The Peyton Romance

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JARROLDS' 3/6 SERIES Popular' Novels. Bv WELL-KNOWN AUTHORS. (Crown %vo, Cloth.) Uniform with "The Peyton Romance." LOUIS DRAVCOTT. By Mrs. Leith Adams. 2nd Edition. GEOFFREV STIRLING. By Mrs. Leith Adams. 5th Edition. BONNIE KATE. By Mrs. Leith Adams. 2nd Edition. A NEW OTHELLO. By Hon. Iza Duffus Hardy. 2nd Ed. THE MAID OF LONDON BRIDGE. By Somerville Gibney. 3rd Edition. EVELINE WELLWOOD. By Major Norris Paul. 2nd Ed. OLD LATTIMER'S LEGACY. By J. S. Fletcher. 2nd Ed. THAT LITTLE GIRL. Hy Curtis Yorke. 5th Edition. DUDLEY. By Curtis Yorke. 4th Edition. THE WILD RUTHVENS. By Curtis Yorke. 3rd Edition. THE BROWN PORTMANTEAU, and other Stories. By Curtis Yorke. 2nd Edition. 2. 3 4 5' 6. 7 8 9' • o HUSH! By Curtis Yorke. 3rd Edition. ONCE! By Curtis Yorke. 2nd Edition. A ROMANCE OF MODERN LONDON.

By Curtis Yorke. 3rd Edition. HIS HEART TO WIN. By Curtis Yorke. 2nd Edition. DARRELL CHEVASNEY. By Curtis Yorke. BETWEEN THE SILENCES. By Curtis Yorke. THE PEYTON ROMANCE. By Mrs. Leith Adams. 3rd Ed. THE GOLDEN MILESTONE. By Scott Gr. ham. 3rd Ed. A RECORD OF DISCORDS. By Curtis Yorke. 2nd Edition. "CHERRY RIPE!" By Helen Mathers. STORY OF A SIN. By Helen Mathers. EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. (Sequel.) By Helen Mathers. JOCKO' HAZEI.GREEN. By Helen Mathers. MY HDY GREEN SLEEVES. By Helen Mathers. FOUND OUT. By Helen Mathers. THE MEDLICOl'TS. By Curtis Yorke. 1 A TANGLED SKEIN. By T. W. Si-eight. MAN PROPOSES. By Mrs. A. Phillil-s. THE LAST OF THE HALiDONS. By Mrs. E. Newman. . ALLANSON'S LITTLE WOMAN. By Eastwood Ridson. >J LINDSAY'S GIRL. By Mrs. Herbert Martin. i_ WRONGLY CONDEMNED. By Mrs. Bagot Harte, I * Author of " Bianca," &c. f 0 THE THIRTEENTH BRYDAIN.

By Margaret Moule, * Author of "Wingrove's Ways," "Dick's Wife," "Miss "" Maidment," &c. THROUGH ANOTHER MAN'S EYES. By Eleanor Hoi mes. MRS. WYLDE. By Linda Gardiner. 1 .'. ■3 ■4- ■5 CO 17. 18, '9- 30. 21. 22, *3 24 25' 26. 27' 28. 29. JO. 3t 32- 33e 34' 35. 3«. OTHERS IN PREPARATION. LONDON: JARROLD &° SONS, 10 and 11, Warmkk Lant. FY MRS. LEITH ADAMS K (Mrs. R. S. DE COURCY LAFFAN) Author of "Aunt Ilepsy's Foundling," Louis Draycott," " Geoffrey Stirling," " My Land of Beulah," "Madelon Lemoine," " Colour Sergeant No. 1 Company," " Bonnie Kate," etc. THIRD EDITION LONDON JARROLD & SONS, 10 & 11, WARWICK LANE, E.C. [All Right* Reserved] 189.5 ■g.£is IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 10 MV DEAR BROTHER AND SISTER, SURGEON-COLONEL and Mrs. F. II. WELCH. Stratford-ox- Avon, June, IS'JL CONTENTS. tTHiPTgR PAOS I. The Old Hall ... ... ... ... 9 IT.

