In the Sweet West Country

Chapter I Porlock Weir

" Sunset ; and evening star." Porlock Weir in the grey autumn twilight. The sun had just dipped into the sea, a dull red globe seen through the mist, with the night-rack rising darkly above it. Light still lingering on the hills sharply defined against the amber evening sky, and grey mists creeping up from the valley and the salt-marshes by the sea, blurring and blotting out the sweet, silent landscape. One by one, in the gathering gloom, lights o-leamed out from the uncurtained windows A In the Sweet West Count ry 2 of the fishermen's cottages on the quay, and the beacon lights on the Welsh coast came and went in the twilight, and the crescent moon, shining faintly in the grey sky, was reflected back by the waves lapping sullenly amid the timbers of the Weir. The glimmering landscape had faded to au uniform leaden hue, when an unwonted bustle arose outside the little hostelry of Porlock Weir.

A disabled carriage had drawn up at the door of the inn, and a crowd of fisher folk had gathered round it. while the ostler, with a stable lautern, was inspecting the damage. The horses were panting, and their sides flecked with foam, and the harness was shattered. The carriage had just escaped being upset, but a shaft was broken ; fortun ately the occupants were unhurt. There were two people in the carriage, a lady and gentle man ; the gentleman had jumped out when the carriage drew up at the inn door, and was entreating the landlord to let him have another conveyance to take them on to Lyntou. It was the eve of a meet at Cloutsham, and his entreaties were unavailing ; there was not a pair of wheels in the inn yard that was not already bespoken for the meet on the morrow. "The coach goes through Porlock at noon to-morrowT, sir," the landlord remarked, cheer fully, as if twelve hours were of no account to the runaway couple — they really were runaways, only they had been stopped short before they had run very far.

" You'd better put up here for the night, and go on in the morning. Will the lady please to get out ? " "Oh, hang it! we can't stay here. We must get on to Lynton to-night. What do you say, Hetty ? " By the light of the lantern the landlord could see that the travellers were both young. The man was a big, broad-shouldered young fellow, looking like a country squire, with the imperious manner of his class, and a hand some, aristocratic face. He was standing at the door of the carriage speaking to the girl inside. It was only a girl by her voice, a soft, timid, girlish voice, with a suspicious quiver in it. "Oh, Lance, I'm sure we ought to go back ! " the girl said eagerly. "Nonsense; it's too late to talk of going back." "No, no, it is not too late! It is flying in the face of Providence to go on after this.

Oh, Lance, dear Lance ! let me go back ! " Her voice broke, and her tears were falling on his hand as she spoke ; she had caught his hand in her eagerness. He tried to disengage it with an impatient movement. He could not bear to feel her hot tears upon it, but she de tained it. She would not let it go. "Hang it! you have gone too far to go back now ! You don't know what you are saying, Hetty. This confounded accident has upset you — " "It isn't that, Lance," she sobbed, still clinging to his hand ; " but I'm sure I ought to go back. I dou't mind walking, it is not too for ; I can walk quite easily. If you love me, Lance, you will let me go back — now — now, while 1 cau ! " The girl was really iu earnest ; there was no doubt about her anxiety to go back to her home. There was a quiver of piteous en treaty in her voice as she implored her lover to let her return.

Her distress moved him for a moment, and he bent over her with a thrill of passion in his voice. " My darling, I can never, never give you up ! " he murmured. Quite a crowd had collected round the carriage while they were whispering inside. The ostler, with the help of the rustics who were standing near, had released the horses from the broken shaft, and was leading them off to the stables, steaming and dropping white flecks of foam on the dark road as they limped away. "Won't the lady please to alight?" the landlord again suggested in his cheerful way. It was clearly no use sitting there when the horses were taken out. Still the girl lingered, and still she clung to her lover's hand. " Oh, Lance," she sobbed, making a last pitiful appeal, " if you love me, you will let me go back ! " " It is too late, Hetty.

You have gone too far to go back," he said impatiently, and mak ing another effort to disengage his hand. Still she clung to him. " Not too late now ; it will be too late to-morrow. For Heaven's sake, Lance, let me go ! " It was a woman's passionate, pitiful entreaty. It was an appeal to everything that was noble in the man — it was almost a prayer. "Never!" he said, passionately ; and the girl's head dropped upon her breast, and she let go his hand. There was a pathetic help lessness in the action that ought to have touched him, that would have touched most men, but he did not seem to notice it. "You had better get out," he said. "We shall have to stay the night here, and go on in the morning." He helped her to alight, and drew her re luctantly into the doorway of the Anchor Inn. There was only a handful of luggage on the seat of the carriage, which the landlord carried into the dimly-lighted passage of the inn.

