by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (uncredited).
Originally published in St. James's Magazine (W. Kent) vol.1 #1 (Apr 1861).
Chapter I.
The Funeral of the Elder Son.
A drizzling rain fell upon the long grass and the moss-grown tombstones of the churchyard of the village of Olney, on the Trent, in Lincolnshire.
Every now and then, beaten down by this incessant rain, a dead leaf fell from one of a row of sycamores, which bordered the low churchyard wall, and dropped heavily upon the graves beneath the trees.
The sunless September day held out no promise of one gleam of sunshine in the blackish grey of the low sky.
Half a dozen villagers and a few children, grouped together at one angle of the irregular stone wall, drew their wet clothes closer round them, and shivered as if this late September had been January.
From one side of the churchyard vibrated the monotonous voice of the curate of Olney, reading the service for the burial of the dead.
At the white gate, on the other side of the church, waited three mourning coaches, surrounded by another group of village children, who, regardless of the ceaseless rain, stood with open mouths staring at the long-tailed black horses and the solemn-visaged charioteers.
The funeral service had just concluded, and the chief mourner walked slowly through the churchyard, followed by the seven or eight gentlemen who had been present at the ceremony.
He was evidently in very great grief; his hollow eyes were dry and tearless, but he walked along, looking straight before him, with a gloomy abstraction painful to behold. He took his seat in one of the coaches, accompanied by his uncle, a gray-haired old farmer, and the village attorney.
"You must bear up—you must bear up, my dear Dudley," said the grey-haired man, as the mourning coach lumbered along the uneven paving of the High-street of Olney.
"I will, uncle Richard; but it's harder to bear than I ever thought it would be," said the chief mourner; and to the surprise of his companions he let down the window at his side; and, putting out his head, looked back at the churchyard they had left. He remained in this position till a turn in the street completely hid the burial-ground from his view, and then drawing in his head, he closed the window with a short sigh.
"Poor boy, he wants to have a last look at his brother's grave," said the grey-haired man to the doctor, while his nephew looked out of the carriage window.
After this the chief mourner sat quite still, never speaking to his companions, but looking fixedly out at the flat high-road, and the dripping leaves and shivering cattle in the wet fields.
He was a young man of one-and-twenty, but he looked nearer thirty. He had a fair complexion, a small straight nose, very red, womanish lips, a slightly receding chin, a low forehead, large blue eyes, and light auburn hair. He was rather handsome, and was generally said to have a most prepossessing countenance.
He was the youngest son of the late Arthur Carleon, gentleman farmer, and proprietor of the Grey Farm, the broad lands of which lay flat and low on the border of a narrow river, whose waters often overflowed the meadows nearest to the bank.
The dwelling-house of this Grey Farm stood a mile away from the high road, and the pathway leading to it lay by the side of a river—a narrow, dismal river, on which coal-barges went up and down between Grimsby and Lincoln.
The broad lands of the farm, which consisted of three hundred and eighty acres, lay flat and low on the border of this river, stretching down to the shelving bank, and only shut by this bank from the water, which constantly overflowed the meadows nearest to the river side.
Along its bank the three mourning coaches drove slowly and carefully; a road dangerous at the best of times, at night doubly dangerous.
Half an hour brought the dismal cortège to the gates of the garden in front of the farm-house. The mourners alighted, and silently assembled in a long, low, oak-panelled apartment, furnished in the ponderous fashion of half a century ago.
The Carleons were one of the oldest families in Lincolnshire. The house of the Grey Farm was filled with portraits of fine gentlemen, in doublets and hose; soldiers who had fallen at Bosworth and Flodden; cavaliers who had fought at Worcester, and brave soldiers and loyal gentlemen who had helped to beat the rebels on Marston Moor; but for the last hundred and fifty years the sword had been exchanged for the ploughshare, and the Carleons had been farmers from father to son.
The estate of the Grey Farm, which was so called from having originally belonged to a body of the order of Grey Friars, who built an abbey upon the land, was bought, in 1700, by a younger son of the house of Carleon, the elder branch of which becoming extinct, all other estates belonging to the family had fallen into Chancery, and the Carleons had sunk into simple gentlemen farmers.
Dudley Carleon walked to the wide fire-place, in which a dull flame struggled with a mass of black coal and thick white smoke. The young man rested his arm against the angle of the high chimney-piece, and then leaned his head upon his arm, turning his face away from the other gentlemen, whom his gloomy silence considerably embarrassed.
