Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  “It’s foul!” he is yelling. “He struck the man down! — he struck him foul! I don’t care a d — n! — he struck him down! I claim stakes for Sinfield! It’s all foul! I’ll fight him for double the money, I will, myself! — I’ll fight that chap myself if he’s the man! — I’ll fight him, double or quits; and Sinfield’s winner! — He struck foul! I’ll lay my oath to’t! Give up the money here; I’ll make ye!”

  While he is yelling, in the midst of a sort of scuffle, the men about him are threatening and bawling, “Whar gangst thou, dafy? — wilt tramp the lad’s feace!” and so forth.

  It was a full hour before Sinfield came to himself. In the mean time, Dick Hoggen proclaimed the Squire of Haworth winner of the stakes. William took his own, and said he would let off Sinfield, on condition. He would give him a cheque, payable in three months, adding £2 to it, provided that neither Sinfield nor Cowper appeared in the county for that time. If they did he would stop payment of the cheque at the bank.

  After much shrieking, threats, and bluster, the terms were accepted, Sinfield and Cowper having conferred for a minute apart; and the crestfallen partners, having by good-luck sold the chestnut, set forth on their march northward.

  CHAPTER XIX.

  LOOKING EASTWARD.

  THE battle was over between two and three o’clock. A thin little boy, dark and handsome, who, with great black eyes, had been watching the vicissitudes of the combat with silent interest, got quickly from the fair green so soon as the fight was ended, and ran, with a light foot, through the old town of Willarden, and away westward, towards Dardale Moss.

  William had left home in the gray of the dawn; and old Martha Gillyflower, talking at breakfast to her guest, said: —

  “Now, see, if here isn’t a cow?” She had whisked round the tea-leaves that remained in the bottom of her cup, and inverted it in her saucer, and was now reading futurity, after the manner of her kind, in the tracing thus made on the sides of her tea-cup. “A cow. Look here; isn’t there one horn, and there the other? — and its tail here? That’s what he’ll bring home, ye’ll find — a cow; and if he does, he mun find room for her in his study, for there’s none on the farm. He did the same at Crinkford — half-a-score sheep, without ever a word to Clinton, and more sheep at Haworth than Peter kenn’d what to do wi’.”

  The girl laughed. “Well, if he brings home a cow, it will be an odd day’s shootin’.”

  “Shootin’, child! The first time I heard of a gentleman shootin’ at a fair,” replied Martha.

  “Oh! the fair? What fair? — Willarden?” asked the girl, carelessly, but with a slight change of color.

  “Ay, Willarden. He’s not gane there to sell, sa it mun be to buy, I consayte; it will not be the gingerbread and peep-shows that taks him thiddher.”

  The girl laughed. “Some young lady — a sweetheart, mayhap,” said she.

  “Na — na. Willie’s nane o’ that sort; he’s too wise. Time enough to court when he’s thinkin’ to marry, and time enough to marry when he has meyar years o’er his pow, and meyar goud in his poke. He’ll no du a’ that lids. Na — na; he’ll no be thinkin’ o’ fetchin’ hame a marrow to Haworth this mony a year yet; en afoore ony sic like cattle comes hiddher to Haworth, I wish a’ad Martha may be far enough out o’ the way.”

  The girl talked on very merrily. She was in great spirits. But so it was, that when Martha was no longer near, she grew thoughtful and restless, and after a time walked down to the ruin that stands near the road to Willarden, and stood on that eminence looking towards it. It was too early yet for any one to return from the fair. The narrow old road was deserted. She sat there, looking for a long time. She sang sometimes little snatches of airs, wild and quaint, of which the world knows nothing. Then came intervals of silence, and then, in her low sweet voice, she would talk to the dog, of which she made a pet, as it sat beside her, and then a silent watch again.

  Then into the house die would run, and whistle to the bullfinch, or lend a hand in any work that was going on, and make a bit of fun for Mrs. Gillyflower.

