A Soul Astray, etc

Front matter

A SOUL ASTRAY a <A SOUL A NOVEL BY Mrs LOVETT CAMERON Author of r^ 'In a Grass Country,' 'A Bad Lot, ' Jack's Secret,' Etc. IN ONE VOLUME L ON DON F. V. WHITE & CO. 14 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C. CO NT E N TS CHAP. PAGE I. — THIRTY YEARS AGO, ..... I II. — ZILLA, ...... 12 III. — SWEETHEARTS, . . . .21 IA'. — THE HOUR OF TEMPTATION . . . -33 V. — FALSE LOVE AND TRUE, . . . .42 VI. — AN INTERLUDE, ..... 52 VII. — SUDDEN ORDERS AND A DEPARTURE, . . 59 VIII. — THE FALLING OF THE SHADOW, . . .67 IX. — THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM, . . -77 X. — FALSE WITNESS, . . . . .89 XI. — THE ONE FRIEND, ..... 9S XII. — A DESPERATE RESOLVE, .... I<7>9 XIII. — A WEDDING PARTY, . . . . ,119 XIV. — FORSAKEN, . . . . . .127 XV. — 'GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART,' .... 136 XVI. — SIX YEARS LATER, ..... 146 XVIL— THE TWO WOMEN, . . . . 154 XVIII. — MARY'S NEW LOVFR, ..... 163 XIX— A STARTLING DISCOVERY, . . 174 XX. — UNCLE BEN, . ..... l86 XXI. — LADY NETHERBY'S TEMPTATION, . 1 96 XXII. — RALPH THE HEIR, ..... 209 XXIII. — A KEEN ENCOUNTER, .... 2l8 XXIV. — ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD, . 229 XXV. — 'THROUGH PAIN AND SUFFERING,' . . 243 XXVI. — THE BEAD NECKLACE, .... 253 XX ATI. — ' FOR STEEVE'S SAKE,' .... 263 XXVIII.— AT LAST, . . . . . .272 XXIX. — THE TRUTH — AND SILENCE, ....

Dedication TO YOU, MY OLD FRIEND, TO WHOM I AM INDEBTED FOR THE OUTLINES OF THIS EPISODE OF REAL LIFE, I DEDICATE MY STORY, IN MEMORY OF MANY HAPPY HOURS NOW LONG GONE BY. E. L. C.

Chapter I Thirty Years Ago The

sun was just sinking behind the hills. The western sky was all aflame with red and orange, and the wide rolling landscape loomed purple and mysterious under the deepening glow of the sunset. One behind the other, the low hills stretched away on every side as far as the eye could reach. Some were brown, and bare with withered bracken and heather ; others were clothed to their summits with dark pine woods, whose sombre gloom was broken now and again with the fast yellowing foliage of birch or oak. Down in the hollows, a few acres of pasture land had been re deemed from the sandy soil, and lay like gems of emerald set between the curved bosoms of the hills, whilst here and there a clump of tall Scotch firs — the relics perhaps of some forest fire — crowned the summit of a barren slope in majestic solitude, lending yet another touch of fantastic beauty to the strange, wild country.

And far away to the south, the pale out lines of a high range of downs hung pencilled in A faintest grey against the tender primrose of the evening sky. In all that wide expanse, reaching from east to west, and from north to south, there was only one living thing to be seen — a man who came toiling along the straight yellow line of the high road, that cut the wild country in twain as by the slash of a knife. By his gait he was very old, and by his dress he was very poor. His white locks streamed out upon his shoulders from beneath a rough cap of what might once have been some common fur, but which had now lost all trace of its original substance ; his coat was ragged, the sleeves fluttering into ribbons at the elbows, and a dingy-red flannel shirt surmounting a tattered pair of corduroy breeches, such as woodmen were in those days accustomed to wear, completed his costume.

