A Parson at Bay

Chapter I

" There is a history in all men's lives Figuring the nature of the times deceased ; Tlie which observed, a man may prophesy, With a near aim, of the main chance of things As yet not come to life." Shakspebe. f^lAESON BEOCKENHAET, the vicar of BJ-Sgil IVIarsh-under-Cliff, was, despite a reputation for book-learning, and a look about the eyes that carried with it suggestions of midnight oil, a happylooking man with a fresh colour and a very fair capacity for enjoyment. He was, in truth, the fortunate possessor of a gift which Dame Nature will sometimes bestow, in rarely effusive moments, upon the poor gentleman — a sanguine temperament ; thanks to which, he could muster, save in moments of profound depression, such a breadth of hopefulness as enables a man to find bright spots even in a long butcher's bill, and even to write a cheque for it (despite an overdrawn banker's account) without turning a hair.

This sanguine parson never looked happier than when he was driving about, in a newly purchased dogcart, a beautiful girl of less than half his age whom he had made his wife some few months before this story begins. The cart was a decent sort of vehicle which an acquaintance had parted with at a low price — doubtless out of sheer good nature. The cob which drew it, however, was a nondescript sort of animal, very thick in the legs, and having a slouching action that seemed hardly compatible with its pedigree, as described by its late owner — another good-natured friend. Still, a conveyance of some kind was more or less a necessity to a conscientious parson with a wide parish ; and, with out it, his charming young bride would have been condemned to the rustic seclusion of Marsh-under- Cliff. Moreover the whole neighbourhood had called upon her, and to return all these visits in hired conveyances would have been a ruinous ex pense.

It was far wiser to purchase a trap outright ; and, of course, it must needs be a respectable one. Mr. Brockenhart felt a qualm or two at the price. but fully intended to economize in other directions. He salved his conscience, to begin with, by refusing a smart roan mare upon which he had set his heart, and purchasing the hulking cob aforesaid. Even as it was the trap was not half good enough for that dainty little bride of his, who was, artisti cally speaking, one of those pictures that demand good framing. She had a cleft -cherry mouth, rich blue eyes darkened by black lashes, and a figure which it would have been sacrilege to hand over to a second-rate dressmaker. She was so small, so youthful, so innocent-looking, that it was difficult to think of her as a married woman. Yet Maisie Brockenhart was not only a wife, but a stepmother as well — and the whole neighbourhood laughed at this thing.

Maisie's little stepdaughter was now about four years old, and almost as charming, people said, as herself. When Mrs. Brockenhart first drove round the district to work out her daily quantum of return visits, little Charmian, as she was called, not only occupied a seat in the cart, but was taken indoors to be admired and made much of at every house where the family was worth impressing. The child had pretty manners as well as a pretty face, and her stepmother seemed to delight in showing her off to advantage. " The carthorse and the shabby parson are kept in the background," — so said Miss Crackanthorpe of Bavant Grange, who was an old maid and privi leged cynic — "and the charming bride brings her in just as she would a smart parasol or a handsome dust-cloak." On the afternoon of our first making their acquaintance, however, Mr. and Mrs. Brockenhart and the child were not upon a calling expedition, but driving from the seaside vicarage to attend a large garden-party at Bavant Castle.

They had five miles to traverse, the Castle being on the outskirts of the market town of South Bavant, and Charmian began the journey by prattling her hardest. She explained that she was going to a kind of tarpy called an " At Home ; " that she had a new frock on in which she looked very nice ; that she was going to play " molberry bush " with all the girls and little boys, and that daddy must hold her hand all the time 'cept when he was playing bowls — in fact, she went through a careful and exhaustive programme of the coming entertainment. The parson listened with a smile not unlike a mother's. He had been father and mother both to the child for the last three years, whence the relation between them had come to be of a close and special kind. He was a very human sort of man, though not a very strong one ; and, being troubled with something like a woman's tenderness of heart, and with it a correlative womanly liking for sympathy, he had of late fallen quite unconsciously into the way of turning to little Charmian for the satisfaction of this craving ; and so habit had developed the sympathetic faculty originally bestowed upon her by nature.

