The Larramys

Chapter I. The

calm autumn sunlight fell full on the windows of Orleigh Farm. It lit up with gentle touch the green moss and the yellow lichen on the close-tiled roof. It threw the shadows of the great chimney stack across the white-washed wall of the kitchen garden, and, more faintly, the thin blue smoke which rose like a mist on the still air. It shone on the broad stone steps, and peeped in through the open windows, past the dimity curtains, and into the wainscotted rooms, where generations of Larramys had come into the world, and looked out on it with innocent, unthinking eyes, and by and by had closed them world weary, and been gathered to their forefathers. These Larramys were no titled folk. Their coat of arms was not graven over the great portico that marked the entrance to the court-yard. They had no crest ; they were no students ; no justices of the peace, nor county magnates.

They were simple sons of the soil. A fairly honest, thoroughly money getting, didactic race, pushing their way up by slow degrees ; never retrograding ; making money out of every sixpence they touched ; hard as flint where it would cost them money to be soft ; blubbering like weak-hearted women when no money could be spilled with their tears. Not very fond of change — slow indeed to accept improvements — preferring rather to gather in money by slow, but never halt ing means, to spending it out, and waiting a year for the coffers to fill. Eminently cautious, eminently shrewd in small back-handed ways, their slow policy had filled their purses, leaving them in the fifth and sixth generations a prosperous, self-satisfied, reliant race. A substantial, weather-beaten old place was Orleigh Farm, with its farm buildings straggling up the hill behind it.

The dilapidated linney with its thatch half torn off by last winter's gale ; the shippon with its crumbling walls ; the untidy yard, with its heaps of manure where the pigs lay and grunted ; its stagnant pools of dirty water, its cracked water butts, its broken wheels, its old rusty iron lying here and there. Such was Orleigh farmyard, uncared-for, slovenly, intensely picturesque, like all its kind in beautiful, happy-go-lucky Devon. There is nothing prompt about your true Devon shire native. INDECISION. 5 " Jan," calls the farmer to his hinde, " this here ol' sow bain't lookin' up the thing." " Noo 'er bain't," says John, taking off his slouch hat, and scratching his head slowly. " Same's eef 'er wor scrummed oop like. I've a-notticed eet a time or toy; 'er 'athn't ate oop 'er meat like 'er ought vur doy.

I notticed it virst o' Vriday wake, I mind. I reckon I'd best drinch 'er." So the pig is physicked, but succumbs, like many another Devonshire pig, all for want of a stitch in time. Your Devonshire farmer is late with his ploughing, and late with his sowing, late with his reaping, late with his hoeing. He is late with his labour in the morning, late with his rent, late buying in his spring stock, late selling out his autumn. Yet, in spite of his chronic belatedness, he is never flurried, never in a hurry. He goes into market, and spends the whole day there. He takes his lunch at the Globe Inn, and talks to his neighbours. He pays part of his bill, which he has been paying by instalments for two years. He chaffs with Butcher Sluman. He spends all the forenoon haggling over whether it shall be guineas or pounds "vur they zeed tetties," finally consenting to make it pounds " eef maister '11 throw in a shellin' vur luck."

He speaks of the " vine weather vur mangel," with out even a passing regret that his own are not sown, and have missed it all. He is a fatalist. " Eef they was toy a-bane een, why set, I s'pose they wild a bane een," and " us can't all 'ave luck alike." It was late on this particular autumn afternoon before William Larramy returned from King's Tritton market. The sun had set, and the grey twilight was hushing all the meadows, before the great gate of the court-yard clanged behind him. " I was just about mazed this afternoon, sure enough," he said, as he drew off his greatcoat and entered the long dining-room. The light from the lamp on the polished table showed a large, stout man. His chin was somewhat underhung, and covered with a short, grizzly beard, and the width of his face was out of all proportion to its length.

