Trevlyn Hold. Henry Wood
to George.
"And Mrs. Ryle, sir—how does she bear it?"
"She bears it very well, Mark," answered George, as the tears rushed to his eyes unbidden. The old man marked them.
"There's one comfort for ye, Master George," he said, in low tones: "that he has took all his neighbours' sorrow with him. And as much couldn't be said if every gentleman round about here was cut off by death."
The significant tone was not needed to tell George that he alluded to Mr. Chattaway. The master of Trevlyn Hold was, in fact, no greater favourite with old Canham than he was with George Ryle.
"Mind how you get in, Master Rupert, so they don't fall upon you," whispered Ann Canham, as she held open the lodge door.
"I'll mind," was the boy's answer. "Not that I should care much if they did," he added. "I am getting tired of it."
She stood and watched them up the dark walk until a turn in the road hid them from view, and then closed the door. "If they don't take to treat him kinder, I misdoubt me but he'll do something desperate, as the dead-and-gone heir, Rupert, did," she remarked, sitting down near her father.
"Like enough," was the old man's reply, taking up his pipe again. "He has the true Trevlyn temper, have young Rupert."
"Maude," began Rupert, as they wound their way up the dark avenue, "don't they know you came out?"
"They would not have let me come if they had known it," replied Maude. "I have been wanting to go down all day, but Aunt Diana and Octave kept me in. I begged to go down last night when Bill Webb brought the news; and they were angry with me."
"Do you know what I should have done in Chattaway's place, George?" cried the boy, impulsively. "I should have loaded my gun the minute I heard of it, and shot the beast between the eyes. Chattaway would, if he were half a man."
"It is of no use talking of it, Rupert," answered George, in sadly subdued tones. "That would not mend the evil."
"Only fancy their having this rout to-night, while Mr. Ryle is lying dead!" indignantly resumed Rupert. "Aunt Edith ought to have interfered for once, and stopped it."
"Aunt Edith did interfere," spoke up Maude. "She said it must be put off. But Octave would not hear of it, and Miss Diana said Mr. Ryle was no real rela–"
Maude dropped her voice. They were now in view of the house and its lighted windows; and some one, probably hearing their footsteps, came bearing down upon them with a fleet step. It was Cris Chattaway. Rupert stole into the trees, and disappeared: Maude, holding George's arm, bore bravely on, and met him.
"Where have you been, Maude? The house has been searched for you. What brings you here?" he roughly added to George.
"I came because I chose to come," was George's answer.
"None of your insolence," returned Cris. "We don't want you here to-night. Just be off from this."
Was Cris Chattaway's motive a good one, under his rudeness? Did he feel ashamed of the gaiety going on, whilst Mr. Ryle, his uncle by marriage, was lying dead, under circumstances so unhappy? Was he anxious to conceal the unseemly proceeding from George? Perhaps so.
"I shall go back when I have taken Maude to the hall-door," said George. "Not before."
Anything that might have been said further by Cris, was interrupted by the appearance of Miss Trevlyn. She was standing on the steps.
"Where have you been, Maude?"
"To Trevlyn Farm," was Maude's truthful answer. "You would not let me go during the day, so I have been now. It seemed to me that I must see him before he was put underground."
"See him!" cried Miss Trevlyn.
"Yes. It was all I went for. I did not see my aunt. George, thank you for bringing me home," she continued, stepping in. "Good-night. I would have given all I possess for it never to have happened."
She burst into a flood of tears as she spoke—the result, no doubt, of her previous fright and excitement, as well as her sorrow for Mr. Ryle's unhappy fate. George wrung her hand, and lifted his hat to Miss Trevlyn as he turned away.
But ere he had well plunged into the dark avenue, there came swift and stealthy steps behind him. A soft hand was laid upon him, and a soft voice spoke, broken by tears:
"Oh, George, I am so sorry! I have felt all day as if it would almost be my death. I think I could have given my own life to save his."
"I know, I know! I know how you will feel it," replied George, utterly unmanned by the true and unexpected sympathy.
It was Mrs. Chattaway.
CHAPTER VI
THE ROMANCE OF TREVLYN HOLD
It is impossible to go on without a word of retrospect. The Ryles, gentlemen by a long line of ancestry, had once been rich men, but they were open-handed and heedless, and in the time of George's grandfather, the farm (not called the farm then) passed into the possession of the Trevlyns of the Hold, who had a mortgage on it. They named it Trevlyn Farm, and Mr. Ryle and his son remained on as tenants where they had once been owners.
After old Mr. Ryle's death, his son married the daughter of the curate of Barbrook, the Reverend George Berkeley, familiarly known as Parson Berkeley. In point of fact, the parish knew no other pastor, for its Rector was an absentee. Mary Berkeley was an only child. She had been petted, and physicked, and nursed, after the manner of only children, and grew up sickly as a matter of course. A delicate, beautiful girl in appearance, but not strong. People (who are always fond, you know, of settling everybody else's business for them) deemed that she made a poor match in marrying Thomas Ryle. It was whispered, however, that he himself might have made a greater match, had he chosen—no other than Squire Trevlyn's eldest daughter. There was not so handsome, so attractive a man in all the country round as Thomas Ryle.
Soon after the marriage, Parson Berkeley died—to the intense grief of his daughter, Mrs. Ryle. He was succeeded in the curacy and parsonage by a young clergyman just in priest's orders, the Reverend Shafto Dean. A well-meaning man, but opinionated and self-sufficient in the highest degree, and before he had been one month at the parsonage, he and Squire Trevlyn were at issue. Mr. Dean wished to introduce certain new fashions and customs into the church and parish; Squire Trevlyn held to the old. Proud, haughty, overbearing, but honourable and generous, Squire Trevlyn had known no master, no opposer; he was lord of the neighbourhood, and was bowed down to accordingly. Mr. Dean would not give way, the Squire would not give way; and the little seed of dissension grew and spread. Obstinacy begets obstinacy. That which a slight yielding on either side, a little mutual good-feeling, might have removed at first, became at length a terrible breach, the talk of a county.
Meanwhile Thomas Ryle's fair young wife died, leaving an infant boy—George. In spite of her husband's loving care, in spite of having been shielded from all work and management, so necessary on a farm, she died. Nora Dickson, a humble relative of the Ryle family, who had been partially brought up on the farm, was housekeeper and manager. She saved all trouble to young Mrs. Ryle: but she could not save her life.
The past history of Trevlyn Hold was a romance in itself. Squire Trevlyn had five children: Rupert, Maude, Joseph, Edith and Diana. Rupert, Maude and Diana were imperious as their father; Joseph and Edith were mild, yielding, and gentle, as had been their mother. Rupert was of course regarded as the heir: but the property was not entailed. An ancestor of Squire Trevlyn's coming from some distant part—it was said Cornwall—bought it and settled down upon it. There was not a great deal of grass land on the estate, but the coal-mines in the distance made it very valuable. Of all his children, Rupert, the eldest, was the Squire's favourite: but poor Rupert did not live to come into the estate. He had inherited the fits of passion characteristic of the Trevlyns; was of a thoughtless, impetuous nature; and he fell into trouble and ran away from his country. He embarked for a distant port, which he did not live to reach. And Joseph became the heir.
Very different, he, from his brother Rupert. Gentle and yielding, like his sister Edith, the Squire half despised him. The Squire would have preferred him passionate, haughty, and overbearing—a true Trevlyn. But the Squire