Loe raamatut: «Johnny Ludlow, Sixth Series», lehekülg 18

II

It was but the first of February, yet the weather might have served for May-day: one of those superb days that come once in a while out of their season, serving to remind the world that the dark, depressing, dreary winter will not last for ever; though we may have half feared it means to, forgetting the reassuring promise of the Divine Ruler of all things, given after the Flood:

“While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease.”

The warm and glorious sunbeams lay on Church Leet, as if to woo the bare hedges into verdant life, the cold fields to smiling plains. Even the mounds of the graveyard, interspersed amidst the old tombstones, looked green and cheerful to-day in the golden light.

Turning slowly out of the Vicarage gate came a good-looking clergyman of seven-or-eight-and-twenty. A slender man of middle height, with a sweet expression on his pale, thoughtful face, and dark earnest eyes. It was the new Vicar of Church Leet, the Reverend Robert Grame.

For a goodish many years have gone on since that tragedy of poor Katherine’s death, and this is the second appointed Vicar since that inauspicious time.

Mr. Grame walked across the churchyard, glancing at the inscriptions on the tombs. Inside the church porch stood the clerk, old John Cale, keys in hand. Mr. Grame saw him and quickened his pace.

“Have I kept you waiting, Cale?” he cried in his pleasant, considerate tones. “I am sorry for that.”

“Not at all, your reverence; I came afore the time. This here church is but a step or two off my home, yonder, and I’m as often out here as I be indoors,” continued John Cale, a fresh-coloured little man with pale grey eyes and white hair. “I’ve been clerk here, sir, for seven-and-thirty years.”

“You’ve seen more than one parson out then, I reckon.”

“More than one! Ay, sir, more than—more than six times one, I was going to say; but that’s too much, maybe. Let’s see: there was Mr. Cartright, he had held the living I hardly know how many years when I came, and he held it for many after that. Mr. West succeeded him—the Reverend George West; then came Thomas Dancox; then Mr. Atterley: four in all. And now you’ve come, sir, to make the fifth.”

“Did they all die? or take other livings?”

“Some the one thing, sir, and some the other. Mr. Cartright died, he was old; and Mr. West, he—he–” John Cale hesitated before he went on—“he died; Mr. Dancox got appointed to a chaplaincy somewhere over the seas; he was here but about eighteen months, hardly that; and Mr. Atterley, who has just left, has had a big church with a big income, they say, given to him over in Oxfordshire.”

“Which makes room for me,” smiled Robert Grame.

They were inside the church now; a small and very old-fashioned church, with high pews, dark and sombre. Over the large pew of the Monks, standing sideways to the pulpit, sundry slabs were on the wall, their inscriptions testifying to the virtues and ages of the Monk family dead and gone. Mr. Grame stood to read them. One slab of white marble, its black letters fresh and clear, caught especially his eye.

“Katherine, eldest child of Godfrey Monk, gentleman, and wife of the Reverend Thomas Dancox,” he read out aloud. “Was that he who was Vicar here?”

“Ay, ’twas. She married him again her father’s wish, and died, poor thing, just a year after it,” replied the clerk. “And only twenty-three, as you see, sir! The Captain came down and forgave her on her dying bed, and ’twas he that had the stone put up there. Her baby-girl was taken to the Hall, and is there still: ten years old she must be now; ’twas but an hour or two old when the mother died.”

“It seems a sad history,” observed Mr. Grame as he turned away to enter the vestry.

John Cale did the honours of its mysteries: showing him the chest for the surplices; the cupboard let into the wall for the register; the place where candles and such-like stores were kept. Mr. Grame opened a door at one end of the room and saw a square flagged place, containing grave-digging tools and the hanging ropes of the bell which called people to church. Shutting the door again, he crossed to a door on the opposite side. But that he could not open.

“What does this lead to?” he asked. “It is locked.”

“It’s always kept locked, that door is, sir; and it’s a’most as much as my post is worth to open it,” said the clerk, his voice sinking to a mysterious whisper. “It leads up to the chimes.”