Yet, to-day, Mr. Brockenhart's mood was not so reflective of his child's as usual ; he was somewhat gloomy and silent for so sanguine a man, and his wife happened to be busy with a problem of her own. Charmian, however, had spirits enough to furnish the party, though her desires were presently to take a sudden and bewildering change of direction. For after mounting a hill about a mile distant from home, they came in sight of a long reach of the river, whereupon the distant party became a thing of naught and a row on the water the central object of her existence. " Oh, daddy," she cried fervently, " I don't care for the silly old tarpy — do take me on the water instead ? Perhaps there'll be water-lilies and 'get-me-nots, if we look very hard for them ? " " Bless the child ! " cried the parson, startled out of a reverie, " we can't throw up engagements in that casual fashion.

You don't yet appreciate the solemnity and importance of social obligations, little woman." " If you really were inclined for the river, Claud," suggested the little bride, " I dare say I could make your apologies at the Castle. And in passing through Bavant we are almost sure to meet with some one good-natured enough to take charge of me." " No, no, my dear love," he cried hastily, feeling compunctious about his late silence, " I couldn't be so shabby as to desert you. Of course I must share the society stone-breaking, just as you do the parish bothers." The cleft-cherry lips closed again, and no more was said for the present. The parson drove on, with his driving hand, shockingly gloved, stretched forward as usual. He was not a graceful whip, and his wife did sometimes yearn to see him in a new pair of gloves.

When they reached the cross roads, which made the halfway point in their journey to South Bavant, a little incident occurred. There were thick pheasant coverts on both sides of them at this point, and a keeper's cottage stood on the near side of the road, separated from it by a neat garden. The keeper, a brawny fellow named Wilkins, whose temper, thanks to night poachers out of doors and a scolding wife within, had lost much of its sweetness, was standing beside a row of kidney beans, flogging the youngest of his long family of daughters with a heavy strap. The child, who looked a year or two older than Charmian, was undergoing the operation with the fortitude of long habit. Yet Parson Brockenhart, catching sight of the pair as he came abreast of the wicket gate, flushed a warm red and flung down his reins.

The cob stopped of its own accord, with a faint snort of satisfaction. Charmian clutched her father by the shoulder, crying, "Oh, he's beatin' her — don't let him any more, daddy ! " Mrs. Brockenhart exclaimed earnestly, "I do entreat you not to interfere, Claud. Surely it is no business of ours ? Lord Bavant can look after his own keepers, and will certainly resent " But Claud was already on his feet, and snatching open the wicket with an angry jerk. " Look here, Wilkins," he called out, rather hotly for a quiet parson, " what has the child been doing ? " " Mind your own business, and be d — d to 'ee ! " shouted Wilkins, with an ugly twist of his lips and a fresh shower of blows. The prospect of a rescue seemed to spoil little Jane Wilkins's fortitude ; she now began to whimper and scream her hardest.

" I'm not going to stand it ! " cried the parson, advancing a step or two. " Ain't you, mister ? " jeered Wilkins, and with that gave his daughter a cuff on the head which knocked her down upon a heap of bean-sticks. Claud Brockenhart, when a Rugby boy, had been noted for sudden bursts of temper, which generally preceded blows, and were always followed by a hot desire to make it up again with the offending party. He was a Rugby boy again now, for the nonce. By a deft wriggle of his shoulders he got rid of a few inches of his black coat ; then recollected himself, and paused. Wilkins retorted by tucking up his sleeves, drawing a step or two clear of the kidney beans, and taunting his foe like a Greek hero, though in words of fewer syllables. But the over-hasty pair were checked, when within a couple of yards of one another, by the appearance of a second dogcart at the gate.