His boots were worn and old ; and he was lame, and walked with difficulty, supporting himself with his right hand by a rough stake cut from the hedgerow, and every now and then a racking cough forced him to stand still to get his breath. On his left arm he carried a small bundle wrapped up in a stained and discoloured shawl that had once been scarlet or crim son. This bundle seemed to cause him some anxiety, for several times he stopped and adjusted it more carefully upon his arm, drawing the old shawl closer around it, in order, as it seemed, to protect its contents from the evening wind which, as the sun glow waned, came soughing drearily up over the country. For it was always windy on Cramer Forest ; always wind-tossed from the not-far-distant ocean, and often wet with driving rain, or blotted ,out with white, chill mists that came rolling up from the west and south.

But when on rare days it was fine, as now — then there were wont to be wonderful effects of light and shadow across its wide expanse, and such glorious, golden sunsets as can only, perhaps, be witnessed in wild and uncultivated tracts of country where man has by some miracle allowed Nature's work to remain almost un altered and unspoilt. They called it the ' Forest,' because in old times it had been a royal demesne — a hunting-ground where princes and their courtiers had gone forth to chase the wild red deer, and concerning which certain charters and ancient deeds still exist, with which the auctioneer and the builder is not, even now in these latter days, permitted to meddle. But thirty years ago, on that golden October evening, when the old man carried his bundle in a red shawl along the high road, Cramer Forest was still almost uninhabited.

There were only some nomad tribes of gipsies who wandered up and down it, setting up their tents for a time in some sheltered hollow, or beneath some dark group of firs, but always moving on again after a little while to another resting-place ; and there was a scattered population of small yeomen, engaged chiefly in a trade connected with the breeding and breaking-in of the herds of rough ponies that frequented the district, who led a secluded life in certain small and primitive farm dwellings which were scattered at wide distances amongst the rolling undulations of this almost deserted land. It was to one ofthe largest and most important of these homesteads that the old man with the red bundle was now bound. When he had reached the top of a slight eminence, he stood still, and shading his eyes with his withered, claw-like hand, to shelter them from the level rays of the fading sunset, he looked about him on all sides as though seeking for some place which he knew must be near, but of which he had forgotten the exact locality.

Presently, away over the brow of the hill to the right of him, he spied a thin line of blue smoke curling upwards through the air. The old man uttered a grunt of recognition, and lowering his old bones slowly and with caution, sat down upon a stone by the roadside to wait. There was a movement of the red bundle in his arms, followed by a faint, wailing cry. The old man parted the folds of the shawl and disclosed an infant of a few weeks old. The very last crimson ray of the vanishing sun lit up the tiny face for a brief moment. The baby opened its eyes ; they were large, and dark, and sombre, almost unnaturally so, for so young a child, and its skin was of a rich, warm brown tone — the queer dark eyes looked straight up into the old man's face, that was brown and dark-eyed too — and his rugged features softened. ' She is like her father ! ' he murmured : ' she has his very eyes — not poor Esther's. I'd have kept her myself if I could — even though the others won't have her — but I'm old, and I sha'n't live long, with this cough that tears me to pieces.

And besides, I must go west — the police are all agog since that last wretched affair, and the tribe is scattered. If I get down west quickly I shall be able to join the others — but I can't carry a baby all those weary miles. Let her mother's people bring her up — they are well-to-do and respectable — it's only fair they should keep her. But she will be one of us at heart always — she has my boy's eyes ! Poor Davie ! — he were a good chap — too good to die in a ditch like a dog — shot by them brutes, curse them ! ' and the old man clenched and shook his lean fist as he spoke. All at once the sunset glow faded ; the vivid colouring of purple and of russet brown paled out of the landscape, and long grey shadows began to stalk out, ghost-like, one by one, over the face of the wide, silent country.