“The chimes!” echoed the new parson in surprise. “Do you mean to say this little country church can boast of chimes?”

John Cale nodded. “Lovely, pleasant things they be to listen to, sir, but we’ve not heard ’em since the midnight when Miss Katherine died. They play a tune called ‘The Bay o’ Biscay.’”

Selecting a key from the bunch that he carried in his hand, he opened the door, displaying a narrow staircase, unprotected as a ladder and nearly perpendicular. At the top was another small door, evidently locked.

“Captain Monk had all this done when he put the chimes up,” remarked he. “I sweep the dust off these stairs once in three months or so, but otherwise the door’s not opened. And that one,” nodding to the door above, “never.”

“But why?” asked the clergyman. “If the chimes are there, and are, as you say, melodious, why do they not play?”

“Well, sir, I b’lieve there’s a bit of superstition at the bottom of it,” returned the clerk, not caring to explain too fully lest he should have to tell about Mr. West’s death, which might not be the thing to frighten a new Vicar with. “A feeling has somehow got abroad in the parish (leastways with a many of its folk) that the putting-up of its bells brought ill-luck, and that whenever the chimes ring out some dreadful evil falls on the Monk family.”

“I never heard of such a thing,” exclaimed the Vicar, hardly knowing whether to laugh or lecture. “The parish cannot be so ignorant as that! How can the putting-up of chimes bring ill-luck?”

“Well, your reverence, I don’t know; the thing’s beyond me. They were heard but three times, ringing in the new year at midnight, three years, one on top of t’other—and each time some ill fell.”

“My good man—and I am sure you are good—you should know better,” remonstrated Mr. Grame. “Captain Monk cannot surely give credence to this?”

“No, sir; but his sister up at the Hall does—Mrs. Carradyne. It’s said the Captain used to ridicule her finely for it; he’d fly into a passion whenever ’twas alluded to. Captain Monk, as a brave seaman, is too bold to tolerate anything of the sort. But he has never let the chimes play since his daughter died. He was coming out from the death-scene at midnight, when the chimes broke forth the third year, and it’s said he can’t abear the sound of ’em since.”

“That may well be,” assented Mr. Grame.

“And finding, sir, year after year, year after year, as one year gives place to another, that they are never heard, we have got to call ’em amid ourselves, the Silent Chimes,” spoke the clerk, as they turned to leave the church. “The Silent Chimes, sir.”

Clinking his keys, the clerk walked away to his home, an ivy-covered cottage not a stone’s-throw off; the clergyman lingered in the churchyard, reading the memorials on the tombstones. He was smiling at the quaintness of some of them, when the sound of hasty footsteps caused him to turn. A little girl was climbing over the churchyard-railings (as being nearer to her than the entrance-gate), and came dashing towards him across the gravestones.

“Are you grandpapa’s new parson?” asked the young lady; a pretty child of ten, with a dark skin, and dusky-violet eyes staring at him freely out of a saucy face.

“Yes, I am,” said he. “What is your name?”

“What is yours?” boldly questioned she. “They’ve talked about you at home, but I forgot it.”

“Mine is Robert Grame. Won’t you tell me yours?”

“Oh, it’s Kate.—Here’s that wicked Lucy coming! She’s going to groan at me for jumping here. She says it’s not reverent.”

A charming young lady of some twenty years was coming up the path, wearing a scarlet cloak, its hood lined with white silk; a straw hat shaded her fair face, blushing very much just now; in her dark-grey eyes might be read vexation, as she addressed Mr. Grame.

“I hope Kate has not been rude? I hope you will excuse her heedlessness in this place. She is only a little girl.”

“It’s only the new parson, Lucy,” broke in Kate without ceremony. “He says his name’s Robert Grame.”

“Oh, Kate, don’t! How shall we ever teach you manners?” reprimanded the young lady, in distress. “She has been very much indulged, sir,” turning to the clergyman.

“I can well understand that,” he said, with a bright smile. “I presume that I have the honour of speaking to the daughter of my patron—Captain Monk?”