This was a much more showy turn-out than the parson's, and contained Lord Bavant and his youngest brother, Captain Aubrey. " What the deuce is the matter here ? " shouted the former, leaping to the ground. "Apparently a set-to between a parson and a keeper," explained the other coolly. " I'll give you three to one in fives against the parson. But if you want to stop the shindy you'd better knock him down and sit on his head." As he spoke, however, Captain Aubrey caught sight of the flushed face of the parson's little bride, whereupon, with a hasty lift of his hat, he drove up close to her, saying — " I beg your pardon — you must be Mrs. Brocken hart. Pray forgive my foolish joke ;. and, see, my brother is standing between them now — there is nothing more to fear." Captain Aubrey's penitence deepened as the little bride's beauty impressed itself more fully upon him.

Though only lately arrived in the neighbourhood, he had heard a good deal of this newly imported little gem, but some kinds of beauty strike home as no previous description of them can do, and make ex pectation feel that, for once in a way, it has pitched itself in too low a key. The little woman was really in need of consolation, though perhaps not so alarmed as she seemed. Lord Bavant was the most important person in her husband's parish, the patron of that and many other livings, to offend whom were the very acme of bad policy ; and what must he tliink of a clergyman who is found on the verge of fisticuffs with a common man in a cottage garden ? As it happened, the earl had at first no opportunity of expressing his views on this head. To begin with, Jane Wilkins lay in a dead faint on the bean-sticks, and had to be revived.

When this was safely accomplished, and the child enabled to sit up, Mrs. Wilkins came hurtling down the path from the cottage, and gave the keeper such a rating as neither peer nor commoner could hope to improve upon. While this was proceeding, Lord Bavant looked at his watch as though to time the performance, which disconcerted the scold more than any rebuke could have done. " I had a word or two to say to your husband myself, Mrs. Wilkins," he remarked, after a second glance at his watch, " but don't let me hurry you " " I suppose I'll lose my place, my lord," muttered the keeper, sullenly, " but that aggravatin' woman was curlin' her tongue round me all dinner-time, and so mayhap I was over-ready to fly out at Janey ; and then the vicar came interferin' " " I — I'm going to beg Lord Bavant to keep you on," murmured the parson, who looked pale and miserable enough.

" If you were to belt that woman occasionally instead of your little daughter," growled the peer, " there would be little to complain of." "Pray don't teach him that lesson," said Mr. Brockenhart, deprecatingly ; " let him rather learn to curb his temper, and live at peace with his wife." "You'll find yourn wants belting one o' these days, I reckon," Wilkins muttered, under his breath. "And I assure you he's a good fellow, though over hasty, like — like the vicar of his parish." Mr. Brockenhart made the confession with a dim sort of smile. " He's a good sort, s'elp me Bob ! " reflected the keeper, " but a deal too soft-hearted for a pore parson that's got to make his way in the world." "You can go now, Wilkins," said his lordship shortly, " and next time you have occasion to strap one of your family, choose the right member, and do it behind the house."

Wilkins departed with a grateful touch of his hat, and the peer turned to have a word or two with the parson. The earl was an immense bush-bearded man; massively blunt of speech as well as big-framed ; he was also a severe, though just, master, who seldom found any difficulty in speaking his mind to gentle or simple, but somehow he could not find just the words that he wanted at this moment. He perceived that the vicar was not thinking of him, but trying to balance up the right and wrong of his own conduct. He seemed to have made a fool of himself ; yet, after all, was it better to be a coward than a fool? Would he be feeling any better at this moment if he had driven past and left little Jane to her fate ? The vicar was tall, slight, and well proportioned, and, when his fresh colour faded, somewhat fragile looking.

