Wild Weather. A novel

Chapter I

" Pictures are thoughts which people the dull wall, Appealing to the heart in silent power." Purity rejoiced over the power she had of naming her infant according to her own wishes. Her mother had once lived, as a young woman in service, in a great house, and had received from one of the sons of the family an engraving which he wished to get rid of, to substitute in its place a picture of his horse and the groom holding it. He attached no value to the gift. " Take this frightful thing away, " he said," and VOL. II. B never let me see it again, — (" Oh thank you, Sir," replied the girl, taking it re verently in her hands,) — and tell Edwards to bring up the steps to hang my horse in its place." He had found it easy to unhang the cord, stiffened by age, but could not coax that which was fresh to go over the nail.

It was the first picture the girl had ever had, and it was well worthy the ad miration and reverence with which she re garded it. It was an old line engraving, from the famous picture of Saint Margaret in the Louvre, painted by order of Francis I. in compliment to his sister Margaret of Navarre. The saint is represented in the moment of victory, stepping forward with a buoyant and triumphant air, in which there is mingled something inexpressibly sweet and girlish ; one foot is on the wing of the dragon, which crouches beneath her — in her right hand is the cross — the left sus tains the folds of her robe. The face is youthful, mild, and beautiful ; the hair without ornament, and the simplicity and grace of the whole figure prove it worthy of the genius of Baphael. Dear to the girl's understanding, too, was the legend recounted in old metrical lines how " Maiden Mergrete thon* Loked her beside, And sees a loathly dragon Out of an hirnf glide.

His eyen were ful griesly, His mouth opened wide, And Mergrete might no where flee , There she must abide-" By the power of her innocence and holi ness she vanquishes the demon, and then her triumph is recounted, as represented in the picture — " Maiden Mergrete Upon the dragon stood, Blythe was her harte And joyful was her mood." The impression made on Purity's mind, * Then. t Corner. b2 when a child, by this picture was such as the story would be likely to produce on one who had few objects to contemplate. There was the terror of the dragon, too, who was (as the servant girl, become a wife and mother, told her little girl,) the devil always seeking whom he might devour, and to be vanquished only by virtue and prayer. The old engraving, surrounded by an exquisite oak carving by Gibbons, had once been an object of worship to a Catholic possessor ; the young man to whom it was an ugly old worm-eaten object, preferred the painting of his horse, and of his groom.

Virtue triumphant over the dragon was but the representation of an idea. His horse and groom were representations of tangible objects. Thus a valuable engraving passed from the hands of the unvaluing owner to the appreciative servant girl. All her life she was influenced by it, according to her lights. She as firmly believed the dragon to be a correct representation of the devil, as the young man believed the horse por trait to represent the creature in the stabV, which he should ride on the following morning. She was sure that the devil lurked in dark corners, ready to jump out on her if she gave him the slightest en couragement by lowering the cross. When she walked with her sweetheart, she selected daylight and the high broad road. The devil should not take any advantage of circum stances adverse to her virtue.

She led a blameless life, and her instructions to her little girl was always mingled with re ferences to this picture of triumphant virtue. At her death, Purity succeeded to the possession of this, to her, priceless treasure. It hung in her bed-room over the chimney piece, and in all the miseries of starvation, she never thought of trying to sell it ; her mother's only legacy7. Poor mother ! as she smoothed the downy skull of her new-born infant, she vaguely pictured the future life of her daughter from the representation of the Maiden Mergrete. That charming face beamed with love, joy, and peace ; gentle ness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. The likeness should be strengthened by the babe being called Mergrete. She knew that such was only the old way of spelling Mar garet, but the modern Margaret seemed very different from Maiden Mergrete.

Nurse Bye and Sally Bosemary were to answer as sponsors for the infant when it was christened. They had many consultations as to whether the name was a lucky one, and repeated it very often to hear how it would sound, Maiden Mergrete Bathe. " Maiden Mergrete is what those queer marks mean, is it ? " asked Sally Bosemary, who could not read. "Yes, neighbour; and that is the devil that she is renouncing, as she ought to do," replied nurse Bye, "and what we are to promise she will do." ' 7 " Lord preserve us from evil," cried the midwife. " Don't you think, nurse, that it seems like taking an unfair advantage of the poor helpless babes, to promise aud vow so much in their names — that they should re nounce the devil and all his works ? I have stood for two gels before, and they both came to be misfortunate ; my being a midwife, maybe, made them unlucky.

