The wickedness of the nurse was confirmed in my mother's eyes when
the doom on the first-born of the Winslows was fulfilled, and the
poor little baby, Clarence, succumbed to a cold on the chest caught
while his nurse was gossiping with a guardsman.

He was buried in London. 'It was better for Selina to get those
things over as quickly as possible,' said Griff; but Clarence saw
that he suffered much more than his wife would let him show to her.
'It is so bad for him to dwell on it,' she said. 'You see. I never
let myself give way.'

And she was soon going out, nearly as usual, till their one other
infant came to open its eyes only for a few hours on this
troublesome world, and owe its baptism to Clarence's exertions. My
mother, who was in London just after, attending on the good old
Admiral's last illness, was greatly grieved and disgusted with all
she heard and saw of the young pair, and that was not much. She
felt their disregard of her uncle as heartless, or rather as
insulting, on Selina's part, and weak on Griff's; and on all sides
she heard of their reckless extravagance, which made her forebode
the worst.

All these disappointments much diminished my father's pleasure and
interest in his inheritance. He had little heart to build and
improve, when his eldest son's wife made no secret of her hatred to
the place, or to begin undertakings only to be neglected by those
who came after; and thus several favourite schemes were dropped, or
prevented by Griffith's applications for advances.

At last there was a crisis. At the end of the second season after
their visit to us, Clarence sent a hasty note, begging my father to
join him in averting an execution in Griffith's house. I cannot
record the particulars, for just at that time I had a long low
fever, and did not touch my diary for many weeks; nor indeed did I
know much about the circumstances, since my good nurses withheld as
much as possible, and would not let me talk about what they believed
to make me worse. Nor can I find any letters about it. I believe
they were all made away with long ago, and thus I only know that my
father hurried up to town, remained for a fortnight, and came back
looking ten years older. The house in London had been given up, and
he had offered a vacant one of our own, near home, to Griff to
retrench in, but Selina would not hear of it, insisting on going
abroad.

This was a great grief to him and to us all. There was only one
side of our lives that was not saddened. Our old incumbent had died
about six months after the Fordyces had gone, and Mr. Henderson had
gladly accepted the living where the parsonage had been built. The
lady to whom he had been so long engaged was a great acquisition.
Her home had been at Oxford; and she was as thoroughly imbued with
the spirit that there prevailed as was the Hillside curate. She
talked to us of Littlemore, and of the sermons there and at St.
Mary's, and Emily and I shared to the full her hero-worship. It was
the nearest compensation my sister had had for the loss of Ellen,
with this difference, that Mrs. Henderson was older, had read more,
and had conversed thoughtfully with some of the leading spirits in
religious thought, so that she opened a new world to us.

People would hardly believe in our eagerness and enthusiasm over the
revelations of church doctrine; how we debated, consulted our books,
and corresponded with Clarence over what now seems so trite; how we
viewed the British Critic and Tracts for the Times as our oracles,
and worried the poor Wattlesea bookseller to get them for us at the
first possible moment.

Church restoration was setting in. Henderson had always objected to
christening from a slop-basin on the altar, and had routed out a
dilapidated font; and now one, which was termed by the country paper
chaste and elegant, was by united efforts, in which Clarence had the
lion's share, presented in time for the christening of the first
child at the Parsonage. It is that which was sent off to the
Mission Chapel as a blot on the rest of Earlscombe Church. Yet what
an achievement it was deemed at the time!

The same may be said of most of our doings at that era. We effected
them gradually, and have ever since been undoing them, as our
architectural and ecclesiastical perceptions have advanced. I
wonder how the next generation will deal with our alabaster reredos
and our stained windows, with which we are all as well pleased as we
were fifty years ago with the plain red cross with a target-like
arrangement above and below it in the east window, or as poor
Margaret may have been with her livery altar-cloth. Indeed, it
seems to me that we got more delight out of our very imperfect work,
designed by ourselves and sent to Clarence to be executed by men in
back streets in London, costing an immensity of trouble, than can be
had now by simply choosing out of a book of figures of cut and dried
articles.