Here the buxom hostess of the "Anchor" met them, a woman of much experience in honeymoons — a moon that never sets during the tourist season at Porlock Weir, and she comprehended the situation at a glance, and marshalled the young lovers into the best room of the inn. It was the " coffee room," and it was al ready occupied by a party of men who had come down for the hunt on the morrow. The room was full of smoke, and the men all looked up when the girl came in. They all stopped smoking. Some of them threw their cigars out of the open window, and looked curiously at the girl standing in the door way. She was worth looking at, though her eyes were still wet with tears, and her nose was distinctly red with weeping. A shy, modest looking country girl, with a beautiful, fresh coloured face, and frightened, appealing eyes. and shining chestnut hair.

She shrank timidly from the light, from the observation of the men at the table, putting up her hand involuntarily before her eyes, as if coming in out of the dark the glare of the lamp dazzled them. "I can't go in there, Lance!" she said, shyly drawing back, and the tears springing to her eyes. " No, of course you can't ! Hang it ! we must have a private room. I don't mind paying," he said, turning impatiently to the landlady. " I'll pay what you like. We want a sitting-room and two bedrooms — and — and dinner — and breakfast, I suppose, if we've got to wait for that confounded coach ! " The landlady of the Anchor Inn shook her head. Every sitting-room in the place was engaged, and she had only one bedroom which the lady could have, but she would get a bedroom in the village, if the gentleman didn't mind sleeping out.

It was no good minding ; it was Hobson's choice, either to sit on the damp shingle of the beach all night, or to put up with the scanty accommodation of the Anchor Inn. Lancelot Lowther accepted with an ill grace the alternative the landlady suggested, and Hetty Arden gladly availed herself of the single room that was to spare at the inn. Before she crept away to hide herself from all those strange eyes that were watching her in the room below, the girl made a last appeal to her lover. " There is yet time, Lance," she said, as she stood in the inn passage, her lips were quivering as she spoke ; " it is not yet too late—" " It is quite too late ! " he said, impatiently. " All the men in that room recognised me. They have seen you wTith me. It will be all over the county to-morrow. You must make up your mind to go on, Hetty ; it is too late to go back."

She left him at the foot of the stairs, and followed the landlady up to her room. He watched her drooping figure as she went up the stairs with her head on her breast, and he noticed the change in her. " Oh, hang it !" he muttered — he was very fond of " hanging " things if they went wrong — "Hang it! if she's going to take up that line, she'd much better have gone back ! It would be no joke to be tied up to a girl who was always grumbling and crying. I never In the Siveet West Country 10 saw her cry before, and it's deuced unbecoming ! " He went out into the dark road in front of the inn, aud walked up and down cursing his fate. Hetty Arden, looking down from the window of her high chamber in the roof, saw the light of her lover's cigar as he walked up and down before the inn. She watched the red spark come and go in the darkness, and she thought she could read his thoughts.

She could not see his face ; she could see nothing but that red spot ; but she thought she knew exactly what he wTas thinking about. He was repenting already of that foolish step. He was sorry already, and ashamed — she was quite sure that he was ashamed. She ex pected him to come up the stairs every moment, and tell her that she had better go back. Perhaps she was not very far wrong. He really was thinking that — well — that it would have been just as well if he had never started on that foolish journey. Everything had gone wrong. He had not only come to grief at the very beginning, but there had been a dozen witnesses at least of his discomfiture. It would be all over the country in the morning ; it would be the talk of the meet, and everybody would be laughing at him. They had all seen the girl ; she was as well-known on Exmoor as the daughter of any inn keeper in the neighbourhood, and they would all say that he was a fool for his pains.

Perhaps he was. The reflection did not comfort him in the least. When he ought to have been think ing about the perfections of the girl in that room above, he was recalling that very un becoming redness of her nose and the droop of her mouth, and how different her eyes looked when they were blurred and swollen with tears. He had never seen a girl cry before ; the girls he knew were always smiling ; it would be a deuced unpleasant thing to be tied up to a girl with a red nose. Still, he did not go up the stairs of the Anchor Inn and tell Hetty she had better go back. She waited long enough for him at the window, lookly sadly out over the sea, and at the pale, crescent moon shining serenely in the clear, evening sky. Her tears fell fast, as she sat there looking out upon that grey, heaving expanse, and listening to the sad murmur of the waves as they broke upon the shore.

