His Heritage

Chapter I

Martin and Dorothy . . . 19 II. Visitors ..... 32 III. "I will learn the Truth" . . 39 IV. James Hawkins furnishes a Clue . 45 V. How Mrs Johnston looked at it . 53 VI. Love versus Prudence ... 61 VII. Martin alters his Mind ... 68 VIII. At Whitehayes .... 77 IX. The Enemy at the Gate ... 90 X. Martin Hall speaks ... 97 XI. Mrs Ogilvie proffers a Reward . . 103 XII. Frank Eversleigh proffers Friendship 114 XIII. One of the Lower Classes . . 122 XIV. Martin's Nine-Pins . . . .139 XV. Dora puts in a Word . . . CONTENTS. VI CHAPTER rAGE XVI. " That Name was Eversleigh " . . 155 XVII. The Dawn of a New Day . . .168 XVIII. Martin beholds his Heritage . . 178 XIX. Lisle Eversleigh . . . .190 XX. Martin undergoes an Examination . 204 XXI. The Next Morning . . . . 217 XXII. In Memoriam ..... 227 XXIII.

A Visit from the Major . . . 237 XXIV. Mildred ..... 252 XXV. Two Promises . . . .262 XXVI. Candidate for Mallington . . 276 XXVII. The last of Dorothy Johnston . . 292 XXVIII. Lisle is not disappointed . . . 302 XXIX. "I will go" ..... 310 XXX. Ballyrush ..... 323 XXXI. Martin enters into his Heritage .

Prologue

. SCENE FIRST. CHALFORD. AMONG the high and breezy downs, yet itself lying in a sheltered hollow, backed by a grove of beech and oak trees, the village of Chalford is one of the pleasantest and prettiest of all the cheerful little hamlets which nestle in the bleak hill-sides of Hampshire, like tufts of samphire in the rugged sea cliff. Little of the outer world troubles Chalford. It is even now outside the track of the railway, and is content to get the history of its own times served up in mince-meat, as a secondary dish to the county news, in the weekly newspapers which are brought to it by the carrier's cart every Saturday night. Thirty years ago, before even a hint was given that Chalford votes should have a share in shaping the destinies of nations, it was still more completely estranged from the outer world and absorbed in its own affairs, in seed-time and harvest, in summer and winter ; summer that brought the warm sun to smite the chalky roads and a ripple over the brown and purple sides of the down lands, winter with its fierce winds which swept the unsheltered slopes and its snow that lay deep in the narrow lanes.

Perhaps amid the everyday trivialities and peaceful numbness of life, its inhabitants may have felt the .fascination of those sweeping stretches of wild country which shut them off, as it were, from the spread of culture and civilisation, and circled them about with n-ituae. The old church, the straggling cottages, the farmsteads and the Hall, the trees with their gradual growth, their yearly revolutions of verdure and decay, changed but slowly ; the young grew old, one genera tion filled the places of another, a few familiar forms went to their last rest in the quiet graveyard ; and the great curves of the downs, like ocean billows suddenly rolled back and bid as the Red Sea waves to stand still, and overgrown with low grass and faded bents, never altered, though the season of hare bell and scabious purpled them for a while in summer, and trails of creamy traveller's joy clung to their upheaving sides, like dashes of sea-weed and foam, in autumn.

Here and there a clump of gorse braved the seasons more defiantly, and once or twice in a mile's expanse a little circle of gloomy fir-trees up lifted half-clad branches and bare slim trunks; but these were rare breaks in the calm monotony of grass and sky. The red-letter days in Chalford were fewer than CHALFORD. 3 the gorse bushes on the downs. Within the memory of man there had not been a day more remarkable in its annals than the bright 12th of June, some thirty years ago, when the young master of the Hall, Bernard Eversleigh, was married in the old parish church, where many of his ancestors lay buried, to the Vicar's daughter, Margaret Alleyne. He, the son of a long line of owners of Chalford Hall, had been known to every one in the place since the bells rang out at his birth ; the only child of an old county family which owned the whole village, his career had been watched with a proprietary interest by the villagers, and they had listened to tales of his achieve ments at Winchester and Oxford with a pride second only to that experienced when their own Jacks and Marys carried off the prizes for copy books and samplers at Chalford school.