His shabby clothes had a pathetic sug gestiveness, especially from the point of view of Lord Bavant, who knew all about the parson's affairs. " He has to front the world on an income just fit for the whipper-in of a second-rate pack," this critic was reflecting, " and yet goes in for marrying a woman with society tastes. I suppose the British parson gets reckless from sheer despair ! Certainly it is given to him to outfool the folly of any other son of Adam." Had Lord Bavant wished to remonstrate with this sublimely reckless parson, however, he should have done so at once ; for while he hesitated a small figure came flying up the garden path, and he found himself confronted by a new adversary. Up to this moment Charmian had crouched on the back seat of the cart half-numbed with fright, but when she saw the giant peer standing over her father with something like a schoolmaster's frown, she dropped to the ground, and in a trice was holding daddy's hand.

Thereupon a small defiant face shook itself free of clinging curls, while eyes and voice spoke together. " You san't touch my dear pwecious old daddy — no!" The big gentleman gazed at her rather solemnly, and uttered a sigh. For the moment, the wealthy peer, who was childless though long married, caught himself envying the shabby parson. He spoke to the child instead of to the true delinquent. " Don't be alarmed, little woman ; your precious daddy is a born combatant — but his coat's on again, you see ! Where did you get the gold curls and the great grey eyes, eh ? — and what's your name, my dear ? " But Charmian, whose manners were generally so much admired, would hold no further parley with the enemy, and the defiant eyes were growing suspiciously moist. " Well, I happen to know your name ; it's Charmian — and a very charming little Charmian you are, though you don't think me worth speaking to.

You carry a special pleader about with you, vicar r The vicar, however, was too dejected even to smile, so they shook hands and parted. Lord Bavant and his brother drove rapidly away ; Mr. Brockenheart walked droopingly back to his wife. The cob shook himself gradually into a trot, and very soon the old glove was on again, and the driving hand thrust forward in the fashion that Maisie always found so irritating. She looked straight to her front for the present, without com menting upon the incident. The cherry mouth was a little compressed — that was all. But that was enough. The sanguine parson was the most crushable of men. He winced under his wife's unspoken displeasure, and was now convinced that his conduct had been thoroughly blameworthy. " I'm sorry for having vexed and frightened you, dear," he said presently ; " but I always was hasty and impulsive."

"Yes?" Claud felt the impact of the monosyllable, as of a stone cast at him. As a warm-blooded man, he was tempted to fly out a little and defend himself ; but as a soft-hearted one, from whom rebukes came with difficulty, he held his tongue. Nor could he turn to his usual consoler ; Charmian was too young to understand the punishment that he was now under going, and so relieved at his double escape from the keeper and the peer as to be quite easy in her mind about him. After a further silence of some minutes, Mrs. Brockenhart pronounced sentence thus, speaking quietly, but firmly : — "You know, Claud, that we're poor enough, and likely to remain so, unless Aunt Mabel comes for ward. Your only chance of promotion is to keep well with the county magnates, yet yon are con stantly making an enemy of one or other of them, and so thwarting all my efforts for your advance ment.

Miss Crackanthorpe was complaining of your week-day services only yesterday." " Complaining — why ? She never comes to them." " She objects to them on principle, it seems. Her views differ from yours ; and she says the Sabbath is the proper day for worship." " Do you suppose," cried the parson, " that I'm going to forego my plain duty to suit the whims of that narrow-minded old woman ? " " Oh dear no — I know you too well for that, Claud ! " Maisie said this with a sigh, but with a glint of humour in her eyes which lightened the heart of the soon-repentant parson. " I believe I am rather trying at times, dear," he murmured, rubbing his chin with one of the obnoxious gloves, " yet you're never out of temper for more than three minutes together." In point of fact the bride had hardly been out of temper at all — at least, since Captain Aubrey's appearance on the scene.

To a woman with a marked taste for being worshipped, Aubrey's half amazed but respectful admiration would have been a sufficient makeweight to worse trials than the small fright she had sustained. Yet it would not have been politic to let Claud off too easily, for even a manageable husband must not be driven upon too slack a rein. The solution of the little problem before mentioned, too, depended upon his docility this afternoon. As he was now growing tractable. she decided to feel his mouth a little before tight ening the rein further. " I think, Claud, you can hardly go to the Castle in that pair of gloves, can you ? " " Well, I hate spending money, dear, but you are right. I'll get a new pair as we pass through the High Street," " I suppose you must call at the bank also ? " " Yes," he sighed.