Chapter I

. THE OLD HALL. 'THE ground sloped upwards behind the house, and here and L there tall brotherhoods of firs, gathered in groups, were for ever whispering to each other, as the breeze gently stirred their dark plumed heads. Golden bracken in autumn, heavenblue hyacinths in spring, gave colour to the underwood, while here and there a rabbit leapt, its white tail flickering among the green, and grey, and amber. This rising background well defined the grey stone of the house, its ivy-wreathed turrets, and quaint, high-gabled roof. Below were terraced gardens, with stone balustrades, one above the other; and on the stone everywhere, that of the house and that of the terraces, the hand of Time had cunningly embroidered many devices in moss and lichen, patterns in green and yellow, and endless shades and tints of olive.

Here aud there the stonecrop lifted its crown of amber stars amid pale leaves, and in the niches of the balustrades wine-coloured wallflowers had taken root, waving their scented blossoms like banners year by year. That peacocks should strut, and sun their shining necks, and spread their glorious Argus-eyed tails in such a terrace land was naturally to be expected, and sure enough the gay bird's clarion cry, " Oh, joy ! oh, joy ! " was ofttimes to be heard, shriller and more piercing when the sober-coated hen marched daintily along the mossy pathways, followed by her trembling, flitting brood. A great bloodhound, too, would often slouch and saunter up and down, or lie in the sun at the top of the wide stone steps (falling there with a deep aud heavy sigh), and looked scornfully at the peacocks, as who should say they really were, as a family, too vain and frivolous for anything, and not to be endured.

You could see the village of Scarsdale peeping here and there through the trees in the shallow valley, or rather depression, that lay some distance off to the right, and, at the edge of the sky, were to be seen ou a clear day those billowing seas of ling, the Yorkshire Wolds. Doubtless at one time the Hall had been spoken of as Scarsdale Hall ; but that was in the old-fashioned days, when "the county" held itself very high, and an insurmountable chevaux de frise of exclusiveness hedged it round. The level ling spirit that has now laid most barriers low was, however. beginning to make itself felt at the period when our story opens, and one or two glaringly white buildings had risen up on the gentle grassy slopes amid the whispering firs and swaying beeches. These " new-fangled " mansions have been built to the order of such people as a gentleman from Australia (as the village had it), and a large and successful manufacturer, who thought to put a finishing gloss upon his acquired gentility by becoming the owner of a country seat 6ome distance removed from the scene of the labours that were the source of his wealth.

These bits of local social colouring are only put in to explain just how it was that Sir Marmaduke Peyton's place came to be generally spoken of as the Old Hall. There were so many new ones about, you see. " The Peytons ? " would the wise old men and knowing old women of the village say. " Oh, they're some of the old gentry, you know — the real old families, they are." There is a fine recognition of the fitnes; of things in the rural mind, aud Scarsdale, which was a sort of place betwixt and between a village and a small country town, rated at their exact value the glitter and glare of the nouveau-riches and the dignity of the "real old gentry," who were, perhaps, not so profitable, but more to be proud of. Sir Marmaduke was the fourth baronet of the title, and tradition said that his father and grandfather had been "wild men," who dipped somewhat deeply into the family coffers, to say nothing of mortgaging the family acres.

It may be that the very force of contrast — the tendency that is in every earthly influence to swing the pendulum now too far ou this side, now on that— had made Sir Marmaduke what he was — a man of narrow, rigid mind, and of manners so reserved as to trench upon moroseness. He presented a strange mixture of fanati cism and worldly wisdom— a Puritanism that had become morbid, and blighted all the spontaneity and brightness of his life, tainting, alas ! the lives of those about him, casting, as it were, a shadow upon them, chill aud sombre ; and yet a shrewdness and determination upon certain lines that startle 1 you, as the unexpected ever must, almost making you feel as though you had received a blow in the face. A figure tall and loosely built ; shaggy eyebrows set close above piercin * grey eyes, that yet at times had a far-off look in them not wanting in pathos ; fine silken locks falling on either side a high, narrow brow ; thin lips folded close, yet in moments of excited or troubled feeling given to a strange convulsive flicker and working ; a voice subdued yet sonorous — a voice that made itself heard in a crowd of other voices ; a personality that made men say : " Who is that?"