Below the hill, a narrow sheet of water, irregular in form and bordered by rush covered, marshy ground, reflected the last white glimmer of daylight upon its glassy surface. Then suddenly the silence was broken by a quick rush of whirring wings overhead, and a flock of wild duck, on their homeward way, fluttered down to their night's rest among the reedy borders of the mere. By the last faint gleam of light, the old man drew a crumpled and dirty paper from the recesses of his ragged coat, and pinned it on to the baby's shawl. Then, when it had grown quite dark, he rose once more, and struck across the rough, uneven moorland, in the direction of that line of curling smoke which had in dicated to him the whereabouts of the house that he had come a long way to find. Miss Prudence Hardy had stirred the wood fire into a ruddy blaze.

The farm parlour, with its low ceiling and dark oaken beams, with its carved settles and high-backed chairs, with the tall clock that ticked loudly in the corner, and the blue-and-white china ranged above the high chimney-piece, looked cosy and warm and home-like. ' The days are drawing in very quickly,' said Miss Prudence to herself, as she drew the warm-hued marone curtains close across the windows, and pro ceeded to lay a white cloth upon the polished oak table, and to set out cut glass tumblers and willow patterned plates — three of each — upon it. ' And if that lazy hussy hasn't got my brother's supper more punctual to-night, why, I declare I'll send her about her business, as I did the last girl, between this and Christmas ! ' At that moment, the person in question, Miss Hardy's much-abused underling, appeared in the door way from the kitchen beyond, bearing the supper — a hot rabbit pie and a round of cold beef, and a jug of home-brewed ale upon a tray, which her mistress proceeded to set out upon the table.

Miss Prudence was a brisk, active, little woman, not much over forty, in those days. She had sharp, needle-like eyes and soft brown hair, just sprinkled with grey at the temples, drawn smoothly back under a white muslin cap, and she wore a black stuff gown, and a kerchief, also of snowy muslin, pinned neatly across the bodice of her dress. She was Simon Hardy's half-sister, and his elder by ten years, and when he had lost his wife some years ago, she had come to take up her abode at the Warren Farm, to keep house for him and to look after his motherless boy. She was a good woman, was Miss Prudence, though strict and precise — and some said a trifle narrow-minded, given to prejudices and to old fashioned ways of thinking. Where she loved, she loved strongly and devotedly : but if once her love were shaken, it could never be restored, and she never forgave either a sinner or a sin.

She loved her brother Simon and his boy with all her strength, and once she had also loved someone else — a beautiful wayward girl with blue eyes and a mocking, merry laugh — who, five years ago, had dis appeared for ever from the Warren Farm. No one ever spoke of Esther Hardy now, and only a few remembered her story, although from time to time reports had come of her to the home she had left so suddenly and secretly for the love of a man who had a living wife ; reports that always spoke of her as being well and happy in that rough, wandering life of hardship which she had chosen of her own free will, but unrepentant always, and sinful still. But no one had brought news to the Warren Farm of how the dark-browed gipsy, who had lured that fair girl to her ruin, had been shot dead in a poaching affray ten miles away, ancl of how poor, broken hearted Esther had given birth a few days later to a girl child ; and of how, in bringing that frail life into this hard and pitiless world, she had forfeited hcr own, and had gone away, painlessly ancl unconsciously at the last, into that unknown world, where, if her sins were reckoned up against her, surely her weakness and her temptation, and her faithful love, would be taken into account also, by One whose judgment is more merciful than man's. Little Steeve had clambered up on his high chair by the table ere yet his father's returning footsteps had fallen across the doorstep without. ' You must wait for the rabbit pie till your father comes in,' said Miss Prudence, as she put the tempt ing-looking dish down to the fire to keep it hot, ' but if you are very hungry, you may begin with the cold beef.' Steeve cast wistful eyes at the golden pastry of the rabbit pie.

