Too Bright to last; a love story

Chapter I

" To be wise, and eke to love, Is granted scarce to gods above." The time was June, and it was the evening of a day so hot that it was not possible tiU within an hour of sunset for men or cattle to find the least pleasure in existence. A few dark clouds, fringed with bright, fast-fading colours, gathered slowly as the sun went down, and the wind began to rise slightly. The breeze swept coolly over rugged Welsh hills, rustlingand sighing and scattering far and near the scarlet fruit of the wild cherry-trees tbat overhung a rocky mountain lane in Brecknockshire. There was a sudden descent in the road, craggy, and dangerous to the unwary, and here, looking down a valley clothed with oak-wood, and up to innumerable bills, pink, grey, and dimly green, bad stood the same ij old black and white farm-house for the last hundred years.

It was built a few yards back from the high-road, and so much below it, that a flight of steep stone steps was needed to give access to the httle prim court, decorated with three funereal yews, which did duty for a garden in front of the house. At the top of the stairs, leaning with both arms on the gate, a great felt hat pulled down over his eyes in defiance of the dazzling slanting sunbeams, tbe master of the house stood, taking his pleasure in the freshen ing air. A tall, broad-shouldered man of five-and thirty, plain-faced and large-handed, yet not without a certain manly grace in spite of country-made clothes and nailed boots. By his side a big tawny sheep-dog, on terms of intimate familiarity with his owner, courted bis attention now and again witb gentle lick of the hand. He had stood there some twenty minutes, half dreaming, half thinking, altogether very much at his ease, and was just considering the advisability of light ing a short, black pipe, when there came a sound of quickly approaching hoofs, and raising bis bead, Simon Vane found himself face to face witb two riders who drew rein at bis door.

"How d'ye do, Vane ?" said a horseman, dismount ing ; and, throwing his bridle over tbe gate-post, he advanced and shook hands with Simon. " Now, Uncle George, I think I mentioned to you that I didn't intend to be left alone," said a sweet voice, in which was a pleasant ring, suggestive of laughter, but which was at present not without a quaver of trepidation. " You know how nervous I am, and how frisky Dick is. I dare not be left, indeed I dare not ; and I don't doubt there are pigs, and dogs, and cows, and all sorts of things about." "Nonsense, Georgina; what a little fool you are!" said her uncle, rather pettishly. " Well, you must get off yourself then, for I bave a few words to say to Mr. Vane." Sorely perplexed by tbe blinding sunlight, Simon opened the gate and crossed the road to where a girl in a blue habit was sitting, rather awkwardly, on a fat, well-bred chestnut pony.

" Thank you. I know he wouldn't have been quiet a minute, and I am nothing of a horsewoman, as per haps you see," cried she, laughing a httle cheery, musical laugh, as she slipped off into his arms ; and Vane laughed too. She stood gathering her habit round her slight figure, and looking a good deal more at her ease than sbe had been for some time previously. She talked fast and confidently. " And what's to become of me, pray, whilst you're talking ? Is that your house, Mr. Vane ? I suppose it is, of course. May I go in and try to find some thing to amuse myself witb, whilst you and uncle are busy ? Oh, what a dear dog ! Never mind, I don't in the least care about bis jumping up. I like it ; I'm not one bit afraid. What's bis name?" — patting the bead of tbe shepherd's dog, who had offered her tbe extremely civil attentions common to tbe weU-disposed of the canine race.

" Dolce," answered Vane, witb a very correct accent. " Dear me, what a very odd name for a dog of this sort," said Georgina, leading him gently down tbe steps by tbe ear. " Dolce shall come witb me, then. You said I might go into the bouse and wait, didn't you, Mr. Vane ? " " Certainly," responded be, witb a slight bow ; " go where you please." " Keep in the garden, Georgina, I beg," called Mr. Drayton, as be took Vane's arm. " I shall not be more than ten minutes." And, turning back a bit along the road, they led the horses to where a rambling, rustic stable-yard opened from it. "Now why, I should like to know, should I stay in the garden ? I shaU do exactly as I please," pouted the lady when she found herself alone. She skipped down the narrow flagged path and tried tbe door witb quick, impatient fingers.

