Poet and Peer

Front matter

NOVELS AT 2s. 6d. The Three Musketeers, and Twenty Years After, by Dumas. The Taking of the Bastile, Dumas. Tristram Shandy, and Sentimental Journey, by Sterne. Carleton's Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, complete edition. VicomtedeBragelonne,2vols. Dumas. Lewis Arundel, by Smedley. Frank Fairlegh, by Smedley. Harry Coverdale, by Smedley. The Colville Family, by Smedley. Monte Cristo, Complete, by Dumas. Memoirs of a Physician, by Dumas. NOVELS AT TWO SI A. B. EDWARDS. SHILLINGS W. H. AXNSWORTH. Boscobel. King's Own Borderers. The White Cockade. The Ladder of Life. Half a Million of Money. Manchester Rebels. Preston Fight. Dick Rodney. First Love & Last Love. The Girl He Married. Lady Wedderburn's Wish. Miss FERRIER. Marriage. The Inheritance. Destiny. Beau Nash. Oapt. ARMSTRONG.

The Two Midshipmen. The Medora. Jack Manly. Only an Ensign. Adventures ot Rob Roy. Under the Red Dragon. The Queen's Cadet. Shall I Win Her? FIELDING. Tom Jones. Joseph Andrews. Amelia. The War Hawk. The Young Commander. BERTHA H. BUXTON. Jennie of ' The Prince's.' Won I Fetterless. GERSTAECKER. A Wife to Order. The Two Convicts. The Feathered Arrow. Each for Himself. Fairer than a Fairy. The Secret Dispatch. One of the Sis Hundred. Great Grenfell Gardens. Oapt. OHAMTER. Life of a Sailor. Ben Brace. Morley Ashton. Did She Love Him ? The Ross-shire Buffs. G. R. GLEIG. Chelsea Veterans. The Hussar. Six Years Ago. Vere of Ours. Tom Bowling. Jack Adams. The Lord Hermitage. The Royal Regiment. The Duke of Albany's Highlanders. The Cameronians. Mrs. GORE. HENRY COGKTON. Valentine Vox. Stanley Thorn.

The Money Lender- Pin Money. The Dowager. M. CROMMELIN. . My Love She's but a Lassie Yet. The Dead Tryst. JAMES GRANT. Romance of War. The Aide-de-Camp. The Scottish Cavalier. Bothwell. Jane Seton ; or, The Queen's Advocate. Philip Rollo. Legends of the Black Watch. Author of "Guy Livingstone." Guy Livingstone, Barren Honour. Queenie. A Jewel of a Girl. Orange Lily. Black Abbey. Maurice Dering. Brakespeare. Anteros. Mrs. CROWE. Night Side of Nature. Susan Hopley. Linny Lockwood. Breaking a Butterfly. Sans Merci. Mary of Lorraine. Oliver Ellis; or, The Fusiliers. Lucy Arden ; or, Hollywood Hall. Frank Hilton. The Yellow Frigate. Harry Ogilvie ; or, The Black Dragoons. Arthur Blane. Laura Everingham. Captain of the Guard. Letty Hyde's Lovers. Cavaliers of Fortune. Second to None. Constable of France.

Chapter I

One August evening, before the harvest moon had risen over the golden wheatfields and slopes of orchard-land that surround the village of Ripple, a little girl of eleven was seen driving home a cow and her calf from the hillside pastures, where they had been feeding. She was seen, I repeat, and it was by a lad of sixteen, who stood alone, leaning over a gate which divides the Athelstone woods from certain common grounds, over which the owner of those woods is also lord of the manor. Ripple belongs .mainly to him; but it lies three miles away from the Castle, and Lord Athelstone's interests are chiefly with the more populous village of Warley, which nestles at the foot of the Castle steep. There you will find model slated cottages, the national school, and the penny-reading club. At Ripple there is only a dame's school and thatched roofs, and there the sleepy old ways of fifty years since still flourish.

