Feet of Clay

Front matter

NOVELS BY AMELIA E. BARR. "Mrs. Barrs stories are always pleasant to read. They are full of sweetness and light"— Scotsman. "In descriptive writing, in simplicity and gratefulness of style, and in perfect mastery over her characters, Mrs. Bar, can Iwld her own with any living English novelist. — OLAS govv Herald. •In a variety of Handsome Cloth Bindings, or Bound Uniformly. Crown 8vo, price 3s. 6d. each. The Household of McNeil. In Spite of Himself. A Border Shepherdess. Paul and Christina. The Squire of Sandal-Side. The Bow of Orange Ribbon. Between Two Loves. A Daughter of Fife. Jan Vedder's Wife. A New and Cheap Edition of " Jan Vedder's Wife " is now issued. In paper cover, price is. 6d. The Harvest of the Wind, AND OTHER STORIES. Crown Svo, paper, is. JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14, FLEET STREET Feet of Clay Feet of Clay BY AMELIA E. BARR, Author oj "fan Vedder's IVise." iLonbon : JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14, FLEET STREET. 1889.

CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I.— Bella Clucas I II. — Wanted, a Thousand Pounds . . . . 23 III.— The Cottage in Glen-Mellish ... 41 IV.— Bella's Opinion 62 V. — Shadows of Coming Events .... 81 VI.— Feet of Clay 100 VII.— An Unwelcome Visitor ..... 122 VIII.— One Kind of Death 138 IX. — Drifting 153 X.— The Heart of Bella Clucas . . . .174 XI. — Mrs. Pennington's Perplexity . . .198 XII. — The Sword of Damocles .... 219 XIII. — Love and Death ...... 239 XIV.— Youth at the Prow . . . . .268 XV.— "Like as a Father" 294 XVI. — A Sacrifice Accepted . . . . .316 XVII. — Sunrise

Chapter I. Bella Clucas

Where the wide heath in purple pride extends, And scattered gorse its golden lustre lends, Closed in a green recess, unenvied lot, The blue smoke rises from the turf-built cot. Point me out a place Wherever man has made himself a home, And there I find the story of our race ; What matters the degree ? the kind I trace, THE most beautiful feature of a Manx landscape is the lovely glens which run inland from the rocky beaches. In all countries one may dream of such valleys — in the Isle of Man it is permitted that mortals shall find in reality the intensely green verdure, the wonderful flowers, the clear air, the charmed stillness of their visions — a stillness only intensified by the everlasting murmur of the ocean, which vibrates through them like the pulse of life. Nearly half a-century ago, in one of these lovely, lonely places, stood the cottage of Ruthie Clucas.

Like all Manx cottages, it was built of unhewn stones, roughly mortared together, and whitewashed. But the scarlet fuchsia clambered all over the walls and hedged in a pretty garden, where the delicate veronica grew to luxuriant bushes, and the lily-like amaryllis, and the white odorous everlastings, and the fragrant rosemary poured forth lavishly their delightful incense. The interior of the cottage was that of the Manx fisher-farmer. On the wide hearth there was a fire of peats, and up the chimney a huge chain with hooks, on which to hang the pans above the low fire. The deal tables and chairs and the three-legged stools were scrubbed white as ivory. The equally white dresser was gay with cups and jugs and basins in bewildering quantity, and of the gaudiest colours. Bits of patchwork and pots of geranium, and a clean white curtain at the window, gave freshness to the room.

The wide mantelshelf was filled with ocean treasures, marvellous things brought up in the nets from the deep-sea fishing, or from strange countries by adventurous sailors. On the walls were hung some good trout lines, and the wool-carders, and a miniature ship, full rigged, in a glass case. In one corner there was a small round table, and upon it the Holy Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. In another corner was the spinning wheel ; and above it a little shelf holding Ruthie's almanacs and his rarely-used spectacles. At the open door Ruthie's only daughter, Bella, stood watching the sun set behind the rugged masses of Spanish Head. Her face had a dreamy and pensive expression ; but then, who with a soul ever watched the daily sun going down over the sea without a feeling of melancholy ? The glory from the horizon enveloped her in its rose and violet haze.

It turned her blue flannel skirt into something royal, and her reddish-brown hair into an aureola of gold-red radiance. Few people thought her face beautiful, but it was neither vulgar nor common-place, for she had a forehead which caught the light and threw it back ; and large blue eyes, glinting and in- FEET OF CLA Y. 4 tense. Besides, there was around her the charm of youth and of perfect health, and her tall, supple figure embodied the idea of womanly strength and courage. She looked like a flower which has been hid away in some sweet, secret place which the wind has not blown nor the sun parched. Yet this was hardly the case. Bella knew the stress of seasons when the " takes " had been small, and her father was gloomy, and her mother irritable or anxious. She had felt keenly the small disappointments flowing from such circumstances.