When he laughed, his eyes disappeared, and his whole face gave the impression of something turned inside out As he came waddling into the room, it was difficult to believe he had ever been active, and the pick of the lasses had been at his feet. " For why then mazed ? " asked Mrs. Larramy. She was a slight built woman, with a stoop. Her gentle eyes looked out from large, melancholy lids. She wore a cap, and her dark hair hung in a rather spiritless curl on either side of her face. She was a sad-looking woman, hard-working and thrifty. " For why then mazed ? " she asked, as she stirred the logs in the wide grate, and put on the kettle to boil. INDECISION. 7 " Why, there was a spotted cow with a bully calf in the market Old Petherick had a-bought'n, an' wanted to sell'n again. He wanted twenty-vive pound ten vor the both of'n. We went down to the Globe, an' us 'ad a glass over't, but us couldn't come to terms no how.

To last I leaves mun. ' I've a-made my bid,' I saith, ' I won't say no differ'nt I'll give 'ee twenty-dree pound an' a dreppeny bit vor luck.' But the old vool wouldn't 'earken. 'Bout half-hour after, I goes back, an' vinds the old cow agone. I says to Peter's carter in there, ' What's maister done with the cow then, Bill ? ' ' Sold'n,' he saith. ' Who's a-bought mun ? ' I saith. ' Squire Carey,' he saith. ' What did 'e give vor mun, then ? ' I saith. ' Twenty-dree pound ten,' he saith. My blazes ! I bellered like a bull, I was that mazed over't. ' Damn un,' saith I. ' Scurvy rascals these genelmen varmers be, takin' bread from honest volk. I'd a-sot my mind on that there bully calf, vor he were a rare un. Darn the old Squire ! Here, ain't that kettle boilin' yet ? " he added, his anger rising again at the remembrance of his disappointment, and beginning to vent itself on the nearest thing to hand.

"Lord love me ! an't 'ee learnt yet the time o' day I'm like to be back from market, an' married this dree-an' twenty year ? Here," he said, pushing her roughly aside, " put the kettle on the logs, woman ! " But Mrs. Larramy, though gentle, knew better than to let her husband usurp her place. " Leave alone now, my dear," she said. " Thirza's a-cleaned that grate to-day. It'll be boiling in a minute. Help yourself to plum-cake now, an' leave the kettle to me." Mr. Larramy sat down, and was soon busily discus sing a huge slice of cake. The kettle took but a moment to boil, and presently a cup of tea, flavoured with rich cream, was restoring some show of good humour to his ruddy face. He drank it with loud " shluices," like a thirsty pig at a well-filled trough. " How did poor Petherick seem ?

" inquired Mrs. Larramy. " Seem ? He's been drinkin' again. You didn't suppose no other did 'ee? I tell 'ee what, I ain't goin' to have Steve a-hankerin' after Mary — that's plain. I won't have him a-marryin' a drunkard's daughter do 'ee see, comprehend, underconstumble, eh ? " " Steve don't want to marry Molly, Bill. I've told 'e that afore. If you keep on about it, you'll put it in his head." " 'Tis there 'fore ever I put it there. Old Petherick ain't a-goin' to marry his maid to nether one o' my sons, I can tell'n. My sons mus' marry money. Money makes money. Ain't Will in yet ? I wonder at that, too. When he don't start from King's Tritton with me, he mostly overtak'th me afore I turn in by the home meady ! " William, if the truth must be told, had carefully watched his father ride out of the Globe yard before INDECISION. 9 following leisurely in his wake.

He had had the mis fortune to fall hopelessly in love, to the sad detriment of his sociability. He had grown taciturn and moody. As he rode slowly homeward, facing the full moon rising behind the copse, a mile on the south side of Orleigh Farm, there was a dreary look on his fresh-coloured face. He was a large, strongly-built, young fellow, accustomed to take a common sense view of life. At the gate, where the road bent, he drew rein, and, leaning heavily forward in his saddle, looked at the moon, about which, formerly, he had never troubled himself, except to scan the weather signs. To-night he looked at it, and thought of the woman he loved ; saw her in its broad, silvery beams ; met her scornful eyes in its pure, chaste light ; watched her as she walked before him, fairer than the stars of heaven.