A young woman, the principal female servant, dressed, like her master, in the deepest mourning, busied herself in handing about wine and cake. After taking it to the visitors, she offered it to, Dudley Carleon; but the young man, hearing the jingle of the glasses at his elbow, looked up suddenly, and shook his head, with an impatient gesture. He was very pale, and his large blue eyes were surrounded by a purple circle, which gave them a strangely haggard appearance.
One of the gentlemen, an attorney from Olney, read the Will of the deceased. It was very simple. Martin Carleon had had nothing to bestow but the farm and homestead, on which he was born, and on which he had lived his short life of three-and-twenty years. He had died of an ague, produced, according to the doctors, by the fatal dampness of the Grey Farm. Young, handsome, vigorous and athletic, the farmer had succumbed, after a lingering illness, under this painful and exhausting disease. He had never married, and Dudley was his only brother; so no one had ever felt any doubt as to who would inherit his property. The estate, though it had gone straight down from father to son for a hundred and fifty years, had never been entailed, and the will of Martin's father had left no provision for the event of the young man's dying childless; but the attachment between the brothers was known to have been so sincere, that this will was looked upon as a mere form. It was worded as every one had expected:—
"I, Martin Carleon, being at this time of sound mind, though weak in bodily health, do hereby give, will, and bequeath, to my beloved brother, Dudley Carleon, all those lands, tenements and out-buildings, known as the Grey Farm, together with all live stock, farming implements," &c. &c.
A few trifling legacies followed: a gold snuff-box to his uncle, Richard Weston, the grey-haired old man present at the reading of the will; his watch and chain to a young lady to whom he had been engaged to be married; and some bequests to the servants.
During the reading of the will the young man had never once lifted his head from its recumbent position against the angle of the chimney-piece; but when it was quite finished, and the visitors rose from their chairs, and approached Dudley, prior to taking their departure, he looked up at them with the same expression his face had worn at the gate of the churchyard—an expression that seemed to say, "What ought I to do next?"
"You are very kind," he stammered, in answer to the consolatory speeches addressed to him: "Yes; I will do my best to bear his loss."
He said these words again and again, in a mazed and helpless manner, and sighed a sigh of relief as the door closed upon the funeral party, and he was left alone with his uncle. For some time he remained silent, his head again buried in his hands, while the old man sat looking at him furtively, as if almost afraid to speak. Presently he looked up and said, with strange abruptness—
"Do you know if Agnes Marlow is very sorry?"
Agnes Marlow was the daughter of the Vicar of Olney, and was to have been married to Martin Carleon.
"They say so at Olney," answered Mr. Weston. "They say that she is very ill, and has seen no one but her father since your brother's death."
"She came here the night before he died. When her father was sent for, she heard the message, and stole out of the house after him, and followed him down here. I shall never forget her white face, as she stood at the door of Martin's room. I shall never forget her white face—it haunts me to-day more than his."
"My poor boy, these are silly fancies. Agnes Marlow's grief has nothing to do with you. You did your duty to your poor brother from the first to the last."
"That's something," muttered Dudley.
"Something! Everything. Martin was a good brother to you"—Dudley Carleon shivered involuntarily—
"A very good brother. He had hard work to keep up your allowance at College, I can tell you, Dudley. But he always said that one farmer at a time was quite enough in the Carleon family, and that you should be a man of education, and a polished gentleman."
"And a dependant on my brother's bounty," said Dudley, bitterly.
"No, Dudley. Martin never thought anything he did for you a bounty or a favour."
"Martin—perhaps, no; but other people thought so."
The old man was to dine and spend the night at the Grey Farm, as his own residence at Thorpe Grange was ten miles on the other side of Olney. The uncle and nephew dined in a room at the back of the oak parlour in which the will had been read, and were waited on by a maid-servant.
"Then you will manage the farm yourself, Dudley?" said Richard Weston, as they sat over their wine, the room only lighted by a blazing fire, and the sky outside the windows darkening with the September twilight.
"Yes; I may not know as much of agriculture as poor Martin, but I know a little, and I can learn more. In short, I'll accept the fate of the Carleons, and turn gentleman farmer."
"There's only one thing I'm afraid of, Dudley"—
"And that is—?