He was handsome in the fair Saxon style of the Eversleighs, free and generous in all his dealings, rich enough not to feel it in any degree imperative to let his left hand know what his right hand did, and perfectly selfish in so good-tempered a way that few thought of accusing him of the fact, — selfish indeed because rarely asked to give first place to another and because trained to consider it an Englishman's bounden duty, when such a demand was made, to refuse to do so. He pleased himself because it was the pleasantest thing to do ; his open hand and smiling face gave the impression that all who opposed him must be wrong, and his temper, never having been tried, was universally accounted sunny and faultless. Chalford had little cause to complain of its young squire, and Chalford was as loyal to him as the most enthusiastic admirer of the good old times could desire.

His marriage disappointed them a little, it is true. They had looked to him to bring home some fair and gracious young noblewoman, such as his mother had been in her day ; and he chose instead the eldest daughter of the Vicar. She came of a good family, a family as old as his own, and was near akin to a bishop, but they had not regarded her as future mistress of the Hall ; indeed, had they thought of any of the Alleynes, they would have declared rather for Miss Rose or Miss Ethel, who were in their eyes prettier and certainly more popular than pale, proud Miss Alleyne, who, being almost always absent from Chalford visiting her London relations, possessed the charms of neither a stranger nor a friend, and dis played no interest in the rural delights of which her younger sisters were the life and soul.

The master of the Hall had, however, made his choice ; Chalford accepted it, and after a time felt the prouder that the couple both belonged to the village, and that Mr Bernard in all his travels had found no one fairer than their own parson's daughter. To have the ceremony performed in their church, the square front pew of which had been sacred to the CHALFORD. 5 Eversleighs ever since it was enclosed from the vulgar herd at least a hundred years before, by blue curtains and a high door, was a great consideration in days when satin and orange-blossoms, trains of brides maids, and crimson covered aisles were a rare sight to country eyes. Nowadays all the details of such an event have been made so familiar by constant iteration to the readers of every provincial newspaper, that there is nothing left for the romancer to say.

Then, the string of carriages, the triumphal arch at the lodge gate, the flags fluttering among the oak trees, the stir and tumult at the old Vicarage, the presence of the bishop-cousin — a greater novelty in that their own diocesan was a stranger to Chalford in those days, — the excited school-children with their baskets of flowers waiting to strew roses on the bride's path, made up a chapter in Chalford annals not soon to be forgotten. All the inhabitants collected in the churchyard to cheer the wedding party, or crowded into the church to see the tall white-robed Miss Alleyne, with her pretty sisters and cousins in pink muslin behind her, and a gay group of friends and relations of Hall and Vicarage around, become Mrs Bernard Eversleigh. The sun shone on the bride as she walked down the nave with her hand on her husband's arm, touching her veil and orange blossoms, her trailing skirts, the bouquet she carried j and Bernard Eversleigh, smiling proudly upon his wife and with frank cordiality on the friendly faces about him, was perfectly satisfied with himself, his bride, his position, the world generally, and even the weather, as became a newly made bridegroom.

Among the throng of holiday-keeping villagers and congratulatory friends, the one face out of harmony with the day's festivities escaped general notice and might well have escaped Eversleigh's. It was the face of a girl who stood close by one of the pillars of the church and had her large black eyes fixed upon him. She wore, like her neighbours, a light dress and a Sunday bonnet, and these were evidently made and put on with care so as to set off the rich brunette complexion, the low-growing dark hair, and the tall full figure ; but there was no trace of a smile about the set red lips, her brows were knit, and the expression in her eyes momentarily startled Evers leigh as he encountered it. Then he smiled back ; only a close observer would have noted any difference in the ease and openness of the smile or discovered that he understood the girl's look and knew the reason for it.

The bridal party passed on to the Vicarage, where the breakfast was set out on the lawn ; the con gregation dispersed slowly, discussing busily every detail of the ceremony ; and the girl with the black eyes and the poppy-trimmed bonnet came out from behind the stone column, and slipping through the side-door of the church while the crowd was still CHALFORD. 7 following in the wake of bride and bridegroom, walked quickly through the graveyard and a couple of fields until she reached a breezy knoll on the out skirts of the downs. There she stood motionless by the stile, and turned her face to the path by which she had come as if listening to the joy-peals ringing merrily from the belfry. To the right the path wound in through a plantation of firs towards the Hall, the grey walls of which were just visible through the branches ; and to the left it ran under the lee of the tall whitethorn hedge and across more meadows to a little red-tiled farm house.