What an enthusiastic description Clarence sent of the illuminated
commandments in the new Church of St. Katharine in the Regent's
Park! How Emily and I gloated over the imitation of them when we
replaced the hideous old tables, and how exquisite we thought the
initial I, which irreverent youngsters have likened, with some
justice, to an enormous overfed caterpillar, enwreathed with red and
green cabbage leaves!

My mother was startled at these innovations; but my father, who had
kept abreast with the thought of the day, owned to the doctrines as
chiming in with his unbroken belief, and transferred to the
improvements in the church the interest which he had lost in the
estate. The farmers had given up their distrust of him, and
accepted him loyally as friend and landlord, submitting to the
reseating of the church, and only growling moderately at decorations
that cost them nothing. Daily service began as soon as Henderson
was his own master, and was better attended than it is now; for the
old people to whom it was a novelty took up the habit more freely
than their successors, to whom the bell has been familiar through
their days of toil. We were too far off to be constant attendants;
but evensong made an object for our airings, and my father's head,
now quite white, was often seen there. He felt it a great relief
amid the cares of his later years.

Perhaps it was with a view to him that Mr. Castleford arranged that
Clarence should become manager for the firm at Bristol, with a good
salary. The Robsons would not take a fresh lodger - they were
getting too old for fresh beginnings; but they kept their rooms
ready for him, whenever he had to be in town, and Gooch found him a
trustworthy widow as housekeeper. He took a little cottage at
Clifton, availing himself of the coach to spend his Sundays with us;
and it was an acknowledged joy to every one that I should drive to
meet him every Saturday afternoon at the Carpenter's Arms, and bring
him home to be my father's aid in all his business, and a most
valuable help in Sunday parish work, in which he had an amount of
experience which astonished us.

What would have become of the singing without him? The first hint
against the remarkable anthems had long ago alienated our tuneful
choir placed on high, and they had deserted en masse. Then Emily
and the schoolmistress had toiled at the school children, whose thin
little pipes and provincialisms were a painful infliction, till Mrs.
Henderson, backed by Clarence, worked up a few promising men's
voices to support them. We thought everything but the New and Old
Versions smacked of dissent, except the hymns at the end of the
Prayer-book, though we did not go as far as Chapman, who told Emily
he understood as how all the tunes was tried over in Doctor's
Commons afore they were sent out, and it was not 'liable' to change
them. One of Clarence's amusements in his lonely life had been the
acquisition of a knowledge of music, and he had a really good voice;
while his adherence to our choir encouraged other young men of the
farmer and artisan class to join us. Choir, however, did not mean
surplices and cassocks, but a collection of our best voices, male
and female, in the gallery.

Martyn began to be a great help when at home, never having wavered
in his purpose of becoming a clergyman. On going to Oxford, he
became imbued with the influences that made Alma Mater the focus of
the religious life and progress of that generation which is now the
elder one. There might in some be unreality, in others
extravagance, in others mere imitation; but there was a truly great
work on the minds of the young men of that era - a work which has
stood the test of time, made saints and martyrs, and sown the seed
whereof we have witnessed a goodly growth, in spite of cruel shocks
and disappointments, fightings within and fears without, slanders
and follies to provoke them, such as we can now afford to laugh
over. With Martyn, rubrical or extra-rubrical observances were the
outlet of the exuberance of youth, as chivalry and romance had been
to us; and on Frank Fordyce's visits, it was delightful to find that
he too was in the full swing of these ideas and habits, partly from
his own convictions, partly from his parish needs, and partly
carried along by curates fresh from Oxford.

In the first of his summer vacations Martyn joined a reading party,
with a tutor of the same calibre, and assured them that if they took
up their quarters in a farmhouse not many miles by the map from
Beachharbour, they would have access to unlimited services, with the
extraordinary luxury of a surpliced choir, and intercourse with
congenial spirits, which to him meant the Fordyces.

On arriving, however, the bay proved to be so rocky and dangerous
that there was no boating across it, as he had confidently expected.
The farm depended on a market town in the opposite direction, and
though the lights of Beachharbour could be seen at night, there was
no way thither except by a six-miles walk along a cliff path, with a
considerable detour in order to reach a bridge and cross the rapid
river which was an element of danger in the bay, on the north side
of the promontory which sheltered the harbour to the south.

