My Love Noel

Front matter

a BY HUME NISBET AUTHOR OF 'BAIL UP,' ' THE JOLLY ROGER,' 'THE SAVAGE QUEEN,' ' VALDIMIR THE VIKING,' 'a bush girl's romance,' etc., etc. LONDON F. V. WHITE & CO. 14 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W. 1 DEDICATION I beg to £>ec-fcate THIS STORY WITH LOVING REGARDS TO MY DEAR FRIENDS Mr and Mrs ARTHUR PATCHETT MARTIN, Trusting that they, with other readers, may excuse its short comings, believe in its intentions, and exonerate the Author from any other motives save love for his fellow - men and women, who have to struggle hard in order to live, eat humble pie often and in plentiful doses before they can succeed, who so often find affection turn into ashes in their mouths, yet who must win some thing, if they endure bravely — the peace which passeth all under standing, the dignity and nobility which even failure cannot degrade.

Preface

Looking round on life in geneal I incline : U that the lower order of creatares is much hrttrr off than humanity. Poppies and kittens are bom blind, it is true, but they get the:: sight short delay, and go on eTer afterwards open-* and contented with their lot. They make no slips. 7 are troubled with no remorse. They fulfil their destinies without a murmur ag in?: then: fate. Man, in his way. is born with his eves open, and appears to notice and reflect as he goes along ; but he does not do so in reality — he only flatters him self that he does this. In reality he is born as blind as a kitten, and remains blind all the days his Kfe, groping his way from mistake to mistake ; scratched on every hand by brambles and bitten -:inging insects : and then, perhaps, he lies down at the end and attempts to imitate the dog in his kennel, or the eat on the hearth, and accept the in evitable.

But his attempt is a failure, because he is only shamming the stoicism and philosopl the dog and cat. Behind all this sham lies a crowd of bitterness.

PREFACE.

takes, and dreams which prevents him enjoying the calm repose of the quadruped. He is neither flesh nor fowl ; he is a nondescript who damns himself to temporal and eternal suffering, and, because he will meditate, does not give his Maker a chance. The dog and cat are wiser. They do not think. They suffer no remorse. Their lives are not a reproach upon their Creator. In my present story I tell the adventures of a young man who thought himself superior to the lower order of life, and therefore had an ideal ; but, being blind, like the best of humanity, he fell in love with Noel and therefore drifted out to the night. Ah, could we only have a glimpse of the end of that night — the dreams, the madness, the sorrows and the after broodings. Who would attempt the impossible task ? Better — far better — to lie in our kennels or bask upon our hearth, and let the world go on as it must for ever and ever.

My romance cannot instruct, for it has no moral and no motive. It is only drawn from life experi ences, which do not profit a man ; yet that it may interest the reader, fill in his hour of basking, cat like, on the hearth, is the earnest desire of the Author. CONTENTS PART FIRST NATURE CHAr. PAGB I. — The Village Fire, ... 3 II. — Godly Comfort, ■ .... j III. — New Friends, . . . 12 IV. — Saints and Sinners, . . . .25 V. — Mater Dolop.es, ... .39 VI. —Love's Glamour, ..... 44 VII. — Martha the Moist, . . . .55 VIII. — An Evening's Amusement, . . 71 IX. — An Outraged Saint, . . .89 X. — Two Weird Sisters, . . .101 XL— The Pious Tea-Paetv, . . . .116 X CONTENTS PART SECOND ART AND NATURE CHAP. PAGE I. — Noel's Lovers, ..... 135 II. — Psychological Traits, . . .147 III. — Leaders of the Blind, .... 159 IV.— Man Hunting, . . . . .171 V. — The Bailie of Buncombe, . . . 1S3 VI. — The Storm, . . . . .196 PART THIRD.

ART I.— Brittleburgh, ..... 209 II. — The " Clamjamfric System," . . JM III. — " Clamjamfriceks," . . . 233 IV. — Philanthropist and Man, . 247 V.— After the King Oak fell. . 2o4 VI. — Out to the Night, . . . MY LOVE >

Chapter I The Village Fire

" I've caught a fever that I can't get over, Over the way ! " — Hood. " I say, Bob, who is that with the scarlet cloak over her head and the dark eyes ? " " Where ? Ah, yes, the red petticoat you mean, Ralf, which she has made a temporary mantle of." " Never mind the petticoat ; who is the girl ? " " Noel Romaines they call her — a very good looking girl, but mightily particular in her ideas, and, I believe, engaged to the organist of the church." " Ah ! " " Yes, Ralf, that is about it, a case of sour grapes ; but come, you will know her soon enough, there is better sport to be got in this direction." " Go yourself, Bob ; I want to stay here and look at the fire ; get an effect if I can, you know." " Or make an effect if you can, only it's labour in vain. Noel Romaines would not look at the like of you, Ralf Grimshaw; nor me either, for that matter.