He was a lovely boy of six years old, with fair hair that lay in crisp, pale curls all over his head, and eyes that were as blue as summer skies. He had a sweet, serious little face, that was thoughtful beyond his years, and he was full of that quaint, old-fashioned wisdom which children who live en tirely amongst grown-up people are apt to acquire. ' Father is very late, and I am certainly hungry, but I will wait for the pie, because I like it best,' he said seriously, as though making a great concession to his father's unpunctuality. And then almost immediately there came the longed-for footstep on the gravel path outside, followed oddly by a sound that was new and un accustomed, for instead of the turning of the handle, and the quiet opening of the door that usually ushered in the farmer's return, there was a stumbling noise outside, a smothered exclamation, followed by a sound as of someone falling against the door; and then, queerer and stranger than all, the wailing cry of a young infant. ' Goodness gracious ! ' ejaculated Miss Hardy, and flew to the door, which she flung widely open. ' What is it ?

Who is there ? ' There were, you see, no burglars ever heard of on Cramer Forest in those days ; the gipsies were the only thieves, but they only stole chickens and game, so she was not the least nervous about opening the front door. And the result justified her confidence, for on the other side of the threshold stone stood her half-brother, looking scared and astonished, for at his feet, beneath him upon the doorstep, lay a very young child, wrapped up in a dirty red woollen shawl. ' What on earth is the meaning of this ? ' cried Simon, as his eyes met his sister's. ' A child upon the doorstep. W7here did it come from ? Who left it here ? ' Miss Hardy stooped down to examine the baby. ' Don't touch it ; don't pick it up,' she exclaimed sharply, rising again hurriedly. ' It is one of those horrid gipsy brats — left here no doubt by some good for-nothing vagabond tramp.

They are always doing it. Go round to the yard at once, Simon, and tell Bill Goades to come and fetch it, and let him carry it straight off to the Union.' ' But, my dear,' demurred Simon, ' it is late and dark, and it is such a mite of a baby to turn out into the cold again.' ' Don't you know that it brings ill-luck to take in a gipsy foundling across the threshold of a respectable house? Do you mind the Clovers at Brackmere who took in a gipsy brat two years ago, that was left upon the doorstep, just as this one is? They only kept it a week, but it brought nothing but misfortune along with it. The ponies that were going up for sale that week broke out in a disease nobody ever heard of before, and half of them died ; and a fox killed the whole of a fine brood of Mrs Clover's young chickens ; and little Mary fell ill with a fever and all but died, and the lightning struck the new barn and burned a great hole in the roof of it, all in that one week !

They were glad enough to get rid of the heathenish creature that had brought them so much trouble, Mrs Clover told me. Don't you so much as lay a finger on it, Simon ! Do as I tell you, man ; go and fetch Goades, and send him to the Union at Markton with the brat.' ' Sister,' answered Simon Hardy, gravely, looking from Prudence's agitated face down again upon the small bundle of helpless humanity that lay between their feet, uttering strange, little, plaintive cries, as though of prayer and pit}-, as if, poor babe, it knew and understood that its whole future lay trembling in the balance of fate. ' Sister — I don't believe that any evils a poor, deserted baby could bring upon me or mine would be half so bad as God's righteous anger were I to do so vile a deed as turn it away from my door into the coldness and hunger ofthe night.

Aren't we told in the Bible to feed the hungry and to shelter the homeless ? ' ' Yes, when they are Christians, Simon, of course ! But not when they are heathen gipsies, who have no souls ! ' remonstrated his sister. ' Oh, what a dear, darling, little baby ! ' here broke in a small, excited voice at her elbow. Steeve, tired of sitting alone in his chair, and stirred by curiosity to know what was going on, had slipped from his place and had dropped upon his knees by the side of the little bundle on the doorstep, and now fell to kissing the baby's tiny face with childish rapture. 'Steeve! Steeve!' almost shrieked Miss Hardy, trying to drag the boy away, but Steeve's arms were fast locked about the little stranger. ' Oh, father ! father ! ' he cried, ' mayn't I have it for my very own to play with ?