She was learning an old, old lesson — the lesson learnt in Eden — and, like adventurous Eve, she was not finding it pleasant to learn. The same, the very same crescent moon that had shone on that lost Eden, was shining still over Porlock Weir. It was looking placidly down at its own reflection in the troubled sea beneath, and at the tearful face at the window. No tears or troubles of Eve's foolish daughters affected its shining ; it was so used to sorrow and shame and remorse ; it was an old, old story. The tragedy enacted in Eden had been repeated so many times that it had grown indifferent to it. It was like the world ; it had got used to sin and sorrow, the spectacle did not move it. It knew exactly what would follow, the old, sad sequence ; the knowledge did not ruffle a line of its serene, shining countenance.

Hetty Arden was the first to enter the coffee-room of the inn the next morning. She waited up in her high bower until she saw the men who had frightened her in the room below overnight set off for the meet at Cloutsham. When they had all gone, she came timidly down the stairs. The remains of their early breakfast were still on the table, aud the room was still redolent with the homely fragrance of bacon and potatoes, the dish par excellence of the west, country. She threw open the window to let in the fresh morning air, and stood looking out at the long, grey, pebble ridge and the shining sea, and while she stood there her lover came in. He didn't swing along the quay with long, eager strides, as a lover should swing along to breakfast with his mistress. He came slowly and indifferently up the village street ; and when he saw Hetty at the window he did not hurry in the least.

It did not set his finger tips glowing, or quicken his pulse ; he only thought what a confounded bore it would be going to Lynton by the coach, and he cursed his fate. He was still cursing his fate when he came into the room and greeted the girl standing at the window. He did not greet her very warmly ; but he noticed, with a feeling of relief, that her nose was no longer red, and that she had not quite washed her eyes away witli weeping. He had not to congratulate himself for long. It was a miserable affair sitting down to breakfast with a girl who wouldn't cat anything, and whose eyes brimmed over every minute, and had to be dabbed sur reptitiously through the one-sided meal, and who had a lump in her throat that would only let her answer thickly, in an unnatural voice, when spoken to. He was very glad when the meal was over ; he got up awk wardly, with an ignoble sense of being at a disadvantage, and strode to the window, thrusting his hands down deep into his pockets, and staring gloomily at the grey beach and the grey sea.

Porlock Weir is distinctly grey when the tide is out. The long ridges of pebbles stretch down from the shore to the sea, a long, long monotony of big grey boulders and smooth, grey pebbles, uniformly, unutter ably grey. The tide was going out now, creeping sadly out in a spiritless way, and laying bare all the secrets of the shore. It didn't put any life into it ; it didn't ebb out as if it were reluctant to leave the encircling arm of the sweet, green shore, the life that it had kissed so eagerly an hour ago. It crept out sullenly, without a murmur, and laid bare the dreary flotsam and jetsam of the beach ; the colourless pebbles, the warped, decaying timbers of the Weir ; the bleached skeleton of an old wreck that had gone to pieces on the rocks. Lancelot Lowther shivered as he looked out at the dreary prospect, and stuck his hands down deeper in his pockets.

" I think we'd better walk up into the village, Hetty," he said, addressing the girl, though he still stared out of the window, and his back was towards her. " The coach passes at eleven, and I suppose we must go on by it ; we shall catch the mail, and get up to town to-night. Anything is better than stay ing in this beastly place ! " The girl put on her hat meekly, and walked by his side through the village. She was quite as glad as he wTas to leave the sadly ebbing sea and the grey, monotonous shore. Porlock village, through which the coach passes on its way to Lynton, is nearly two miles distant from Porlock Weir — a dreamy, old-world place, with a twisting, irregular street, with steep gradients at every corner, and a rough, uneven roadway, that winds among the hills and through the green, silent country like a white ribbon in the noonday sun.