One of her brothers had been " wild," and brought anger and weeping to the hearthstone many a time. She had seen death come twice by the way of the sea. The little domestic frets, the daily inabilities that make so much of household unhappiness, dropped their bitterness and cast their shadows in her lonely home Its humble, unhewn walls had seen everything that make up life — the striving, the doing, the suffering, the rejoicing of humanity. But site had the dew of her youth ! Trouble has been like the shadow of a bird's win°- : it was there, it was gone. When she turned her face from the setting sun it was the face of a girl who trusted all her own hopes and expected happiness from day to day. Her mother was sitting by the window knitting a stocking when she re-entered the cottage. She was fifty years of age, but she had ruddy cheeks, and bright, piercing eyes, and black curly hair put back neatly under a white linen cap.

Her homespun dress, her little shoulder shawl, her clean checked apron, her fingers busy among the glinting, clicking needles, made her a pleasant picture as she lifted her eyes to meet her daughter's smile. " Bell, ma chree ! * Why aren't you to The House these two days ? " " I was waitin for Miss Harriet to be comin here. Were you not hearin, mother, that Mr. George is home again ? What for would I be intrudin then, and me not knowin if I would be welcome or not welcome ? " " I heard the lady axin you." " Just jokin-like." " I wouldn' wonder. But before Mr. George went away it was great friends you were, and nobody suitin him like you." " Mayve ! I was thirteen years oJd then — a * My Heart. girl, and no more. Things are different when one is eighteen, I think." " Of course, of course ! I was forgettin entirely.

He'll be changed too. I never thought much of him. A poor heart he had, and the selfish he was ! The selfish and obstinate, aw, astonishin." "Mayve you didn' know him, mother." " Mayve I don' know my left hand from my right hand. Mayve it's hard to know them that never thinks a straight thought or takes a straight road. Didn' know him, and him comin here day after day, and chittin and chattin, and me that taken with his smooth tongue in spite myself, and of the sense I have ! " " It's five years since, mother." " Of coorse ! He'll be five years better — or five years worse. That the abslit truth. But what for will you be takin him into your count ? Put him neither here nor there in your life. He's no more to you than a new chair or table in his mother's house. Miss Harriet is different ; a poor girl can take love from a rich woman, when love from a rich man might mean destruction and damnation to her."

" Mother ! what are you talkin with the like ol them words for ? " " When it's a warnin it's the plainest words a mother can find she's wantin. It is all on the look and the feel you have been the last two days, Bella. Aw, a mother isn' blind ! And it's too much you're makin of the comin back of him that's nothin to you. The still you were, and the sweet, and all your body listening for the steps and the voice that didn' come ! And, bless my soul ! why should they come ? " " What are you wantin me to do, mother ? " " Chut ! Do what you would have done if Mr. George was still in Anglan. There are the plover's eggs that the ladies think diamonds of. Three days since, the wet, nor the far, nor this, nor the other, would have stayed you with them The sun has set, but there is two hours before the dim.

Take the eggs and go to The House, and be no more mindin the young gentleman than if he wasn' there. And lay high if he speaks to you. I know him. The nice he'll be, and the polite, too, and — ' Are you mindin of this, Bella ? ' and ' Have you forgotten the other ? ' — and carryin on that pleasin ; but all as one, the divil in his heart and his words. I know this kind of the quality — the like is at them." " You're foolish, mother, though. Do you think I'll be listenin to what I shouldn' hear ? Do you think, then, that Miss Harriet will be lettin me listen ? " " Aw, my lass, you might be took on the sudden. But you'll be safe now, for you're warned afore, and the guard set ; that is, if you'll be mindin the words I have said in your ear and the words that you'll hear in your own breast." Bella had been longing to go to The House for two days, and she was glad when her mother's advice fitted so completely with her own inclination.

That it was hampered by her restrictions, and darkened by her evil fore bodings, did not trouble her very much. She wished George had not been so much misunder stood ; she felt sure that now he had become a man his maturer virtues would bury his youthful follies. She told herself that no one knew him as she did ; for girls of thirteen have usually a great opinion of their own wisdom and pene tration, and Bella at eighteen clung to her ideal lover of five years ago. She would have liked to have put on her muslin frock and Sunday bonnet, but her mother's face and her directions to " hurry " convinced her that any attempt to make herself more attractive than usual would be useless. But there is a wonderful self-satisfaction in youth, and as she walked rapidly forward she soon regained all her ordinary composure.