He recalled her shapely head, the tender sweep of her eye lids above the soft, pale cheek, heard the liquid tones of her voice. And then, in fancy, he took her in his arms, and pressed the first passionate kisses of his love on cheek, and neck, and brow. Suddenly, in the moonlight, he set his strong, white teeth, and clenched the reins in his fist. " I will have her," he muttered, bringing his whip down sharply across the brown filly. Then he turned the short way home, past the copse, and through the yellow-leafed orchard. " You're late to-night, Will," said Mrs, Larramy, as he entered the dining-room, and flung himself into a chair. " Yes," said Will brusquely, " I'm late." " Have a cup o' tea, my dear ? " " No, I don't want any." Then presently, " Mother, why don't we ask Essie down ? She's never been in the autumn."

" She was here in the spring, you mind. She wouldn't come twice in the year." " She might." There was a clatter of tea-cups outside. Mrs. Larramy rose to clear the table for the cloth. As she passed William, she laid her hand upon his head. " My boy," she said gently, " don't thee think about what thee canst never have. It'll do thee no good." Mrs. Larramy had been brought up in a family of Friends, and though, since her marriage, she had joined the Church, she still, in moments of strong feeling, re verted to the familiar " thee " and " thou." " It's too late. I can't help thinking," he said. " See if you can't get her down." She looked at him a moment. " Best not," she said coaxingly. " It'll do thee no good. Thou'lt never have her." The colour flushed into his face, " Don't go against me, mother ! " he said. She kissed him soothingly, as Thirza entered with the tea-tray.

Chapter II

The rich brocaded curtains had been drawn to shut out the last faint glimmer of daylight ; the tall lamp had been lighted, and the red shade threw a faint crimson glow on the walls covered with valuable etchings, on the cushioned chairs and sofa lounges, on the Louis XVI. tables, covered with moneyed nicknacks. It is always in a great city that the impression of luxury is most clearly conveyed. Whether it be from the sense of contrast which comes to us with the knowledge, that not a hundred yards away, men and women are lying huddled together in dens of misery and want, or from the distant hum of teeming life, which beats with every pulse, and forces an entrance through the closely curtained windows — whether from these or other causes, I cannot say, but the im pression is nevertheless conveyed with a force and potency unfelt in country districts.

Esther Craven, seated with her feet on a velvet cushion, and a handsomely bound book of poems on her lap, accentuated the impression. It was not that the draperies which clothed her were of rich material, nor that the jewels which she wore were gems of the first water. It was something beyond this — something expressed in face and figure ; in the proud patrician face, with the full ripe lips ; in the shapely arm and wrist ; in the magnificent pose. If one might be allowed to conjecture, one would be inclined to suppose her the spoiled child of fortune, with blue blood running untainted in her veins. A nature crushed into a narrow conventional groove, yet with a passionate tide ebbing and flowing under a calm exterior. This was William Larramy's love, and his cousin, by a mesalliance on the Craven side.

The clock was chiming the quarter before seven when the footman entered and presented a letter. The address was scrawled in a vulgar hand on common paper. She read the letter through without evincing much interest. It was signed " Annie Larramy." " That is the way with these common people," she said to herself, as she threw the letter aside. " They think because one lowers oneself to mix with them, one enjoys it ; they can conceive no other motive." " Your letter has not pleased you." Esther turned slowly in the direction of the voice. She rarely started. Mr. Craven had passed through the door without her hearing it open and close behind him, nor his footstep on the velvet pile. " I met a friend to-day," he continued, as she did not answer. " A friend ! " he repeated, looking at her with his grave, observant eyes.