It was fast shut, bell or knocker was none, or any means of communication with the world within visible. " Dear me, how do they get in, I wonder — what a queer little corner of the world it is ! " Rather listlessly she wandered through the belt of tall fir-trees wbich sheltered all one end of the farm, treading with dainty feet its slippery aromatic carpet, till she reached tbe southernmost side of the house, before which lay in deepest shade a tiny lawn — a neglected, uncut lawn, whose grass was of a sufficiently comfortable length to give harbourage to a score or so of turkeys, who were finding their pastime therein. Georgina approached this party with caution and London-bred timidity ; and the big hairy head of the family rising, gobbling, and beginning to get exceed ingly red, as she advanced in closer proximity with mamma and the young ones, she, unwilling to intrude on their privacy, or to cultivate their acquaintance further, beat a hasty retreat to where a wooden bench beneath the fir-trees offered an inviting seat.

Tbe far-off lowing of cattle and bleating of sheep, if anything, increased rather than interrupted the supreme stillness around her. She sat there for awhile resting and enjoying the loneliness and intense quiet ; but after a bit the silence and shade began to oppress the volatile child, and she started to her feet. " Fancy," she exclaimed, half aloud — " fancy a life here ! Conceive sitting at that bowwindow yonder day after day, watching those turkeys and seeing nothing beyond but those fir-trees, and it may be a distant prospect of a haystack. Oh, those fir-trees ! those fir-trees — those tall, thick firtrees ! the weariness of hearing tbem sighing and swaying themselves backwards and forwards all day long and all night too ! Just the same the whole year round, of course, always green, always impenetrable — never for one instant could one bave tbe satisfaction of being able to look right through them into the world beyond !

Is it possible any one ever did live their whole long hfe through in that black and white farm house ? It's very likely, I daresay. These Welsh folks, I take it, don't exactly live at any time ; it's only a sort of vegetation. Pigs and poultry all the week — chapel three times on Sunday ; then poultry and pigs again, and so on. I can't think I should get on with it all. How thankful I should be for a market-day or a fair, and how I should long for the harvest-home and all that ! I wish, though, I had mamma down here for a month — no, not a month, perhaps she'd die before the end of it ; but say a week ! I'U answer for it she'd never talk again about dwelling in the Wil derness, as she calls Westbourne Grove, as long as she lived. Well, I can't stand tbis any longer. I must really try and find something to amuse myself with."

She walked towards the house. A bay-window on tbe ground-floor stood conveniently open, and from thence she contemplated the room within : a low dark parlour, long and narrow, and lighted only at one end by the window at which she stood. It was paneUed throughout with oak, black and chipped with the hard usage of years. Grotesque faces grinned from tbe mantel-piece, carved, high almost beyond reach, after the manner of the ancients. On the broad window-seat, comfortably cushioned witb weU-worn moreen, lay a little pile of books, which bore also the tokens of constant use : one of these, open with its face downwards, was within Georgina's reach. She put in her hand, and, having secured the prize, sauntered away again down a thread like path which lost itself among tbe pines. Downwards always the path went — here narrow and there wide — at each step more rocky, and yet more enticing, till it came to where a mountain stream frothed and gurgled round a line of water -worn stepping-stones, for the use of those who preferred their perilous passage to that of the almost as dan gerous plank, whicb likewise spanned the rivulet.