Good-night, since you will not join me." "Good-night, cousin. Confound his countrified wit," muttered Ralf, as he took up a more favour able position, where he had a better view of the figure and face of the young girl who had attracted him so suddenly, as she stood amongst the crowd watching the flames bursting out of the village bakehouse. The unusual alarm of fire had roused them from their beauty sleep. Ralf Grimshaw, landscape painter, had left London and accepted the hospitality of his relations until he could turn himself about. He had fled from the unappreciative city as if it had been accursed, and with his paints and canvases had found a temporary refuge in this quiet and picturesque little village, where pictures might be had at every turn, and possibly customers also, if he learnt how to cultivate them ; but that was an art he had still to acquire.

And the second night of his coming, as if to give him a warm reception, the bakehouse had caught fire, and was now blazing away merrily, to the de light of the boys and girls of the place and the no less satisfaction of the baker, who was fully covered by insurance, and who for some time past had been nearly ruined by a bad bargain he had made in damp flour. He now darted about as if frantic, with a fine display of despair, wringing his hands over his supposed losses, upsetting, in his excitement, as many of the water buckets as he could manage to fall against or trip over. It was splendid acting altogether on his part, but then, no THE VILLAGE FIRE 5 one can beat the country-bred at theatrical display when an emergency like this brings out their talents. " What a delicate-looking young man that is over yonder, Noel," whispered one of the village women to the young lady whom Ralf was admiring, as she pointed at him.

" Yes, he is thin. Who is he ? " replied, and asked Noel Romaines, as she turned her dark eyes from the flames towards the stranger. " An artist from London, come down on a visit to Mrs Deans, who is his aunt." " Ah ! " Noel Romaines turned her head away once more towards the fire. Her curiosity was satisfied, for Mrs Deans was not a favourite with any of the villagers, who had named her the " Saint," because she was so sanctimonious. Up into the dusky darkness of the night rolled the thick brown wrinkles of smoke, changing to pulsating eddies of crimson as they swept over the roofs of the burning house and blanked out the stars, while within the black walls the guttering flames growled, sputtered, and devoured all that could be made serviceable ; whitely glaring between the cracks and window holes, belching up thou sands of scarlet sparks, flushing over the upturned faces of the crowd and tossing fantastic shadows upon the ground behind.

Robert Deans was not a romantic youth, what ever his cousin might have been, but he was lively and humorous as well as industrious, according to his lights ; therefore, seeing all this useless excite ment and bustle about him, and as yet no opening for the useful available, he endeavoured to do the next best thing — render himself amusing to those who were likely to appreciate his peculiar qualities. The more unsophisticated among the male por tion of the village showed their energy by rushing about with buckets and small cans, which they filled with water at the village pump, spilling half as they rushed back, and then, pushing and fighting their way up the rickety ladders, poured the few remaining drops into the glowing furnace be hind, which hissed contempt at their futile and sweltering efforts to put it out.

Then it settled down grimly to its livid repose, after having crunched up all that could be devoured. The simple village maidens, with characteristic shyness, sought out the shady corners, rendered darker from the vivid contrast of the fiery glow over the open parts, first, however, showing their flushed faces in the glare, so that their sweethearts might make no mistake in the dark. Here it was that Robert Deans and some of the other idle young men found their mission, where a great giggling and screeching took place while they played merrily at their game of hide and seek, as village lads and lasses always do when ever there is the prospect of a gathering. Aunt Deans, beside her husband, stood and looked on with grave disapproval at the fire, which did not appear the least abashed at her silent re buke ; while Ralf Grimshaw watched the girl with the red petticoat over her head, with a growing dislike in his heart for some as yet unknown organist.

Chapter II Godly Comfort

That I am here afore thy sicht Tae a' this place A burning an' a shining licht Afore thy face." — Burns. " Consider me damned and be done with it," wearily moaned poor Ralf, after a wet Sunday at home with the saintly mother of Robert. " You may be," replied the Saint ; " in fact, I don't see how you can possibly avoid that awful fate ! But I do not intend that you shall also be the means of damning my virtuous Robert and his innocent sister." The virtuous Robert made a grimace behind the Saint's chair, highly expressive of his ideas of morality, while the innocent Annie playfully at tempted to insert a pencil point into the pink ear of the white kitten. " Now, Mungo, I'll have none of your interference in this matter." Mungo, the husband, had only shifted uneasily in his chair, but nevertheless bore his reproof with a meekness which Ralph, the unwelcome guest, had done well to have imitated.

