Both Worlds Barred: a novel

Front matter

A NOVEL BY SYDNEY KEAN gonbon T FISHER UNWIN PATERNOSTER SQUARE MDCCCXCIV SesfpectfuHp DeBicaten TO SMARAGDA WARNER HERIOT (nee MUSURUS) MOST GENIAL OF HOSTESSES MOST GENUINE OF FRIENDS CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. A NEW WORLD . . . .1 II. DE PROFUNDIS . . . .12 III. A VOW . . . . . -17 IV. ISLES OF THE BLEST .... 24 V. PARTING . . . . . - 33 VI. EXPLORING ..... 42 VII. A CROQUET PARTY . . . .48 VIII. THE SCHOOL EXAM. .... 65 IX. DAWVIT . . . . . -79 X. UGLY SURPRISES .... 94 XI. SEVEN DEVILS ..... 105 XII. A LOVELY GIPSY . . . 117 XIII. BEATING UP . . . . 1 24 XIV. DRIVEN FORTH . . .132 XV. FACILIS DESCENSUS . . . .138 XVI. CLERGY ARRAIGNED .... 147 CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE XVII. OUGHT NOT . . . - 1 55 XVIII. PIETY . . . .162 XIX. ACCOUNTING FOR . . . . 1 73 XX. THE DREAM . . . . 1 77 XXI. REVOLT . . . . . .185 XXII. FLOWER AND BEE . . . 1 90 XXIII. BACK .... . 195 XXIV. ST. BOATOFF'S AGAIN . . . 206 XXV. A SEARCH ..... 209 XXVI. LIGHT AT EVE

Chapter I

A NEW WORLD. 'TWAS at St. Boatoff 's ; and a new world was about to open up for Fred Dlear. In those sunny summer days that succeeded the close of the college session ; when the Step Rock — that king of bathing places — became frequented again, and golfing men were fain to revive their flagging energies with a plunge from over the life-buoy hook ; his rusticating thoughts were suddenly arrested and turned into a fresh channel. Now that he had the prospect of entering the divinity hall at the beginning of next session, it appeared a not unwise preparatory exercise, for accustoming himself to clerical ways, that he should take charge of a small Sunday-school in a landward part of the city parish. The place could hardly be called a village ; for a smith's workshop, a joiner's, and a few cottages were all that was of it.

But, what with trees, and gardens, and hedgerows, and a homestead close by, the hamlet 2 i looked larger than it actually was. That Sunday afternoon, had Fred been free to take in the view as he turned off the main road and was greeted by the joiner, who had been keeping a look-out for him, he would have been filled with admiration of the peaceful scene. The hawthorn wasn't yet in blossom ; but the hedges showed lovely white patches of sloe. And the rich foliage of the trees seemed to rest on the cottage roofs. Nature was having a good time. The children, already assembled, stood about in little groups. The hum of their prattling conversation ceased abruptly, at the stranger's appearing on the scene. A general move towards the schoolroom ensued. The joiner was a man of few words — until once set agoing.

Manifestly a heavy snuffer, he had a pleasant face withal. His bearing was genial and kindly, though marked by a constant dread of seeming to thrust himself forward. As the two followed the children, he remarked to his youthful companion, in the most casual manner possible, that the Miss from the mansion house was within. Scarcely had Fred time to reflect upon the situation when, lo ! he stood in the presence of the young lady. She was a queen. Though only in her early teens she was already tall ; and such that no one could look on her without a distinct sense of admiration. The sudden announcement made to him in the doorway as he came in, had set his heart fluttering. And in spite of all his little social experiences in the city, he felt positively thrown out of gear. His native sheepishness had returned for the moment.

He knew he wasn't appearing to the best advantage — so com pletely had he been taken aback. Her warm greeting helped him much. The chief difficulty with him, now, was the prayer. He had nearly rendered himself demented, trying to keep repeating it all the way out ; but since the moment he met with the joiner, he had allowed the form of words to go entirely from him. Try ever so hard he couldn't recall the beginning of it. He had never counted on the possibility of interruptions and distractions, least of all such pleasant ones. What he had thought he was preparing himself for, was a quiet solitary stroll out the country road, a solemn pacing up to the desk, a calm and deliberate closing of his eyes, and a repetition aloud of the words he had so often repeated under his breath. But it seemed like an age since he had been awakened out of that doleful prospect.