It was a choice of evils, Georgie thought, but she elected to pick ber way over the slippery stones, and, having accomplished tbe feat, proceeded, with some difficulty, to climb the steep bank on the opposite side. " I know I ought not to go. I don't believe uncle wiU ever be able to find me ; but it's such fun ! " she soliloquized as she went on. Now she had got to the top of the bank, and a sinuous path led her higher and higher under larches and oak, and graceful and overhanging nut boughs, still following tbe windings of tbe brook, to where a giant beech, the king of the dingle, stretched, far above his vassals, bis verdant sceptre. Here — close to a spring wbich made a perpetual soothing drip-drop, sweet and monotonous as the voices of children playing in the distance, and then went down to join the noisier stream below — here, in a nook lit with the faint, subdued green light of tbe forest, some one had fashioned a rude seat from the root of a felled tree.

Exhausted with her climbing, Georgie sat down, and looking down to tbe dell beneath, was surprised at the height she had attained. Near to her hand grew myriads of wood flowers, wild and bright ; and all the ground, and between the roots of the close-growing trees, was thick with the ripening berries of the wild strawberry, of which, and of the modest pink crane's-bill, a leaf lay here and there scarlet in beautiful, too-early death. Now it was growing late, for the bees, heavy laden from the well-stored hyacinth-bells, were making the best of tbeir way home, and on the side of tbe steep hill opposite, where waved fields of corn yet green, the setting sun was dyeing tawny red the hair and beard of Simon Vane, witb the assistance of whose arm her uncle was slowly proceeding up to a farm-house still nearer the sky.

Their wind-borne voices came across tbe chasm, and, in the serene air, sounded close, almost in her ear. " Consider it, consider it, Simon, my good fellow ! " she heard ber uncle say, as he paused for an instant and panted for breath. " 'Deed, Mr. Drayton, it's little use considering, I'm afraid. My answer is like to be tbe same ten years hence as it is now." " You don't know that, Simon. 'Circumstances alter cases,' as they say down where I come from. Again I say, consider it, and give me an answer any time between tbis and Christmas." And they toiled upwards once more. " That is an odd sort of man enough," mused Georgie ; " he speaks almost like a gentleman, if his voice hadn't that funny Welsh way with it, as if every sentence was followed by a note of interrogation. And he's not at all bad-looking either.

Now they are both out of eight. How much longer do they mean to make me wait, I should like to know ? I may as well read a little, I suppose. What's tbis book, I wonder ? — Spenser's ' Faerie Queene ! ' .What an unexpected meeting ! What an eccentric Welsh farmer ! And he was reading it too, for it was lying open. And why shouldn't he ? How I do hate myself for saying things like that ! I daresay be is just as likely to read it, and a good deal more likely to understand it, than I." She turned the pages one by one, but, unaccustomed to the pure Saxon of the grand old poem, it was almost to her as a dead language. She was about to close tbe volume rather discontentedly, when a few lines caught her eye, of wbich the text and type appeared more easy to follow than the rest. In quaint, brief words, they told of the rustic knight of the Fairy Queen, of his armour, and of the gentle mistress he served.

" I like that," murmured Georgie ; and she was beginning to read with awakening interest, when ber attention was arrested by the rapidly-increasing darkness, and by a simultaneous rustling among tbe leafy bowers overhead. "I do believe it's raining!" cried she; "and how close and hot it is getting — it's positively insupport able ! It is raining — there came a great drop on my face ; and only supposing it should thunder ! How frightened I am ! I wish I bad never come here. I knew all the time it was wrong. I suppose it would be no good my screaming — no one would hear me. I never dare try to get back by myself. Where can, Uncle George be ?" Glittering on tbe page of tbe open book, came a broad, bright blue flash, startling and almost blinding ber with its brilliancy. There was an awful quiet, and Georgina peeped timidly out from the bands beneath which she had coweringly hid her eyes.

