The New Abelard. Robert Williams Buchanan
here you are!’ ejaculated this individual. ‘I have been hunting for you up and down.’
He was a man under thirty, and looking very little over twenty, though his face showed little of the brightness and candour of early manhood. His hair was cropped close and he was clean-shaven; his eyes were yellowish and large, of an expression so fixed and peculiar as to have been compared by irreverent friends to ‘hard-boiled eggs’; his forehead was low, his jaw coarse and determined. With regard to his dress, it was of the description known as horsey; short coat and tight-fitting trousers of light tweed, a low-crowned hat of the same material, white neckcloth fastened by a horseshoe pin.
This was George Craik, son of Sir George Craik, Bart., of Craik Castle, in the neighbourhood, and Alma’s cousin on her father’s side.
Alma greeted him with a nod, while he shook hands with her companion.
‘Did you ride over, George?’ she inquired.
‘Yes; I put my nag up at the George, and walked up to the Larches. Not finding you at home, I strolled down to the vicarage, thinking to find you there. But old Bradley is not at home; so I suppose there was no attraction to take you.’
The young lady’s cheek flushed, and she looked at her relation, not too amicably.
‘Old Bradley, as you call him (though he is about your own age, I suppose), is away in London. Did you want to see him?’
George shrugged his shoulders, and struck at his boots irritably with his riding-whip.
‘I wanted to see you, as I told you. By the way, though, what’s this they’re telling me about Bradley and the Bishop? He’s come to the length of his tether at last, I suppose? Well, I always said he was no better than an atheist, and a confounded radical into the bargain.’
‘An atheist, I presume,’ returned the young lady superciliously, ‘is a person who does not believe in a Supreme Being. When you describe Mr. Bradley as one, you forget he is a minister of the Church of Christ.’
George Craik scowled, and then laughed contemptuously.
‘Of course you defend him!’ he cried. ‘You will tell me next, I dare say, that you share his opinions.’
‘When you explain to me what they are, I will inform you,’ responded Alma, moving slowly on, while George lounged after her, and Miss Combe listened in amused amazement.
‘It’s a scandal,’ proceeded the young man, ‘that a fellow like that should retain a living in the Church. Cripps tells me that his sermon last Sunday went slap in the face of the Bible. I myself have heard him say that some German fellow had proved the Gospels to be a tissue of falsehoods.’
Without directly answering this invective, Alma looked coldly round at her cousin over her shoulder. Her expression was not encouraging, and her manner showed a very natural irritation.
‘How amiable we are this morning!’ she exclaimed. ‘Pray, do you come all the way from Craik to give me a discussion on the whole duty of a Christian clergyman? Really, George, such attempts at edification have a curious effect, coming from you.’
The young man flushed scarlet, and winced nervously under his cousin’s too ardent contempt.
‘I don’t pretend to be a saint,’ he said, ‘but I know what I’m talking about. I call Bradley a renegade! It’s a mean thing, in my opinion, to take money for preaching opinions in which a man does not believe.’
‘Only just now you said that he preached heresy—or atheism—whatever you like to call it.’
‘Yes; and is paid for preaching the very reverse.’
Alma could no longer conceal her irritation.
‘Why should we discuss a topic you do not understand? Mr. Bradley is a gentleman whose aims are too high for the ordinary comprehension, that is all.’
‘Of course you think me a fool, and are polite enough to say so!’ persisted George. ‘Well, I should not mind so much if Bradley had not succeeded in infecting you with his pernicious opinions. He has done so, though you may deny it! Since he came to the neighbourhood, you have not been like the same girl. The fellow ought to be horsewhipped if he had his deserts.’
Alma stopped short, and looked the speaker in the face.
‘Be good enough to leave me—and come back when you are in a better temper.’
George gave a disagreeable laugh.
‘No; I’m coming to lunch with you.’
‘That you shall not, unless you promise to conduct yourself like a gentleman.’
‘Well, hang the parson—since you can’t bear him to be discussed. I didn’t come over to quarrel.’
‘You generally succeed in doing so, however.’
‘No fault of mine; you snap a fellow’s head off, when he wants to give you a bit of good advice. ‘There, there,’ he added, laughing again, but not cordially, ‘let us drop the subject. I want something to eat.’
Alma echoed the laugh, with about an equal amount of cordiality.
‘Now you are talking of what you do understand. Lunch will be served at two.’
As she spoke they were passing by the church gate, and saw, across the churchyard, with its long rank grass and tombstones stained with mossy slime, the old parish church of Fensea:—a quaint timeworn structure, with an arched and gargoyled entrance, Gothic windows, and a belfry of strange device. High up in the belfry, and on the boughs of the great ash-trees surrounding the burial acre, jackdaws were gathered, sleepily discussing the weather and their family affairs. A footpath, much overgrown with grass, crossed from the church porch to a door in the weather-beaten wall communicating with the adjacent vicarage—a large, dismal, old-fashioned residence, buried in gloomy foliage.
Miss Combe glanced at church and churchyard with the air of superior enlightenment which a Christian missionary might assume on approaching some temple of Buddha or Brahma. George, glancing over the wall, uttered an exclamation.
‘What’s the matter now?’ demanded Alma.
‘Brown’s blind mare grazing among the graves,’ said young Craik with righteous indignation. He was about to enlarge further on the delinquencies of the vicar, and the shameful condition of the parish, of which he had just discovered a fresh illustration, but, remembering his recent experience, he controlled himself and contented himself with throwing a stone at the animal, which was leisurely cropping the grass surrounding an ancient headstone. They walked on, and passed the front of the vicarage, which looked out through sombre ash-trees on the road. The place seemed dreary and desolate enough, despite a few flower-beds and a green lawn. The windows were mantled in dark ivy, which drooped in heavy clusters over the gloomy door.
Leaving the vicarage behind them, the three followed the country road for about a mile, when, passing through the gate of a pretty lodge, they entered an avenue of larch-trees leading up to the mansion to which they gave their name. Here all was bright and well kept, the grass swards cleanly swept and variegated with flower-beds, and leading on to shrubberies full of flowering trees. The house itself, an elegant modern structure, stood upon a slight eminence, and was reached by two marble terraces commanding a sunny view of the open fields and distant sea.
It may be well to explain here that the Larches, with a large extent of the surrounding property, belonged to Miss Alma Craik in her own right, the lady being an orphan and an only child. Her father, a rich railway contractor, had bought the property and built the house just before she was born. During her infancy her mother had died, and before she was of age her father too had joined the great majority; so that she found herself, at a very early age, the heiress to a large property, and with no relations in the world save her uncle, Sir George Craik, and his son. Sir George, who had been knighted on the completion of a great railway bridge considered a triumph of engineering skill,