The valley narrowed as she ascended it, and finally, by a mere footpath, emerged upon the hill-top. The country here was bleak and open. There were no trees, and The House stood about half a mile from the cliff, boldly facing the sea, and in a great measure buffeted by every wind that blew. It was surrounded, however, by a spacious enclosure, and within it the laburnums were dropping flowers of gold, and the fuchsia hedges were a glorious wonder of scarlet and purple bells ; the subtle, woody smell of wall-flowers enthralled the senses ; white lilies lighted up the pansy beds ; and honey-suckle clambered with ivy and clematis over the grey stone walls of the dwelling. It was a large square house, of the Georgian period, with large square rooms and a wide central hall. About it there was nothing dim or romantic or mysterious.

It might have been built by a man of the most mathematical mind, whose highest rule of life was that two and two make four. Bella had been used to go directly through the garden to Miss Harriet's room, and she followed her usual course. In spite of the long, long twilight of the island, it was getting a little dusky among the shrubbery and in the lower rooms of the house, and Miss Harriet's parlour was one of them. But very often at that hour she was with her mother in the more public room, and when so, Bella's approach was always seen, and she was met by one of the ladies. They were both very fond of her, and Bella's visits brought to them a slight change — a sense of human fellowship, which was generally very welcome. This night the garden was deserted. Neither presence nor sound stirred its solitude.

Bella was disappointed. She had felt as if Mr. George would certainly be smoking in its sweet alleys. She had hoped to see him first of all quite alone. If he had forgotten her the shock would be more easily borne ; if he had not for gotten the joy would be sweeter if it were entirely her own. Her heart fell as she entered the silent hall. The butler— a very aged man— was shuffling through it, and he answered her " Good evenin " with that apathy to youth and beauty which dull old men feel. " My mistress is sick," he said, querulously; "and Miss Harriet is in her own sittin-room. What have you got ? Plover's eggs ! Aw, dear ! they're as unlucky as can be. And the ladies set on eatin them. Women curious folk — yes ! " " I never heard that plover's eggs were un lucky, John Quayle." " You are young and iggrint ; listen to the birds now !

There they go, wheelin round the house, and crying, ' Lost ! lost ! ' It's their eggs, I wouldn' wonder ! Unlucky ! Mortal unlucky, to steal plover's eggs." " That is a curlew cryin, John Ouayle." " Aw, then, it's deaf I'm gettin ; all the same, plover's eggs mortal ill-luck. I wouldn' touch them." The incident, trifling as it was, affected her unpleasantly. Why hadn't John Quayle told her so before ? He had taken plovers' eggs frequently from her. " Why ? " Who can tell ? How often all of us carry words in our hearts for years, and then in some moment, when we are scarce responsible for the act, fling them like a fate at the consciousness of some one, whom we have hardly considered, and who seems to have no connection with them ! Bella placed the unlucky gift on a table, and then went empty-handed to Miss Harriet's door.

Her light tap did not bring the ready " Come in, Bella," which was its usual result. There was a minute's pause, and the sound of hurried, earnest speaking before the lady uttered her customary permission. Bella, too, made a little pause. That, also, was unusual, and she en tered the room suffused with that very con sciousness which she had been striving all the way to suppress. Captain George Pennington stood by the window, absorbed in the abstraction of a cigar from its case of leather and silver. He wore one of the handsomest of cavalry uniforms, and he looked in it — ah ! Bella thought he looked in it the most beautiful and heroic of human beiners ! o He did not speak a word to her. He did not look at her at all. " I am going to smoke, Harriet," he said ; and with the words he sauntered slowly out of the room.

The two girls stood a moment facing each other. Then Miss Pennington, with a swift movement, clasped Bella's hands in her own, and said, almost angrily, "Why did you come, Bella ? Why did you come ? Don't you see that you have taken the first step ? It is easy now for him to take the second." " The why ? There was the plover's eggs, that Mrs. Pennington likes " " Chut I You wanted to see George, you know you did ! It was not right or kind of you, Bella. I was coming to see you to-morrow about George. You might have waited — you might have trusted me, Bella." " My mother was sayin to me, ' Take the eggs,' and I said what for would I take them ? " " The eggs ! the eggs ! a poor excuse, Bella ! You came because you wanted to come." " What for would I go to tell you lies ? My mother was sayin, ' Take the eggs, and never be mindin if Mr. George is at home or in Anglan What is Mr. George to the like of you ? ' " " Oh ! she thought you should face temptation, and make believe it was not there.