The joiner's kindly welcome, his cheery smile, his introduction of him to the young lady, and finally her contribution to the diversion — these things had interposed, and cut him off from the dreamy world of self. What he said in his prayer he never knew. He had a vague sense of having uttered words ; but whether they had been coherent, or if so, whether they had been such as could be called proper to the occasion, or even not undevotional, he couldn't tell. Still, it was a triumph to have been able to keep speaking — a triumph, from the standpoint of the incapable. He recalled the fearful example of the clergyman he had heard pray unconsciously but with great show of unction that they all might be guarded from on high in their " lying up and rising down." Thinking of that pitiful spectacle, and not at all certain but that he himself had just perpetrated a similar blunder, the youth was far from easy in mind.

He would have given much to have been assured that the young lady he had just been presented to, and who had seemed to find pleasure in his presence and in the prospect of his continuing to attend there from week to week, wasn't making an effort to hold down the rising tide of ridicule, and struggling hard to keep from laughing outright. He felt humbled. With all his college triumphs, he yet realised keenly that in this new sphere he was weak as water. The children appeared very much of an age. Girls preponderated. And all behaved with the utmost propriety — a pleasing contrast to the state of things in the city Sunday-schools, he thought ; though of course he was now prepared to see only good here : it was bound to be another case of the never-failing " sunshine of Syracuse." They made three classes of eight or ten each.

Fred's acquaintance with catechisms was scanty and partial. In his very early days he Lad striven, certainly not to master, but to get some sort of shaky hold of, that unpretending compilation which, all the same, opened with the rather startling inquiry — he overheard the joiner then at it : " No, no, my little man : Who made you ? " But the Shorter Catechism of his schooldays had displaced all but the vaguest recollection of that one. The carritches — as the peasantry called the Shorter Catechism — were a sore task to the young. " Yer carritches, ye monkeys," was the doom of what might have been a pleasant evening : the sentence — for it was a judicial condemnation no less than a proposition in the imperative mood — would be thundered forth from the paternal throat with as much guttural effect as could be called up ; the occasion being some unseemly levity, or, more probably, some trifling failure in duty.

Dreamily pondering the carritches, Fred waked up to find that the other teachers were waiting for him to finish. He was expected to pronounce the benediction, and so dismiss the school. This function gladly over — for he was by no means sure of himself, never having pronounced a benediction before — his mind was assailed, and his heart set fluttering for the second time, by a hastily extemporised debate with himself as to whether or not he ought to offer to accompany the Squire's daughter as far at least as to within sight of her home. Here, again, he found himself wanting : for before he had the courage to broach the matter, Miss had said good-bye, and was off. His disappointment was considerably toned down, however, and the edge taken off his self reproach, when, on going out, he saw that some one had come to take the young lady home.

Tea was prepared for him in the joiner's. The wife had fetched out the best tablecloth — seldom brought to light. The backs of the chairs were carefully clad in well-starched tidies — awful things, Fred knew, for fixing themselves on to a coat-button, and getting carried out by an unconsciously adorned guest. It was evidently a special occasion. He was being honoured to the best of the poor people's ability. The table — in the ben room, where stood two beds and a large ornate chest of drawers — was furnished with an apparently endless variety of tea breads. There had been a considerable expenditure of small money on the repast. There were nickies and cookies ; scones dropped and soda scones ; no plain bread ; but, tell it with bated breath, short-bread in plenty, great nuggets. There was jelly ; there was jam ; there was marmalade galore.

" Fine weather for the crops," remarked the smiling hostess ; as she warmly grasped her guest's proffered hand. " Beautiful weather," responded he. But, in truth, beauty of another sort was at that moment engaging his thoughts : he was all impatience to lead the conversation in the direction of the interesting personality that had just left the scene. In the course of the Sunday-school half-hour, he had found it perfectly possible, while keeping a fairly concentrated eye on the lesson in hand, to take sundry more or less protracted glances at the young lady, whose presence he felt shed a divine light over what would otherwise have been commonplace and unromantic enough. In the language of the apostle he found himself remarking, with no consciousness of inappropriateness in the quotation either, " It is good to be here."

Mere girl as she was, she had already blossomed into the distinct promise of lovely and handsome womanhood. " Masculine " would have been the epithet applied to her by the more rigorously feminine of her sex. Her strong build, especially her thick-set neck and broad wrists, might in another less superbly fine have merited such an epithet ; but in her case no. Never before had he beheld such a perfect specimen of womankind. The very sun burning on those powerful yet most shapely hands seemed to lend an additional charm : " black but comely," he found himself again appropriating from the sacred page. Liquid dark eyes and a luxuriance of raven hair seemed to have found their proper complement in the rich complexion that the early summer had already spread over those faultless Greek features. The idealised statuary of the famous sculptors of old was here realised : none of the marble Dianas that have survived to excite the admiration of the modern world could by comparison cast this living one into the shade : it was rather the other way.