  “Wi’ all your fun, thou’s not eatin’ a bit. Thou’s not well, lass?” asked old Martha, kindly.

  “Never better — only I was thinking, Mrs. Gillyflower; and where’s the good of thinking? Everything dies — birds, flowers, lads, and lasses — all, and sorrow itself dies at last; and so, ma’am, I say, let us not care too much for any, for ’tis only grief, at best; and if you like them well, and their liking dies first, where are ye? So keep your heart sure locked, and the key where none can find it, and your love won’t be stole away; and ye’ll have a merry mind, and careless days, and light sleep, and ye’ll die a good old woman. Shall I sing you the song of the little fiddler that died of love of Willie Faa’s big aunt, and was buried on the top of the hill in his fiddle-case?”

  So the strange girl sang this song, which affected from first to last a pedantic strain of philosophy, with a tune somewhat monotonous and severe, both of which, contrasted with the irresistibly absurd images and incidents of the tale, made old Mrs. Gillyflower’s fat sides shake with laughter.

  Away the girl ran again, before the laughter was half over, and was looking eastward once more from the same eminence — watching listlessly sometimes, and sometimes more anxiously, for the distant figure of the returning horseman.

  Had she once been satisfied that she saw him and that he was safe, she would have returned, and the preux chevalier would never have known that his return had been so watched for.

  Many restless toings-and-froings had there been.

  It is now within an hour of sunset, and she hears a whistle, and guesses who is coming. She advances. A little blackeyed boy comes running up the foad, that here winds with a picturesque irregularity, and he sees her and raises his hands. She beckons, in her cold lofty way, and in a moment more he has reached her side.

  He has a story to tell. It is related with wonderful gestures and volubility. She stands listening, with her hand extended. They are quite out of sight of the house.

  Out comes her little red purse, and she gives the boy some money. He has a word or two more to say. He is going, but she beckons him back again, and has more questions to ask — possibly the old ones over again.

  And now she waves him off, and away goes he; and she is alone, looking down on the grass beside her with a pale face.

  CHAPTER XX.

  THE NAME.

  THE girl returned to the house, and talked and laughed as usual. The fuss of preparation for the Squire’s return, with a keen appetite after his long ride, was over, and honest Martha was already predicting that the “darkening would come before Willie was heam,” and rehearsing the lecture she would give him if so it should be.

  The girl laughed. “Is he afraid of you, Mrs. Gillyflower?” asked she, suddenly grave again.

  “Why sud he, lass, so lang as he keeps gude hours and gude manners? But he kens weel eneugh he’s nobbut to tak’ care o’ himsel’, and Martha’s weel pleased.”

  “Wilful and wayward the young lads be— ‘taint easy ruling them, ma’am,” said her young guest, with the gravity of a sage. “I wonder how half o’ them ever lives to thirty year.”

  “Thirty year! — not they. If they wam’t looked after by wiser heads, there wad na be ane o’ them left at yan score and twea — wi’ couds en fevers, to say nowt of the faws, en clinks, en sizzupers they’re gettin’ ever an’ always.”

  The concluding items in old Martha’s catalogue sounded ominously in the girl’s ear, but she laughed again. After a little time, she left the kitchen unnoticed, and passed out of the hall-door.

  The renown of Lussha Sinfield was high as a master of the cudgel. She had heard the story of that day’s fight. A chance had given William Haworth the victory, but a deadly hand had struck him.

  Had not the same hand struck Tinkler Gordon, the Scot, what seemed but alight blow, and the Tinkler seemed never the worse for three whole days, and at the end of that time he sickened, and soon di
ed; and it was found that the tap of Sinfield’s skilful cudgel had broken the brawny Tinkler’s skull.

  In the meantime, William Haworth was riding homeward. The sun was just at the edge of the horizon, and the melancholy glory of evening tinted all the landscape.