"Your chance of falling ill of the ague that killed Martin. The doctors attribute his illness to the air of the Grey Farm."
"Then why is it that the men who live upon the premises, and are at work in the fields from sunrise to sunset, from the first of January to the thirty-first of December, have never fallen ill of the ague that killed poor Martin? Take my word for it, it was not the Grey Farm that caused my brother's death; his constitution could not have been a strong one."
"But such a tall, broad-chested, powerful young man," said his uncle.
"Is often the first to sink under an illness which the ignorance of his medical attendant attributes to a wrong cause. Martin had lived on the Grey Farm for three-and-twenty years, and if this autumn has been cold and rainy, other autumns have been cold and rainy; if the farm has been half under water this year, it has been half under water many a year. It's my opinion, Uncle Weston, that Martin's life might have been saved, if his doctor had not been an inefficient blockhead. That's partly the cause of my grief for my brother. I consider him a sacrifice to the ignorance of two medical practitioners, and I shall never forgive myself for not having sent to London for a physician—before it was too late."
"What, you did send, then?"
"I telegraphed to London, half an hour before he died."
"My dear boy, you have done your duty. But tell me," continued the old man, anxious to change the conversation, "about your domestic arrangements. You retain all the servants?"
"Every labourer on the farm, every maid-servant in the kitchen. No servant ever leaves the Carleons—except for the churchyard."
"That young woman who handed the wine round after the funeral—she looks rather superior to the rest—who is she?"
"Oh, I suppose it was Martha. She was my brother's housekeeper. She is the sister of my bailiff, a very clever young man,"
"She is rather a handsome girl."
"You think so? Too pale, too dark, too heavy. She has never been young, I think, that girl; I can always remember her equally grave and puritanical, with a solemn white face and straight hair plastered over her forehead; but she is an excellent housekeeper."
"She is a very young housekeeper, Dudley. I should be rather afraid of her, if I were you. Bachelor farmers sometimes marry their housekeepers, now-a-days. It has grown into a fashion; and the women know it, and play their cards accordingly."
"She must play a deeper game than I give her credit for, clever as she is, if she wants to catch me," said Dudley: "I have a little of the ambition of the old Carleons, and there is no record of any of them having married their servants."
A little after ten o'clock Dudley Carleon led his uncle up the wide oak staircase to the apartment prepared for him.
To reach this room, they had to pass through a long corridor, on one side of which was a row of solid oak doors, leading into the bed-rooms. Before the first of these doors Dudley Carleon stopped, with a white face, and leaned for support against the wall behind him.
"Martin's room," he muttered hoarsely; "the room he died in. This is the very spot upon which Agnes Marlow stood on the night of my brother's death. Talk of ghosts," he said, with a hollow laugh; "if you can fancy a corpse galvanized into five minutes' life, you can fancy how she looked."
"Come, come, my dear boy—"
"Don't pity me. I'm a coward,—a miserable, superstitious, coward. I never thought this was in me."
The young man brushed his hand across his forehead, drew himself to his fullest height, and walked before his uncle to the end of the corridor. He opened a door, led the way into a comfortable though old-fashioned apartment, communicating with another room of about the same size. Fires had been lighted in both bed-chambers, and a cheerful blaze was reflected in every panel of the wainscot. Richard Weston, farmer, slept as well on the night after his eldest nephew's funeral, as he always slept under his own roof at the Grange. Once or twice, however, in the dismal hours of the long autumnal night, he was awoke by the monotonous step of the new owner of the Grey Farm, pacing up and down the oak floor of his bedroom. "Poor fellow," muttered the old man, as he buried his head in the pillows and dropped off again to sleep, "poor fellow, what a sincere affection there has been between those two boys."
Chapter II.
A Shadow that Hears.
For a considerable time there was a great deal of curiosity felt in Olney about Dudley Carleon, and the way in which he would manage his newly-acquired property. Everybody knew that the Carleons were not rich, and that the Grey Farm required a great amount of expenditure before it would produce much money. ‘The land wanted draining, but poverty had prevented this being ever effectually done; and the owners of the land had dragged on, through good harvests and bad harvests, without ever enriching themselves or their children, and only too glad if they could pay their way. "How then," asked the inhabitants of Olney, "would Dudley Carleon succeed with the property, out of which his father and his brother had obtained so little?"