The Rippleites lack energy, Lord Athelstone thinks; he regards them with a beneficent toleration, and ministers to their temporal wants, but his heart goes out to the men of Warley, who are more enterprising in their farms, and adopt his lordship's steam ploughs and thrashing-machines. Not that he is a man for rash experiment, for innovation and reform : he is a staunch Conservative ; but, as such, it becomes him to employ all the means which practical science has applied to husbandry, when their utility is clearly demonstrated. He is a man whose mind is never disturbed by doubts; he sees one thing slowly but clearly at a time ; and those who do not see as he does are either dangerous radicals or pig-headed boors. All this is but a natural digression from the young lad who leant over a gate that autumn evening some twelve years ago.

Wilfred Athelstone, his father's only child, was then an Etonian. He knew but little of Ripple, except as a hamlet in an outlying corner of his father's estate, while every man's and woman's name in Warley was familiar to him. But the boy was unusually open to impressions of beauty ; and the nestling of moss-grown roofs and diamond-paned casements, the slopes of garden glowing with rose-cheeked apples and knots of common flowers, arrested his attention, until it was diverted to the little cow-herd who approached. The boy was already something of a poet, as we shall see by-and-by ; and it came into his head, as he stood there, watching this child and her cow, that it was as perfect an idyl as Theocritus ever sang. She tripped along, with the red sunset behind her, tipping the ends of light brown hair that streamed out from under the linen bonnet tilted over her pretty face, and glorifying the skirt of her lilac print frock, which the breeze drifted backwards as she danced along.

She held a stick — it might almost be termed a wand — in her hand, wherewith she made believe to drive the mild-eyed mother and her offspring before her, though, in truth, they showed no reluctance to re turn for the night to their shed and litter of straw. The child was delicately made, and her unconscious grace, and the sweet clear voice in which she carolled snatches of some old country song, as she advanced, fired the young poet's imagination. Her way led directly past the gate on which he leant. She stared somewhat affrighted on seeing him, and brought both little hobnailed boots together with a courtesy which resembled a futile effort at sitting. ' Good-evening,' said Wilfred, in a half-shamefaced way (had ne addressed a duchess, he would have been bold enough, even to defiance). ' What is your name, little girl ?' ' Nellie Dawson, if you please, sir— my lord,' replied the sweet little voice. ' Oh, you know me ?

Not that I am " my lord," Nellie — never call me that. Where do you live ? Who is your father ?' ' I ain't got none, sir. Mother and me lives in yon cottage,' and one rosy hand pointed to the first low thatched roof that showed above the apple-boughs. ' Oh ! you're the child of John Dawson, who died two years ago— I remember. What does your mother do ?' ' Mother does everything.' ' You ought to go to school, Nellie, instead of minding the cows.' ' I do go ; only it's over at four, if you please, sir, so I run up the field to bring the cow home.' ' And you can read and write well ?' ' Yes, sir, and 'rithmetic too.' 'That's right. There's nothing like knowledge. 'It makes all men equal.' The child stared at the aphorism, and said nothing. The young gentleman continued, in his gently dicta torial way, ' You must work hard, and then you'll rise.

Every one ought to try to rise, you know.' The child had heard her mother talk about the bread ' rising.' She had also heard a distich about 'Early to bed, and early to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise ;' but what the young gentleman meant by her ' trying to rise,' she had no sort of idea. He continued, ' I shall come and see your mother. I've never been in your cottage in my life. I am so little at home now. How did you know me ?' ' I've a-seed you in church, sir.' ' You mustn't say, "I've a-seed." Say, " I've seen." By-the bye, can you milk your cow?' ' Oh yes, sir ! I always does.' ' Always do, Nellie. Give me some, then, in this leather cup. Milk warm from the cow is a draught fit for the gods.' The child looked puzzled at this last utterance, but she dropped her little courtesy again, as she took the cup from his hand, and ran to the cow, which was nibbling the grass under an apple-tree a few yards off.