But the joy-bells found no echo in the girl's thoughts. " I hate her," she said within herself. " I hate her and I hate him, and I hope he may come to know it some day, come to know that it isn't only he can forget how to love ; and may others serve him as he's served me ! " And as she looked onwards at the Hall's half-hidden outlines there was the same look in her eyes as that which Bernard Eversleigh saw in them. " Well, Joan, a fine sight, weren't it? " said a voice at her side. " I never see a better matched couple, and don't know but one other could come up to 'em, eh, Joan ? " " Then why don't you stop and stare about if you think such a deal of it ? " the girl answered angrily, turning towards the young man who spoke. " Why, they didn't ask me to the spread, you know, and I thought he looked so well-pleased with what he'd been doing, a man might do worse nor do the same ; so I come up to the farm and as you weren't there I guessed you'd be round this way."

" Clever, wasn't it ? seeing there's only two ways. What do you come doddering after me for ?" " You looked so handsome with them poppies in your bonnet I couldn't help coming," he grinned. " Folks used to say, Joan, Mr Bernard was after you, and I said to myself in church, I said, ' If I was he I'd have stuck to her, I would, 'stead of taking up with Miss Alleyne with all her airs and graces.' " Joan's colour flamed up, but she still faced her admirer boldly. " I wouldn't have stopped in this dull hole of a place, no, not to be Mrs Eversleigh," she said defiantly. " I'll never set foot in Chalford after to morrow, never, as long as I live ; you may make your mind easy on that score, James Hawkins." " Then I suppose you wouldn't stop here for me, and it's no good for me to ask it, eh, Joan ?

" he said coaxingly, perceiving that he had put his foot in it by his reference to the young squire whose attentions to the village beauty, he had only mentioned as an acceptable compliment. " No," she said, shortly ; « nor for none of the likes of you." " Well," he answered, " That'll do, Joan ; I won't : OUTSIDE. 9 argue. You'll find some day there's worse places than Chalford and worse fellows than James Hawkins." With that he turned away, left her with village chivalry to get over the stile in any way she pleased, and strolled back to the village, a good average specimen of a naturally well-intentioned young rustic in a very bad temper. Joan did not look after him or seem to heed his desertion, but remained where he had found and left her until he was out of sight and earshot of her down the hillside.

Then she flung her arms suddenly on the topmost rail of the stile and laid her head with the smart poppy-trimmed bonnet on them, and burst into passionate tears. SCENE SECOND. MALLINGTON WORKHOUSE : OUTSIDE. The shades of night hung over Mallington, and a curtain of November fog further shrouded its streets. Nowadays, Mallington may almost be said to look its best under such circumstances ; its rows upon rows of smoke-tinted houses, in the painful monotony of jerry-builders'architectureadd nothing to the stranger's impressions in favour of that industrial northern town ; sunlight only shows their defects and the correspond ing griminess of their inhabitants. But at night the shop windows and the yellow lamps glare cheerfully through the mist, and the bustle of the streets is enlivening ; and over all the darkness and the feeble flickering lights and the fog, the furnace fires leap up in glowing splendour into the blackness of the sky, fitfully illumining all the place, throwing into relief the skylines of the great square factories, the hideous forge-works, the mean houses, against a red back ground, revealing especially the graceful beauty of the tall church spire, which guards the black town and stands between it and the furnace fires like a Calvary on the borderland of death and purgatory.

At such times Mallington possesses a fascination which southern towns lack as they rest peacefully beneath moonlight and starry skies in that slumber even London shares, when " The very houses seem asleep And all that mighty heart is lying still. Mallington houses may sleep, but they sleep like a regiment of soldiers, with St Cuthbert's spire as a watchful sentinel ; and its fiery heart palpitates and throbs unceasingly. Thirty years ago there was more peace in Mailing ton, and half its houses were still unbuilt ; fields and allotment gardens stretched where now are busy streets, and buttercups and daisies blossomed where now are dreary wastes of sandpit and broken crockery, the common rubbish receptacles for the inhabitants of the wilderness of bricks and mortar : OUTSIDE. 11 round and about ; nor was the natural colour of the soil wholly hidden by slag and coaldust in the streets.

But even then Mallington was a growing and promising young town, the houses projected further into the meadows, the paths grew more cindery, the roads more exclusively composed of iron refuse, every year ; and Mallingtonians felt a natural pride in these signs of advancing prosperity. Another proof of civilization's march stood just within the town's boundary : a huge square red brick building with a parody of a garden in front of it, and large gates opening out on to the high road. It was the Union Workhouse. A woman was walking along the high road dragging her feet one after another as if weary with carrying the heavy bundle which lay in her arms. She wore a dark shawl, and her face was hidden by a thick veil, so that it would have been difficult for an intimate friend to have recognised her in the dimly lit highway ; but she kept close by the hedge and by the high wall of the Institution, and looked about her now and again in a frightened uncertain manner.