Women can't do that, Bella ; it is better for them to keep out of sight and hearing of danger." " The cross you are to-night, and the proud, Miss Harriet ; but I'll go home, of coorse ; and it's no more I'll be comin here— till you send for jj me. "Don't think I am cross and proud, Bella. There are troubles and reasons in all families that are not to be told out of them. My mother is sick with sorrow, and my own heart is aching. If I should see wrong coming to you through George Pennington, how could I bear it? We have been like sisters, have we not, Bella ? " " Middlin like, Miss Harriet ; but ther's a deal of difference between me and you. Of coorse you've been gracious to me, very gracious, and what you tell me to do, the same I'll do — if I can." " It isn't can, it is must, Bella. You must do it, or sin may come of it, and sorrow may come of it, and God only knows what following.

Hear what I say ! My brother George will tread upon the heart of any woman who loves him — whether she be mother, sister, or wife. Do you think I would say this to you if I did not feel a true affection for you ? Oh, Bella, we have played together when we were children ! — such long, happy days — remember them, dear ! We have been firm friends ever since we could say each other's name. Does it matter much if I am rich and you are poor ? No, indeed ! But because I am rich and you are poor I will not see you injured. I will not see you in danger and not try to save you." " Be content for all, Miss Harriet. If there be danger near me, there is the love to shield me, and the good home for shelter, and the father and brothers that would fight for me, and the mother that would lay down her life for mine, and I'm not fearin with all them and God above me !

" " And I love you also, Bella. Don't put me out of your counting." " No, surely, of coorse ; but you are not trustin me much, I think." " Because I would not trust myself under the same circumstances — because, Bella, I am In love, and I know what the heart of a woman in love is." The girls were about the same height. Their hands were clasped. Their eyes met tenderly and questioningly ; then they kissed each other. Harriet felt as if the kiss promised her all that she could ask. Bella had been a little offended, and she meant it as the sign of reconciliation and renewed affection. " Come this way, Bella. George is waiting for you in the garden — I know he is. You will be forced to see him, but not to-night, dear — not to-night. I want you first to tell your mother what I have said, and I want also to talk to him.

One should always do everything possible to prevent evil. That is our part. Only God can cure evil that has really happened." Holding Bella's hand, she was talking thus to her, as they went through a long passage and a flagged courtyard to a rear door, which led directly on to the gaery, or uncultivated land, beyond. There was a sense of hurry in all Miss Pennington's words and ways, and Bella felt completely overruled by it ; but as she went rapidly across the dusky gaery her eyes were dim with tears and her heart heavy with its new experience. " She was cross to me and unjust — desperat unjust — thinkin wrong, too, and me givin her no reason ! Aw, scandalous ! I'll go yandhar no more ; I'm intarmined on that ! " The sense of injustice filled her warm heart. She walked rapidly, almost unconscious of her footsteps.

As she got further and further away she began to talk aloud, with little sobs and short pauses between her words. " She might have waited — till the warnin was needed — I'm a poor girl — -iggrint and poor — and of coorse, of coorse ! the worst is to be put to me." When she got to the edge of the cliff she turned and looked back at The House. In the dim it had almost a spectral aspect, standing up so white amid the dark foliage surrounding it. Houses have their atmosphere as well as indi viduals. In the stillness and solemnity of the night they reveal something of their interiors. Bella had turned and looked at it hundreds of times before, and then dropped into the little valley, with the feeling of that look in her heart. Hitherto it had been one of lonely peace. This night it gave her a thrill of restlessness and anxiety.

She felt that sorrowful women were walking about its rooms and gazing from its windows. The first descent into the valley was steep, and there were great boulders on either hand, lichen-covered, and half hid in brackens. Cap tain Pennington was leaning against one of them, smoking a cigar. She could not avoid him without turning back. Should she do so ? She asked herself the question, and resolutely answered, " It's straight on I'll go. It's my way, and the right way, and I'll be turnin out of it for nobody." " Bella ! Bella ! " He flung his cigar away, and came towards her with outstretched hands. She trembled, she stood still, she was speech less in her joy and fear and great surprise. For though she had been sobbing to her complaints of Harriet's injustice, it had not been Harriet's injustice which had wounded her most.

Deeper than any sense of her friend's suspicions was the pain of George's silence and apparent neg lect. It was well that she had made no positive promises, for at that moment she would have broken them all. "Bella! Bella! Have you forgotten me?" He took her hand, and did precisely as Bella's mother had foretold. And in a few minutes Bella was quite at ease with the handsome soldier, who kept reminding her of the days they had gone trout fishing together, and the mornings on Scarlett rocks, and the evenings out on the moonlit sea. " Do you remember, Bella, the little cove at Scarlett where we let the boat drift, and bid each other good-bye for five long years ? What a pretty girl you were ! And though I suppose you have forgotten it, do you know that you really kissed me and pro mised to be my wife when I grew up to be a man?"