Kneeling down, she deftly filled the cup with the frothing liquid ; then, holding it be tween both her rosy hands, with careful footsteps, she brought it to Wilfred, at the gate. ' Just like Hebe,' murmured the boy, as he took the cup. She had no idea what he meant ; but felt proud to have ren dered this small service to ' the young lord, ' as she still called him to herself. ' Thank you, Nellie,' said he, drawing a long breath. ' One good turn deserves another, you know. I shall bring you a book when I come. And, if you like it, you must learn some of it by heart, and repeat it to me,' Then, with a nod and a smile, he shouldered his fishing-rod, while the little maid ' bobbed ' once more, and hurried after her kine. Here was a piece of news to give mother ! The young lord had promised to come and see them, and bring her a book.

But, oh ! what did he mean by saying that fresh milk was ' a drink fit for the gods "! It sounded like the Ammonites and wicked idolaters she had read of in Holy Writ. Perhaps mother would know what the young lord meant.

Chapter II

A word ot two more as to Lord Athelstonc, personally and mentally. He was now nearly sixty, but more hale and active than most men of half his age. He was getting bald, and what little hair he had was white ; but his eye was keen, his teeth and his digestion sound, and he would walk all day over the stubble, in the September which was at hand, as vigorously as he did twenty years ago. A certain obstinacy — which was the only point of resemblance between father and son — characterized the lower portion of the face. The forehead was high, narrow, and the perceptive organs largely developed. The nose was a good serviceable nose : neither aggressively long, nor meanly diminutive ; neither refined and sensitive, like his son's, nor powerful and truncular, like the late lord's, as it appeared in the effigy of that learned nobleman which hung over the dining room sideboard.

Lord Athelstone lived in the faith, political and religious, of his fathers, w7ith just so much difference as the change in the times rendered imperative ; no more. They had been orthodox, and so was he ; but he tolerated a surplice in the pulpit, and admitted with reluctance the possibility of the world not having been created in seven days. They had been good old Tories ; he was a Conservative ; yet thirty years ago he had been held by some of his party to entertain unsound views ; voting for the admission of Jews into Parliament, and standing, so to speak, on a small headland, in advance of the strong cliffs of Toryism. Now the tide was above his ankles ; yet still he maintained his footing, He was not a man of parts • he had never distinguished himself at Cambridge or in the House of Commons as a young man, or in the other House of later years ; but he had strong common-sense, and had done his duty as a husband, a landlord, and a magistrate, on the whole, wisely.

How he would do it in the yet more difficult part of father which he would be called on to play as his son grew up — a part demanding in this particular case infinite tact and judgment — remained to be seen. Lady Athelstone was nearly twenty years her husband's junior ; but the disparity of age was apparently felt by neither ; and as time went on, it brought the middle-aged woman nearer and nearer to her still active and energetic lord. Lady Athel stone was neither active nor energetic by nature ; but she was consumed by a desire to be irreproachable in every detail of life, goading her into a fitful but fatiguing earnestness, which at first sight resembled both activity and energy. She sat at the board of Benevolent Ladies' Institutions, and belonged to numberless organizations for well-doing, and deserved infinite credit, inasmuch as it was not pleasure to her, but grievous trouble.

She read books 'for improvement,' and hoped her information was exact ; if not, she begged you would correct her. Her position in the social scale, both as to rank and fortune, was duly weighed, and it influenced the choice of her bonnets. She was, even at forty, still a pretty woman, of the over-refined type which indicates some impoverishment of the firmer and healthier forms of beauty, by a process of natural selection, in civilization. But the perils of personal vanity she had never known. Even when first married, fifteen years ago, she never seemed to expect admiration, and the suggestion of flirtation in con nection with her name had never crossed the brain of the keenest scandalmonger. She was an admirable and a submis sive wife on every point unconnected with Wilfred. Upon this subject she ventured occasionally, in a mild, persistent way, to differ from the boy's father, who, as she thought — and perhaps rightly — did not ' understand ' his son, and rendered scant justice to his abilities.

Whether the fond mother ' understood ' him better is questionable, if ' understanding ' purports to in clude the wise regulation of materials not easily reducible to laws. Had she been the arbiter of his fate in those days, Wilfred would not have gone to a public school, for Lady Athelstone feared the contact of such pate tendre with coarse earthenware. But his father was resolute ; stuff and nonsense about a poetic temperament, and high-strung, sensitive organi zation, etc., etc. ; four generations of Athelstones had been educated at Eton ; the boy must rough it, as his forefathers had done. And he did. Wilfred's scholarship, in spite of his reputation in a narrow circle of connections as being ' so remarkably gifted,' was not very noticeable; but he did'fairly well in classics, and won some reputation by his Latin verses.