" Who was it, uncle ? " she asked, INDECISION. 13 " Mr. Augustus Gaston Carey," he answered in his slow, measured way, and still regarding her. " I asked him to dinner," he continued, seating himself, and leaning back, with his legs stretched out to the blaze. They made a handsome couple on either side of the fire-place. Mr. Craven, with his fine, imperturb able face ; Esther, a woman without blemish from the crown of her dark hair to her dainty feet The footman re-entered with a bouquet of exotics. Esther glanced indifferently at the card handed with them. " Carey ? " queried Mr. Craven. Esther replied by rising and placing Mr. Carey's card on the arm of Mr. Craven's chair. She un wound the string leisurely from the delicate stalks, and placed the flowers in two antique silver vases. Mr. Craven watched her.

She was a woman worth watching. "Does my asking him to dine please you?" he asked, as Esther returned to the fireplace. She did not answer for a moment She slid her pointed toe along the rail of the fender three times before she said, in her clear, distinct voice : " No ; I dislike him ! " Just then Mr. Carey was announced. He was a handsome man of about twenty-three. His face betokened immense power of will. A capable face, cold and calculating ; in repose unlit by any softening gleam. Yet, when he smiled and revealed a handsome set of teeth, a great deal that was unprepossessing in his face was forgotten. His manner and address were older than his years. During dinner, he talked politics with Mr. Craven. Afterwards, in the drawing-room, he talked to Esther on music, on art, on books, on the lighter subjects of the day.

There were few women who could resist his powers of attraction when he chose to exert them. Less, perhaps, that he was so attractive, as that they felt the power of his superior will. They were drawn, in spite of themselves, along the path he wished them to tread. It was easy for Mr. Craven to see Carey's intentions towards Esther. Well, they were a goodly couple, and suited to each other. But, to a closer observer, did they, after all, seem so especially suited ? It would be impossible for a student of human nature to look at these two strongly marked faces, and not ask himself, " In the event of marriage, what will this woman make of this man — he of her ? " And the answer could scarcely be satisfactory. Carey was deeply in love with Esther — or rather, perhaps, he profoundly admired her, which, in his nature, was equivalent to love.

" Miss Craven," he said, as he rose to leave, " I wish I could persuade you to stay with us. You say, though you stay in Devon, you have no opportunities of really enjoying it. With us you would have. Come INDECISION. 15 to us in the spring or early summer. That is when you see Devon to advantage." " It would give me great pleasure," replied Esther. " In what part of Devon are you ? " " In North Devon— near King's Tritton." A moment before Esther had been thinking, possibly, some day, she might marry this man ; now, surely, it was out of the question. Their friendship must cease. " That young man admires you, Esther," said Mr. Craven when the door closed behind Carey. " He is not to be despised. One of the oldest families in Devon ; and there will be money, too. Besides which, there is only a delicate boy of six between him and a title.

It is quite possible for a girl to refuse once too often." That night, when she was alone, Esther thought over it. She had said she disliked him. After all, did she ? Did not his admiration touch her vanity in a way that no other man's had ? Yet, how was it possible to stay with his people, and not stumble across these undesirable relations of hers, the Larramys ? True, if she met them, she might look over their heads or straight through them. But from this she shrank. In an odd, indefinable way, though they grated on her fine sensibilities, she loved her mother's people. Had she not stuck to them all these years ? — all the firmer perhaps, because of her uncle's opposition. Esther was too proud to own to anyone but her self that she was ashamed of them. Not for the world would she have explained to her uncle the real reason why she had almost decided on refusing Gaston Carey's invitation.

She was very loyal to her mother's people. Never once, since she had been orphaned, had she neglected to pay them a yearly visit. Supposing, however, this adherence to them ruined her marriage prospects ? She did not like the thought of that Then she remembered Mrs. Larramy's letter, which had come by the evening's post. Suppose she accepted the invitation, and allowed two visits this year, to cancel her obligation to pay a visit in the next ? Before she went to sleep that night, she had de cided to go to Orleigh Farm the following week, and so leave the coming spring free for her visit to the Careys. She was not afraid of meeting any of the Careys while there, for she rarely went beyond the fields — and besides, only one of the Careys knew her, and he, very probably, would not be at home.