“No; Captain Monk is my uncle: I am Lucy Carradyne.”

As the young clergyman stood, hat in hand, a feeling came over him that he had never seen so sweet a face as the one he was looking at. Miss Lucy Carradyne was saying to herself, “What a nice countenance he has! What kindly, earnest eyes!”

“This little lady tells me her name is Kate.”

“Kate Dancox,” said Lucy, as the child danced away. “Her mother was Captain Monk’s eldest daughter; she died when Kate was born. My uncle is very fond of Kate; he will hardly have her controlled at all.”

“I have been in to see my church! John Cale has been doing its honours for me,” smiled Mr. Grame. “It is a pretty little edifice.”

“Yes, and I hope you will like it; I hope you will like the parish,” frankly returned Lucy.

“I shall be sure to do that, I think. As soon, at least, as I can feel convinced that it is to be really mine,” he added, with a quaint expression. “When I heard, a week ago, that Captain Monk had presented me—an entire stranger to him—with the living of Church Leet, I could not believe it. It is not often that a nameless curate, without influence, is spontaneously remembered.”

“It is not much of a living,” said Lucy, meeting the words half jestingly. “Worth, I believe, about a hundred and sixty pounds a-year.”

“But that is a great rise for me—and I have a house to myself large and beautiful—and am a Vicar and no longer a curate,” he returned, laughingly. “I cannot imagine, though, how Captain Monk came to give it me. Have you any idea how it was, Miss Carradyne?”

Lucy’s face flushed. She could not tell this gentleman the truth: that another clergyman had been fixed upon, one who would have been especially welcome to the parishioners; that Captain Monk had all but nominated him to the living. But it chanced to reach the Captain’s ears that this clergyman had expressed his intention of holding the Communion service monthly, instead of quarterly as heretofore, so he put the question to him. Finding it to be true, he withdrew his promise; he would not have old customs broken in upon by modern innovation, he said; and forthwith he appointed the Reverend Robert Grame.

“I do not even know how Captain Monk heard of me,” continued Mr. Grame, marking Lucy’s hesitation.

“I believe you were recommended to him by one of the clergy attached to Worcester Cathedral,” said Lucy.—“And I think I must wish you good-morning now.”

But there came an interruption. A tall, stately, haughty young woman, with an angry look upon her dark and handsome face, had entered the churchyard, and was calling out as she advanced:

“That monkey broken loose again, I suppose, and at her pranks here! What are you good for, Lucy, if you cannot keep her in better order? You know I told you to go straight on to Mrs. Speck, and–”

The words died away. Mr. Grame, who had been hidden by a large upright tombstone, emerged into view. Lucy, with another blush, spoke to cover the awkwardness.

“This is Miss Monk,” she said to him. “Eliza, it is the new clergyman, Mr. Grame.”

Miss Monk recovered her equanimity. A winning smile supplanted the anger on her face; she held out her hand, grandly gracious. For she liked the stranger’s look: he was beyond doubt a gentleman—and an attractive man.

“Allow me to welcome you to Church Leet, Mr. Grame. My father chances to be absent to-day; he is gone to Evesham.”

“So the clerk told me, or I should have called this morning to pay my respects to him, and to thank him for his generous and most unexpected patronage of me. I got here last night,” concluded Mr. Grame, standing uncovered as when he had saluted Lucy. Eliza Monk liked his pleasant voice and taking manners: her fancy went out to him there and then.

“But though papa is absent, you will walk up with me now to the Hall to make acquaintance with my aunt, Mrs. Carradyne,” said Eliza, in tones that, gracious though they were, sounded in the light of a command—just as poor Katherine’s had always sounded. And Mr. Grame went with her.

But now—handsome though she was, gracious though she meant to be—there was something about Eliza Monk that seemed to repulse Robert Grame, rather than attract him. Lucy had fascinated him; she repelled. Other people had experienced the same kind of repulsion, but knew not where it lay.