The utterances of his English muse were yet more fluent; and the impassioned rhapsody and revolutionary vaticinations of the aristocratic youth of tender years won for him a certain amount of admira tion, not unaccompanied with correlative ridicule. To the latter he was very indifferent ; and, as his geniality and good temper prevented his being unpopular even among those who called him ' a young ass,' it came to pass, as it always does in the world, that the enthusiast, however small and foolish, had a certain following. To these he held forth ; with the others he argued ; among both, his love of hearing himself talk had full scope. His mother declared he would be the Demos thenes of the Upper tlouse one day ; at which Mr. Punchett, the satirist, was heard to say, ' It would be a blessing if he prepared for the part now by keeping his mouth full ot pebbles.' Wilfred was rash in opinions, to which he held with tenacity, if they were opposed.

The temptation of shocking people a little, and astonishing them a great deal, once yielded to, he found irresistible. His father was a Conservative ; therefore, as the lines that divide Whiggery from Conservatism are almost imperceptible in these days, nothing remained to the youth, if he wished to be original, but to declare himself a Red Repub lican. Had he been brought up at a French Communist school, or a German university, his combativeness would pro bably have led him to become a staunch upholder of the divine right of kings. But at Eton his friends were the scions of great houses, whose traditions, no less than their impulses, led them to defend the patrician institutions in which they had been nurtured. These boys fought for their cause with piuck and intelligence ; and it required all Wilfred's quickness of memory and swiftness of fence to uphold the extreme views it was his pleasure to adopt.

But they liked him ; for he would do any fellow's Latin verses for him, bore the most merciless ' roasting ' with perfect good-humour, and was a very fair stroke in the boats. 'Athelstone's an awfully good-natured little chap,' said an idle young giant named Bruce to another named St. John, a much older, graver, and cleverer lad, with whom Wilfred especially delighted to argue — ' but how he does jaw, by Jove ! and what rot he does talk, about doing away with the aristocracy, and all that !' 'He will get into some precious mess by-and-by, if he don't change his tone,' replied the other. ' Then he's such a romantic beggar — likes solitude, and mountains, and all that sort of thing,' continued Bruce ; ' at least, he says so, and pretends he should like to be poor, and have to work for his bread.

It's all cheek, I believe. He's too bumptious.' ' He is a poet ; it is part of his stock-in-trade,' said St. John, with a smile, 'and he "fancies himself " rather in the character. That's all.' So Wilfred was chaffed ; listened to and admired by the few, ridiculed by the many ; tolerated by all, and ' put down ' by no one. It was the evening of the day on which Wilfred had met Nellie Dawson. The boy was seated between his father and mother at a small round table in the great dining-room, with the portrait of the late lord in a thunderstorm over the side board, and the army of maroon leather-seated chairs along the wall ; not a cheerful apartment at any time, but forming an especially dreary framework to so small a company ; for the four servants who hovered round the table might have belonged to the land of shadows, so noiseless were their movements over the soft-piled carpet.

It was Saturday, and the Castle had been emptied of its guests that afternoon ; a fresh batch was to arrive on Monday ; the interregnum was agreeable to Lord Athelstone, and doubly so to his wife, who hailed these intervals of rest from the toils of hospitality which she endured, as one of the necessary duties belonging to her station, but never enjoyed. Such brief inter vals of unshackled intercourse with his boy Lord Athelstone always achieved two or three times during Wilfred's holidays, in spite of the numerous claims upon his time. The soup was not off the table before Wilfred began. i5 POET AND PEER. ■ ' Father, you know Mrs. Dawson at Ripple, don't y*ou ? She lives in the first thatched cottage on the hillside, near the wood.' « Dawson ? Oh ! The widow of that Radical fellow who died two years ago.