But Olney soon allowed that Dudley Carleon was by no means a bad farmer. He set vigorously to work, and with small expenses continued to make great improvements. Wide ditches were dug in the low fields, and the water carried back to the river from which it came, while a superior breed of cattle fed in the dry pastures to those that had grazed in the sloppy meadows during Martin's management. In short, to the surprise of everybody, the young Cantab seemed to be a better farmer than his poor brother had ever been.
But when complimented on his good management, he would say that he himself had very little part in the improvements on the Grey Farm, for they were the work of Ralph—his bailiff, and his greatest treasure.
If this remark happened to he made by Dudley while showing a neighbour over the farm, a black head, a pale face, and two grey eyes would generally emerge from behind some barn or out-building, or look down from the top of some haystack, and Ralph, the farm-bailiff, himself would appear, tugging at a lock of very straight black hair, in acknowledgment of his master's praise.
It seemed to Dudley Carleon's acquaintance rather a peculiarity in the manners and customs of this farm-bailiff, that wherever his master happened to be, there he was to be found. This was, of course, purely accidental; but it was an accident, of such frequent occurrence, that it became a subject for observation. If Dudley Carleon gave a dinner party, Ralph the bailiff took upon himself the office of butler, and waited at table, bringing with him into the dining-room a strong smell of hay and beans, and generally breaking two or three plates out of the service of old china, which had belonged to his master's great grandmother. It was perfectly obvious that the awkwardness of the farm-servant gave considerable annoyance to the polished host; but it was still more obvious that he hesitated to show such annoyance; he appeared to consult the feelings of his bailiff before those of his guests or himself.
Sleek, dark, and pale, Ralph, the treasure of servants, would stand behind his master's chair, spilling more wine on the snowy tablecloth than he managed to pour into the glasses, and listening attentively to every word that was said.
If on a summer's evening Dudley lounged with a friend smoking his cigar on the grass-plot in front of the house, the farm-bailiff suddenly became a gardener, and was busy transplanting geraniums or setting cuttings of pinks. If, on a dark night, the young man accompanied an acquaintance part of the way back to Olney, the farm-bailiff was always at his heels, ready to open the gates, or show the way with a lantern. If Dudley, on a Sunday, after church, stopped to talk to his neighbours in the churchyard, Ralph the bailiff, with his sister Martha hanging on his arm, was generally to be seen looking at a tombstone, or reading an epitaph, a few paces from his master. But the young farmer was constantly praising his servant's fidelity and usefulness, and generally wound up his encomiums by declaring that, if Ralph were ever to take it into his head to leave the Grey Farm, he should be a ruined man.
Ralph, the bailiff, always appearing at this juncture, would generally say, as he pulled off his hat and tugged at his sleek black hair,—
"Lord, Muster Dudley, I'll never leave 'ee."
Ralph, his master said, was very much above his station. He could read and write; and when the other labourers were lolling of a night over the kitchen fire, smoking their pipes, or pulling the ears of the great sheepdog, the bailiff would shut himself up in his own room and devote himself to his education. Dudley and Martin had both taught him a good deal, when as boys they had lounged together on summer's evenings watching the labourers at their work; for Ralph, the bailiff, had been born on the estate, as well as his sister Martha, Dudley's housekeeper.
The young man had given a little sitting-room in the servants' wing to Martha and her brother, as their own peculiar property, and here of an evening, after dark, the two used to sit, she at her needlework, he writing or reading busily, at a great old-fashioned desk that had been his mother's.
The brother and sister were much alike, both in person and manners. Both pale and dark, with heavy features, straight, sleek, black hair and deep-set grey eyes; both tall and slim; both grave, reserved, and silent; orderly and systematic in their habits; precise.and cautious in their way of speaking. They were not much liked by the other servants, but they were very much respected, and every one of the farm-labourers knew that it was wiser to offend Mr. Dudley Carleon than to run the risk of displeasing Ralph, the bailiff.
Actual master of all the men, possessed of unlimited executive power, Ralph Purvis, the bailiff, walked with a steady and a stealthy step, day by day, over the Grey Farm.
Wherever the owner of the land went, full across his path fell the shadow of his confidential servant; whoever he spoke to, or whoever he saw, there was Ralph, the bailiff, to hear his words and to watch his looks.
The inhabitants of Olney began to say, that Dudley Carleon had changed month by month, week by week, day by day, and hour by hour, since the September morning on which his elder brother had been buried. He had grown thin and pale, fitful and moody in his manners, reserved and uncertain in his address.