Hubert, the heir, about twenty-five now, came forward to greet the stranger as they entered the Hall. No repulsion about him. Robert Grame’s hand met his with a warm clasp. A young man of gentle manners and a face of rare beauty—but oh, so suspiciously delicate! Perhaps it was the extreme slenderness of the frame, the wan look in the refined features and their bright hectic that drew forth the clergyman’s sympathy. An impression came over him that this young man was not long for earth.

“Is Mr. Monk strong?” he presently asked of Mrs. Carradyne, when Hubert had temporarily quitted the room.

“Indeed, no. He had rheumatic fever some years ago,” she added, “and has never been strong since.”

“Has he heart disease?” questioned the clergyman. He thought the young man had just that look.

“We fear his heart is weak,” replied Mrs. Carradyne.

“But that may be only your fancy, you know, Aunt Emma,” spoke Miss Monk reproachfully. She and her father were both passionately attached to Hubert; they resented any doubt cast upon his health.

“Oh, of course,” assented Mrs. Carradyne, who never resented anything.

“We shall be good friends, I trust,” said Eliza, with a beaming smile, as her hand lay in Mr. Grame’s when he was leaving.

“Indeed I hope so,” he answered. “Why not?”

III

Summer lay upon the land. The landscape stretched out before Leet Hall was fair to look upon. A fine expanse of wood and dale, of trees in their luxuriant beauty; of emerald-green plains, of meandering streams, of patches of growing corn already putting on its golden hue, and of the golden sunlight, soon to set and gladden other worlds, that shone from the deep-blue sky. Birds sang in their leafy shelters, bees were drowsily humming as they gathered the last of the day’s honey, and butterflies flitted from flower to flower with a good-night kiss.

At one of the windows stood, in her haughty beauty, Eliza Monk. Not, surely, of the lovely scene before her was she thinking, or her face might have worn a more pleasing expression. Rather did she seem to gaze, and with displeasure, at two or three people who were walking in the distance: Lucy Carradyne side by side with the clergyman, and Miss Kate Dancox pulling at his coat-tails.

“Shameful flirt!”

The acidity of the tone was so pronounced that Mrs. Carradyne, seated near and busy at her netting, lifted her head in surprise. “Why, Eliza, what’s the matter? Who is a flirt?”

“Lucy,” curtly replied Eliza, pointing with her finger.

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Carradyne, after glancing outwards.

“Why does she persistently lay herself out to attract that man?” was the passionate rejoinder.

“Be silent, Eliza. How can you conjure up so unjust a charge? Lucy is not capable of laying herself out to attract anyone. It lies but in your imagination.”

“Day after day, when she is out with Kate, you may see him join her—allured to her side.”

“The ‘allurer’ is Kate, then. I am surprised at you, Eliza: you might be talking of a servant-maid. Kate has taken a liking for Mr. Grame, and she runs after him at all times and seasons.”

“She ought to be stopped, then.”

“Stopped! Will you undertake to do it? Could her mother be stopped in anything she pleased to do? And the child has the same rebellious will.”

“I say that Robert Grame’s attraction is Lucy.”

“It may be so,” acknowledged Mrs. Carradyne. “But the attraction must lie in Lucy herself; not in anything she does. Some suspicion of the sort has, at times, crossed me.”

She looked at them again as she spoke. They were sauntering onwards slowly; Mr. Grame bending towards Lucy, and talking earnestly. Kate, dancing about, pulling at his arm or his coat, appeared to get but little attention. Mrs. Carradyne quietly went on with her work.

And that composed manner, combined with her last sentence, brought gall and wormwood to Eliza Monk.

Throwing a summer scarf upon her shoulders, Eliza passed out at the French window, crossed the terrace, and set out to confront the conspirators. But she was not in time. Seeing her coming, or not seeing her—who knew?—Mr. Grame turned off with a fleet foot towards his home. So nobody remained for Miss Monk to waste her angry breath upon but Lucy. The breath was keenly sharp, and Lucy fell to weeping.

“I am here, Grame. Don’t go in.”