" Did you see the sweet look upon the open face of our boy while the minister spoke of eternal wrath to-day, and can you think of such a beautiful soul being in hourly danger of damnation without trembling ? " " I'll pack up and clear out to-morrow, so there is no use saying any more. I daresay I can get a job somewhere, and relieve you of my contamin ating presence." " Contamination it is— but a job ? Ah ! to white wash walls most likely. Fine end to the ambition which brought you over the seas ! " " It is not the end of my ambition, aunt. If it was, I should be more miserable than even you can make me." " Make you miserable ? Have I not done my duty by you ? Have I not given you a comfortable home, where you can moon about with your pictures and dream of what you will never be, while your uncle and cousin are working like men ?

" " I'll get work." " It is high time that you had it. Mungo, reach down the Bible and read a chapter. Stay, Ralf, where are you going ? " " I do not feel quite good enough, after our conversation, to listen to family worship to-night, so good-night." " I insist — " The Saint was here interrupted by a knock at the front door, and upon getting up to see what the matter was, found herself confronted by an angry neighbour who had come, crimson-faced, to have it out with her. " Now, my good woman, pray compose yourself. Remember it is the holy Sabbath, and tell me GODLY COMFORT what you want in as few words as possible," began the Saint, serenely, " I wish you would teach your blackguard son some sense of manners, and then honest folk's daughters might be able to walk the roads." " My Robert ?

How dare you bring your vile lies to me, woman ? " Ralf was lucky enough to escape unnoticed during the animation of this scene, after which, shutting his bedroom door, he sat down to ponder upon his position. Under happier circumstances he might have been considered a very ridiculous young fellow ; but at the present time, being hard up, dependent on unwilling relations, and, worst of all, possessed of a vast hoard of supersensitive pride, which was continually getting rubbed up and ruffled, he was much too miserable an object to get anything like a laugh out of. It is not a great misfortune to be poor, if, like Ally Sloper, you can stand kick ing cheerfully, but to be poor and proud at the same time is to be doubly cursed without a chance of redemption. Ralf Grimshaw was a foolish young fellow, upon many sides of his composition.

He thought to be an artist, without influence, money or friends to back him, merely because he felt and worked like a painter ; and thus filled with hopeful ignor ance, he had drifted from the Antipodes, where art was at a discount and whitewashing the nearest approach to anything like it, to England, the El Dorado of his dreams, where he imagined that he had but to produce to be acknowledged. Alas for Hope's young visions. He landed in London, and bought some paints and canvas, with a pair of dress boots for the hour when he should be asked out and lionised — painted his pictures and wore out his boots hawking them about; wore out, first, the dress boots, and afterwards a pair of common bluchers, and only drew up in time to save his sea-tops, and awake from dream the first in an artist's career.

So, having come to the end of his coppers, and London Bridge in the not very distant prospect, he consented to swallow pride so far as to sit down and ask help from his father's brother, the Bailie of Duncombe. The Bailie responded with a £1 note, and a letter advising him strongly to go home, or, at any rate, not come to Duncombe to bother him. The other relations, with the exception of his saintly aunt, replied by asking him what he had come for. She sent the train money to bring him down, inside a letter which gave him a forecast of what he had to expect from relations. And now Ralf sat in the dark and considered all these matters dolefully, while outside the rain fell with that delightful constancy which it ever displays to British soil ; splash ! splash ! splash ! on the window sill ; splash ! splash ! splash ! until he felt as if his soul had sunk down from the clouds with that shower, and lay in the mud out side, soaking and being splashed upon.

A numbed feeling was upon him that night; in fact it had never left him since his experience of London ; he tried to think what the next move GODLY COMFORT might be on the board, but a great grasp was upon his heart and round his head, which held him vacant and sore. Vague ideas shifted about, but he could not fix upon any which might com fort him. Pictures of the past floated up, and dreams of a future which he would like to see fulfilled, but could not now think at all probable, with that yoke of dependence on his neck ; that load of obligation upon his back ; that moneyless sense about his heart, and around his brains. " Oh ! to be in a lonely island with palm trees and cocoanuts, and clear sunny skies and laughing waters ; where no want of gold could be felt, no need, no charity." To be alone with his pictures, to revel in solitude.