So he raved to himself. In short, the youth had come and seen and been conquered : he was already hopelessly in love. The city girls, with all their affectation of refinement were now despicable in his sight : beautiful, in their way, some of them were : but to his mind, now that he had seen this more perfect revelation of beauty, they suggested back-window plants, screened from the light of day, limp and colourless, as contrasted with the rich and robust luxuriance and brilliance of the native tropics. Absorbed as he naturally was with thoughts of this glimpse he had been privileged to have into heaven on earth, and anxious to learn somewhat concerning the personality that had affected him so deeply, he yet could not, for shame, drag the con versation abruptly into that particular channel : he dreaded raising a suspicion in the minds of his host and hostess that he had been smitten : above all, he shrunk from being thought ridiculous enough to have entertained for a moment the too wildly absurd notion that such a lady would ever look at him.

Nevertheless, he did betray his secret ; or at any rate came very near doing so. Why was it that he was rude enough to ignore the worthy joiner's sage observation, " I'se warrant ye could repeat the whole Bible from beginning to end " ? Had he been listening to what was being said, his gravity would have been somewhat taxed. He would have been the last to pretend to rival Sufyan eth Thori who repeated the Koran at a sitting : nobody knew better than himself his shortcomings in the matter of Bible knowledge. The four years he had just completed at college had been so exclusively devoted to college subjects that not only had he had no time to bestow on Bible reading, but even his previous knowledge of the sacred volume had suffered through lack of rehearsal. Why then that tacit allowance of the so flattering impeachment, as if he were but accepting the offer of honours he felt he fully deserved ?

And why should he so far forget his good manners as to load his plate so? That cooky has hardly been touched : yet alongside lies a nugget of cake, and a soda scone with its buttered face downwards. He determined to plunge right into the subject that was engrossing his thoughts. " I suppose," stammered he, " the people of the big house interest themselves in the Sunday-school? " This, he congratulated himself, was rather diplo matically done. No reference to the young lady could possibly be suspected : it was as though she had never so much as appeared on the scene : his remark dealt with the broad and general question of the Squire's care for the spiritual well-being of the peasantry about ; or at any rate the religious training of their children. And having floundered through the slyly-worded speech, he made an effort to com pose his features ; well aware that if looked hard in the face he must betray himself.

To his intense relief the joiner entered upon what promised to be a protracted narrative. Fred rather missed grasping the initial statements : his mind was wandering. But, as his host proceeded, he managed gradually to fix his attention on what was being said to him. The people of the big house, it appeared, were kindly, and as neighbourly as the social gulf that separated them from the humble cottagers admitted of. The Lady occasionally found her way down to the joiner's in a phaeton — which she drove with her own hand, a boy " in buttons " being her sole attendant. She would talk with them in the most affable manner. " She's a real fine free leddy," he remarked, by way of summing up her social and neighbourly attributes — although had he known her as intimately as his listener was destined to do, he should have laughed with the wrong side of his mouth ; for her opinion of his own wife, good dame, was that she was " a long tongued thing."

But it was the Lady's daughter, and not the Lady herself, that the youth wished to hear about. And it was beginning to appear that, after all his boasted ingenuity, he had failed to lead the conversation in the desired direction. " Ahem," he ventured, in desperation, when the joiner had paused for a moment through lack of breath in an elaborate but somewhat apocryphal account of the late Squire's doings in the racing world : "Ahem, ahem, and does the young lady who was at the Sunday-school this afternoon come occasionally to take a class ? " " She comes reg'lar. I can assure you she never misses a Sunday, wet or dry — when the family's at home, ye ken. She's a nice leddy, Miss Lucy, as ever steppit. Ye'll hae seen her aboot the links ? She gaes in whiles ta play gouf." The other was only telling the truth when he replied that though he knew the Laird well enough by sight, having often seen him in front of the club house and playing in matches, he had never chanced upon the young lady.

On closer inquiry, however, it began to appear that it was only recently she had taken to the links, induced thereto presumably by the new governess, who had gone in enthusiastically for the fascinating game. This accounted for his never having seen her on the ladies' course. A new vista at once opened up : dreaming again, and oblivious of his immediate surroundings, he was busy drawing pictures of golfing scenes, in which he himself should figure as an onlooker at least, if not a partner in the match. It would be easily possible to stroll across to the ladies' links, without exciting the suspicion of anybody, even of the lady herself. He could do this, if at any time he saw the object of his admiration there. He needn't go too near : it would suffice to go just so far in that direction as might reasonably consist with the supposition that he had heeled a long ball and was searching for it in the vicinity of the whins.