"His grief for his brother's death is really absurd," said the gentlemen.
"He ought to form a new attachment—and marry," said the ladies.
But nothing seemed further from the young farmer's thoughts than the holy state of matrimony. Shut up in the great stone mansion, which had belonged to his family for a hundred and fifty years, he saw very little society of any kind, but sat moodily over his solitary hearth when the weather was bad, or, on fine evenings, strolled listlessly about the farm, talking over the business of the next day with Ralph, the bailiff.
Three years had passed away since the funeral of Martin Carleon; and the third September after that on which the drizzling rain had drenched the scarves and hat-bands of the mourners, and the thin garments of the village children, drew to a cold and dismal close.
On the last day of the month, Mr. Theodore Broughton, the only solicitor resident in Olney, dined with Dudley Carleon. He had ridden over to the Grey Farm, to talk about some law business he had on hand for the young farmer, and Dudley had persuaded him to stop to dinner. The two gentlemen dined at five o'clock, in the oak dining-room—a cold and draughty apartment, which the largest fire that could be piled up in the wide grate could never thoroughly warm. This oak dining-room was lighted, like the drawing-room, by three windows, two of which were situated in the front of the house, opening into the garden, while the third faced the river, and looked right into the farm-yard. There was very little attempt at refinement in the arrangements of this great, dreary, rambling farm-house; a litter of noisy pigs ran about close under the dining-room window, and three or four huge draught-horses stood pastern deep in wet straw a few paces from where the gentlemen sat at dinner.
As usual when there was company at the Grey Farm, Ralph, the bailiff, made his appearance, wearing an old dress-coat of his master's, and carrying a napkin over his arm. This apparent attempt at style was so entirely foreign to the ordinary habits of the Carleons, who had always lived in the most unpretending manner, that everybody wondered at and disliked it.
"That awkward, dark-faced bailiff, never came into the house in Martin Carleon's time," the visitors at the Grey Farm would say, " and now he's always sneaking about the premises."
This evening of the 30th of September the bailiff's presence seemed peculiarly disagreeable to Theodore Broughton, the lawyer. He wished to talk of business, and he disliked doing so while Ralph stood with a listening countenance at his master's elbow. He suggested to Dudley that they should wait upon themselves, as no doubt the bailiff's presence was needed about the farm; but neither Ralph's master, nor Ralph himself, would take the hint. The young man was evidently embarrassed, and the bailiff held his ground at his master's elbow with a dogged and determined look in his dark face.
"The truth of the matter is," said the lawyer, "that I want to have a few words with you, about that business—and—"
"Oh, ah; to be sure. You hear, Purvis, Mr. Broughton wants a little private conversation with me. Leave us."
Ralph, the bailiff, stood quite still, twisting the dinner-napkin round and round upon his arm, and looking from his master to the visitor, and from the visitor back to his master.
"You hear," repeated Dudley Carleon, turning very pale, but with a vivid flash of anger in his large blue eyes; "leave us!"
"Very well, Sir;" and with a stiff bow to his master, Ralph the bailiff left the room. He shut the door after him rather loudly as he went out; but two minutes afterwards, Theodore Broughton, who sat opposite to it, saw it reopened by a cautious hand and set a little a-jar.
"You have listeners in this house, Carleon," said the lawyer, as he rose from the table, and going over to the door, shut it securely; "I don't like speaking against another man's servants, but I really can't help saying that I've a great dislike to your bailiff."
"What, Ralph Purvis? My dear Broughton, he's an inestimable fellow. The best bailiff in the county, and faithful to a degree."
"Faithful to the degree of officiousness, I think," muttered the lawyer, shrugging his shoulders; and then, changing the conversation, he discussed with his client the business that had brought him to the farm. After this had been satisfactorily settled, they spoke of indifferent topics, and the lawyer, by and by, told Dudley of the many speculations made by the feminine inhabitants of Olney as to the causes of his determined bachelorhood. "In short, my dear Carleon," he said, laughing, "you ought to make an excellent match; and that reminds me of an idea that has often occurred to me, which idea is, that Agnes Marlow, the rector's daughter, would be the very girl to make you a good wife."