"Can you tell me who that is ? " from which women, other than those of his own household, shrank with a sort of shuddering inward moan, as conscious of some latent powers in him resembling the fabled "evil eve." Such was Marmaduke Peyton. If the women of his own household shivered and moaned, they did it in the sacred solitude of their own chambers. Pride was bred in the Peyton blood, and seemed to prove catching to those with whom they intermarried. No displaying of heart-sores, no moaning out in the open for them. But maybe the old mullioned rooms could have told strange stories, and the pictured dead and gone Peytons let in to the oaken walls looked down with pitiless smile and smirk upon tears and moaning that told of a breaking heart. But it will be well to get all our scenery well set before we bring in our dramuiis persnnœ, so follow me down from one shallow terrace to another, down the garden of the Old Hall, and out through the massive gate, whereon two griffins, grim and bold, hold up a javelin apiece, and threaten all that pass by that way.

The road winds in a gentle fall on towards the village. In early summer the hedges on either hand are set so thick with roses that it is like walking between undulating lines of pink ribbon, deftly unwinding. When you got to the houses, some grouped and some set in rows, you would fain hope that the inhabitants of Scarsdale were a sober lot, for the sidewalks in the central street were elevated far above the roadway, in some places almost as much as a couple of yards, and surely a toper returning home would have run great risk of neck and limb. But the arrangement had its advantages, since in rain or mire the said pathways were dry and clean, and as to the children, why, they seemed to be born subtle, and avoided the dizzy edge as by an evolved instinct, This edge went by the name of the " brink," and you might hear wary mothers shouting to Eliza Ann or Susan Mary (double names were all the fashion at Scarsdale) to bring little 'Lisabeth Jane away from the "brink," or to be sure and "kitch" Sammy by the hand, he being a toddling mite whose nether garments were fastened with big brass buttons right under his arms, and made him look like a little caddis-worm set on end.

The village was near upon three miles from the Old Hall, aud only about half a mile from the latter— maybe scarcely that— you turned down a green and verdant lane, or rather wide field-path, and found yourself in a place called The Meadows. You had to pass over a bridge to get to it, for the river made a sudden sharp bend, and once across this you became conscious of the whirr, whirr, whirr of a mill, the rush of a weir, the sound of water being churned and thrashed by an ever-revolving wheel. The Meadows was a charming place, with its rushing stream, its reedy islets and mossy creeks, beyond which a wide, shallow waterway spread out like a sheet of silver, glittering among the grassy knolls and clumps of flags and loosestrife, rippling up around the pale veronica and goldeu buttercups, kissing the blossoms that grew near enough to be got at.

Cows, dun-coloured and white, stood half in and half out of the water, looking as if they were calmly waiting (chewing the cud meanwhile) for Cooper or Cuyp to paint them. Then there was a delightful bridge just above the mill, from which you could watch on one side the deep stillness of the mill pool, and on the other the fume and toss of the "fall," foam-flecked and tumbling on as if in ever such a mighty hurry. All these might be seen from the mill-bridge. Then came the mill with its hum, hum, hum, a great white bee that never ceased to sing. Oh, how fair and white were its walls and floors, so that it looked like a palace of purity ! How sweet and clean and wholesome it smelt as you leant your arms on the low half door, aud were conscious of the delicious dither and tremble of machinery pitilessly revolving !

How like gnomes looked the miller's men, likewise powdered white going up and down the open stairways with sacks from which the white and fragrant meal dribbled slowly ! There are few spots more sweet and clean and wholesome than a flourmill, few that so exquisitely harmonise with a fair green landscape of wood and field and stream ; while the low, ever-murmuring voice of the wheel seems to sing a soft lullaby to the ear of Nature. One terror, however, to evil-doers was to be found at Scarsdale Mill. You stooped down to peer through a low archway in the wall, and there you saw, pent up within, prisoned in the gloom that was broken here and there by a ray of level sunlight, or the glint of broken water, a slow revolving monster, the great black-barred wheel. This had given rise to a threat among the mothers of Scarsdale.