She could see no one up or down the road. She had passed close to no one since, at the corner of the street which led to the railway station, she had brushed unheedingly by a man who loitered beside the gas-lamp. She had been too tired and too excited to notice him among the throng of new faces in the unknown town, and was unaware that he had come by the same train as herself, and had left his bag on the platform in order to get out as quickly as possible from the noisy station into the open street and watch the exodus of other new comers to Mal lington ; that, after she passed him he had caught up his luggage and followed her at a distance of a hundred yards or so, keeping in the shadow as she was doing, and that he was following her still. When she gained the Workhouse her step quickened, and with one last look round she turned in at the gate and hurried up the garden, walking on the rough uneven grass which edged the supposititious flower beds rather than on the wide gravel path.

Before the man got to the gate she re-appeared, her arms relieved of the burden which had been concealed beneath her shawl ; and looking now neither to right nor left she hurried down the road with quickening steps until half a dozen cross-streets were passed, more than one corner rounded, and a long and crooked path lay between her and the House. Then she slackened speed perforce, with panting breath, and gazed about, conscious for the first time that she was in a strange road, that it was night, and that she knew not whither to go. The second figure, coming up more composedly overtook her, went towards her, as she shrank back into the hedge, and touched her arm. "Joan ! " : OUTSIDE. 13 She started violently. " What do you want ? I ain't Joan," she said, in a half whisper. "Not Joan ? not Joan Goodson ?

Eh, d'ye think I'm blind, my girl, or that I don't know you, for all its a longish bit since we both left Chalford behind ? but if you b'aint Joan, I b'aint James Hawkins." "fames ! what are you doing here ? where do you come from, and what do you want with me ? " she gasped hoarsely, the words tumbling one over the other. " There's several questions there, but I'll tell you if so be as you answer mine. I saw you at Liverpool, and I followed you down here." " You . . . saw . . . me . . . at . . . Liverpool ! " "Yes, that's it, saw you there, saw him too, and her, now you can put the rest together for yourself. I meant to have gone out from there, but seeing you there and seeing you didn't mean it I thought I wouldn't either." " Well," she said, in a curiously quiet voice, "what are you going to do now ?

" " You don't suppose I'd be rough on you, Joan ? there's been times when we've both gone a bit wrong maybe, but I always stuck to you for all that. Make up your mind to have me now, my girl, and we'll shut up on bye-gones and say nowt about to-night's job." Joan looked up suddenly, and scanned his face eagerly and doubtfully; she seemed to have lost the power of speech. "Come along," he said, "I'll get you a lodging, you'll soon be in trouble else." And they walked away together down the dark road towards the lights of Mallington. SCENE THIRD. MALLINGTON WORKHOUSE: INSIDE. In the Board Room of Mallington Workhouse, a dozen gentlemen were assembled round the long leather-covered table. They had had the state of the House put before them, and had compared the number and cost per head of the inmates with the condition of things in the corresponding week of the previous year : they had unanimously refused to raise the salary of the second nurse, and had squabbled for twenty minutes over the tenders for a new wash house, one member, a fierce self-made man of business, having accused the rector of Mallington, the retired gentleman, and the two county magnates who were his fellow committee-men, of shameless and persistent jobbery in the matter.

These great questions having at length been settled and one or two lesser ones adjourned until the next meeting, the Guardians of Mallington Union were ready to debate another point of more or less public interest, which was the settlement of the name of a new inmate of the House. This inmate had arrived . INSIDE. 15 by means unknown two nights previously, and had been found in the open outer hall of the institution, rolled up in a shawl and fast asleep. " No chance, I suppose, of finding the parents ? " asked the rector. " Not the least, they didn't leave a trace ; deserted the child, no doubt about that, and made off. It's well dressed, they tell me, and in first-rate condi tion," said the business man, with evident interest, his irritability having departed with the change of topic. " Something queer about the case."

"Very queer. Porter says that when discovered the child was asleep, — been drugged, the matron thinks, — but was clutching a little gold cross in its hand as tight as possible. I think we might trace something by that, Mr Bennett ? " "Nonsense," answered the tradesman, growing angry again. " Is it conceivable the mother — for it was left by the mother, I'll swear, from the way it was wrapped up — would leave such a thing if it was to give any clue ? If it has any marks beyond what fifty crosses in every jeweller's shop in Mallington have, you may be sure it is meant to put us on a false track." "Looks like a Catholic notion," said another member. " It has belonged to some decent sort of people, I believe," remarked a fourth, " and they dressed it in its best clothes to try to awaken some interest."