I'm sure I hope it won't be laid to my charge. And then about believing all the articles of the Christian faith, another of my God children married a Catholic, and used to pop down upon her knees before a little doll she called the Virgin Marry. ' Says I, 'Tis a graven image, and you're no better than an idolater, and you go against the Second Commandment, when I ' promised you should believe all the articles of the Christian faith.' " " Never mind, Sally ; she believed them all, and a little more, that's all. Better a bushel that runs over than a bushel that runs short ; but I don't think we shall have trouble with Mrs. Bathe's child, unless she takes after the father, which is not unlikely, though mothers have most to do with gels." The day of the christening was fixed, and Luke had left money enough for Purity and the infant to be nicely dressed.

The two old women suggested that Noel, as they called the boy, at Purity's request, in obedience to Luke's suggestion, should also have some new clothes, and to this, the wife assented. A donkey-cart was hired by Sally Bose mary to convey the lying-in woman, the infant, and to the church, distant about three miles, while Mrs. Bye walked by the side, leading the boy. He did not like the baby. He himself wanted care and love. He gave all in his little heart to the lovely mother, at whose side he slept, He clung to the listless arm when he was scared by visions of the night; terrible scenes repeated themselves in his sleep. Crashing noises, driving winds, freezing cold, and above all, the swaying, and the roaring of the billows. The entreaties he uttered in his broken slumbers, that Purity should hold him fast, were said in a language that told nothing to her ears ; she slept through those wild and pathetic appeals, while the slightest murmur from the baby's lips received immediate attention.

But when the mother came down and began to replace the various articles of furniture, which nurse Bye had deranged, according to the more systematic eyes of the mistress of the cottage, she seated Noel on the floor, and spreading out his little frock to make a lap, she placed her treasure in his slender arms. Then with lifted finger, she enforced care, smiling a sweet motherly smile at the pair, and kissing the boy's curly head, she left the infant in his charge. The young nurse looked at the morsel of life in his grasp with wonder and interest. She was asleep ; and he scarcely dared to breathe lest he should awaken her. Presently a little clinched fist, pink as the inside of a conch shell, was stretched out violently, and the face contracted into a vinegar expression, a squall impended, but the boy began to rock the infant gently in his arms, singing a piteous little monotonous song which he had heard under branching palms and fragrant orange trees.

The child was lulled, and the boy began to grow fond of her, for she had given him his first success. The christening was performed duly. Old Sally Bosemary was the most important person in her own opinion, and from her eagerness that the well-doing of the future Christian should wipe out the remembrance of her other God-motherly failures. When therefore the clergyman said, name this child, the midwife replied, Maiden Mergrete, which she imagined to be one name, and a very long one. So, Maiden Mergrete the child was christened, and registered duly when the ceremony was over; the clergyman was too well accustomed to the caprices of parents, in the designation of their children, to give the matter much thought, He had been used to bestow all the cardinal vir tues by turns on young female Christians.

Honour, prudence, mercy, charity, peace, and patience, so the name "Maiden" did not strike him but in one way ; ' it really seems, he said to himself, as if the woman had a tendency to Bomanism, and meant her girl to be a nun.' Noel now had an amusement more in teresting than that heart-wearing one of watching the door and window in vain, to see if any familiar face would beam on him through the aperture. It seemed to the poor boy that somebody must come and fetch him. Sometimes he used to wander down to the beach, and look along the sea-line, and call dismally on his father and his nurse, but he saw only the unpitying heaven and the far-off water-line, where wave after wave tossed onwards to the shore in mocking merriment, but bore no news on their buoyant bosom to the shipwrecked orphan.