The little bit of sky that the trees allowed to be seen was heavy and pitchy black ; but tbe rain had suddenly ceased, and the slow falling of gathered drops from bough and leaves was all the sound she could hear. A low, deep growl, and then the yet-distant thunder came booming and echoing amongst the mountains. The vague, unreasoning horror, which is the tor ment of highly-sensitive imaginative temperaments, came upon Georgie. Under ordinary circumstances, sbe was not afraid of thunder — she rather enjoyed it, and made sport of the many women and few men held in bondage by such fears ; but this was so terrible — the place so lonely, so weird, and the thunder such as she never in her life heard before — tbat ber abject terror must not be judged too harshly. Crouching down on ber mossy seat, witb averted eyes and tightly-clenched hands, trembling violently, and struggling in vain to command herself, she passed, as it seemed to her, a perfect age of misery ; the flashes of lightning growing brighter and more bright, and the thunder rattling closer and closer, when a quick, firm footstep sounded, and Vane stood before ber.

" I hope you've not got wet, Miss Sackville," be was beginning, in bis brisk, cheery voice, when she cried : " Ah, I'm so frightened — so frightened ! " and stretched out both ber hands to tbe stranger like the foolish, scared child she was. What could Vane do, but take the little cold hands thus proffered tenderly in bis own big ones — rough with toil and brown witb sun — and, standing close beside her, give what little of comfort and assurance ascame most readily to his mind under tbe somewhat perplexing circumstances ? He was a shy, reserved man, and he was only a Welsh farmer, it must be remembered ; and I doubt if the, to him, very novel fact of standing with the hands of Mr. Drayton's pretty niece clasped in his own did not convey far more of embarrassment tban pleasure. Though he felt exceedingly sorry for the young lady, as she looked in his face so piteously, her great blue grey eyes swimming with tears, he couldn't really see that there was so very much to be frightened at after all.

He bore it manfully, however, and, not knowing well what else to do, stood quietly there, with the little, trembling bands in bis, till, when the storm bad got to its height, and even he began to think it would be as well it were a little further off, Georgina lifted up her voice and wept, and the young farmer felt bis cup was indeed full. When it had got to the worst, it soon began to mend ; and the tempest and the tears both nearly over, sbe looked up at him, and said, witb a faint smile, " How foolish I am ; what can you think of me ? " She withdrew ber bands from bis with a start and a deep, surprised blush — a blush in whicb Vane could see much of girlish shyness, but in which he failed to detect any of the pride be expected from Mr. Drayton's niece. " You are better now," he said, kindly.

" You are not used to such thunder, are you ? One must come among the hills to hear God speak so loud. But I could not think where you were. I don't suppose I should have found you if it hadn't been for Dolce, who brought me. He must bave followed you, and then made the best of his way to me. I was afraid you wouldn't be sufficiently weather-wise to see tbe storm coming on, as we did." She smiled more brightly. " Well, I'm not moun tain bred, and I confess my first warning was feeling the rain in my face." "You must not sit there if your things are wet; you had better come back at once with me to the bouse and be dried." She rose and foUowed him, her spirits returning at each step. "Where is my uncle ?" she asked, as they retraced the little pathway. " yonder at Vronllwydd, surely ! He thinks you're safe in tbe house ; but I made a guess you wouldn't stay in the garden, so I came to look for you."

" That was very kind of you. I don't know wbat I should bave done if you hadn't come, I'm sure ; not but what I have enjoyed my walk very much too." " I was rather surprised to find you had got over tbe water ; I didn't think you could bave managed tbat." ■4 " Oh, I did it capitally. I came over the stones ; and now," said she, springing forward, " you shall see how well I can go back the other way. It's like a scene out of some opera, only it's prettier," and she danced to the middle of tbe green and treacherous plank. "Name of goodness take care, or you'll surely slip," cried Vane. "It's all right, I'm over. Now I'm going to jump down. It isn't all right though, I believe," she called after a pause, and in an instant Vane was by her side, alarmed at the alteration in her voice. "What's the matter?" he exclaimed.