Dudley Carleon started as if he had been stung. A cold perspiration broke out upon his white forehead, which he wiped away with a trembling hand, as he said, hesitatingly—
"Oh, no, no. Agnes Marlow is the very last person; the very last. Don't you know her engagement to my poor brother, Martin ?"
"Yes, I was perfectly aware they were to have been married; that appears to me the very reason why she would be a suitable match for you. It would seem as if you were fulfilling your poor brother's wish in making her mistress of the Grey Farm."
"Agnes Marlow's heart is buried in Martin Carleon's grave. Do you know, Broughton, I have a very strong suspicion that her grief for my brother's death had a fatal effect upon her intellect, and that she—that she has not—been—quite right—in her mind since—that—occurrence."
Dudley Carleon said these words slowly, and as if with a painful effort.
"What in mercy's name has given you this idea?"
"Because she has evinced such an evident dislike to me ever since I have been owner of the property. As if—as if—really—she hated me for being master of the Grey Farm."
"Pshaw, my dear boy; pure fancy on your part, I am sure."
"Be it how it may, Agnes Marlow is the last person I should ever dream of marrying."
"As you will. I can't attempt to choose a wife for you, my dear Carleon; but what I say, and what everybody else says, is, that you decidedly ought to marry. What a dreary life you must lead in this dismal old house, with not a soul to speak to, but that sleek black bailiff of yours, and his equally sleek and black sister, your housekeeper. Only think, man, how the cheerful face of a pretty young wife would brighten the head of this long dining-table!"
"Well, well; I'll see about it," said Dudley, as he and his friend rose from the table. As they were about to leave the room, the young farmer poured out a glass of brandy, from a bottle on the sideboard, and drained it at one draught. While he was doing this, Theodore Broughton's eyes wandered carelessly round the walls of the room, looking at the old pictures. In doing this, his glance happened to rest for a moment on the window opening into the farm-yard. It was quite dark, but in the grey obscurity he distinctly saw a pair of gleaming eyes staring in through a pane of glass, and he saw also a coarse red hand which had lifted the window-sash about three inches from the sill.
"I told you, Carleon, that you had listeners about the place,"' he said, raising his voice so as to be heard by the person without; "look at that window!"
But when the lawyer and Dudley Carleon reached the window in question, there was nothing to be seen, only in the half darkness of the farm-yard a figure was visible, leading the draught-horses to the stable.
"I thought so," said Theodore Broughton, "the listener was your bailiff, Ralph Purvis. I thought I could not be mistaken in the fierce glitter of those eyes. Dudley Carleon, my profession is one which throws me into contact with strange people; it may have made me suspicious; it may have made me only cautious. All I say to you, as your friend and legal adviser, is this—Beware of that man!"
"My dear fellow, I have every respect for your legal acumen, but you are quite wrong. I would trust Ralph Purvis with untold gold."
"Trust him with all the mines of California, if you like; but do not trust him with your secrets."
Dudley Carleon's face, pale before, suddenly flushed scarlet.
"Good heavens," said the lawyer, "do you know that I consider the fellow such a listener and a sneak, that, did I not see him yonder, out of reach of hearing, leading in those horses, I should expect to turn round and find him at my elbow."
"Martha has taken coffee into the drawing-room, Sir," said a voice a few paces behind the two gentlemen.
Dudley and the lawyer turned round, and there was Ralph, the bailiff, standing a little way within the open door at the other end of the room.
"I was leading the horses in, Sir, when I saw you two gentlemen standing at the window, so I gave them to William to hold, and ran round here to tell you coffee was waiting."
When Dudley and his visitor went into the drawing-room, they found Martha Purvis busy with the cups and saucers, on a little table, near the fire. Prim and demure, dressed in sombre grey, and with straight black hair plastered stiffly under her white cap, she moved about in the firelit-room as softly as if she had been the ghostly reproduction of one of the dark pictures on the wainscotted wall. Wherever she moved in the flickering light, she threw a shadow on the floor, or the walls; and grim and distorted as this shadow always seemed wherever it fell, perhaps it had a deeper blackness when it was cast upon the master of the Grey Farm.
The lawyer's horse was brought round to the front door as the timepiece in the drawing-room struck eight. Dudley followed his friend out into the garden; Ralph Purvis stood holding the bridle in his hand.
Theodore Broughton shrugged his shoulders at the sight of the farm bailiff, but sprang into the saddle without saying a word.