To win the love of Purity, he devoted him self to the infant, and the first smile that flickered over his wan ; cheeks was when the infant smiled in his face, and patted his cheek with her small fat hand. By-and-by, Burity found a sympathetic soul in the cast away, one who appreciated her babe as it should be valued. She thought all the more highly of the boy7, who felt in a degree as she felt. Sometimes when the wind blew, she had an uneasy feeling about Luke's absence, but she probably felt what most Avives do, but have not the courage to own it, that husbands are rather in the way than not, in a house, especially when space is circumscribed. Besides they come to be ministered unto, and not to minister; and always, as Purity admitted to Sally Bose mary, make work, what with their meals to be got ready, and their clothes to be mended, aud they never can do a single thing in the house for themselves.

"Yes," responded Sally bitterly; "they take up every bit of fire, and eat up every scrap that can be found, and drink up every drop of liquor that has been hid up against a rainy day. Not that Maister Luke is worse than other men. Bless you, they're all alike, — cringing before marriage, and domineery afterwards." "That's a pretty boy, Mistress Bathe, a holding Maiden Mergrete. He'll make her a goodhusband one day." Purity looked on the boy with a reflected tender ness, as the possible possessor of Maiden Mergrete ; and rich in hope, believed that the future husband would be an exception to all others, and worship the wife Mergrete as he had the maiden, a fact never yet realized since the creation of the sexes.

Chapter II

" Poll, my lady, in satins and silk, Wash the bairn in the morning's milk." Old ballad. In the meantime another christening had taken place under different auspices. The infant daughter of the Lady Inez Tregellas was duly7 received into the bosom of the Church, blessed by an archbishop, and under the ponderous ceremonial and the profusion of costly ornaments, she nearly expired, as another noble infant did under similar cir cumstances. Lady Inez was too delicate to go to the abbey, so she paid her vows in the face of the congregation, consisting of her monthly nurse, her maid, and her lapdog ; but such indulgences are permitted by heaven and earth to those of lofty7 descent. Of course the infant gave the promise of great beauty. She inherited this from both her parents. The little Gabrielle, luckily for her, drew the nourishment of her young life not from the bosom of her delicate mother, but from the breast of a strong and healthy country7 girl, who had "had a misfortune," as is their phrase, and who weeping gave her in fant to be reared by hand, whilst she received ten shillings a week for its support and that of her widowed mother, who nursed it.

"Such people," Lady Inez said loftily, " were sent by Providence to supply the place of delicate mothers who had not strength to suckle their children. What else could they be meant for ? " The nurse moistened the head of the young aristocrat with her tears, thinking that her own infant was whining and twist ing its blind lips about to find the warmth and nutriment to which it had been accus tomed ; but great ladies cannot be allowed to spoil their figures by suckling their off spring, and noble fathers do not like to have their night's rest disturbed by troublesome brats, though begotten by themselves. The natural results of severance followed ; the wet nurse became very devoted to the young Gabrielle, and ceased to care for her own infant. When after the lapse of eighteen months she returned to her squalid home, she looked on him with a kind of loathing ; so thin, so dirty, clinging to his grandmother's neck, and looking with terror in furtive glances at the stranger mother ; but no doubt it was necessary to save the beauty of the Lady Inez at any sacrifice.

Chapter III

" I love the old paternal place, the walla Banded together by tenacious stems Of vivid ivy ; and familiar banks Topped by my pony, in our first essays Following the eager chase." " The seat is let, Betsy," cried Lord Fern dale, on returning home after a journey to London to see the lawyer about the property bequeathed to him. "Oh, well, Mr. Carmiehael," responded the old lady, " I am glad we shall remain here ; but tell me all about it." " The poor youth did not care to live so far off in Scotland ; he meant to take a hunting-box in Leicestershire. Very natural, too. No hunting to be had at Ferndale, so the lawyer had just given a lease of it for fourteen years." VOL. II. c "Are you sorry, Mr. Carmichael ?" " No, Betsy. I'm only fit to hunt the country I know. I am like an old hound, and run cunning.

