For the Life of Others. A novel

Chapter I

Olverton is a small, a very small, vidage, lying to the south-west of Tiverton, midway between that pretty little town and South Molton. This part of the fair county of Devon is by no means so well known as the south and west coasts, dear to poets and artists, and made famous through out all the English-speaking world by the well-beloved pen of Charles Kingsley. But, nevertheless, the country round about Olverton is very fair to see in a placid, homely, dimpled way. Very fresh and green, and flower-besprinkled, and luxuriant in the way of crops and foliage. It is pleasant to see bow thick and strong in the spring time the green young corn breaks through the rich red loam, bow heavily the tall clover-thick grass falls in June beneatb the mower's scythe — for grass-cutting machines are still a foreign inven tion about Olverton.

Pleasant to watch the handsome Devon cattle fattening on the rich pasture land, and to think of the Devonsbire cream and golden butter which will go into Tiverton market on Thursday behind one of those great dappled, glossy-coated cart-horses, which are having their manes combed yonder by that contented, sleepy-looking farm lad. He is chanting slowly to himself in the most fascinating of all dialects, but you wid not be able to understand much of his song unless you are a native born, and this is as near as I can translate it for you. " Ay, don't I love a nice young lass, The fairest of the fair, Her 's round and plump, Can ride and jump, A fence on th' old grey mare. Her heyes is bright, Her step is light, She 's graceful as a queen, And don't her love a dance way I Hout in the fields so green."

The farmers have a good time down at Olverton. They may not be able to make a fortune, but at any rate they can pay their way, and put by, at least once a year, a comfortable sum in the bank at Tiverton. There are but two of them belonging to Olverton parish, Farmer Abraham Gams worthy and Farmer John Hannaford, and the Garnsworthys and the Hannafords have rented their farms, father and son, for many a year from the Careys, to whom belongs the big white house under the hill, squires of Olverton and owners of half the parish. The present generation of Careys took less interest in the people of Olverton than their forefathers had done, for they had come into a large fortune and estates elsewhere. A month in September for the partridge shooting, and a week or two, perhaps, in the winter, to hunt with the Exmoor, was all that Olverton saw of them nowadays.

Another generation and Farmers Garnsworthy and Hannaford will no longer be as proud of young Master Charles and William as of their own stalwart sons, will no longer think no man in the world equal to " the Squire," and the lady at the Hall will not shed tears of sorrow when her old friend at the Farm, with her toil-worn hands and weather-beaten face, is called into the Great Presence before her. Let us hope that Demos will adjust more evenly and justly the balance between rich and poor ; but that old feudal love and reverence was very sweet and true and tender in its way. It lingered still in Olverton. The vicar's wife, who ruled from the little vicarage -which sat aloft just above the scattered dozen of cottages constituting the main street of the village, was by birth a Carey, and as such the people of Olverton submitted to her rule with a submission born of the old years of possessive admiration on the one side, and of kindly, if despotic, interest on the other, between the villagers and the family at the Hall.

Had she been a "stranger body" I doubt if she would have met with much consideration at their hands, for they loved her rule but little. She was a woman of aggressive righteousness and small charity, a woman who knew everything for certain, even the designs of the Almighty, and who looked upon her husband's parishioners as so many foolish sheep, to be driven along her own particular path to heaven ; but being a "Carey born" they put up with her, listened to her lectures with stolid respect and proceeded immediately after to go their own way exactly as though she had not spoken. The dear old Devonshire people are as obstinate as pigs if you drive them the wrong way, and strongly object to having the habits of generations interfered witb. After Mrs. Everard Dowson had been established at the Vicarage for a week you might have heard conversations of this sort going on in any of the cottages.

" Wull there, 'er set'th 'erself down in thiccy chair and 'er zeth, ' I 'op you rade yur Bible every mornin',' zeth 'er. " ' What with the childern and the pegs and th' old man's bit o' breksis, I ain't a got the time,' sez I. " ' Tez more count than the pegs or yur breksis,' zeth 'er. " Thet wasn't right ! " ' 'Ave you hany hother biikes 1 ' zeth 'er. " ' I 'ave,' sez I. " ' Where be they,' zeth 'er. " ' They'me hupstairs,' sez I. " ' You should 'ave 'em down 'ere where you kin rade 'em pon times,' zeth 'er. " Thet wasn't right ! " ' And I 'op you come to church reg'lar,' zeth 'er. " ' When I've a got the time,' sez I. " ' You shuld make time,' zeth 'er. " Thet wasn't right. If 'twern't 'er were a Carey born I 'd a shewed 'er the door ! " But as I said before, being a Carey born they put up with her, and allowed her to lecture them and interfere in their affairs up to a certain point, beyond which, after many a shrewd rebuff, Mrs. Dowson at length learnt that she could not go.