  As he rode at a walk, the by-road there making a little turn, looking over his right shoulder toward the old house, whose chimneys, now not three hundred yards away, rose over the familiar thorn-trees and elms — upon his saddle, on the left side, a hand was laid, and, with a quick glance, he saw his beautiful guest looking up in his face.

  That look was radiant There was admiration, there was gratitude in it The Squire drew the bridle instantly, smiling down in return.

  I dare say she thought Lussha Sinfield about the most formidable champion on earth. In her proud face was beaming that sympathy with the heroic that makes the beauty of girls almost sublime.

  “Willie — Willie — oh Willie! — you’re hurt.”

  “Nothing,” he laughed.

  “All for me! I’ll never forget ye, Willie.”

  “I say it is nothing. Oh, how I wish it were! I wish I could lay down my life for you,” said this romantic Squire, whose chivalry was rising to a wild adoration in the light of her beauty.

  She was gazing up at him steadfastly, and speaking in her low sweet tones.

  “My man! And all for a poor lass!”

  “For my beautiful friend — my fairy-queen — my treasured guest!”

  “I’m a proud girl.” Suddenly there was a little sob, and a little gush of tears.

  Willie was by her side, and caught her hand in both his to his lips.

  “No — no, none o’ that, Willie,” she said gently, but in the old sad way that was not to be gainsaid. “I’ll see to your wound, Willie. I’ll cure it myself. We have our own way of curing everything. I will — but oh! — that’s nothing.”

  Willie laughed again, and said: —

  “It is nothing — the hurt is nothing; but— “in a changed tone he said— “but that you should think of me, and care -for me, ever so little, is more than all the world and more than life to me.”

  Gazing in his face, she repeated, as if to herself, with the same melancholy rapture, “My man — my man!”

  “If you trusted me better now, if you thought me ever so little worthier, just as a little sign that you do not quite distrust me, you said you would tell me, some time— “

  “My name? Oh yes! I will,” she said slowly and very gently. “A strange name you’ll think it. Euphan Curraple, that is it I would not tell it to another here.”

  “Euphan! It is a beautiful name! I know you ever so much better now, dear Euphan! Oh, Euphan! my only, only love!”

  “No — no, Willie; you don’t know me better, and you’re not to talk so. You gave me your word. You’re true-hearted — didn’t I say you were? — and you’ll keep your word. Get on your horse again, Willie, and no wild talk; but home, and I’ll follow the path.”

  “Well, Euphan, there’s a secret between us, isn’t there? — a secret in my keeping. Your name. It is only a sign of trust between us. God bless you for it!”

  “Come — come, Willie, up and home; they’ll wonder what keeps you — they’ll be coming.”

  “Well, Euphan, if I were never to say it more, you are my life and my hope, the star of my worship! Euphan, my darling!”

  “If you were never to say it more, well, never say it more, Willie. Can’t we talk like other folk? Can’t we be kind without being foolish? We should know one another longer than we are ever like to do, before we can tell truly what’s to say the one o’ the other. Wide is the world, and many kinds, and chance or change, and nothing stays, some in walls, some under barns, no two songs the same, and some that meet and like, and lose; love passing like a ship at sea and comes no more; and so, Willie, be merry while ye may, lad, and we’ll sing while the way lies together, and think after.” And with a light sad laugh, the girl waved him toward the house, and herself ran up the little footpath in the same direction, and was lost among the briers and bushes that grow through the clefts of the old gray rocks that peep through the sward as you mount that wild and winding way to Haworth Hall.

  CHAPTER XXI.

  A CHANGE.

  WILLIAM HAWORTH’S hurt looked no trifle, but he did not mind it In the veins of a young fellow in good training, and living in such wild free air, on good country fare, it is not blood but ichor that circulates, and wounds heal in no time.

  It seemed to him that the beautiful girl who haunted his thoughts rather kept out of his way — that is, he could never see her except in the presence of old Martha now, or of Mall Darrell. He fancied that she had grown thoughtful.