So when Martyn started as pioneer on the morning before the others
arrived, he descended into Beachharbour later than he intended, but
still he was in time to meet Anne Fordyce, a tall, bright-faced girl
of fourteen, taking her after-lessons turn on the parade with a
governess, who looked amazed as the two met, holding out both hands
to one another, with eager joy and welcome.

It was not the same when Anne flew into the Vicarage with the
rapturous announcement, 'Here's Martyn!' The vicar was gone to a
clerical meeting, and Mrs. Fordyce said nothing about staying to see
him. The luncheon was a necessity, but with quiet courtesy Martyn
was made to understand that he was regarded as practically out of
reach, and 'Oh, mamma, he could come and sleep,' was nipped in the
utterance by 'Martyn is busy with his studies; we must not disturb
him.' This was a sufficient intimation that Mrs. Fordyce did not
intend to have the pupils dropping in on her continually, and making
her house their resort; and while Martyn was digesting the rebuff,
the governess carried Anne off to prepare for a music lesson, and
her mother gave no encouragement to lingering or repeating the
visit.

Still Martyn, on his way homewards, based many hopes on the return
of Mr. Fordyce; but all that ensued was, three weeks later, a note
regretting the not having been able to call, and inviting the whole
party to a great school-feast on the anniversary of the dedication
of the first of the numerous new churches of Beachharbour. There
was no want of cordiality on that occasion, but time was lacking for
anything beyond greetings and fleeting exchanges of words. Parson
Frank tried to talk to Martyn, bemoaned the not seeing more of him,
declared his intentions of coming to the farm, began an invitation,
but was called off a hundred ways; and Anne was rushing about with
all the children of the place, gentle and simple, on her hands.
Whenever Martyn tried to help her, he was called off some other way,
and engaged at last in the hopeless task of teaching cricket where
these fisher boys had never heard of it.

That was all he saw of our old friends, and he was much hurt by such
ingratitude. So were we all, and though we soon acquitted the head
of the family of more than the forgetfulness of over occupation, the
soreness at his wife's coldness was not so soon passed over. Yet
from her own point of view, poor woman, she might be excused for a
panic lest her second daughter might go the way of the first.


CHAPTER XXXVII - OUTWARD BOUND


'As slow our ship her foamy track
Against the wind was cleaving,
Her trembling pennant still looked back
To the dear isle 'twas leaving.
So loath we part from all we love,
From all the links that bind us,
So turn our hearts as on we rove
To those we've left behind us.'

T. MOORE.

The first time I saw Clarence's menage was in that same summer of
poor Martyn's repulse. My father had come in for a small property
in his original county of Shropshire, and this led to his setting
forth with my mother to make necessary arrangements, and then to pay
visits to old friends; leaving Emily and me to be guests to our
brother at Clifton.

We told them it was their harvest honeymoon, and it was funny to see
how they enjoyed the scheme when they had once made up their minds
to it, and our share in the project was equally new and charming,
for Emily and I, though both some way on in our twenties, were still
in many respects home children, nor had I ever been out on a visit
on my own account. The yellow chariot began by conveying Emily and
me to our destination.

Clifton has grown considerably since those days, and terraces have
swallowed up the site of what the post-office knew as Prospect
Cottage, but we were apt to term the doll's house, for, as Emily
said, our visit there had something the same effect as a picnic or
tea drinking at little Anne's famous baby house. In like manner, it
was tiny, square, with one sash-window on each side of the door, but
it was nearly covered with creepers, odds and ends which Clarence
brought from home, and induced to flourish and take root better than
their parent stocks. In his nursery days his precision had given
him the name of 'the old bachelor,' and he had all a sailor's
tidiness. Even his black cat and brown spaniel each had its
peculiar basket and mat, and had been taught never to transgress
their bounds or interfere with one another; and the effect of his
parlour, embellished as it was in our honour, was delightful. The
outlook was across the beautiful ravine, into the wooded slopes on
the further side, and, on the other side, down the widening cleft to
that giddy marvel, the suspension bridge, with vessels passing under
it, and the expanse beyond.