On the opposite side of tbe village to the Hall stood Lew Barton, the rambling old house where many a generation of Courtenays had lived and died. The family bad dwindled down now to one representative, and the old name had died out, for that one representative was a Mrs. Haldon, a woman of more than sixty years, with neither chick nor child, who had succeeded to Lew Barton on the death of her uncle, old John Courtenay, twenty years ago. She was not Olverton born or bred, though the people liked her well. But best of all, yes, better even then the Careys nowadays, tbey loved the children up at Hollow's End. The children they called them still, for they had known them since they were little toddling people of three and four. Hollow's End was the prettiest if not the biggest house in the village, witb a garden worthy of Devonshire, which is saying much, and had been taken thirteen years before this story begins by a lady of such rare and wonderful beauty that all Olverton opened their eyes and stared at her.

Only the vicar's wife felt convinced that so much beauty must certainly be incorrect. " Guinane 1 " she said to her husband when she got home after making her first call, on which occasion she had for bidden bim to accompany her. "Guinane? I never heard the name before. It sounds foreign. Really, people should be obliged to bring credentials when they come to a new place. There is no need for you to call yet, Everard, the husband has not come, and," darkly, " it is my belief there is no husband to come." He did come, however, but as he never stayed more than five months out of the twelve it was almost worse, so Mrs. Dowson said, than if he bad never come at all, more especiady as Mrs. Guinane, with a gentle dignity that was proof against even Mrs. Dowson's questioning, refused to account for his absence beyond saying that he was abroad.

Mrs. Dowson left off calling after a little while, and only greeted Mrs. Guinane with the slightest of bows and a chilly good morning, or good afternoon, when they met — a loss for which one may imagine Mrs. Guinane was only thankful. But she prevented her cousins from calling during their fleeting visits to the Had, and in spite of Mrs. Haldon's firm friendship Mrs. Guinane's life must have been, for the most part, dull and monotonous in the ex treme. However, whether she found it so or not, no one ever heard her complain, or betray any annoyance at Mrs. Dowson's behaviour. She was even serenely gracious to Mr. Dowson, a pleasant, gentle-tempered man, blotted out as a personality by his wife, when he paid three duty visits a year, as the vicar of the parish and the pastor of her soul. Between Mrs. Haldon and the vicar's wife existed a deep and rooted aversion, frankly shown on the one hand, and carefully concealed on the other.

For Mrs. Haldon was wealthy, how wealthy nobody exactly knew, but wealthy enough to make Mrs. Dowson put up smilingly with her blunt plain-speaking, for, as she said to her husband, " Wealth commands a certain amount of consideration." Not a pleasant character was the vicar's wife, but it is out of the question to be in Olverton and take any interest in its affairs, without meeting her sometimes. Her particular form of aggressive and uncharitable righteousness is dying out in the present day, only in its stead we have an equally aggressive form of unbebef. You hear even the quite young people boasting proudly of their little faith. Heaven help us, it is nothing to rejoice at. Let us the rather be silent about it, and wait and hope, lest perchance we may yet hear God's voice, and answer as Mary answered long ago, " Rabboni, Master."

But the great cloud of scepticism has not yet darkened the sky at Olverton. The simple people there still look up and see God's face shining through the blue. All tbat happens to them is still ruled by God's band. He is still close to them when they call. Heaven is just above them, and hell below. To them the devil still goes up and down, seeking whom he may devour. They even believe in charms and witches and pixies, and all the quaint old fairyland which is fading away so fast into the new fairy land of science. Dear Devonshire people, with their dear old faith and customs ; one loves tbem as one loves many an old landmark which the great new tide is sweeping fast away ; regrets them even with the fresh salt wind from the illimitable, undiscovered ocean before us blowing straight in our faces and urging us on.

A breath of that wind blew into Kenneth Guinane's face one hot July day, as he lay full length on the lawn at Hollow's End. " Bride," he said suddenly to his sister, " are we going to stay here all our lives, do you suppose 1 " Bride was weeding a flower bed close at hand ; it was so they usually divided the work of the day. All that could be seen of her was a blue skirt, one beautifully slim foot and ankle, and a silky mass of pale brown hair. At her brother's question she lifted her head from between a lavender bush and a cabbage-rose tree, tossed back her mane of hair, and said emphatically, " I hope so. Why 1 " A slender maiden, who had almost reached woman's height, with the eyes of a child, was Bride Guinane at seventeen. " Oh, it is all very well for you, you are only a girl ; but a fellow of my age ought to be allowed to see something of the world."