"I will walk a little way with you, Broughton," said Dudley, as the lawyer bade him good night.
"Shall I come with you to open the gate, Sir?" asked the bailiff.
"No, I can do it myself."
It was quite dark, and a thick mist rose from the river by which the two men went; the lawyer walking his horse, and Dudley Carleon holding the rein as he guided the animal along the narrow bank.
When they had reached the gate which marked the boundary of the farm on the Olney side, the young man bade his friend good night, and walked slowly homewards.
A dark figure rose from the shelving river bank, and stood by his side.
"Can I have a word with thee, Muster?" asked Ralph, the bailiff.
"You can speak, I suppose," said Dudley, without looking up, or evincing the least surprise at his servant's sudden appearance on the bank.
"But will 'ee listen?"
"Yes," answered his master, walking slowly on, his head bent down, and his hands in his pockets.
"And will 'ee answer what I ask thee?"
"Perhaps!"
"Maybe, I'd better not speak here; one of the men might be in yon fields, and listen—"
"True, that might spoil your market."
"Where shall I speak then, Muster Carleon?"
"In your own room. The little sitting-room at the top of the back stairs. But what can you have to say to me to-night?"
"Never thee mind what it be, Muster Carleon. Will 'ee hear it? Yes or no; or shall I go into Olney and say it to yon young lady, that—"
"Do you want me to throw you into that river?"
"I'm not afeard, Sir," said Ralph Purvis, with a grin; "it'd make too much noise in the neighbourhood."
Dudley Carleon was silent for the rest of the way back to the house. He walked along, with his hat slouched over his eyes, looking neither to the right nor the left; the bailiff, keeping a few paces in advance of him, opened the gates as he approached, and fell back respectfully for him to pass. As the owner of the Grey Farm crossed the hall and opened the drawing-room door, he turned round and said to his bailiff, in a voice loud enough to be heard by the domestic servants about the place—
"Before you go to bed, Purvis, get your accounts ready for me; I'll come into your room and look them over."
The autumn winds swept with dismal voices, and strange, inarticulate complaining cries, over the long flat stubbled fields of the Grey Farm. The autumn mists rose in these bare fields and the low meadows, and spread a ghostly veil over the land, under which the slow river crawled onwards to the distant sea. There seemed to be, in the nature of this deep and quiet river, something akin to that of Ralph Purvis, the bailiff. Like him, it was dark and silent; like him, stealthy of foot and changeless in purpose, it dogged your heels when you were unaware, and crept stealthily after you through the obscurity of the night. Winding and tortuous in its ways, like him, you came upon it as you often came upon him, where you least expected to meet it; and the aspect of it, as the aspect of the dark-faced bailiff, would fill you with an instinctive and unreasonable distrust. Wretched country-women had stolen down to the dismal bank and drowned themselves quietly in reedy inlets where the water was deepest; twenty miles from the Grey Farm, a son had stabbed his father to the heart, and thrown the body, under the thick darkness, into the treacherous tide, that rolled back the corpse and left it in the morning light lying stark and ghastly upon the river bank. Horrible things were associated there with this dismal water, and as it wound, and twisted close under the walls of the gaunt stone mansion, it seemed to give a gloomier aspect even to the dark pile of buildings that composed the dwelling-house of the Grey Farm.
In the dead of the night, a light was visible to the bargemen sailing with the tide, along the winding river, burning in a small window at the back of the house.
That was the window of the sitting-room of Ralph Purvis, the bailiff.
On the floor of this room lay a man, with his dark, sleek hair draggled upon the white boards, and his pale face splashed and smeared with the blood oozing from a cut on his forehead. Another man, with a white face and angry blue eyes, bent over him, with his knee upon his chest, and one hand twisted in the folds of his coarse woollen neckerchief.
"You may kill me, and welcome, Muster Carleon," gasped Ralph, the bailiff; "but so sure as I live that's the price of my holding my tongue."
"Spy, sneak, listener! get up and wash your face. To-morrow you and your sister shall start for London. I'll follow you in a week."
"And you'll give us our price, Muster Carleon?" asked Ralph Purvis, picking himself up, and deliberately wiping the blood from his face with a red cotton handkerchief.
To the uttermost farthing, extortioner," said Dudley Carleon, as he opened the door of the little sitting-room with a cautious hand, and stole down the flight of stairs leading to his own side of the house.