" I'm afraid so. There are one or two things to talk over with the manager." Soon after this they reached the outskirts of South Bavant, and pulled up in front of the County Bank — that is to say, Mr. Brockenhart drew in his reins one half-hearted inch or so, rather hoping that the cob, with the stable smell now almost in his nostrils, would demur at the stoppage. But the perverse brute, having no sympathy in his com position, halted at once, and stood there as compla cently as though, instead of being a picture of ugliness, he were a living epitome of all the points that a horse should possess. The bank had a sleek, prosperous air that was apt to oppress Mr. Brockenhart. It was a private mansion converted into a place of business, and looked the more imposing for being separated from the street by a well-shrubbed garden.

The parson passed somewhat droopingly through the open gates and up the short drive to the front door. "Daddy doesn't seem very well — do you think he's goin' to the dentis'-man ? " said Charmian to her stepmother. " You should ask him to take you on the river, dear ; you would both enjoy that so much more than the stupid party at the Castle. And you could hear the band quite well from the water." After a lengthy pause Mr. Brockenhart returned with a quicker step ; but the observant wife noticed that his hand was unsteady, his eyes dull and fixed. Even in his figure and walk there lurked the consciousness of an account overdrawn. As he looked up and down the street before climbing into the trap again, he was thinking, as she guessed rightly, of certain bills, long and prickly as brambles, running up against him on both sides of the way.

Nearly opposite them stood Mr. Boosey, the thriving butcher, in the mouth of his shop, with his eye wandering from joints and carcases to meet the eye of Parson Brockenhart, who was deeper in his books than a poor parson had any right to be. The Yicar of Marsh-under-Cliff, he understood, had a difficulty in getting his tithes paid : but that was neither here nor there ; if a clergyman was too nice to pinch his farmers, he would have to be tweaked himself one of these fine days, and that was all about it. " Now for the Castle," said Mrs. Brockenhart, cheerfully, as they moved forward again ; " we shall meet half the county there, no doubt." " Ah ! " sighed the parson, as though daunted by the prospect. " I'm sure Lady Bavant would take charge of me, dear, if you really don't care to come. See, that is her carriage stopping at the post-office."

"I don't like to desert you," he murmured, waveringly. Then she turned to him with a ravishing smile which was reserved for special occasions, and begged him not to trouble about her. He was a dear good fellow, but might be quite easy in his mind ; she could quite well go under the wing of Lady Bavant, who was always so kind to her. And, as for Char mian, she would probably enjoy an afternoon on the river far more than the party ; for the children, who were to be entertained separately in one of the Castle fields, would be playing games in which the little thing would be too young to join. Any one — at least, any member of the sterner sex — who had seen the dainty little bride thus en treating her husband in his own interest, with the full blaze of her winsome eyes making havoc of him, would have pardoned Claud Brockenhart that hasty and reckless second marriage of his.

Much stronger men, even with purses as dangerously shallow, might have succumbed to such an adversary. "You'd be disappointed at missing the party, little girl ? " whispered the parson over his shoulder. Certainly Charmian would be disappointed ; she thought yearningly of all the pretty dresses in the Castle grounds, the band, the tennis, and all the other delights. On the other hand, her father's evident wish was dragging at her ; and without him the parts would be like chocolates with no cream in them ; and they might find a thrush's nest full of blue eggs up the river, and — and at length she gulped out — " I'll come with you, daddy." " The boat will cost two shillings for three hours. I ought not to spend the money ? " he muttered, doubtingly. " But the gloves would cost half a crown, so you'll save sixpence," Maisie added, in a smooth stroking little murmur.