Most entirely we enjoyed ourselves, making merry over Clarence's
housekeeping, employing ourselves after our wonted semi-student,
semi-artist fashion in the morning; and, when our host came home
from business, starting on country expeditions, taking a carriage
whenever the distance exceeded Emily's powers of walking beside my
chair; sketching, botanising, or investigating church architecture,
our newest hobby. I sketched, and the other two rambled about,
measuring and filling up archaeological papers, with details of
orientation, style, and all the rest, deploring barbarisms and
dilapidations, making curious and delightful discoveries, pitying
those who thought the Dun Cow's rib and Chatterton's loft the most
interesting features of St. Mary's Redcliff, and above all rubbing
brasses with heel ball, and hanging up their grim effigies wherever
there was a vacant space on the walls of our doll's house.

And though we grumbled when Clarence was detained at the office
later than we expected, this was qualified by pride at feeling his
importance there as a man in authority. It was, however, with much
dismay and some inhospitality that we learnt that a young man
belonging to the office - in fact, Mr. Frith's great-nephew - was
coming to sail for Canton in one of the vessels belonging to the
firm, and would have to be 'looked after.' He could not be asked to
sleep at Prospect Cottage, for Emily had the only spare bedchamber,
and Clarence had squeezed himself into a queer little dressing
closet to give me his room; but the housekeeper (a treasure found by
Gooch) secured an apartment in the next house, and we were to act
hosts, much against our will. Clarence had barely seen the youth,
who had been employed in the office at Liverpool, living with his
mother, who was in ill-health and had died in the last spring. The
only time of seeing him, he had seemed to be a very shy raw lad;
but, 'poor fellow, we can make the best of him,' was the sentiment;
'it is only for one night.' However, we were dismayed when, as
Emily was in the crisis of washing-in a sky, it was announced that a
gentleman was asking for Mr. Winslow. Churlishness bade us despatch
him to the office, but humanity prevailed to invite him previously
to share our luncheon. Yet we doubted whether it had not been a
cruel mercy when he entered, evidently unprepared to stumble on a
young lady and a deformed man, and stammering piteously as he hoped
there was no mistake - Mr. Winslow - Prospect, etc.

Emily explained, frustrating his desire to flee at once to the
office, and pointing out his lodging, close at hand, whence he was
invited to return in a few minutes to the meal.

We had time for some amiable exclamations, 'The oaf!' 'What a
bore!' 'He has spoilt my sky!' 'I shan't finish this to-day!'
'Shall we order a carriage and take him to the office; we can't have
him on our hands all the afternoon?' 'And we might get the new
number of Nicholas Nickleby.'

N.B. - Perhaps it was Oliver Twist or The Old Curiosity Shop - I am
not certain which was the current excitement just then; but I am
quite sure it was Mrs. Nickleby who first disclosed to us that our
guest had a splendid pair of dark eyes. Hitherto he had kept them
averted in the studious manner I have often noticed in persons who
did not wish to excite suspicion of staring at my peculiarities; but
that lady's feelings when her neighbour's legs came down her chimney
were too much for his self-consciousness, and he gave a glance that
disclosed dark liquid depths, sparkling with mirth. He was one
number in advance of us, and could enlighten us on the next stage in
the coming story; and this went far to reconcile us to the invasion,
and to restore him to the proper use of his legs and arms - and very
shapely limbs they were, for he was a slim, well-made fellow, with a
dark gipsy complexion, and intelligent, honest face, altogether
better than we expected.

Yet we could have groaned when in the evening, Clarence brought him
back with tidings that something had gone wrong with the ship. If I
tried to explain, I might be twitted with,


'The bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes.'


But of course Clarence knew all about it, and he thought it unlikely
that the vessel would be in sailing condition for a week at soonest.
Great was our dismay! Getting through one evening by the help of
walking and then singing was one thing, having the heart of our
visit consumed by an interloper was another; though Clarence
undertook to take him to the office and find some occupation for him
that might keep him out of our way. But it was Clarence's leisure
hours that we begrudged; though truly no one could be meeker than
this unlucky Lawrence Frith, nor more conscious of being an
insufferable burthen. I even detected a tear in his eye when
Clarence and Emily were singing 'Sweet Home.'