The words fell on the clergyman’s ears as he closed the Vicarage gate behind him, and was passing up the path to his door. Turning his head, he saw Hubert Monk seated on the bench under the may tree, pink and lovely yet. “How long have you been here?” he asked, sitting down beside him.

“Ever so long; waiting for you,” replied Hubert.

“I was only strolling about.”

“I saw you: with Lucy and the child.”

They had become fast and firm friends, these two young men; and the minister was insensibly exercising a wonderful influence over Hubert for good. Believing—as he did believe—that Hubert’s days were numbered, that any sharp extra exertion might entail fatal consequences, he gently strove, as opportunity offered, to lead his thoughts to the Better Land.

“What an evening it is!” rapturously exclaimed Hubert.

“Ay: so calm and peaceful.”

The rays of the setting sun touched Hubert’s face, lighting up its extreme delicacy; the scent of the closing flowers filled the still air with sweetness; the birds were chanting their evening song of praise. Hubert, his elbow on the arm of the bench, his hand supporting his chin, looked out with dreamy eyes.

“What book have you there?” asked Mr. Grame, noticing one in his other hand.

“Herbert,” answered the young man, showing it. “I filched it from your table through the open window, Grame.”

The clergyman took it. It chanced to open at a passage he was very fond of. Or perhaps he knew the place, and opened it purposely.

“Do you know these verses, Hubert? They are appropriate enough just now, while those birds are carolling.”

“I can’t tell. What verses? Read them.”

 
“Hark, how the birds do sing,
And woods do ring!
All creatures have their joy, and man hath his,
Yet, if we rightly measure,
Man’s joy and pleasure
Rather hereafter than in present is.
 
 
Not that we may not here
Taste of the cheer;
But as birds drink and straight lift up the head,
So must he sip and think
Of better drink
He may attain to after he is dead.”
 

“Ay,” said Hubert, breaking the silence after a time, “it’s very true, I suppose. But this world—oh, it’s worth living for. Will anything in the next, Grame, be more beautiful than that?”

He was pointing to the sunset, marvellously and unusually beautiful. Lovely pink and crimson clouds flecked the west; in their midst shone a dazzling golden light too glorious to look upon.

“One might fancy it the portals of heaven,” said the clergyman; “the golden gate of entrance, leading to the pearly gates within, and to the glittering walls of precious stones.”

“Ay! And it seems to take the form of an entrance-gate!” exclaimed Hubert; for it really did so. “Look at it! Oh, Grame, surely the very gate of Heaven cannot be more wonderful than that!”

“And if the gate of entrance is so unspeakably beautiful, what will the City itself be?” murmured Mr. Grame. “The Heavenly City! the New Jerusalem!”

“It is beginning to fade,” said Hubert presently, as they sat watching; “the brightness is going. What a pity!”

“All that’s bright must fade in this world, you know; and fade very quickly. Hubert! it will not in the next.”

Church Leet, watching its neighbours’ doings sharply, began to whisper that the new clergyman, Mr. Grame, was likely to cause unpleasantness to the Monk family, just as some of his predecessors had caused it. For no man having eyes in his head (still less any woman) could fail to see that the Captain’s imperious daughter had fallen desperately in love with him. Would there be a second elopement, as in the days of Tom Dancox? Would Eliza Monk set her father at defiance as Katherine did?

One of the last to see signs and tokens, though they took place under her open eyes, was Mrs. Carradyne. But she saw at last. The clergyman could not walk across a new-mown field, or down a shady lane, or be hastening along the dusty turnpike road, but by some inexplicable coincidence he would be met by Miss Monk; and when he came to the Hall to pass an hour with Hubert, she generally made a third at the interview. It had pleased her latterly to take to practising on the old church organ; and if Mr. Grame was not wiled into the church with her and her attendant, the ancient clerk, who blew the bellows, she was sure to alight upon him in going or returning.