" Naughty childer should be scramed i' the wheel-house ! " Oh, the horror of it ! The darkness, the mystery of the dreadful fate that should befall any child of Adam thus bestowed ! No wonder little curl-crowned heads cowered under the bed-clothes, and the patchwork counterpane was pulled over frightened eyes. Still it was a fearful joy to bend down and gaze into that gruesome chasm ; all the more delightful if you knew you would be slapped if mother saw you. Then the happiness of frightening other people about it was not a thing to be despised by any means. Altogether juvenile Scarsdale could ill have done without the mill — wheel and all. From the Old Hall a narrow field-path cutting off the road wound down to The Meadows, and here might often be seen Lady Peyton walking slowly towards the cluster of cottages where the mill-hands lived, ever bound upon some sweet errand of mercy.

These cottages were as picturesque as though designed for the background of the picture, "Landscape with Cows." Vines grew, oddly enough, with great luxuriance at Scarsdale, and ran along from house to house, stretching out arms in every direction, and showing to great advantage against the wjiite walls barred with black. Perhaps the grapes these half wild vines bore were by no means luscious, and certainly were few and far between, but their beautiful foliage was a feast to the eye — a feast which had to compensate for other deficiencies. One porch was a regular Jack-in-the-green ; and a little tworoomed house, deserted and falling into cruel ruin, had beeu clasped and girded about by rine-boughs, and circled and bound with ivy, till it looked as pretty as, or even prettier thau, its neighbours.

The deserted garden that surrounded it was a palace of delight to the little ones, and through the rails, that were falling apart in very inebriated fashion, their sonsie faces would peer and peep at Lady Peyton as she passed by with the peculiar, dignified, sweeping gait characteristic of her at all times. A woman with a sorrow in her heart that never rose to her lips. A woman with no confidant save the God who reads all hearts and sounds all sorrows. A woman with a grandly out lined face, with something of the pictured Dante in its grave aud noble lines. Yet the children did not fear her : they stretched little hands through the bars, and touched her gown of fine yet austere black, and she never chid them. They put forth flowers— rather drooping flowers, that had been held all too closely in little hot hands — to tempt her, and she took them with a gentle passing smile that dawned in her face like light, and then faded as a light goes out.

The women curtsied as her ladyship passed, aud brought their newest babies out to her to see. She would touch the little rosepink, crumpled faces with a tender hand, and ask after the mother's health or the old grandfather's ailment in a voice that told of the repression of a lifetime, yet was tuneful too, and had some thing of the vibration of an Æolian harp. What was this woman's history ? Had she loved with heart and soul, aud then, had the fount of joy been frozen at its source, had the heart been crushed even to powder? But even in the crushing had the exquisite capability of a sympathy deep and tender been exhaled, as perfume is crushed from the .spice and the flower ? Was the woman's character chastened, purified, perfected by the fire through wliich it had passed ? It must have been so.

Yet none could kuow or guess at the hidden depths of her life. The woman with the black banded hair, the dark, sorrowful eyes, and the set mouth went on her way in, but not of, tke world around her ; sustained by some hidden strength, com muning with High Heaven as never with any of earth. There were hints and surmises in her own social circle, but assured knowledge there was none. People thought her cold and self-contained, girt about with an irresistible and queenly dignity. The gentleman from the Antipodes, the manufacturer so happy out of sight of his chimneys and out of hearing of his machinery, never got what they called "any further" with her ; or, as the former jocularly put it, it was always " as you was." He had clapped the Lord-Lieutenant of the county on the back— to that worthy's no small amazement ; he had " chaffed " a real live Countess ; but he drew the line at the chatelaine of the Old Hall.

" Gad, sir ! " he said to a kindred spirit, " she freezes the blood in my veins." But there was nothing chill, nothing repellent, in Lady Peyton as she stood by the bedside of a sick child, or clasped aud held the hand of man or woman weary and heavy laden with the burden of a grief. Indeed, there was nothing repellent in her at any time, for her courtesy was polished and perfect, but yet a barrier invincible when she chose. No little hands were thrust through the palings with a wilted flower, no rippling laughter, no saucy, happy glances greeted Sir Marmaduke as he passed on his way. Rather the little ones ran away and peeped from safe corners with wide eyes at the tall, gaunt figure of the Lord of the Manor. The flowers might lie in the great man's path, but they were dropped from limp hands in the hurry of flight.