She felt quite satisfied as she closed her eyes that night. By paying two visits in one year to the Larramys, her conscience would be absolved. She need not pay one next year, nor need she even bow if she chanced to meet one of them while with the Careys. Or if she preferred bowing, she could explain haughtily, if necessary. She was not ashamed of her mother's people ; it should never be said that she was. INDECISION. 17 The next morning at breakfast she signified her intention to Mr. Craven. He slowly adjusted his eye-glasses, and leaning back in his chair, regarded her for a minute or two without speaking. Esther affected not to notice. She poured out the coffee without looking up. " Why ? " inquired Mr. Craven at last. " I do not wish my visit to the Careys in the spring to clash with my visit to Orleigh Farm."

" I see. The Careys are to know nothing of the Larramys ? " Esther winced. "My father was not ashamed to marry one of them," she answered haughtily, " and I am not ashamed to own that he did." " Oh ! you are paying this visit for the purpose of making the families acquainted ? I see. You mean the Careys to ask them over to lunch — or, better — to dinner. Paterfamilias, with his serviette tied under his chin, and two sons on each side ; malerfamilias with cherry ribbons in her cap. Quite a family party. I can see them — and your enjoyment ! " " I do not wish to go straight from one house to the other. That is why I go twice this year to Orleigh Farm. I do not wish to put the Careys in an uncomfortable position. On the other hand, I will never neglect my mother's people." Mr. Craven stirred his coffee thoughtfully.

E " I understand, then," he said at last, " the connec tion is to be kept a profound secret ? " " Not in the least. If the conversation turns that way, I shall not hesitate to mention the fact, any more than I should hesitate to mention Signor Tulli if Italian methods of singing were under discussion The Larramys are a fact, the knowledge of which I neither wish to force nor to withhold." Mr. Craven looked at the handsome face oppo site him, with its expression of haughty indepen dence. " It will take more than the Larramys to turn young Carey," was his thought In the course of the afternoon Carey called, and for the next week he was very much en evidence. He asked Mr. Craven's permission, in a few well chosen words, to pay his addresses to Miss Craven. When Esther heard it, she merely raised her eye brows, and smiled a little scornfully.

" My position is neutral," she said. " He can pay his addresses if it pleases him, but it does not follow I shall accept them." He came to say good-bye the evening before she started for the West. " I shall rely on your coming to us in the spring,1 he said ; " I shall count upon it." " Thank you," said Esther. " If nothing prevents." Her tone added, " If I can take the trouble to like you sufficiently." INDECISION. 19 " Nothing must prevent," he answered. " Nothing shall prevent." He raised her hand to his lips. Esther smiled as the door closed behind him. " He will find I have a will, as well as he," she said to herself ; and Gaston Carey, as he stepped into the hansom at the door, said, smiling too : " She will find my will is law. We shall have a tussle or two, but I like her all the better for that, and she will have to give in, in the end."

Chapter III. Very

peacefully passed the first few days of Esther's stay at Orleigh Farm, and very happily. More happily than she had ever known them. Her uncle was laid up with gout, and she saw little of him. Harry had gone to his first curacy ; Bob was busy on the farm. Steve was a quiet, gentlemanly lad, and she had always liked him. It was on William's society, however, that she was chiefly thrown. She was slowly awakening to the fact that William admired her. Greatly to her own surprise, it did not displease her. She supposed it to be a distant sort of admira tion, that would never dare express itself openly. It was the sort of admiration that made him pleasant company. It caused him to be attentive to her wants, anxious for her pleasure. William had read a good deal, besides being exceedingly observant, and his conversation interested Esther.