"The world?" Bride sat down on the grass beside her brother and looked at him. " Who has been talking to you about seeing the world, Ken ? " Kenneth sat up, bringing his face on to a level with hers. He was an exceedingly beautiful lad, with a complexion of pure white and red, and eyes as blue as the sky. "Judson Major has come back from Oxford," he said. " You know he went there from Blundell's last term. And he came to the breaking-up yesterday." "Wed?" " Well, he is only a year older than I am, and he is a man, while I am nothing but a school-boy." "Judson Major must have altered very much in a short time if he is a man," said Bride, with a gentle uplifting of her chin as she went back to her weeding. " I should tliink he had. He keeps his hunters at Oxford. He gives wine -parties too, and they play cards until four o'clock in the morning.

And there is a girl in an hotel there. He showed me her photograph." " What is she like ? " " Well, she is not anywhere near so pretty as mother " " I should think not, indeed," interposed Bride indignantly. " But Judson says he believes he will let himself in for a breach of promise case before he has done." Bride tossed a great bunch of groundsel into her basket. "I don't see that doing those sort of things makes him more of a man than you are," she said. " I call Jan Hanna ford, who has got two medals for saving life, a man. I would rather be known as the pluckiest man in Olverton than give wine-parties and play cards. I call the labourers here, who work hard all day to make a living for their wives and children, and go without in the winter time themselves that the little ones may have enough, I call them men."

"There, that just proves what I was saying," interrupted the boy. " What do you know of men 1 Just the farmers and the labourers of Olverton. That is all we either of us know — just Olverton. Oh, we know a fair amount of book learning, of course. We are neither of us fools, and we have been taught those sort of things well enough. But in everything else we have just been kept a couple of babies. Look at you. You are seventeen, and you have got your hair down your back ! " Bride threw a cloud of it round her shoulder, and looked at it. "And your skirts above your ankles. Other girls of your age are grown up, and going out to dances and things — some of tbem are married. Judson's sister " "I do not want to be like Judson's sister, and I do not want you to be like Judson," interrupted Bride in her turn.

" Why do you want to alter things, Ken ? We are very happy as we are. I do not ever remember being unhappy except when one of the animals have died. Grown-up people have more troubles than children ; but listen, Ken " She threw another bundle of weeds into her basket, and sitting down again beside him she put an arm round his neck, so that their two fair heads touched. " I have sometimes thought of what you and I will do when we are grown up. We will always be together, Ken, will we not? Mother and you and I " " And father ? " said the boy. The girl's face clouded over, a troubled look grew slowly in her eyes. " He never seems to belong to us somehow, does he, Ken?" she said. " I mean to get mother to ask him if I can go to college, anyway," said Kenneth. " He ought to be coming soon now. I say, Bride," with a sudden change of thought common to him, " I want to see Sam Kievell about my fishing-rod.

Come along." "When I have finished this bed." She sprang up and set to work again. "What on earth does it matter," grumbled the boy. " There will be just as many there in a week's time." "I hate weeds," said Bride, dragging up the few that remained in great hands uls. "And I hate the place to look untidy ; besides, mother always likes it tidied up before father comes, and Worrall has more than enough to do just now. I am going to cut the edges of tbe grass to-morrow. There," she threw a final handful into the basket, and her gardening gloves after it, " I will rake it over when I come back." They crossed the garden and passed out into a lane where the banks on either side rose high above their heads, topped by hedges wliich were one conglomerate mass of honeysuckle, woodbine, and the great violet veitch, broken at intervals by dwarf oak trees, their young shoots showing crimson in the sun.

On the banks the hart's tongue and the lady fern grew thick and thick, and every now and then some bigger trees in the hedgerow on either side met overhead, and formed an archway. Turning out of the lane they skirted for about twenty yards the fence of a small cottage garden, and at the corner Kenneth suddenly laid his hand upon his sister's arm with a gesture of silence. A woman's voice fell sharply on the golden July air— a high-pitched voice, with in it a note of condescension and reproof. " I do not think I saw you in church last Sunday, or the Sunday before, Thomas," it said. "I hope you have not been ill." Kenneth turned the corner softly, drawing Bride after him, and sat down on the edge of an old iron tank opposite to tbe garden gate, where stood the substantial figure of the vicar's wife.