" Oh ! I think I bave only turned my ankle. I don't believe I've even sprained it. How silly of me, to be sure ! How it does hurt me to walk ! " "Shall I carry you ?" said Vane. "Could you?" " Name of goodness, yes ! " " Well, no. I think if you were to give me your arm I could manage. After all, it's only a few steps up to the house." What support his arm could give she had, and she bore herself bravely ; but tbe effort was great, and she shivered with pain and fatigue, when pushinoopen a gate that had previously escaped ber notice be deposited ber upon a huge wooden settle by tbe side of a blazing fire. " Oh, wbat a dear old kitchen ! how comfortable it is and warm !" extending her hands gratefully to tbe fire, whilst Vane ransacked cupboard and shelf in search of some restorative for his drooping guest.

" Is your foot very bad ? Will you have it bathed, or anything?" he inquired as he presented brandy and water, that orthodox and unfailing resource when a cordial is called for. " Oh, no, thank you ; I'm better now. I shouldn't bave made so much fuss, only I was tired first, and then so startled, that I didn't really know what I was about. I believe I could even walk now." "Pray don't try to do so at present. Sit still and get dry and warm." So she sat there witb Dolce's bead resting against her knees, and Vane leaned against the chimney-piece and looked down at the pretty animated face glowing in the fire-light. It was a fair face — fairer a long way than it had been his luck to look upon — delicate, regular features, and eyes that changed witb every expression of the changeful face, a rosy mouth quivering with innate fun, and a little graceful head crowned with a profu sion of brown hair that deepened to black in the shade, and in the sunlight could tremble into gold.

Between them, out of the coarse clay of the earth, God and Nature sometimes make an artist. Un tutored, uncultivated, journeying but seldom beyond his Welsh hills and valleys, to Vane had been given tbe power of appreciating witb the keen pleasure of which few but tbe so heaven-born are capable, tbe exquisite curves, tbe colouring, tbe poetry of tbe lovely picture before him. There are some who say, perhaps, that a man lead ing a lonely life, and born and bred in the midst of such scenery as surrounded the little Brecknockshire farm, must be strangely constituted indeed could be grow up without some love and some sympathy for the true and the beautiful. But the experience of tbe many, I believe, goes to prove that the sweet influences of nature have but marvellously little effect upon the dull, uneducated minds of the rural population.

Commend me to the dwellers in some of the most picturesque nooks of our country for stolid indifference to the beauties they had need but go to their door steps to enjoy ! I fear, for the most part, the favoured people of the Lake district, of rugged Scotland, lovely Devonshire, and green Ireland, are infinitely more devoid of pure artistic feeling than the artizans of London, breathing for a few short hours the fresh air of Greenwich Park or of Richmond, and gazing on tbe dusty trees and mimic mountains with a pleasure bred of long spent years in narrow streets, and crowded lodging-houses. At the same time Simon Vane was scarcely to be reckoned up and taken stock of like the generality of country farmers. His mother had been a httle sickly governess, earn ing a subsistence dearly by teaching the rude children of a Welsh flannel factor.

Richard Vane had seen and pitied the small, softvoiced orphan, and had taken her, no unwiUing bride, to Pant-y-dwr. Sbe had been very happy there, poor child, in the few short years of life that were left to her. It wa ; wonderful wbat an amount of happiness she contrived to get into those fifteen years — taking such delight in the simple, health-giving labours of the farm, loving and being loved by ber rough, kindly husband witb a devotion strange in so iU-matched a pair, and idolising, more especially as years went on, ber boy — her only child Simon. As he grew older, his father, anxious to do his best by the lad, was about to send him to some cheap com mercial school in the provinces, but the languid eye and failing health of his young mother pleaded for him, and he remained at home her scholar, and by and-by her companion and the chief joy of her life.