Yet, for all that, Sir Marmaduke was the " great man " of Scarsdale. There was no one " counted so high," as the topers at the "Green Dragon" put it — no one, however wealthy or however wise. " Him and his forbears has been here so long," would the wiseacres say in between the long, hard puffs that are needed to set a pipe properly alight ; " why, there beant no record o' times when there weren't a Peyton, bless yo', up at t' Ould Hall." Thus was the Squire of the Old Hall held in estimation. yet not beloved. Thus was his wife revered, and well beloved also. Was her self-contained, silent life the outcome of this one fact — the fact that she was the wife of Sir Marmaduke Peyton ? Was the shadow of his narrow and morose spirit ever upon her ? Had he chased all the brightness from her life, crushed the song and the laughter on her lips, even in the years that were past ?

Who might say ? At times the husband and wife walked together, side by side, yet strangely silent, Hound following slowly on behind. There had been a time when two young sturdy boys had gone on before, or oftener still, the younger holding his mother's hand and looking up into her face, the elder pacing staidly by his father's side. People called the younger "the mother's boy," but, indeed, he was everybody's boy, was Cyril Peyton ; he was one of those creatures, bright as a sunbeam, who shine alike upon the evil and the good, whom the eye loves to follow and the heart to cherish. As the sunbeam brightens the dark still waters of the mountain tarn, so the love of her fair young son touched into radiance the life of Marion Peyton, his mother. Her eye followed him, full of the hunger of the heart.

Eveiy touch of her hand was a caress. There had been a time when, a boy of eight years, he lay at the point of death, his lovely lips black and parched, his eyes of golden brown unseeing, blind, and sunken ; and some one, a villager, peering into the empty church at eventide, was filled with fear at sight of a figure, still as some carved image, a figure with bowed head aud clasped hands outstretched, kneeling in the shadow of the altar ; rilled still more to overflowing with dread, indeed, when a long, quivering groan broke the still ness of the quiet place, and the bitter cry of old, " My sou • my son ! " went shuddering up to heaven. The boy was given back to the riven heart. Once more he laughed to see the peacock spread his arch of feathers, strutting on the garden terrace ; once more hung upon his mother's hand.

That mother said but little of the almost anguish of thankfulness iu her heart. She could not endure that her joy should be seared aud blighted by words of stern reproach from her husband's lips ; by the anathema pronounced against idol-makers, and those who clung too closely to the things of sense. Was not her beautiful boy a gift from God ? Why, then, might she not find joy and gladness in such sweet possession ? That her love for him was restrained in expression, the boy soon grew to understand ; learnt, too, to restrain tho expression of his own for her, except when they were alone. Then he would cling about her, fondle her dear hands, kiss her pale cheeks, and pin a posy of sweet flowers in her bosom. But ofttimes she put these away, keeping, may be, one wee sweet blossom to press between the leaves of her bible.

" Flowers are not for me, ray darling," she would say, putting back the bright curls from his brow, aud looking into the sweet, laughter-loving eyes. When he was a very little fellow indeed he would say — " But God made all the pitty sowers, aud He must have made some for my mower." But wheu he grew to be a tall schoolboy, Cyril gave up such reasoning. His bonnie face lost some of its brightness, but all the lovingness remained. It was gradually dawning upon him that indeed and in truth life had " no flowers " for that dear mother whom he worshipped with every fibre of his young being. Cyril had entered the shadow that brooded over the Old Hall, and was conscious of its chill. If the boys did ill at school, if they brought home bad reports, and records of slow and unsatisfactory progress, blame was dealt out to them in fullest measure.

Rightly enough too ; but does not the converse hold good ? Is it well that the young heart, filled with enthusiasm, hot with ambition, resolute to achieve, should never be cheered by one hearty " Well done ! " — that the eye raised in hope to the father's face, should have to sink to the earth in disappointment, the breast to heave with the sigh that means, " Have I, then, laboured so hard in vain — does no one care ? I remember a Scotch woman once saying to me, " I cannot look back and remember one single instance of my father saying ' Well done ! ' to any one of his children ; " and yet the family in question were men and women of exceptional brilliancy. Is not this way of dealing with our children somewhat after the fashion of those who, being asked for bread, give but a stone to the suppliant ?