Bella lifted a face all alight with joy and love to the dark, handsome one at her side. It drew her like a magnet ; the kiss almost asked for trembled into the space between them and made it sweetly sensitive. All warnings were forgotten ; the valley was an enchanted valley ; right or wrong, she was happy beyond her hope or dreaming. To be young and beautiful, and to find her self in the sweet, hazy twilight of a summer night, beloved by a being fascinating by nature, and endowed by her own imagination with every heroic and lovable quality, what hope was there that Bella would or could listen to warnings or advices ? Nay, the warnings and advices had even in some measure prepared her to resist them. She had a nature self-contained and self-reliant. She was conscious of her own physical strength and courage, and in her untrained mind physical capability stood for mental strength and tem per.

Harriet Pennington's words had not only wounded her pride, they had roused in her an active antagonism — a desire to do the very thing she had been forbidden to do, and in the doing declare her ability to guide with wisdom her own destiny. A strange tumult was in her heart, but it was a happy tumult ; and Captain Pennington was satisfied with the result of his interview. He strolled home in a mood of sweet anticipation, and the thought of Harriet's opposition was an element piquant and provocative. And at this stage Bella was too excited to affect indifference or to contemplate deception. Her mother was sitting on the step of the cottage. The day had nothing more to demand of her ; she had put away even her knitting, and was idly gazing at the herring-boats lying at rest on the horizon. Her husband and sons were with the fleet, but she was not anxious about them ; nor, at the moment, was she troubling herself even about Bella.

But the girl's face startled her. " Sit down, Bell, ma chree ! " she said. " I wouldn' trust but you've been worried a bit by the way you look." " Miss Harriet was cross — uncommon cross — you'd hardly credit the unjust she was — and the suspicious ! aw, scandalous ! " " Is it true you're tellin ? " " And warnin me about the Captain and the like — and runnin him into the garden, and me out by the back door, on to the gaery, for fear I'd be speakin with him at all." " Ladies' airs and faddin ! Have no regardin for such ! Captain Pennington isn' gold and diamonds, if all words are true words that are spoke of him. There's odds of gentlemen, and the best kind goin will do for you to leave alone. Aw, yes ; middlin bad, the most of them." " Mother, I'll tell you all the truth. At the top of the glen Captain Pennington was waitin for me ; and that pleased and friendly ! — and out with both hands ! — and was I forgettin him and the good days behind us ? — and carryin on like that."

" Of coorse, of coorse ! Sweet as honey he'd be — desperat sweet ! — and it's as much as you'll do to keep clear of him ; but aw, ma chree ! shut your eyes to the like of him, and don' mind what he says ; the soul of a foolish girl dwells in her ear, aw, yes ! and she may be led away by a whisper." " Let us go to bed, mother. You was allis hard on Captain George." " Aw, my dear, you was allis far too soft. But bed is the best, and sleep, and mayve good dreams to make the simple wise ! Good night, ma chree ! Sleep and I'll wake for you. It's a mother's prayer that brings the angels round, and the holy thoughts, and the paysible ; — she's gone ; — God bless the girl ! "

Chapter II. Wanted

A THOUSAND POUNDS. Those who kindle a fire must put up with the smoke. There are no windows in a man's breast to publish what he does within doors, unless his own rash folly blab it. " A ND he really wants mother to give him a -^J^- thousand pounds — to pay his debts.'' Harriet Pennington felt obliged to utter the words aloud ; she could not believe her own thought unless she made it audible. A thousand pounds seemed a great deal of money to her. How it appeared to her mother, how it would affect their own daily life, she could not tell. Mrs. Pennington had always been reserved as to her resources. They had lived in good style, and the cash for their domestic wants had come without care and without petty restrictions and delays. But yet Harriet understood that her brother's demand had brought sorrow and anxiety.

The private interview between mother and son had been a prolonged and painful one, and the mother had certainly been made ill by its revelations. She loved her brother, but she was not blind to his faults. During her childhood she had often suffered for them. Whatever others thought of George Pennington, she knew him to be selfish and overbearing. " His fine appear ance ! His fine manners ! " she said, scornfully, " what are they worth ? He never does a really noble, or a really kind action. His love has never conferred happiness on any living creature, because he has never sacrificed his smallest per sonal desire to those whom he professed to love — and I saw his face last night, as he watched Bella coming through the garden. Will he respect her because she has been the playmate and companion of my childhood ? — because I still love her and care for her future ?