One fine evening, dinner over, when the last beams of the sun were slanting into the drawing-room, Eliza Monk was sitting back on a sofa, reading; Kate romped about the room, and Mrs. Carradyne had just rung the bell for tea. Lucy had been spending the afternoon with Mrs. Speck, and Hubert had now gone to fetch her home.

“Good gracious, Kate, can’t you be quiet!” exclaimed Miss Monk, as the child in her gambols sprang upon the sofa, upsetting the book and its reader’s temper. “Go away: you are treading on my flounces. Aunt Emma, why do you persist in having this tiresome little reptile with us after dinner?”

“Because your father will not let her be sent to the nursery,” said Mrs. Carradyne.

“Did you ever know a child like her?”

“She is only as her mother was; as you were, Eliza—always rebellious. Kate, sit down to the piano and play one of your pretty tunes.”

“I won’t,” responded Kate. “Play yourself, Aunt Emma.”

Dashing through the open glass doors, Kate began tossing a ball on the broad gravel walk below the terrace. Mrs. Carradyne cautioned her not to break the windows, and turned to the tea-table.

“Don’t make the tea yet, Aunt Emma,” interrupted Miss Monk, in tones that were quite like a command. “Mr. Grame is coming, and he won’t care for cold tea.”

Mrs. Carradyne returned to her seat. She thought the opportunity had come to say something to her niece which she had been wanting to say.

“You invited Mr. Grame, Eliza?”

“I did,” said Eliza, looking defiance.

“My dear,” resumed Mrs. Carradyne with some hesitation, “forgive me if I offer you a word of advice. You have no mother; I pray you to listen to me in her stead. You must change your line of behaviour to Mr. Grame.”

Eliza’s dark face turned red and haughty. “I do not understand you, Aunt Emma.”

“Nay, I think you do understand me, my dear. You have incautiously allowed yourself to fall into—into an undesirable liking for Mr. Grame. An unseemly liking, Eliza.”

“Unseemly!”

“Yes; because it has not been sought. Cannot you see, Eliza, how he instinctively recedes from it? how he would repel it were he less the gentleman than he is? Child, I shrink from saying these things to you, but it is needful. You have good sense, Eliza, keen discernment, and you might see for yourself that it is not to you Mr. Grame’s love is given—or ever will be.”

For once in her life Eliza Monk allowed herself to betray agitation. She opened her trembling lips to speak, but closed them again.

“A moment yet, Eliza. Let us suppose, for argument’s sake, that Mr. Grame loved you; that he wished to marry you; you know, my dear, how utterly useless it would be. Your father would not suffer it.”

“Mr. Grame is of gentle descent; my father is attached to him,” disputed Eliza.

“But Mr. Grame has nothing but his living—a hundred and sixty pounds a year; you must make a match in accordance with your own position. It would be Katherine’s trouble, Katherine’s rebellion over again. But this was mentioned for argument’s sake only; Mr. Grame will never sue for anything of the kind; and I must beg of you, my dear, to put all idea of it away, and to change your manner towards him.”

“Perhaps you fancy he may wish to sue for Lucy!” cried Eliza, in fierce resentment.

“That is a great deal more likely than the other. And the difficulties in her case would not be so great.”

“And pray why, Aunt Emma?”

“Because, my dear, I should not resent it as your father would. I am not so ambitious for her as he is for you.”

“A fine settlement for her—Robert Grame and his hundred–”

“Who is taking my name in vain?” cried a pleasant voice from the open window; and Robert Grame entered.

“I was,” said Eliza readily; her tone changing like magic to sweet suavity, her face putting on its best charm. “About to remark that the Reverend Robert Grame has a hundred faults. Aunt Emma agrees with me.”

He laughed lightly, regarding it as pleasantry, and inquired for Hubert.

Eliza stepped out on the terrace when tea was over, talking to Mr. Grame; they began to pace it slowly together. Kate and her ball sported on the gravel walk beneath. It was a warm, serene evening, the silver moon shining, the evening star just appearing in the clear blue sky.

“Lucy being away, you cannot enjoy your usual flirtation with her,” remarked Miss Monk, in a light tone.