If the Father who is above measured out such measure to us, His children, surely we should have no sweet and sunny days, no flowers to gladden our pleased eyes, no birds of song to gladden our charmed ear, no soft and silver moonlight, no radiance of dawn — all would be grey and gloomy, just sufficient for bare life, and for that alone. Maybe Sir Marmaduke Peyton would better have liked this world of ours if it had been more after such a pattern. Ergo he saw no reason to strive after making it a bright and happy place to those to whom he had given life. Indeed, it often seemed as though the peacock preening itself in the sunshine, the blaze of the wine-coloured nasturtiums, the glory of the serried hollyhocks, the beauty aud perfume of the roses in the Old Hall gardens, were somehow incongruous when the owner of them all paced sombrely in their midst.

One might haye imagined the peacock hurrying to hide his diminished head in a laurel-bush, creeping in, and ostrich-like, leaving his tail visible in sublime unconsciousness, instead of looking (as he did) as though he thought all the gardeners were maintained to keep the place in order wholly and entirely for his own pleasure and benefit. One could not have wondered if the flowers had drooped and faded, turning to bunches of rustling dry leaves in the breeze that stirred them. Launcelot — called "Lance" for short — Sir Marmaduke's eldest son, was a moody-spirited boy, with a strong will of his own, and a passionate element in his character that was entirely absent in the younger. The first of these attributes his father resolved to subdue — to " cast out the devil that was in possession," was the way he phrased it.

But the said devil was pertinacious. " I don't think our father is a bit like other boys' fathers ; I don't think he's nice at all," said young hopeful, with a frown, and his hands well crammed iuto his trousers pockets. "Perhaps he isn't," replied Cyril, reddening under the skin browned by cricket aud plenty of it ; " but I'm sure it would grieve mother — indeed it would, Lance, to know that we said so." " You are always thinking of what mother would think." " She is so dear," said Cyril, with a soft light in his eyes. The brothers by this time were tall striplings, the elder — so folk said — the handsomer, but the younger dowered with that winning grace that is so perilous a gift. The purity of childhood, the coming strength of manhood, sat enthroned upon his open brow, shone in his frank and lustrous eyes.

It is rare that a boy passes through bo)-hood's days, and touches the threshold of manhood, thus unsullied. But there are such cases for all that, and of these Cyril Peyton was one. He was no fool, and not a bit of a "mollie." The best " forward " in his school team, a batting average of twenty four, a mug or two enshrined in his own special room— one for the " high jump," one for the " mile ; " with such attri butes and possessions he could not well be that. He was not a brilliant scholar, but yet above the average, and as thorough in his work as in his games. Quite scholar enough, in fact, for a fellow whose father was going to buy him a commission in Her Majesty's service as soon as he should attain — not exactly to years of discretion, but to the number of years (not very many) at which a grateful country would consent to be defended by him.

Sir Marmaduke had schemes for his elder son (when that devil of which we wot should duly be cast forth), and things were much more likely to go smoothly with Cyril far than with Cyril near. Lance was not impressionable, and had no great depths of tenderness in his nature ; but, somehow, he was ofttimes influenced by his brother, even when he laughed or even jeered at him, which was not seldom. " You're the ' good boy ' of the family," he would say with a nasty sneer ; but yet he always realized the fact that Cyril was the " bright boy " of the family too ; the light and joy (there was not much else of that kind) of Lady Peyton's life. Lance was not jealous of this. He thought his mother was, by nature, given to the senti mental, and had only been drilled into common sense because his father kept the upper hand, and never allowed any non sense.

This was his cheerful way of putting it. That "the boy" (Cyril was always "the boy," as if there were no other boy) was also inclined to sentiment was undeniable. Lance had shrewd suspicions that when they were alone together they were very sentimental indeed — this mother who had been repressed into common-sense, and the boy whom nobody could repress. Indeed, the task would have been very much like trying to stem a bright and sparkling stream by catching it in your fingers. Yes, Cyril would be much better away, there could be no doubt about that, thought Sir Marmaduke. A regiment on foreign service would be the best oubliette possible. Letters were harmless things compared with the electric power of personal influence ; nor was the charm of Cyril's look, and voice, and manner a thing that could be written down in black and white. It was a thing intangible, irresistible, spiritual.