Not quite, for a red garment glided past his mental vision, with two dark eyes thrilling through him, followed by a mute wonder if that kind of life would content her, an ideal of what she was like, and an increased hatred for some music teacher unknown. Then a gush of worse agony in the knowledge that it was all a vain delusion. " Oh, my God ! " came from his miserable heart, as he flung himself on his knees by the bedside and wished for what he desired — wished for money, fame, happiness ; wished with such intensity that the words broke from his dry tongue like a prayer, and gave something of the relief which prayers will give, for the band slackened from his brow, and the grip from about his heart, while the dark room seemed to hold more than himself, as the balm sank down like the current of mesmeric passes, and at length, to the music of the constant rain splashes outside, he fell asleep.

Chapter III New Friends

"Oh, wast thou with me, dearest, then. While I rose up against my doom ? " — Tennyson. "Dear Mr Grimshaw, — Could you come up this evening about six ? I expect some young ladies, which I know will be an inducement. Dr Revel has written to father, and tells him ' Young Grimshaw is a true son of Apollo, only don't tell him so.' There, that ought to make you come. — Yours very sincerely, Noel Romaines." Ralf Grimshaw was trying to make up his mind to dip his hands into a basin of cold water one winter morning, when this note was handed in, after being conscientiously opened and studied by his saintly tormentor. Before he had read it, the morning had been cold and gloomy, the water utter misery, and life a blank ; a moment after, and the blood was circulating like liquid fire through his entire frame, and the duty of ablu tion became a perfect delight.

Fate had favoured one of his desires — that of getting acquainted with Miss Noel Romaines. His uncle had been the means of introducing him to the father of Noel, who, during conversation, having brought up the name of the Rev. Charles Revel, LL.D., a philanthropist well known to public demonstrators, and who had been connected with Mr Romaines in some public business, reminded Ralf that he also had a letter to the said reverend gentleman, which, as Mr Romaines was writing, he enclosed. The reply was a warm recommendation to be kind to the stranger, and permission to Ralf to send up some of his sketches for inspection. He put up and sent off a packing-case, crammed with sketches and ideas, while a rosy vista of hopes (some call this a fool's paradise) again opened up. A week of fond dreams went by, with no reply, and the youth grew discontented, and but for that wholesome tonic — his aunt — might have been purely wretched.

On the eighth day a reply came — four sheets of friendly criticism — which proved that the doctor was not a bad sort after all, and ought to have made the painter more gratified than it did, had he seen more of the world ; for true it is, that one man may travel over the habitable globe without omitting a single mark on the chart, also live to the age of eighty, and yet know less of the world than a Wapping boy of ten. He had found a job, the nearest to art that he could hit upon — it was to rub the moss from the posts of a gentleman's park gates — and for a week he had persevered, trying to soothe his heart with the thought that it was independence, even if only sixpence an hour ; but the cold mornings, with his tropical constitution, disgusted him so utterly that, even with his aunt in the perspective, he was compelled to cave in, and come back once more to charity.

I know that my hero is not quite the heroic character I should like him to be; he ought to have been able to stand before the cutting winter blasts in his thin overalls and endure to the bitter end, or, failing that, to have wound it up with a bare bodkin or some other equally handy tool if the bodkin was not come-at-able, and so ended his and our troubles with a few more lines. But, alas ! if he thought of this, and perhaps he did, for it is rather pleasant to think about the sensations of nobly perishing in this heroic style — after a warm supper — yet on a bleak, autumn morning about seven o'clock, with an icy north wind freezing your loose teeth fast for the time, heroism is very apt to ooze out at your nipping finger tips, and lose itself in the spare recesses of your boots. And even the vinegar of a saintly tongue seems like warm water, contrasted with the present freezing pain.

The snows of hell are harder to endure than its fires. The spirit was brave, but the flesh was weak, so let us honour the struggle for liberty, even if we have to despise the result. But these miseries are forgotten to-day. He has realised his ideal, aud found Noel all that he imagined her to be, and if she did look just for a moment in the direction of that clodhopper pair of double-soled, extra-nailed boots which his aunt had kindly presented him with — causing him to sit on cinders during the half-hour of his first visit, and afterwards slouch down the side - walk like a criminal in embryo — and if, also, during that brief call, he had been galled and tortured with the hateful presence and detestable at-homeishness of his happy rival, the music teacher and organist, who sat him out and stopped behind him, had he not had one walk with her since then, all alone ?

