough ways, now that she had
her heart in them.

Alice Pamell did not go up for the examination.
She had come less frequently, and was always making
excuses for going over to share in the Warchester
gaieties. Marjorie had to fight a battle, and show
she considered herself independent, before Miss
Dove would hear of making the journey to Ox-
bridge with Mr. and Mrs. Sneyd and the rest ; but
we heard that, in spite of all the frights and
anxieties, the expedition was a very happy one,
and that the evenings at Oxbridge were merrily
spent in playing the most childish paper games to
rest the minds of the candidates.

The result was not known for some weeks.
Then we set up our crests on high, for Marjorie

236 The Disturbing Element.

Douglas Carstairs stood fourth of the whole of the
ladies who had gone up for extra subjects in logic,
classics, and mathematics. With a long interval,
Penelope Sneyd came next of our Blue-bells,
German and English literature being her strong
points. Dorothea Morland had passed well,
also Marianne Coles. In the preliminary ex-
amination, Edith Pamell's steady work had
brought her well through; but Mary Morland
was much mortified at having failed, through
want of presence of mind to collect her faculties
or recollect the right thing at the right moment
It had haunted her ever since, that she had
taken the battle of Tewkesbury for the battle
of Durham, having been used to think of them
both in connection with mustard !

Emma Lacy had likewise failed in French and
German, and in arithmetic, but had come home
vehemently desirous of repairing lost time, and
trying again.

" I have made up my mind," she said. " I shall
do all I can to improve myself, and to try to keep
other girls from seeking their excitement and
interest in the miserable deceptions of common
society."

Prize Hyacinths. 237

She was in a mood to sing, " Men were deceivers
ever." Whether she will do so only till next time,
or whether she will turn into a woman of progress,
I cannot tell, but, at any rate, she is a very
useful, busy, and reasonable creature for the present,
and is my excellent secretary to the new Blue-
bells.

Edith IS preparing for honours next year. I don't
know whether she will go out as a governess, for
Alice is in so foolish and distressing a mood, that
her mother may need her at home; but our Speed-
well is an excellent girl, very valuable and useful
at home and in the parish, and she tells me that
the Blue-bell Society has been the making of hen
We have filled up pur numbers again with some
young girls and governesses, and though we have
lost our preceptor, we know better what to do, and
shall not waste so much time as we did last year
in our ignorance.

Mrs. St» Barbe will now and then give us an
examination, and we had hoped for aid from Miss
Carstairs.

I was not prepared for Maisie's coming to me
with a little blush to ask me to write a recom*
mendation of her as a governess at a recently

238 The Disturbing Element.

established High School. "Perhaps I ought to
have told you at first," she said; "but I never could
tell Aunt Bessie. I came here engaged to Ronald
M*Kay. My father knew it, and did not object
— but he is second lieutenant of the Talavera^
and we must wait till he is a commander, and
we have so little between us, that I want to bring
him something. He is Sir Donald^s youngest
brother, and there are four more."

" Would Sir Donald's youngest brother like her
taking such a post V^ I asked.

"Oh! he has far too much sense to object. I
told him what I intended, if I passed, and I had
an answer yesterday. He is in the Pacific, you
know. He knows how much happier I shall be
working for him, as he is working for me, and he
understands all about it," said Maisie, with a happy
smile.

And how would her aunt endure it }

" Poor Aunt Bessie ! One great misery will be
better for her than continual little ones. 1 am not at
all a comfortable niece to her, and am continually
running against her notions, and I should do it worse
if I stayed here longer. One can give up to little petty
worldly notions for a while, but not so as to let them

I.

Prize Hyacinths. 239

eat into one's life. She is not sick, or aged and
infirm, and does not need my companionship. If
there were no Ronald in the case, I must have done
something rather than lead the life she would set
before me, with a foot in everybody's house, and
an ear for everybody's tale, and a tongue to carry
it Oh, Miss Frances, I was just fit to do some-
thing desperate when your Blue-bells began, and
made me feel as if the days had some soul in them
again."

I thought Maisie right in her decision, and after
a while Susan allowed the same, and that there was
more sense in working for a Ronald than in living
in genteel poverty, sharing in Miss Dove's tittle-
tattle. Susan rather enjoyed the fact of my prime
scholar having all the time worked for love, not
intellect.

"After all," she said, "it is a satisfaction to see
that women are women still, whatever you try to
make of them. What is that song —

*Love is still the lord of all'?

What would you have said a year ago, to hear
the^t Winifred and Lettice would be the defaulters,
that Penny would come to distinction, and that

240 The Disturbing Element.

Maisie Carstairs all the time only worked because
there was a Ronald on the horizon ?"

I should have said the same as I do how, that
love is and ought to be lord of all — by which I
don't mean merely the love the poet intended, but
the real, womanly heart and soul — such love as
made Lettice fail us, for instance. It is the duty of
a woman to make herself all that she can possibly
be, and to work up her capabilities to the utmost
that opportunity allows, but only for the sake of
that love to God and her neighbour which finds
its opportunities and channels in the charities of
life.

Marcus Ward & Co., Royal Ulster Works, Belfast.

>

3 6105 00020 4185

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STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305-60

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