With this not very ambitious programme of a love making scheme before him, he rose to take leave of his host and hostess. The stroll back to the city was peaceful and sweet. The wind among the branches overhead seemed to be sighing forth songs of love. His step was more elastic than before. He breathed rapidly and deeply at times. His eye had in it a far look. And his cheek paled now and again. Without having noticed any of the familiar objects that lay by the way; or even having been conscious of time or space on the journey ; he had laid his hand mechanically on the door latch ; and was once more seated in his accustomed chair, filling a pipe.

Chapter II. De Profundis

'TWAS in the divinity hall at St. Boatoff's; and it was Steven Roberts' turn to deliver a discourse. Human nature — as Francis Brunton, a friend and fellow-student of Steven's, used to say — is never so prone to develop ugly jealousies, and an unlovable and uncomfortable readiness to discern slights where no slights were meant, as in the case of the exceeding small of stature. Steven was small. He wasn't, however, the solitary specimen there of that type, and to whom nature had given a scanty enough supply of body wherewith to cover and conceal, in a decent sort of manner, the ordinary dole of intellect : Puffy Raine was quite as diminutive. But Puffy was voted a good fellow, all round. He had the merit of being free from the weaknesses and jealousies that Francis Brunton supposed incidental to smallness.

It was Steven's smallness, then, that was fastened upon as the petard wherewith he should be hoisted. Who did the mischievous trick, it never transpired. On what principle the pulpit had been constructed no member of that hall ever could divine. It appeared as if the artificer entrusted with the job had said to himself, when approaching this to him DE PROFUNDIS. 11 novel piece of work, " A pulpit must have depth." Of width it certainly had little enough ; but care had been taken that no complaint as to shallowness could possibly arise. " Had it for a moment occurred to this hewer of wood to reflect," grumbled Puffy, " that though truth lies at the bottom of a well, and the preacher must therefore be prepared to fetch it up, yet a pulpit is hardly meant to literally represent a sunk shaft, or the preacher to exercise as with the dumb show of the prophets of old the function of a drawer of water, he might have saved himself from the maledictions of generations of men ; " and never was there a student of that hall who didn't utter to himself deep if not loud anathemas against the constructor of this imprac ticable pulpit.

Had every " divine " been of the stature of Saul, the arrangement would have suited : the book-board, in that case, would just have been about the proper height. As it was, the tallest of them found himself up to the neck ; the manuscript being on a level with his chin, or thereby. This necessitated the use of a stool, whereon to perch oneself, and so rise to the occasion. And the stool was of the most primitive description. It consisted of simply three pieces of wood, each of about the width of one's hand. The longer of the three pieces formed the body of the article ; and the two shorter ones served for legs. How the structure held together was ever a marvel. And probably there would have been more misgivings in the students' hearts, as each man came to mount the shaky pedestal, had it not been that all minor fears as to the sufficiency of the mechanism were absorbed in the one dread that the thing by reason of its narrowness should capsize.

There was no likeli hood of any antics being indulged in : the preacher felt it difficult enough to poise himself standing per fectly still. But, bad as the stool was, it was immensely better than nothing at all, especially in the case of a short man. Perceiving that Steven Roberts' most vulnerable point lay in the pulpit stool, some one had conceived the mischievous design of removing this article against the day of that gentleman's discourse. It took a moment or two before the class quite apprehended the situation. Steven had entered the pulpit ; but forthwith was out again, searching round by the back of it, to see whether the missing piece of furniture mightn't perchance have found its way into the window recess, left there inadvertently by the janitor after some unwontedly severe fit of dusting and rubbing.

Afraid of being called to account for this seemingly unwarranted aberration of body, he hastened in, shutting the door ; and, accepting the awkward situation, proceeded to give out a psalm. The psalm he had selected — a favourite one no less by reason of the pathetic struggle it, depicts than of the readiness with which it lends itself to a cheap semblance of uncommon elocutionary powers — was, of all others, the very last the man should have pitched upon, reflected Fred, had he surmised the possibility of his falling into the present evil situation. Nevertheless, there it was : he had selected his psalm ; and he gave it out. The top of his head — he had cultivated a very large expanse of forehead, which was showing signs of a premature but determined invasion of the crown DE PROFUNDIS. 13 lands — was, in both senses of the word, barely visible : you could see the sand-blown stubble, and that was all.

But the voice came forth, slightly smothered, indeed — as if heard from afar — yet plainly audible. And at the sound the class looked at each other, and gasped. Even the staid master himself found it necessary to blow his nose. Was ever any thing so madly done as for a little fellow like Steven to shut himself out of sight in a deep box, and, lifting up his voice, pour forth into the open regions above him the words of the psalm which begins, " Out of the depths " ? "What's become of that thing?" muttered the master, aggressively querulously — evidently enraged to think that such a trick should be played, by im plication, on himself. " Can nobody find it ? " Meanwhile Steven had ceased reading, having got no farther than about the third line of the first verse. Everybody pitied him. After all, the vain fool wasn't to blame for his diminutive stature.