Yes — a good sort of woman, I believe. Why do you ask ?' ' I met a child to-day — such a child ! — who gave me a drink of milk, and told me her mother was Mrs. Dawson. She was like a dream of health and innocence.' ' A dream ? God bless my soul ! I dare say she has the reality. Always high-flown, Will. What do they say at Eton to your " dreams " ?' As his son did not respond, Lord Athel stone went on : ' Do you know anything of this child, my lady? I suppose she goes to the dame's school ?' ' Poor little thing — yes. I wish some better education could be given her. I have not seen her for some time, and meant to make my round of the Ripple cottages next week.' ' If she lives all her life there, the education will do well enough for her,' observed Lord Athelstone decisively. ' But why should she live there all her life ?' asked Wilfred, raising his head quickly. ' Why shouldn't she go out into the world, and become a ' ■ ' A housemaid ?

The dame's schooling will do well enough for that' ' I didn't mean that — a pupil-teacher, or even something better. Why shouldn't she rise, father ?' ' Why should she ? That is the question. Why not let her remain contented in the station in which she was born ? This over-education and mania to rise are the curse of the present day.' 'The world doesn't stand still, father. Things are not as they were fifty years ago ; the poor can no longer be treated like swine.' ' I am not aware that my father treated any of those dependent on him like swine,' said Lord Athelstone drily. ' There is enough progress without our helping to push society more rapidly downhill.' ' C/^hill, I should say,' returned his argumentative son. 'The true wisdom, I fancy, is to educate the people so that they shall learn how to bear with fortitude the accident of poverty.' Lord Athelstone shook his head. 'Stuff!

They get dissatisfied with hard labour. That is the only result. We shall soon have no servants at all. And, as a matter of fact, when you have lived a little longer, you will find that poverty presses more hardly on people of education than on those who, knowing nothing else, are content to live by the sweat of their brow.' And so the discussion continued for some time, supported with a certain amount of truth on both sides ; the complete truth lying between the two, though the vision of each was focussed to too narrow a point to perceive this. Lord Athel stone sometimes lost his temper with the sharp boy's perti nacity ; sometimes rode rough-shod over the opinions Master Wilfred advanced. Neither course was wise. But have any of us known what it is to be contradicted by a chit of a boy ?

How much worse must it be when that boy is one's son and heir ! Lady Athelstone smiled on her offspring with a gaze more fond than far-seeing, and examined her nails. She always did so when she was not quite at ease. It was so daring of him to take up the cause of the poor so enthusiastically ! so refined, so unlike most Eton boys, the interest he evinced in this poor little village child ! But she wished he would not argue with his father. She wished they could agree ; it would be so much nicer. No doubt papa was right ; but then dear Wilfred's views were so generous, would it not be better not to oppose them ? For her part, she disliked all discussion. But she promised Wilfred before he went to bed that night that she would go with him to Mrs. Dawson's on Monday.

Chapter III

Soon after luncheon that day the pony-carriage drew up at the little wicket of Mrs. Dawson's cottage, and Lady Athelstone, followed by Wilfred, walked up the narrow garden-path, fragrant with the odour of sweet-peas and honeysuckle. Mrs. Dawson was washing in the kitchen, while Nellie helped her mother to wring the linen, and hang it on the line, stretched between two apple-trees, just outside the door, which stood open. Many a lady would have been discomposed at a visit under such circumstances, there being a general sense of steam, and soap-suds, and damp linen in the air. But Mrs. Dawson was a very simple creature, whose mind was cast in an unvulgar mould, and who, when she had expressed her regret to Lady Athelstone at having to receive her thus, did not distress her self further about it, and talked to her visitor with a calm self possession in which there was no touch of assumption.

She was a pale, thin woman, who had been pretty a very few years back ; but hard work and sorrow had aged her before her time. The face was a joyless one ; the voice and manner singularly gentle. She hurriedly wiped her hands, and opened the door of her little parlour, made glad by shells, a basket of bead-work, and a cheap print or two. While Wilfred presented the little maid with a selection of English ballads, which he enjoined her to read, and learn some of them by heart, especially ' King Co phetua's Daughter,' and the child's delighted face vied with the crimson binding of the volume in colour, Lady Athelstone seated herself, and said : ' Your little girl is very much grown, Mrs. Dawson— she is getting to be quite useful to you, I see.' ' Yes, my lady, she is a good child. I wish she took more to her needle ; but she's well-nigh the top o' the school, and the dame says there's ne'er a better girl, so I ought to be satisfied.' ' Doesn't take to her needle ?