'Do you know,' said Clarence, on the second evening, when his guest
had gone to dress for dinner, 'I am very sorry for that poor lad.
It is only six weeks since he lost his mother, and he has not a soul
to care for him, either here or where he is going. I had fancied
the family were under a cloud, but I find it was only that old Frith
quarrelled with the father for taking Holy Orders instead of going
into our house. Probably there was some imprudence; for the poor
man died a curate and left no provision for his family. The only
help the old man would give was to take the boy into the office at
Liverpool, stopping his education just as he was old enough to care
about it. There were a delicate mother and two sisters then, but
they are all gone now; scarlet fever carried off the daughters, and
Mrs. Frith never was well again. He seems to have spent his time in
waiting on her when off duty, and to have made no friends except one
or two contemporaries of hers; and his only belongings are old Frith
and Mrs. Stevens, who are packing him off to Canton without caring a
rap what becomes of him. I know what Mrs. Stevens is at; she comes
up to town much oftener now, and has got her husband's nephew into
the office, and is trying to get everything for him; and that's the
reason she wants to keep up the old feud, and send this poor
Lawrence off to the ends of the earth.'

'Can't you do anything for him?' asked Emily. 'I thought Mr. Frith
did attend to you.'

Clarence laughed. 'I know that Mrs. Stevens hates me like poison;
but that is the only reason I have for supposing I might have any
influence.'

'And can't you speak to Mr. Castleford?'

'Set him to interfere about old Frith's relations! He would know
better! Besides, the fellow is too old to get into any other line -
four-and-twenty he says, though he does not look it; and he is as
innocent as a baby, indifferent just now to what becomes of him, or
whither he goes; it is all the same to him, he says; there is no one
to care for him anywhere, and I think he is best pleased to go where
it is all new. And there, you see, the poor lad will be left to
drift to destruction - mother's darling that he has been - just for
want of some human being to care about him, and hinder his getting
heartless and reckless!'

Clarence's voice trembled, and Emily had tears in her eyes as she
asked if absolutely nothing could be done for him. Clarence meant
to write to Mr. Castleford, who would no doubt beg the chaplain at
the station to show the young man some kindness; also, perhaps, to
the resident partner, whom Clarence had looked at once over his
desk, but in his rawest and most depressed days. The only clerk out
there, whom he knew, would, he thought, be no element of safety, and
would not like the youth the better either for bringing his
recommendation or bearing old Frith's name.

We were considerably softened towards our guest, though the next
time Emily came on him he was standing in the hall, transfixed in
contemplation of her greatest achievement in brass-rubbing, a severe
and sable knight with the most curly of nostrils, the stiffest and
straightest of mouths, hair straight on his brows, pointed toes
joined together below, and fingers touching over his breast. There
he hung in triumph just within the front door, fluttering and
swaying a little on his pins whenever a draught came in; and there
stood Lawrence Frith, freshly aware of him, and unable to repress
the exclamation, 'I say! isn't he a guy?'

'Sir Guy de Warrenne,' began Emily composedly; 'don't you see his
coat of arms? "chequy argent and azure."'

'Does your brother keep him there to scare away the tramps?'

Emily's countenance was a study.

The subject of brasses was unfolded to Lawrence Frith, and before
the end of the week he had spent an entire day on his hands and
knees, scrubbing away with the waxy black compound at a figure in
the Cathedral - the office-work, as we declared, which Clarence gave
him to do. In fact he became so thoroughly infected that it was a
pity that he was going where there would be no exercise in
ecclesiology - rather the reverse. Embarrassment on his side, and
hostility on ours, may be said to have vanished under the influence
of Sir Guy de Warrenne's austere countenance. The youth seemed to
regard 'Mr. Winslow' in the light of a father, and to accept us as
kindly beings. He ceased to contort his limbs in our awful
presence, looked at me like as an ordinary person, and even ventured
on giving me an arm. He listened with unfeigned pleasure to our
music, perilled his neck on St. Vincent's rocks in search of plants,
and by and by took to hanging back with Emily, while Clarence walked
on with me, to talk to her out of his full heart about his mother