An old man, who had been digging in the garden, was peering up at her from under a broad earth stained band. " Do 'ee plaze to walk in, mum," he said. "No, thank you, Thomas. I merely stopped in passing to ask the reason of your absence from church." The old man paused for a moment, resting one foot on his spade, then he spoke slowly — "Wull, mum, to tell'ee the truth, I can't zum'ow b'lave all I yer in church. And it puts a man hout zum'ow zo to spake " There was a jingle of all the jet fringe on Mrs. Dowson's mantle. " Thomas ! " she said. " I am very mucb shocked to hear you say such a thing. Tell me what you presume to question, and I will explain it to you." " Wull, mum," said Thomas, arranging himself for a long explanation with ad a Devonshire man's delight therein ; " Parson he do zay as 'ow the walls of Jericho vailed down 'cos tbey blawed a 'orn.

Wull now, I've 'ad an old linny these years, and I 've always wished vor pull 'un down. Us 'ad an old bullock's 'orn 'anged up down in the back 'ouse, so vive weeks agoo come nex Sunday, as hever is, I sez to my zin Jan, 'Jan,' sez I, 'go down in the back 'ouse, and fetch up thiccy old bullock's 'orn, and us '11 tak 'un and zee if us can't blaw down this here linny.' Well, mum, Jan and I, us tuk th' old 'orn, and us blawed and us blawed till us was ready for bust " "Well," began Mrs. Dowson, with the intention of adding "I never," but Thomas broke in. "Wud, mum, I'm darned if th' old linny bain't thur still ! " Bride's sunburnt right hand came down swiftly and silently across her brother's mouth, but it was too late. The sound of an irrepressible boyish chuckle made itself distinctly heard, and Mrs. Dowson turned sharply on her heel.

Kenneth lifted his cap. " I could not help laughing at Thomas' story, Mrs. Dowson," he said, with the sunny grace of a charming manner. He laughed again as he spoke, the mirth positively bubbling over, and looked at her with eyes like two pools of blue water sparkling in the sunlight. "Good afternoon," said Mrs. Dowson stiffly. "I cannot say that I see anything to laugh at. Thomas, I will come in and explain tbe fall of the walls of Jericho." The gate clicked sharply to behind her, and Thomas shouldered his spade and followed her, with a light in his eye which told that the spirit of controversy was strong within him. Bride passed an arm through Kenneth's, and they went on again. " We will go in and bear the end of the story from Thomas on our way home," he said. " I wonder wby Mrs. Dowson hates us ad so, Bride."

" If she hates mother it must be because she is a wicked woman," said Bride serenely. That much was quite evident. " I don't see why she should hate us either. Everyone else likes us." He stopped to look in at an open cottage door. " Mrs. Clough is out, and the baby is all alone," be said. Bride looked in too over his shoulder. It was a Httle brown room with a cuckoo clock in the corner, china monsters on the mantel-shelf, and on the hearth a rough wooden cradle on rockers. She moved her brother aside, went in softly, and knelt beside the cradle. A crumpled roseleaf of a baby lay in it fast asleep, its thumb in its mouth, a dead bunch of field flowers in its chubby hand. Bride drew a soft finger along its cheek, with eyes so sweet that there is no other thing so sweet in the world. " Come along," said Kenneth, from the door.

She took a great scarlet geranium bloom from her breast, laid it where the child could reach when it awoke, and stepped softly out again into the sunlight. " Listen," said Kenneth, " Sam is playing his fiddle." The notes of a song came clearly through the still air — " The day was spent, the moon shone bright, The village clock struck eight." Sam Kievell was the patriarch of the village. Nigh four score and ten years had Sam Kievell lived in Olverton, and in his old age he spent his time between making fishing-rods and playing the fiddle, for he had a tidy sum put by in Tiverton bank, and his son, Sam Kievell the second, earned good wages up at the Hall. He lived in a cottage which might have come straight off the stage — a cottage with the traditional porch and creepers and rose bushes, and an apple tree to the right on a plot of grass.

This apple tree was heavily laden witb fruit, and on an old bench under it sat Sam Kievell playing his fiddle. " I don't hold with your 'lardians and 'cardians, and them sort 'o musical hinstruments," he would say to the rival musician of a neighbouring village who played a concertina. (Mark the cunning courtesy with which he omitted to mention that particular instrument in his condemnation.) " Give me a viddle." He played on carefudy to the end of the stanza, the notes quivering and waving — " Young Mary hastened with delight, Unto the garden gate. But what was there that made her sad ? The gate was there, but not the lad ! Which made poor Mary say and sigh, Was ever poor girl as sad as I ? " Then he laid his beloved " viddle " aside and welcomed bis visitors. " Wud, Master Kenneth. Good-day to 'ee, Miss Bride.