Let me carry it in, please, and give it some supper ! ' The infant, as though fascinated by the boy's voice, left off crying, and put its tiny fingers up towards Steeve's face, and the boy, hugging the red bundle delightedly in his arms, staggered to his feet. ' " Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings He hath ordained strength," ' quoted the farmer rever ently. ' Sister, the child shall come in ! Carry the baby near the fire, Steeve, and make it warm.' And thus it was that she crossed the threshold of the home over which her dead mother's guilty foot steps had fled years ago — never more to return. ' See, aunty ! there's a bit of paper pinned on to its shawl,' cried Steeve, when he had carried the baby into the warm circle of light around the hearth. ' It's got something written on it.' ' Give it to me, boy,' said his father ; ' it will be perhaps something to say whose child it is.' He stood reading the scrap of paper beneath the lamp light, and as he read his face grew pale ancl awe stricken, and his hands trembled very much.

When he had read it through, he handed it without a word to Miss Prudence. On the crumpled page was written in a large, straggling handwriting, — ' Farmer Hardy, this is Esther's child. Zilla is her name. Esther is dead and David is dead. Zilla has no one. Give her a home and take care of her, for your sister Esther's sake.' ' It is the hand of God,' said the farmer, bowing his head. ' It is a trick of those rascally gipsies !' muttered Miss Hardy, angrily. ' Look, father, the baby is laughing ! ' called out Steeve from the chimney corner. His father ancl aunt came forward to see: the infant had crooked her tiny fingers amongst Steeve's yellow curls, and, warmed by the fire glow and by the answering laugh in the fair, childish face bent over her, was cooing and chuckling up at him in that most delightful fashion that babies have of showing that they are pleased. ' Steeve,' said his father, laying a hand on his son's curly head, 'that is your little cousin, and her name is Zilla ; she has no parents, and so God has sent her to us to live with us always, so that we may love her and take care of her.' ' I'm so glad, father ; how jolly it will be to have a real baby of our own,' cried the boy. ' A baby is ever so much better than the kitten, or the white mouse, or even than my lop-eared rabbit, I think.' But Miss Prudence in the background lifted up her hands and groaned, — ' I have warned you, Simon : remember that I have warned you.

She will bring us sorrow, and you will live to rue this day. She is the child of sin — a gipsy for her father and Esther for her mother. God help us then, say I — God help us ! ' C H APTER I I ZILLA And the long years went by — summer heats and winter frosts in their appointed order — till the waif left upon Simon Hardy's doorstep grew from a brown, wild-eyed babe into a tall and beautiful woman. Yet there was no one about her to whom this trans formation was an object of interest, or who realised the effect which her wonderful beauty was certain to produce upon a stranger. Perhaps it was because life in the farmer's house hold was too full and complete ; each day bringing its own routine of duty and work to every one, so that no one had any time to mark the gradual develop ment of the human wildflower whom her vagabond grandfather had dropped long ago in their midst.

As long as she was a child, Zilla, in common with the other maidens of her class and age upon Cramer Forest, had tramped her three miles across the moor land, backwards and forwards, to the day-school, to receive what amount of education was there to be gleaned. But beyond reading and writing, she learnt very little else at school — save, indeed, to hide the wounds which her companions inflicted upon her under a proud and often sullen reserve. For to the neighbours, Zilla's origin was quite well known and freely commented on. She was Esther Hardy's ' love-child,' a gipsy foundling who had made a bad entrance into this world of sin, and whom, in the ZILLA 13 eternal justice and fitness of things, was quite certain consequently, to come to a bad end therein. Careful mothers bade their daughters keep clear of the ' gipsy brat,' and the other girls whispered and tit tered when she came near them, and refused to share either their lessons or their play with her. ' Gipsies have no soul,' they said one to another — repeating, parrot-like, the old superstition which they had learnt from their mother, and which neither Christianity nor civilisation has ever quite succeeded in stamping out amongst the inhabitants of Cramer Forest So they gave her a wide berth, and after a time the girl understood, and passed them by with a bitter and contemptuous silence.