  Certain it was, when he was by she was silent. She was grave. She did not, he thought, even look at him, except when, driven to despair, he spoke to her. Then she spoke gently and pleasantly as ever.

  Once only he caught her smiling at some joke he addressed to Mrs. Gillyflower — she smiled at the roses she was arranging in a glass for the dresser — and William felt prouder and happier for half the day.

  What could this be? There was no affectation in the matter — there was no appearance of being offended; only you would have fancied that she was under orders to avoid a tête-à-tête, and to act with a little more reserve. I need hardly say, however, that there was no one to impose any such conditions.

  William tortured himself to find reasons for it Perhaps the cause was in the rapturous audacity of his talk. She had thought it over, perhaps, and formed resolutions in counsel with herself.

  The Squire affected to be careless, sometimes; and was often angry, and always miserable.

  He had reviewed his theory of her being an escaped nun. He had another theory now, romantic also. Was ever wight more desperately in love?

  She is expecting a letter or a message, and she is meditating her farewell; and she has made up her mind that there shall be no entanglement, even of sentiment “How cold and selfish they are!” he said, in his anger. What made it worse still was that he sometimes heard the old sounds of merriment from the kitchen — the laughter and the singing — and this cruel girl was clearly the origin and spring of all the gayety.

  Some girls have affected this estrangement to pique a lover and make themselves more precious, or even from the mysterious pleasure that some find in an unexplained and smouldering quarrel — the pain and the submission of a suffering lover, his wanderings in the dark, and his pleadings for light.

  But William Haworth did not suspect his Euphan of this. He felt that in that character, in some respects so volatile, there was a vein of common sense, decision, and dignity, where the deeper feelings were concerned, quite incompatible with any such shabby trifling.

  In this mood, amid these conjectures, William Haworth took his gun, and spent the day in a lonely march over Dardale Moss.

  The sun was touching the distant rim of the horizon, as William Haworth, with the butt of his gun over his shoulder, approached the scattered wood near Haworth Hall.

  Far away, but still a bold feature in the landscape, are visible the towering fells of Golden Friars. Looking towards them, as you stand under the group of birch-trees, with your back to the sombre moor, the landscape has a wild and melancholy charm of its own, especially in certain lights.

  Take sunset, for instance — as it now is — when, red with the mists that gather over that dark expanse, the sun seems sinking inch by inch into its black level, and throws your shadow long before you, touching every weed and thistle and long blade of grass with its fiery light, and with a softer tint lighting up the trees in the foreground.

  Before you stands the old gray-fronted house of Haworth, its small windows now glimmering all over with the reflected flame of the west. About it, with an air of shelter and comfort, stand huge old trees. It is by no means a “palatial residence,” as county historians often term ancient family houses. It is a homely old house, shingle-roofed and strongly built; an
d 200 years hence may find it looking westward over the moss, with little or no change.

  A little in the rear, and crowning an abrupt eminence of very modest pretensions, rise the ruins of Haworth Castle. In this land of raid and rapine, no less than seven such buildings are said to have belonged to the family of Haworth.

  In the foreground near the margin of the moss, a little to the right, stands one of those mysterious relics that carry us back to cyclopean times. On a level, no doubt once surrounded by a forest of oak — the indications rather than the relics of which remain in the fragments of dwarf oak-wood which are to be found in that region — stands a druidic ring of huge stores. Two are prostrate, and two missing — blasted, perhaps, and carted away in fragments to contribute to some neighbouring building. It is, however, on the whole, an imposing and very perfect monument of this rude and mysterious architecture. Within and about this silent and venerable circle — whose origin, when the first stone of that ruinous castle was laid, was a secret as irrecoverably lost as it now is — grow a few hawthorn and elder trees. I suppose it figures in books of topography and antiquarian works. These objects, partially screened by the irregular wood I have described, make the scene picturesque and interesting.