" That's well thought of ! " he cried, with his sanguine smile returning. " Why, that will leave us sixpence for buns and sweets, Charmie, and we'll have a little picnic all to ourselves ! " So a way out of the difficulty was found — and therewith a complete solution of Maisie's little problem.

Chapter II

" How now ! Even so quickly may one catch the plague ? " Shakspeke. MOUTH BAVANT CASTLE was an amalgam sSa of old feudal ruin and nineteenth-century country house, situated upon a little eminence which overhung the left bank of the river. The old Norman keep was still imposing, and the modern battlemented building attached thereto was as nearly in agreement with it as human skill could compass. The original outer wall of the enceinte, also, was intact on two sides, and a projecting round tower still flanked the long curtain which rose steeply behind the riverside willows. What had been the outer bailey, between this wall and the central buildings, was now an emerald basin of turf shaded by a few scattered trees. But, with the above exceptions, there was left no stone of the old place. The once-grim Castle had lost its frown, replacing it by a smile which showed hardly a trace of sorrow for its stately past.

Bright flower-beds ran up to the very parapet wall ; great laburnums, now that the spring was far advanced, hung their golden racemes against the warm stonework of the keep ; and the river below curved placidly through lustrous meadows which had once been, as an old chronicler has it, " a right blacke, deep, and noyous marshe." As for the Castle's history, the sieges it had borne, the kings it had entertained, and such musty matters, no one could know less about them than did the honest town-folk who lived under its shadow. Their chief concern was the question of its occupa tion : when the Castle was empty both Trade and Society grumbled ; and when, as latterly, the place had been in the hands of caretakers for two full years, the grumbling was loud and continuous. However, soon after the announcement of Mr. Brockenhart's engagement, which caused a little stir by reason of its deep fatuity, that small event was swallowed up in gossip-matter of wider import — it became known that a young, and presumably wealthy, foreigner was making inquiries about the Castle.

The rumour quickly passed from the loose straggling stage into the closer form which can be handed about from drawing-room to smoking-room without a perpetual gathering up of loose threads. It was stated with confidence, that the foreigner was a French- American ; that he had actually taken the Castle for a term of years ; that he was coming over to assume possession about Christmas time. His father was vaguely described as a " distinguished American," his mother was a Frenchwoman of ancient family, his paternal grandmother was sprung from an ancient English stock, once well known in this county. His name was Hereward Paul Otis. All ;this was good; and better followed it. It was proved beyond doubt that Mr. Hereward Otis did in truth possess the crowning virtue of great wealth. The neighbourhood thereupon drew a deep breath of satisfaction, which was afterwards found to be quite justifiable.

In fact, Mr. Otis had from the first taken care that everything worth knowing about him should be known accurately. He had no wish to pose as a mysterious personage, nor yet to undergo the cross-examination, however deftly conducted, of an English country-side. So he, metaphorically speaking, hung up his pedigree on the Castle gates, and nailed a full statement of his fortune beside it. Further, he came over soon after Christmas, and quietly established himself as a potential English country gentleman ; entering his name on all subscription lists where it was due, and meekly accepting all and sundry invitations. At the end of the hunting season he retired again to Paris ; but the yearning neighbourhood learned that he would be back some time in the spring to take up his final abode at the Castle, with his only sister to keep house for him.

Consider for a moment the possibilities of the situation. Here was a young man, a rich man, a bachelor ; a man with old French blood in his veins, stiffened by old English, and frothed up, so to say, by a current of modern American ; a man who had but lately demonstrated the possibility of uniting foreign grace and courtesy with robust English sportsmanship, — in a word, a brilliant and handsome young prince, — about to settle down, unprotected, encumbered only by a maiden sister, in the very heart of a country thick-sown with marriageable young women. And think what might have been : Bavant Castle might have been taken by some gouty old city knight, with a family of vulgar daughters, or some Bond Street hatter in the full swing of a roaring trade. Truly there are moments when even grumbling humanity is satisfied, and human hearts grow too full for utterance.