"Now, what in the world does it matter whose child it is, if we can't catch the parents, and it seems we can't ? " argued Mr Bennett. " Are we to sit here all the day discussing this baby's imaginary history ? because my time has more pressing calls upon it." " I presume we are asked to give the infant a name, as we are obliged to give it board and lodging." " Then give it a name and let's have done with the business." "Call -him John Smith ; there are so many of that name it is as likely as not to be his right one." " Where's the use of adding to the world's com plications by increasing the number of Smiths down right wilfully ? " said Mr Bennett. " There was a child died in the House last week called Jonathan Wilson. Why not transfer the name ? " " And tie the poor wretch to a tombstone from its infancy.

Do you want to kill this child too ? " enquired Mr Bennett, with Northern superstition. "I won't be a party to that. If the child's to have not even a name to call his own because he's a pauper, say so at once." " Suppose you christen him yourself, Mr Bennett." "Nay; I delegate the job to the Chairman. It's no use making suggestions, if everyone is going to object to them." As Mr Bennett had been objecting all the morning and had not yet made one proposition, this was : INSIDE. 17 rather unfair to the rest of the Board, but they were accustomed to Mr Bennett, the most unpopular man among them and one of the most popular in Mailing ton town. The Chairman was a handsome man of about forty, who had been listening to the discussion without taking any part in it. It might have been supposed that he considered it enough if he, one of the wealthiest men in Mallington, gave his time to these trivial meetings, and could not be expected to heed such trumpery business, but, as a matter of fact, Mr Ogilvie was merely making up his mind and waiting until the disputants had had their say, before throwing in the weight of his authority and turning the scale which way he chose.

" It seems to me," he said slowly and pleasantly, on being thus appealed to, " that we might as well choose some name appropriate to the circumstances. The child was found in the outer hall of the House ; I would suggest that he receive the surname of Hall. As to a Christian name we cannot do better than ask Mr Carlton, who has probably given their names to half the young Christians of Mallington, to bestow one on this poor little foundling. " The rector paused a minute. " I will not give it the less thoughtfully because the child has been deserted by its rightful protectors," he said, touched a little, perhaps, by the existence of B V the gold cross. " It was abandoned on St Martin's Eve. Shall we call it Martin ? " For once Mr Bennett did not object. No one ob jected. So the little workhouse fledgling received the name of Martin Hall.

CHAPTER I. MARTIN AND DOROTHY.

WHY don't you find it out for yourself, Martin ? " " I wish I could, Dora, but that is easier said than done." " I am sure if I were you I should have managed it. I would never have gone on all these years content to be nothing but an office clerk, when for ought I knew I might be a peer's son." "Or a pauper's. What could I do, Dolly? If those to whom I belong do not choose to come for ward and claim me, I am afraid I can never claim them." " Oh, I would go all over the world rather than remain in such hateful ignorance. There is your cross, the cross you wore when a baby — " " There is nothing remarkable about it, certainly nothing by which to settle a relationship." " And there were your clothes — " " Which were none of them marked." " And a hundred other things you might find, if you tried.

Why, a family likeness has been sufficient before now to manage it ; I am sure it might be in your case too." The girl stole a look at him as she spoke. He was a tall young fellow with somewhat narrow high shoulders, pale to sallowness, and not remark ably handsome, yet with a certain impress on face and figure of good birth. His features were refined, his eyes quick, eager, deep-set, under'slightly frown ing, well-marked brows, his mouth thin-lipped and mobile, his chin almost too fine for a man. It was a face indicative of nervous sensibility rather than strength, youthful in contour as was the slight figure, but keen and a trifle cynical in expression, and full of restless energy ; the face of a man who if he were to conquer fate, would do it by resolution and fierce attack rather than by staying power and strength of arm, who might be led by a knave, but who would never truckle to a bully or be coerced by a tyrant.

The defects were not those of commonplace or vulgar ity, and Dorothy Johnston recognised that fact clearly. He laughed at her latest suggestion. "I think I see myself," he said, "running over the world, a new Japhet in search of a father, trying to find a duplicate of my nose or eyes the exact match of mine, asking to see all the family portraits and examine all the family photograph albums. I fancy there might be some difficulties in the path, Dora." " You must expect difficulties, of course," she answered, a little sulky at his banter. " You won't succeed in anything if you never make a start." " Speaking practically, I do not know what I can do beyond what I have done. Probably I have been a fool to weave any dreams of my unknown history out of such unpromising materials as a gold cross, the money sent from time to time to the Robsons, and the one message with the first instalment."