His affected splendour had been more than sufficiently tarnished. " There it is," exclaimed the master, pointing with the finger of disgusted contempt to the truant article, which sure enough had been staring them all in the face, down in front of the pulpit, though no one had observed it ; and it looked more ridiculous than ever. Steven's cup was pretty full by the time he had crept forth from the depths, captured the much missed furniture, carried it in, and mounted on it, and given out the psalm a second time. Francis Brunton may not have been the perpetrator of the joke : but at this stage of the proceedings his countenance — so Fred Dlear, eyeing him, thought — betrayed the working of a vengeful mind : it was as though he were protesting inwardly that, however humbling the scene just enacted, a good deal more was wanting to finish the salutary work.

Chapter III

A VOW. " We're all here together to-day: there's Jock an' me an' ma faither an' me." So spake Francis Brunton as he, Steven Roberts, and Puffy Raine entered the latter's " bunk." "Well," he proceeded, seating himself by the side of the fire and pulling out his pipe, " if anybody did you that pulpit trick on purpose, Steven, it's a crying shame. I wouldn't do such a thing to any fellow ; no, not even to my best friend." " I'm sure it was an accident," replied Steven, "a pure accident." " All the same," returned the other, "it wasn't with out effect : the sound of your mellifluous voice — never vox et prœterea nihil — coming forth from the depths reminded me of the vox inhumana stop in a swell box. If you ever get into the same situation again, Steven, I would work the pulpit door, were I you : you could do it with one foot.

We haven't yet reached the limit in our acoustic inventions : clearly not : you dear healthy old Satan — Steven's a corrup tion. You see I'm going in for philology : must be a swell at something." 3 I7 ' My notion of philology," remarked Puffy, " is this ■filling a pipe. " Well, I daresay," put in Steven, in his usual pedantic style, " a very fair modicum — good word modicum — of their philology is random work, and may not improperly be said to end in smoke. Far fetched, I should say of much of it. And no great matter ; for words are wind, the ill wind that blows — the rest is silence." " Capital. Without silence there's no rest," begged Puffy : " hold your tongues." " Haven't witnessed anything half so good for many a day ; or, ought I to say, for many a night," resumed Francis, after the three had got comfortably settled down to their pipes.

" That palavering fool of a chemist in College Street, you know, has a standing feud with his neighbour the hatter. I hardly think the hatter's aware of it ; but it doesn't always take two to make a quarrel : I myself, for instance, have often ' gone for ' a friend without waiting for anything so superfluous as provocation. " We met the chap last night. He was pretty well-to-do ; otherwise we shouldn't of course have bothered with him. He was gracious ; he was glorious ; and up to his house we must go : he would take no refusal. " His housekeeper could have seen us anywhere : that was very evident. So we sat down. " He called for liquor, and sent the good woman down scrambling in the shop for cigars. And we soon had the hatter turned on. That unfortunate individual, it appeared, had just had his sign-hat regilded — a Mordecai to the pharmaceutical Haman.

Haman was in the gall of bitterness. Wouldn't his A VOW. 17 friends assist him towards a happier frame of mind ? What ought to be done? Done ? Why: of course haul the hateful model to the ground. " It would have been very unkind to have refused our host's not unreasonable request that we should lend him a hand. So we prolonged the sederunt till all was quiet outside, taking care all the while to keep his courage at the sticking point — or rather, I should say, at the point at which he wouldn't stick at any thing — and then, procuring the clothes rope, we descended in a body. " Haman was most desirous to throw the line with his own hand : he fancied he should so have more satisfaction in the deed. We lent him the necessary aid. A long pull, and a strong pull, and down came the braw model with a crash.

" I should have liked to have seen the face of satis faction with which he must have beheld his handi work this morning. I have walked past two or three times, but haven't managed to get a sight of him. I should so much have liked to offer my felicitations. Probably, however — for human nature has its weak nesses — the sight of Mordecai still seated over the gate, and Haman himself displaced, has been a little too much for him in the early morning." " You helped him to pull down his own model ? Too bad : too bad," was Pussy's comment, " after eating the man's salt — or, rather, drinking his sugar ; for of course you had several brews of toddy." "The very man you should take in," moralised Francis. " If he should ever serve you out — and nobody but one's friends are likely to have the chance of doing that — you have the happy consciousness of being but quits after all.