I don't think I could keep up with the young fellows in Leices tershire, and I am sure they could not top our stone walls or jump our watercourses. Now money is plentiful, we may do things better here ; more horses, more dogs, more grooms, and anything you like for yourself ; money for everything, and lots of sixpences." " I'm sure, Mr. Carmichael, I want no thing if all the bills are paid." " You shall pay them all, my old woman, that is, if yxour ladyship will condescend to call me byr iny proper title. Count up the bills, and I will write the cheques. By the bye, whom do you think I saw in London ? So friendly7, so hospitable, you would not have believed it. In fact, old Uncle Tom was a very little fellow, old and poor, and was complimented by giving shelter to a kind of royal personage, Squire Tregellas ; but now Squire Tregellas, the royal, has found a fellow ten times royaller ; he bows down to the ground to him, he presses his ready7 thousands on the possessor of the estates of Ferndale.

No reminders of the hundred pounds lent for two months ! It might be a thousand, and Squire Tregellas would pooh-pooh the loan. He took me into his house, and brought me into the dressing-room of the Lady Inez. A beautiful woman lyTing on a sofa covered with satin and lace furbelow, called a dressing gown, I suppose. Then Tregellas rang the bell and ordered the child to be brought, The head nurse, a wizen-faced old woman in grey silk, which stood out round her like a go-cart, brought in the babe. I told them I was as good a judge as any in England of a litter of pups, but I knew nothing of in fants, seeing that my missus had never cursed me with any. ' Oh, but surely you wish you had a son now to inherit your fine property ? ' whispered Lady Inez. c ' My^ lady, now the property is my own, I may leave it to my groom, Joe Mundic, if I please.

If I had had a son he would have been forty years of age probably by this time, and wondering how long the tough old fellow would last. No, no, my land's my own, my will is free. Do you see the pun, my lady ? ' The lady smiled, and Squire Tregellas fidgeted. Presently Lady Inez said, ' I've heard a great deal of the high character of Lady Ferndale.' — , Well, my lady,' said I, determined to keep up your dignity, Betsy, , she is a good soul as ever lived ; and for tossing a pancake, mixing a cup of gin-and-bitters, or making seed cakes and cordial waters, I don't believe there's her equal in the three kingdoms.' Her ladyship screwed up her mouth, and looked as if she had smelt a pan of sour cream. I saw she was jealous of your accomplish ments, Betsy. I was sorry to have vexed her, so I said, ' Madam, you must excuse my partiality for the wife of my bosom.

I declare I meant your ladyship no disrespect, and though I have never heard that you can do a thing in the world to be of use to anyrbody7, I dare say you may manage to whisk up a trifle or so when you're put to it for a dish ; but as for my wife, I would not part with her, no, not for a couple of the best pointers that ever was pupped.' So my lady gave a little laugh, and asked if you were fond of children. This dumbfounded me a bit, and I said you were fond of all young creatures, birds, dogs, cats, and such nasty vermin, and I never heard you make no exception about children. ' Then,' said myr lady Inez, ' ask her if she will do me the honour to be godmother to my little Gabrielle. The Countess of Locklands is to be one, and gives her name, Gabrielle ; and if Lady Ferndale will partake the responsi bility, Elizabeth shall be added to it.

Ga brielle Elizabeth Tregellas, it runs very well,' and she closed her eyes, exhausted by the effort, to meditate on the sound." " Was it a pretty child ? '' asked the old lady. " Well, Betsy, it wasn't anything like so pretty as a little pig, and much the same colour when the sow and the boar are white." "Did you say I would, Mr. Carmichael?" "Well, Betsy, how could I say you wouldn't. I did say, ' My lady, you must find some proxy to stand for Lady Ferndale, she never will be able to come all the way to London.' So she said ' Certainly, certainly.' " Oh, dear ! Mr. Carmichael, you will have to buy me a silver mug or a knife and fork and spoon for the child, and there's a guinea fee for the nurse," said the poor lady with tears in her eyes; like a bird for years confined in too small a cage, she could not feel when more room was available that she could move herself easily.