It was an odd sort of training for tbe great, broad shouldered boy, full of sturdy yeoman instinct, and yearning for tbe free life of the farm and the hills, tied to the apron-strings of a feeble woman, reading and making faces over Tasso, construing laboriously a bit of Schiller, remembering here and there a maxim c of Jean Paul's, and devouring with a genuine delight Shakspeare and all the great old Enghsh poets. It might have been worse for bim than it was ; but tbat when he was fourteen, God took from bim the teacher, and left but tbe dear remembrance of her lessons and some few of the old, well-learned tasks that clung fast to his memory whether he would or no. Then he lived the life that his father and bis father's father had lived before bim, experiencing, as I suppose, but little more of any refining influence than his fellows ; but either bis early womanly education, or some quahties inherent in him, making bim different and uncongenial to them, he was regarded as a very dull companion, indeed, by the young farmers of the neighbourhood, who made no sort of pretence of friend ship or of wish for his acquaintance.

This was rather bard on Simon, who was by no means of an unsocial turn of mind. He was neither surly, nor morose, nor bad-tempered in any way ; he was fair and open in bis dealings, bis word was as his bond, be could ride as well, nay, be could ride a great deal better, than any of them, and be was more success ful in business tban most, for what his hand found to do, he did with all his might ; but be bad no friends. Little by little, be got careless about tbe companion ship of other men ; and after old Richard was gathered to his fathers, in the httle burial-ground of Libanus, hard by, and be had settled down into the humdrum life of the farm, with good Mrs. Morgan, his house keeper and far-away cousin, to look after him, he began to get not only reconciled to his solitude, but to love it in good earnest.

Only now and again there would come a craving for a love and a sympathy beyond what be pretty well knew would be bis fate to meet in bis path through life, and it was in times such as these that he turned anew to the dearly loved friends of his youth — his own friends and his mother's, who, bringing out the love of poetry and beauty that was deeply seated in his nature, made bim, after the fashion of David, some thing between a shepherd and a poet, and very often as happy as a king.

Chapter II

All this time I bave left Vane, leaning against the kitchen chimney, and staring, it is to be feared a little rudely, at Georgina Sackville. To do her and him both justice, she was very uncon scious of bis admiring gaze, but was not indisposed to make herself to the full as agreeable as she knew how to be. It was an easier task than sbe thought even, to please this young farmer. " I have taken the book you were reading, see. I carried it away witb me into tbe wood," said sbe, holding towards him the volume of Spenser which she bad found on tbe window-seat. " It is a favourite of yours ? I guess so from its having that comfortable way of keeping its leaves turned well back, which speaks of familiar use." " Yes, it's a dear old friend ; but after all I fancy I read it as much from custom as from anything else."

" But can you reaUy read it easily and well, and without stopping much to find out what tbe curious old words mean ? I daresay if I could understand it, I should hke it very much, too ; but I am free to con fess I never even tried till half an hour ago, and then I didn't get beyond a few of tbe pages in the beginning." Then she added, after a little hesitation, "Somehow I think that is enough to have written for a lifetime — I mean to have been able to con ceive so beautiful an idea as that of the Red Cross Knight." " I suppose you mean where the rude, uncouth lout gets up from the Fairy Queen's feet and puts on the armour." " Yes — I like that. I like to think how noble and gaUant he looked in the eyes of the lady and of everybody, and how well the armour fitted him." " Ah, but I imagine such armour nowadays would be thought almost as ridiculous as Don Quixote's brass basin, wouldn't it ? — out in the world, I mean, where you come from.

The old knight's armour is not too rusty for the country." " That's rather hard upon the world, as you call it ; there slips off the girdle of truth at once, I think. Do you suppose, Mr. Vane, you're nearer heaven in tbe country tban in town ? " " God forbid ! but in the country I fancy it's easier work getting there. What God seems to require of us is about the pleasantest thing to do here. I can't well judge of the other, because I don't know it ; but I could believe that the devU bas it pretty much his own way there. I beg your pardon though, I ought not to have said that ugly word, I daresay. I'm not used to talking to young ladies, you know ; but, sure enough, if I hadn't let that girdle you mentioned drop, I should never have made such a mistake at all." " Very true," remarked Georgie, ever so little patronisingly ; " I remember somebody, Coleridge, I think, says somewhere that true religion, when there is no mixture of cant with it, is tbe only thing needful to make a man a gentleman."