The dead leaves under their feet, the bare branches overhead, when she seemed to have forgotten his unhappy boots, and been interested in his talking, after he had also so far forgotten the miserable fact himself, and risen above leather and hobnails to sentiment ; and had he not then before him not only her handwriting, but her written assurance that she thought him a genius ? His defeat with Jack Frost was all obliterated in the warm glow of that delicious little note. He was upheld by a lofty consciousness of merit, and could afford to smile disdainfully upon his aunt's blindness, as he buttoned his carefully-brushed frock-coat over his slender waist, and sought, by letting down his trousers a peg or two, to cover a little of those obnoxious boots. Ten minutes to six, he seeks a shady corner opposite the house of the Romaines, and waits.

At six o'clock he is rapping modestly at the door, thinking how best he will be able to keep his feet in shadow, after he is admitted. Five minutes past six, after louder knocks, he is bowing and shaking hands all round, upstairs, and pensively waving about a white handkerchief. Mr Romaines was a dark, drooping-nosed, sallow, and bilious-looking man about fifty, melancholy in his temper, obedient in his disposition, simple in his habits, with only one strong point in his char acter, his firm faith in the Roman religion, all the rest being shadeless and innocent; with a very narrow and bitter vein running through it of malicious pleasure in small revenges — unfortun ately displayed towards people who tried the most to benefit him. Talented in his own work, it exemplified the often-seen peculiarity that genius is sometimes the heritage of fools.

"We are just waiting on you, Mr Grimshaw," cried Mrs Romaines, in her hearty way; "sit down and make yourself at home. Mr Thomas B. Day, a grand reader of Walter Scott, and a fine gentle man altogether, this is the young man I told you Dr Revel praised so much for his paintings — quite — " " Hush, hush, good wife, you are revealing con fidences. Dr Revel told us to keep his opinion of the young artist's merits a secret," put in Mr Romaines, deprecatingly. " Maybe he told you in confidence, but not me. Oh, I assure you, Mr Day, the doctor gives him a grand character, and who should know better." " Who, indeed ! " replied the reader of Sir Walter, not quite so rapturously. Mr Thomas B. Day being less enthusiastic on other people's good qualities than he was about his own. If Miss Noel had done it on purpose, she could not have invited better friends to show herself up to the best advantage than the young ladies who sat down to tea that night — three young maidens of the usual type, with no more difference in char acter than if they had been turned out of the same mould, smiling meaningless smiles, speaking mean ingless sentences, eating little, and that little gin gerly, as if the highest state of feminine politeness had been to cultivate the appetite of sparrows, differing only as regards noses, mouths, hair and figures, expressions alike, tempers seemingly blank.

What a weary world this would be if life were just as we see it on the surface, if there were no chances of diving below the company current, if those delightful eddies of temper which are kept for the benefit of the bedpost during courtship, bottled up during honeymoon, and sent fizzing all over the house like badly-corked soda water the month after were but fictions. What would the memory of home, sweet home, be without those little tiffs and charming battles-royal to dot off the great spaces of monotonous discontent ? Can you not remember how sister Mary nearly bent the poker over your arm when you would persist in following her out of the house in order to see who it was she seemed so anxious to meet ; how brother Tom could not see when he was beaten, even although you had given him a bloody nose and black eyes, but who leaped upon you with the hatchet and wild Indian yells, making you, in spite of your victory, turn tail and fly the field, as our neighbours the French did at Waterloo?

These are the episodes we mark off and remember, not the simpers or the smiles. I once knew a boy who lost his mother when he was five years old, whose most prominent recollec tion of her was the day she publicly corrected him before his young companions at the door. He could not remember her kisses or caresses, but he B distinctly remembered her reception of the kiss which she saw him bestow upon the pastry-cook's little daughter. Ralf, in spite of the good-natured sarcasm and chaff of Mrs Romaines about poor eating and pow wows, consumed no more than did the three young ladies; indeed, he did rather less, if truth must be told, excelling them in gentility and handker chief-waving, and to all the entreating of the hostess and inviter, only responded by polishing off about the fourth part of a thin slice of buttered bread and a few sips of tea, feeling all the time a gnawing about the near locality of the heart that belied his cheerful assertion that he had done wonderfully well.

Miss Noel did not control her appetite or attempt to enter as a competitor in this rivalry of the polite ; she ate as she spoke and moved, naturally ; and, being in a healthy condition and fresh from a country walk, between her laughing and her talking (of which she did a fair share), she masticated with wonderful vivacity a considerable amount of eatables; indeed, our hero gazed with interest upon her performances in that way, and might have been astonished, if his eye had not become fascinated by the prodigious feats which were being performed by the companion beside her, that loathed companion, the awful music teacher. Mr Grasor, the organist, sat with bended head, never looking up except to help himself to another fresh egg or slice from the rapidly-diminishing mound before him. Seven empty eggshells lay beside his plate, but still he went on — undaunted and industrious.