Thrown thus more and more upon her own re sources, Zilla grew reserved and solitary in her life and habits. WTith her teachers she was sullen and obstinate, always imperfect in her tasks, and at the bottom of her class. The schoolmistress declared that she could teach her nothing, and that her aver sion to knowledge was so pronounced that she speedily forgot even the little that had been instilled into her. But if she derived but little benefit from the in struction imparted to her at the primitive little school, Zilla was strangely possessed of a vast amount of in tuitive knowledge on other subjects less commonly studied by the rustic maidens who were her com panions. The habits of the birds and beasts about her home opened out a wide domain of delight and interest to her. Accustomed as she was to ramble for long hours together alone over the wild moorland country, the furred and feathered creatures of Cramer Forest became her daily and intimate companions.

She could imitate their cries so perfectly that they came to her call and followed her in her walks. Sometimes she had been seen seated upon a mossy bank, by the margin of some reed-bordered pool, like a queen surrounded by her court. There would be gathered together around her sundry bright-eyed, soft-muzzled creatures : brown field mice with inquisitive black eyes, water rats that would come boldly to her feet, nibbling at the edge of her gown — stoats, too, and weasels, and even the timid conies themselves — whilst a whole legion of birds would be seen flutter ing about in the low bushes about her. All these gentle creatures that had come at her call, would hover fearlessly about her, perching upon her hands or upon her dress, recognising in her, perhaps, the silent sympathy of another wild thing like them selves ; and they would stay there, sunning them selves in the warmth, and preening their feathers in happy familiarity by the hour together.

And these intimate relations between Simon Hardy's niece and the animal world became bruited abroad, and were commented on most unfavourably, because commonplace minds, of whom mankind is chiefly composed, cannot endure anything which is outside the limits of their own experience ; so that there were many who honestly believed the girl to be a witch, and who accounted these things unto her as deadly sins. Meanwhile, in her own home in the farmer's house, Zilla's position was not altogether a happy one. There was no love lost between Miss Prudence and her niece. To Miss Prudence, Zilla had ever been an object of mistrust, almost even of dislike ; she re garded her askance, as it were, and was continually on the alert lest the evil eye, with which she secretly credited her, should do some injury to the ponies bred on the farm, or lest the Satanical forces she imagined to be inherent in her blood, should break out into some horrible visitation upon her brother's household and property.

ZILLA 15 Aster she grew too old to go to school, her aunt resented her presence in the house. She would not trust her with those ordinary occupations which fall to the lot of other girls of her age and station. If she looked timidly into the dairy or the kitchen, she would be hastily told that she was not wanted there ; if she proffered her help in the store closet or the still-room, it would be ungraciously refused. So, in the end, Zilla grew sullen and resentful, and a dull sense of grievance brooded for ever in her heart. Yet to her uncle she was docile and obedient, gentle in word and action, whilst upon her cousin the whole pent-up strength of a deep and passionate nature was secretly outpoured, and the full river of her heart — clammed up and stemmed at every other channel — rushed in a great and resistless tide into this one out let of her life.

For Steeve she would gladly have died. Little Steeve had been her friend and champion from the first. He had always stood up for her, and fought her battles ; to this hour he stood between her and Miss Prudence, softening down the hard words on the one side, and explaining away the rebellious ones on the other. Yet though her heart burnt and throbbed within her at his very presence in the house, she was usually wayward and strange in her manner to him, often breaking away from him hotly, or dis appointing him by the ungraciousness of her mood, so that Steeve would say to her, ' What ails you, my little sister?' For to Steeve, Zilla was still a sister ; but to Zilla — Ah ! what was not Steeve to Zilla! He understood her no better than did the others. At eighteen, therefore, Zilla was not only beautiful — she was also inscrutable ; she resembled no other girl upon Cramer Forest.