Do 'ee plaze to set down." Kenneth flung himself down on the grass, and began to speak of the new fishing-rod he was having made, and after a whde Bride, sitting on the bench beside the old man, took the fiddle from between his hands and began to play on it softly. And lo, from out the cottage door came a bonnie little maiden of ten with a toddling baby clinging to her skirt, and soon after, from the cottage further down the road, other odd little ones who had been straggling about within bearing. A veritable Pied Piper of Hamelin was Bride when she played old Sam's fiddle under the apple tree. She sat with ber slender feet crossed, her soft rounded chin resting on the fiddle, her eyes shining, and all the fall of her fair brown hair around her like a cloak. And the tune she played was an old tune that we have all heard some time in our lives, for it is a call to something that we have longed for and yearned after ever since we left the warm shelter of our motber's breast, and that we shall yearn after and long for until we go back to the breast of tbe Mother of all ; a call that we hear more clearly in the spring than at any other time, and almost understand wben we love.

Kenneth and the old man stopped talking, the comely housewife came out and leant against the door-post with her baby in her arms, and held it warm and close, as she had not often time to do. Then Bride's eyes turned from the sunlight and met her brother's, they were alight with something which struck a strange new chord in her own breast. She clashed it out suddenly across the strings of the old fiddle. There was a pause, full to the brim of the sense of living ; then she broke the silence with a rush of mirthful notes which might have made the very flowers dance, and so passed into a waltz. Kenneth leapt from the ground and caught the little ten-year-old maid round the waist, while old Sam roused himself to beat time with his stick. " Hale and toe ; one, du, dree. Hale and toe; one, du, dree," he counted sturdily, until Kenneth let his partner go, and Bride, dropping the fiddle on to her knee, became conscious for the first time that a new comer had joined the party.

She was a girl of about fourteen, with a sunny head of curls like a boy, crowned by a wide white hat, with a great ostrich feather round the brim. "May I come in, Kievell?" she asked, nodding across the gate. Kenneth sprang forward to open it, and the old man rose from his seat, touching his hat. " You be very welcome, Miss Gertrude," he said. " Do'ee plaze to sat down." The girl paused and looked round for a moment. She was a very pretty child, small for her age, and beautifully dressed. " Won't you go on playing ? " she said, looking finally at Bride. "Another waltz, please." Then she looked at Kenneth, and there was no mistaking the invitation of her eyes. They drew together suddenly, and the next moment were whirling round over the short cropped grass, in and out of the sunlight and shadow.

When they stopped she looked up at him, panting for breath and flushed like a rose. "How did you learn to dance so wed?" she asked. " Why should I not learn to dance well ? " " Because you are buried down here all the year round. There are no dances here. I go to dozens every winter in London. But you dance better than the boys there, though you have no practice." " How do you know that I go to no dances, or anything about me ? " "Oh, I know," she nodded her head, laughing. "I am Gertrude Carey, and I have wanted to know you for years, you and your sister, only mamma never called on your mamma. Mamma is very lazy about calling. I should like to bave your sister for my friend." She turned to Bride, who was looking at her gravely, the old violin lying across her knees. " Will you be my friend ?

" she asked. " I like you so much. I have always liked you, but you never would smile back at me in churcb." Bride's straight brows contracted slowly. "Perhaps, as your mother does not know my mother, sbe would rather you did not know me," she said. " Girls choose their own friends now," said Gertie calmly. " I read all about it the other day in a paper book. And I am going to be a revolting daughter. I told mamma so, and she only laughed. She will not mind. There are seven girls in our family, and mamma says that is too many for one poor woman to look after. So will you be my friend ? And may I come and see your mother? She is so pretty, I always want to kiss her." Bride smiled suddenly and very sweetly. "Very well," she said ; " I will be your friend if you like." Mrs. Kievell came out with a cbair, and Gertie, sitting down, proceeded to give old Sam a message.

" Father sent you bis best remembrances, Kievell, and he will be down here for a few days before long, and hopes to have a day's fishing. And ob, Kievell, have you got a fishing-rod that will do for me, and will you teach me to throw a fly ? " " You shad have a fishing-rod, Miss Gertrude, and the best I 've a got, but I don't zem I can throw a fly as I used for to do. Master Kenneth, now, he's the one, he can throw better than I can, nowadays." " Oh, can you fish ? " asked Gertie eagerly, turning to Kenneth. " Will you take me out with you one day, and teach me ? " " 'T'ath never been the zame zince my heyes were zo bad; you '11 mind the time, Miss Bride," said the old man. " I 've never throwed a fly vitty zince. You was a little chiel then, Miss Gertrude, you can't mind that ; but Miss Bride yere, her used for come and rade to me bits out of the Bible and 'bout furrin parts.