That's a pity,' said Lady Athel stone, with the necessity of small minds to fasten on a speck. ' What is she to do in her station, if she can't work ?' ' She'll have to do it by-and-by, my lady, so I'm sorry it don't come nat'ral to her ; but she is very handy in odd jobs, and helps me all she can.' The child was in the outer kitchen, absorbed in the exami nation of her book, which the young gentleman beside her expounded, so that neither of them heard the conversation in the parlour. ' That is right. I am glad she promises so well, Mrs. Daw son — your only child — so important ! We must see what we can do for her, by-and-by. I assure you my son was quite in terested about her. He takes so much interest about the— the —our poorer neighbours. What do you mean to do with her when she grows older ?' ' I hope,' said the widow, looking down, with a tremulous voice, ' that we shall not have to separate, my lady.

Of course if it is for her advantage, I shall not stand in the way ; but I have nothing else in the world, and I do hold by her, my lady. ' ' Of course ; still, you see, Mrs. Dawson, education is a great thing, and Nellie can't improve herself very much at Ripple. There is that to be thought of, and she is fond of books — evidently fond of books,' repeated Lady Athelstone, as she observed through the open door the child's radiant little face bent over her ballads. ' She will soon get beyond the dame, and you must then think of what you will do with her. If you have any idea of her entering domestic service ' Lady Athel stone paused a moment, which gave Mrs. Dawson the oppor tunity, without rude interruption, of saying : ' Her father didn't wish, my lady, that she should be a ser vant, and as long as her and me can live independent ' ' Ah !

I remember Dawson had ideas — very well. The only thing is, as the child seems intelligent, it is a pity she should do nothing but help you in the housework, and take care of the cow. However, there is time enough to think over it ; and if, by-and-by, you care for her to go to one of the middle-class schools, let me know, and I will see what can be done.' ' Her uncle Joshua wants me to go and live near him at Warmington, my lady, but I can't bear to think of leaving Ripple.' ' Who is her uncle Joshua ? What does he do ?' ' He's Dawson's only brother, my lady— older, and a deal richer. He's in the iron trade, and a very good business, and only one son, and he'd help me, I know, if I was near him ; but he don't seem to care to do anything for me here. He's one of them, my lady, as likes to have it all their own way.

He's a self-made man, and thinks a deal of education, and don't hold by village schools. But I tell him as I'd rather remain poor in Ripple than be well-to-do in a black, smoky town like Warmington.' This was the kind of tentative proposition of sentiments on which Lady Athelstone always shrank from pronouncing. Attachment to home was so nice. That Lord Athelstone's poor tenants should be attached to their homesteads was so especially nice, and their landlord would so approve of it ; it was a drag upon the wheel of socialism, he would say. That was one view of the question. The other, and less sentimental one, would be advocated by all the Societies to which she be longed, for the advancement of women and development of 2 — ao POET AND PEER. skilled labour in the industrial classes. Removal to a^ stirring intellectual centre, and profiting by any uncle Joshua's bene ficial dispositions, was clearly the wise course for a poor widow with an intelligent child.

Lady Athelstone's mind oscillated, as it had an unconquer able habit of doing, on such occasions. It was with difficulty she brought herself to say, because it was absolutely necessary to say something : ' Well, that is very creditable to you, Mrs. Dawson. But the matter should be well weighed — well weighed. You must think of your child's future. If her uncle is disposed to be friend her, it would be foolish, perhaps, to thwart him. Still, we should be very sorry if you left Ripple. His lordship does not like to see his old tenants leave the place ; he likes them to go on from generation to generation — and we would always look after Nellie, you know. Still, if it is for her welfare — however, you must do nothing rashly — nothing rashly.' And with this Lady Athelstone rose. She might be led to pledge herself unconditionally to one side or the other if she talked more.