A delightful, irregular, many coloured, old street, where lovely bits of the past still linger ; brimming over with blossom all the year round, and shady with overhang ing boughs of walnut trees. Even at this late season, the myrtle aud passion flower that draped the white, thatched cottages by the roadside were in bloom, and crimsou-tasselled fuchsias grew in rank luxuriance in the little green gardens, and tall, yellow sunflowers stared stolidly over the low garden walls. It was really Arcadia. Nothing was want ing. Sunshine, blossom, green waving boughs, a lark singing in the blue above, and a white gull flying in from the sea. Everything was in tune as the lovers walked side by side up the village street. There was not a single discordant note. Everybody in Porlock had gone to the meet at Cloutsham ; the village street was silent and deserted, so silent that not a note of the song of the lark singing overhead was lost, and in the distance came the faint, far off murmur of the sea.

"What a confounded slow place!" Hetty Arden's lover muttered impatiently, when he had taken about two turns through the village street. He didn't look the least like a lover. He walked a few paces in front of her, flicking his boot with a cane he carried, and regard ing with impatient disgust the white cottages bordering the road. " I thought it was a lovely place, Lance," B the girl said humbly ; she was already a little afraid of him ; " but everything must be slow to you— after— after Alcombe." She paused before she uttered the name of her lover's home, and she murmured it timidly, with bated breath. " Hang Alcombe ! " he said, savagely. The o-irl didn't hazard another remark, but her eyes filled with tears, and she dabbed them surreptitiously, as she had dabbed them at breakfast. They had reached the church — a small, Norman structure, that stands by the roadside, and the door being open they strolled in.

The coach was not due for half an hour, and they strolled in to get rid of the time. A damp, dark, gloomy little church, full of old tombs and brasses, and records of people who had died centuries ago. It was quite ghostly to step out of the sunshine into this dark, silent, vault-like place. The men and women sleeping beneath the canopies of their old tombs seemed to be watching the lovers as they strolled through the dim aisles. The girl paused before a mouldering 0]c] tomb, where a fierce-looking baron and his dame lay side by side. How long they had lain there she could not see ; the inscription, if any, was obliterated ; their very names were forgotten, but they lay there, side by side, as they had lain for centuries, with a great calm on their marble faces — a sweet, noble calm it seemed to the girl standing there, like the light of a great love.

The sight of this husband and wife lying side by side brought a rush of tears into Hetty Arden's foolish eyes — it did not take a great deal to bring the tears into them. "Did they love each other as" we love, Lance 1 " she said softly, pressing her lover's arm as she paused before the old tomb. " I wonder if our love will last as long as theirs ? If we shall sleep some day, side by side, as they are sleeping ? " : She had slid her arm through his, and. was looking up into his face with the beautiful light of love in her eyes, the light that only comes into a woman's eyes once — or twice — in a lifetime. She was exaltee ; she could not cloak her feelings ; she could not keep the tremor out of her voice, or the love-light out of her eyes. She was only a simple country girl ; she was not a great lady ; her manners were sadly lacking in repose.

" Oh hang it ! " he said, roughly, " do talk of something more cheerful, Hetty. Last night we nearly broke our necks in that confounded fly, and to-day we are choosing our tomb stones." He freed himself roughly from the girl's clinging arm, and walked moodily down the aisle. She did not attempt to follow him. She sat down on a bench and began to cry. He made no effort to console her, as she sat there crying like a baby. He strode down the aisle muttering to himself, and looked down the road for the coach. She saw him standing there in the sunshine, leaning against the church door, flicking his boots with his cane, and cursing his fate ; and as he stood there she made up her mind. Her eyes were opened — they were opened quite suddenly, in a moment — and she made up her mind. She didn't stay to dab her wet cheeks, to dry her tears ; she walked quickly down the aisle, as he had walked, only her step was firmer and more assured.

Something iu the sound of her footsteps ou the stones of the aisle made him turn round, and he saw her coming towards him with her head erect, and her eyes shining, and two red spots burning on her cheeks. He couldn't tell what had come over her ; she didn't look the least like the girl with the red eyes who was weeping over the eggs at breakfast.

Chapter II

lovers' vows " Love swells like the Sol way, and Ebbs like its tide — " She came towards him, with her lips parted and her eyes shining. " I am going back, Lance," she said softly, aud she laid her hand on his arm. Something in her touch thrilled him strangely ; he did not shrink from it as he had shrunk from her just now, and he left off flicking his boot with his cane. "Good God ! Hetty, what do you mean?" His voice shook with amazement at this change in her ; he couldn't keep it steady. " 1 mean what I have said, dear. I am going back.'' Lovers Vows 23 She was speaking softly, and with a world of tenderness in her voice ; she was not asserting herself; there was not a shade of defiance in either her voice or manner. "Going back?" he repeated. "You don't know what you are saying. It — it is too late to go back — " " No, it is not too late, dear," she said, interrupting him eagerly.