But he did not take it lightly. Rarely had his voice been more serious than when he answered: “I beg your pardon. I do not flirt—I have never flirted with Miss Carradyne.”

“No! It has looked like it.”

Mr. Grame remained silent. “I hope not,” he said at last. “I did not intend—I did not think. However, I must mend my manners,” he added more gaily. “To flirt at all would ill become my sacred calling. And Lucy Carradyne is superior to any such trifling.”

Her pulses were coursing on to fever heat. With her whole heart she loved Robert Grame: and the secret preference he had unconsciously betrayed for Lucy had served to turn her later days to bitterness.

“Possibly you mean something more serious,” said Eliza, compressing her lips.

“If I mean anything, I should certainly mean it seriously,” replied the young clergyman, his face blushing as he made the avowal. “But I may not. I have been reflecting much latterly, and I see I may not. If my income were good it might be a different matter. But it is not; and marriage for me must be out of the question.”

“With a portionless girl, yes. Robert Grame,” she went on rapidly with impassioned earnestness, “when you marry, it must be with someone who can help you; whose income will compensate for the deficiency of yours. Look around you well: there may be some young ladies rich in the world’s wealth, even in Church Leet, who will forget your want of fortune for your own sake.”

Did he misunderstand her? It was hardly possible. She had a large fortune; Lucy none. But he answered as though he comprehended not. It may be that he deemed it best to set her ill-regulated hopes at rest for ever.

“One can hardly suppose a temptation of that kind would fall in the way of an obscure individual like myself. If it did, I could only reject it. I should not marry for money. I shall never marry where I do not love.”

They had halted near one of the terrace seats. On it lay a toy of Kate’s, a little wooden “box of bells.” Mechanically, her mind far away, Eliza took it up and began, still mechanically, turning the wire which set the bells playing with a soft but not unpleasant jingle.

“You love Lucy Carradyne!” she whispered.

“I fear I do,” he answered. “Though I have struggled against the conviction.”

A sudden crash startled them; shivers of glass fell before their feet; fit accompaniment to the shattered hopes of one who stood there. Kate Dancox, aiming at Mr. Grame’s hat, had sent her ball through the window. He leaped away to catch the culprit, and Eliza Monk sat down on the bench, all gladness gone out of her. Her love-dream had turned out to be a snare and a delusion.

“Who did that?”

Captain Monk, frightened from his after-dinner nap by the crash, came forth in anger. Kate got a box on the ear, and was sent to bed howling.

“You should send her to school, papa.”

“And I will,” declared the Captain. “She startled me out of a sleep. Out of a dream, too. And it is not often I dream. I thought I was hearing the chimes again.”

“Chimes which I have not yet been fortunate enough to hear at all,” said Mr. Grame with a smile. Eliza recalled the sound of the bells she had set in motion, and thought it must have reached her father in his sleep.

“By George, no! You shall, though, Grame. They shall ring the new year in when it comes.”

“Aunt Emma won’t like that,” laughingly commented Eliza. She was trying to be gay and careless before Robert Grame.

“Aunt Emma may dislike it!” retorted the Captain. “She has picked up some ridiculously absurd notion, Grame, that the bells bring ill-luck when they are heard. Women are so foolishly superstitious.”

“That must be a very far-fetched superstition,” said the parson.

“One might as well believe in witches,” mocked the Captain. “I have given in to her fancies for some years, not to cross her, and allowed the bells to be silent: she’s a good woman on the whole; but be hanged if I will any longer. On the last day of this year, Grame, you shall hear the chimes.”

How it came about nobody exactly knew, unless it was through Hubert, but matters were smoothed for the parson and Lucy.

Mrs. Carradyne knew his worth, and she saw that they were as much in love with one another as ever could be Hodge and Joan. She liked the idea of Lucy being settled near her—and the vicarage, large and handsome, could have its unused rooms opened and furnished. Mr. Grame honestly avowed that he should have asked for Lucy before, but for his poverty; he supposed that Lucy was poor also.