She liked to walk down the copse with him, where the nuts hung in clusters, and have his quick eye point where the squirrel scaled the fir tree, or the rabbit lay among the bracken. He showed her the kingfisher's haunts by the little woodland stream, and the hollow oak where the owl shunned the day. He drew aside the undergrowth, that she might INDECISION. 21 see where the pheasant had laid her eggs under the purple vetch — dead stalks only now — and where the starling had built a nest in a hole in an old apple tree. He knew all about the wild animals and their haunts, and she, town bred and ignorant of their ways, listened and learnt, and questioned him. And all the time the mellow autumn sun shone upon them, and Esther walked on, blind and unthinking. But William was neither blind nor unthinking.

He was conscious of her to his finger tips. When he helped her over the stiles, his heart beat quicker. When he met her glance, the blood throbbed in his veins ; and at last Esther became dimly conscious of it all ; but it did not trouble her. He was only a rough farmer ; it was natural he should have an in sane admiration for what was beyond his reach. It did not matter. It was neither here nor there. And the mellow sun shone down upon them, and changed the fading woods, till they shone with a glory their prime had never known. " How can people call the country dull ? " Esther exclaimed one day, pausing in the ascent of a steep hillside. " Why ! it is never twice the same ! It is always changing. I love to watch it, it is so beautiful." " I love it too," said William, not looking at the wide stretching country below them but into Esther's eyes.

" I could look at it for ever." Presently the path grew steeper, and he took her hand to aid her. They paused after a few minutes, and looked back. William still held her hand. Esther had found, when she tried to withdraw it, that he resisted the effort. It was easier, therefore, to pretend she had not meant to. What did it matter ? He was only a common farmer, and in a few days she would be gone. It did not signify. And so they walked on hand in hand, though the path was scarcely steep at all, and Esther's buoyant step could well have trodden all paths unaided. As the days passed, she began to wonder at the dreamy content which had taken possession of her She, who had never cared for the country, how had she suddenly come to love it ? How was it she was content to spend the livelong day with William ?

How had she found a sudden gladness in her life ? She asked herself these questions, and could find no answer to them. She seemed to have entered a life that was wholly new to her. She could not recognise herself in it. She looked forward with regret to the day when she must leave Orleigh Farm. There was something in her life now that made each day more buoyant than the last. In a little, she gave herself up to enjoyment, and asked no further ques tions. One day they had been for a walk along the top most ridge of the hills. About half a mile from the farm, they paused to rest, leaning over a gate that looked into the copse. An old, broken-down gate it INDECISION. 23 was, grey with age, and covered with pale crisp touches of lichen. The gloaming was creeping over hill and dale, and a crescent moon hung bright in a pale tinted sky.

It was very beautiful, and so still that they could hear the murmur of the stream in the valley below. Esther was looking at it all with eyes of dreamy content, thinking to herself that Arcady must have been very like Orleigh Farm in autumn. William had been leaning forward, with his passionate eyes upon her, drinking in every detail. From the blue-grey eyes, shadowed with the dark lashes, and the hair round the white temple just stirring in the balmy air ; from the proud lips, faintly tender just now ; from the firmly moulded chin, to the beautiful hands, lightly clasped, and the supple ease of her attitude, his eyes dwelt and lingered. At length, bending a little forward, he called her by name, " Essie ! " A rabbit, startled at the sound of his voice, scudded past them, and was lost in the gloom.

Esther could trace its course by the waving bracken. She watched it, because she dared not look at William. His voice had startled her. The last piece of bracken swayed — swayed — and was motionless. Then Esther drew herself up from the gate. "We must be going," she said. " It is growing late." " Not till I have said all I want to say ! " said William, and the tone of his voice forced her attention. She looked up with quick apprehension. " Essie," he cried, taking both her hands, " I love you I love you ! " Something stirred in Esther's breast, but she would not attend to it. She tried to draw her hands away. " What is the good of saying that ? " she said coldly. " You forget yourself." "How do I forget myself?" he said passionately, stung by the scorn and contempt expressed in her voice. " Because I have not a million of money, I suppose, and a handle to my name ?