" Oh, thank God it is not too late ! " "I tell you it is too late," he exclaimed, almost fiercely. "If it had been yesterday it would have been a different thing — but — but to-day — " He flushed and stammered. How could he tell the girl more plainly that he had made it impossible for her to go back ? " To-day makes no difference," she said, proudly, with her head erect, and her cheeks scarlet. " I have done no wrong — I — I have only made a mistake — " Her lips quivered, aud her tell-tale eyes filled with tears, but she did not make any attempt now to hide them. It was not the poor thing with the red eyes who was weeping /// the Sweet West Country 24 over the eggs at the breakfast-table that was confronting him in the church porch ; it was quite another person. How could he tell her that that one miserable night at the inn had made it impossible for her to go back to the old life ?

"What would your father say if you were to go back now ? " he said, awkwardly. It was not a nice question to put to the girl, and he had the grace to put it awkwardly. There was some manliness left in him. " My father ? Oh, I am sure my father will take me back !" she said, proudly. The man looked at the girl standing there among the tombs, brave and confident, and with that strange light on her face. He could not understand her. They seemed to have changed places. " You don't know," he said, moodily. " How should you know ? " " Oh, yes, 1 know quite well what people will say. They will say cruel, unjust things ; but they will not hurt me. I have done nothing to be ashamed of. I have done no wrong. If all the world doubts me, my father will not Lovers Vozvs 25 doubt me. I will tell him the .truth, the whole truth — and — and he will take me back."

"And what about me?" he said, huskily. " You have reckoned without me, Hetty." "No, not without you, Lance. It is for your sake I am going back." " For my sake ? " " Yes, dear, for your sake. God knows I would not tell you anything false for the world ! I love you too well to do you this wrong. It would ruin your life, Lance. I see it now quite clearly. If I had seen it before, I should not have made this mistake. It came to me just now in a flash, as I stood before that old tomb. I am sure the dear woman who is lying there never did anything to make the man she loved ashamed. Oh, Lance, you were ashamed of me last night before all those mem I read it in your eyes. You must never, never be ashamed of me again ! " "My darling!" he said, with a sudden compunction. " My darling, nothing should ever make me ashamed of you !

Oh, Hetty, you mustn't go back ; I can't give you up." There was a throaty quaver in his voice, and his hand trembled as he laid it upon her arm. He would have taken her in his arms, but something in her manner stopped him. He was the suppliant now ; he was not the master ; they had quite changed places. And while they stood there, the coach they had been waiting for so long came up. They had heard the guard blowing the horn a long way off, and now the horses were turning a corner of the road. There was not a minute to lose. "Darling!" he said, speaking hurriedly in a low voice, quivering with passion, "come with me. Come — come ! You shall never, never have reason to regret. I can't give you up, clear. Oh, you don't know how I love you, Hetty ! " He really was in earnest, and the girl was moved in spite of herself.

She turned pale to the lips, and her resolution failed her. It was so hard to refuse him. He saw the hesitation in her mind. He saw it in a moment. Her face was as transparent as a glass. "Darling!" he whispered, confidently. There was a distinct note of relief in his Lovers Vows 27 voice. The ring of pain, of entreaty, had gone out of it. She swayed before him like a reed shaken with the wind, and her courage failed her. He had got his arms around her, and he had drawn her to him. The coach could come as soon as it liked now. It was swinging at a great pace round the corner of the road, and the guard was blowing his horn lustily, and the passengers on the roof were all, with one consent, looking at the church — the guard had just pointed it out to them — and admiring its shingled spire. The curious old spire of Porlock church is one of the shows of the place.

They were standing in the porch when the coach came swinging by, and everybody was staring at them. Hetty drew back into the dusky church. She drew herself hurriedly out of her lover's arms, and retreated into the church, and then, in that swift moment, with all that tumult in her mind, and her fate in the balance, something happened. It was nothing to speak of. She ouly caught sight of the man and woman sleeping side by side in the old tomb, with that wonderful light on their marble faces. " Did they ever love as I love ? " she asked herself, with a sudden spasm of pain. " Were they, too, tempted and tried ? Oh, no, no ; they loved too well. They could not make a mistake." He had no idea what possessed her. He had forgotten all about those old tombs. He had forgotten, indeed, where he was.