Lord Ferndale laughed. " She shall have a goblet of gold big enough to dip her head in. You shall beat the Countess of Locklands." " Pray don't laugh so wild, Mr. Car michael. You have been so many years with only a bitter look on your face that now you seem out of your mind when you go on so." "Please God, I'll laugh a good many years yet to make up for it," replied the old man, " and so shall you too, old girl." When Luke returned from Plymouth, after having disposed of his jewels advan tageously, he found his wife cheerful, his infant grown, and the stranger boy silent as usual. Luke had benefited by the change of scene. His senses had not been con tinually nailed to that terrible remem brances by remaining in the locality where it had happened. Nurse Bye's opinion of the boy's idiotcy and lack of the power of sane enunciation had greatly comforted him.

Ceasing to fear him, he ceased to hate him. The boy, too, became accustomed to the sight of the man he had so much dreaded, and connected with whom his childish mind was so fearfully7 laden. For some weeks he clung to Burity 's skirts when he heard Luke's footsteps approaching the place where he might happen to be ; but finding that no notice was taken, that when an apple was produced from Luke's pocket for Purity, there were always companion ones for himself and Maiden Mergrete, — the fatal remembrance faded from his mind into the mists and shadows of forgotten things. Nurse Bye was always silently on the watch for his safety. She dreaded the boy's beginning to talk, when she had pre dicted that he would be "a dumb dog that barked not," but her apprehensions wore away when little Noel returned tri umphantly from his first voyage in the boat with his master, Luke.

It was true that an older lad was there also, to assist in the management of it ; but all fear, and with fear all rancour, seemed to have been extin guished in the fisherman's mind, and he observed that the boy might turn out handy in the boat, and was not such a fool as they7 had taken him to be. He had begun to talk a Christian tongue, too. The boy saw the fatal scene of his father's murder for the third time from the boat when the tide was in, and its aspect so different that, not re cognizing it, he looked on it with indif ference. Luke watched his countenance, and was reassured. No doubt his terrors had ex aggerated the reality of the risk. The boy had been insensible at the time when his father was slain, and had only wandered to the beach as a lost dog does in search of his master, at the place where they were separated.

Luke's conscience was not dead, but sleep ing. It is not in human nature to pursue a train of thought so harrowing as that re sulting from remorse, without a deadening of its sensibilities, or its exasperation into in sanity. The tutor in Australia, who slew and robbed the clerk and fled, endured life for fourteen years, driven through crowded cities and uncivilized wilds, sometimes es caping the terrible consciousness, sometimes with the impalpable form of the murdered man sitting by his side on the railway, or close to him in the passage boat, but like Orestes, he sometimes slept, though the furies kept watch by his slumber, ready to sting him to double agony on his awaking. At length he returned to the guilty spot, pointed out the fancied vision of the mur dered man close to the place where he had buried him, and revealing the crime, suffered the speedy punishment of new settlers who, like Azo, cannot " brooke delay within the chamber of their state."

Luke's feelings took a new direction. Having ceased to fear Noel, he would teach the child to be attached to him ; he would take the place of the father whom he had destroyed by working for the boy's welfare. Noel should marry the girl when they grew up. He would be a skilful fisherman, pro sperous and happy.

Chapter IV

" Unnatural curiosity has taught all women but the beggar to find out nurses, which necessity only ought to commend." — Raleigh. Miss Gabrielle had not taken kindly to her weaning under the management of the grim visaged head nurse. Her wailings echoed through the walls of the London house, and grieved the paternal heart, and broke the maternal rest, but if the infant wailed at night she slept by day, — that sleep which is more like insensibility than natural rest, when the glazed eyeballs gleam between the half-open lids. The doctor was sent for. The infant wants country air, was the opinion given. Lady Inez looked reproachfully at her father in-law. " If you had had your mansion rebuilt, Mr. Tregellas," she said, "I should have had a proper place to send my infant, and not to a filthy lodging, or to an hotel where there may be small-pox, scarlet-fever, measles, whooping-cough, and chicken-pox."

"There were objections, Lady Inez," said Mr. Tregellas, " to my beginning to rebuild, and your ladyship must see that the house could not have made much progress in eight months." The objections were that the insurance offices declined to insure a man so hateful to the population round Saint Jude, as Mr. Tregellas. " I really do not see what godmothers are good for if they do not help parents to take care of their children. Why7 should not Lady Ferndale take the infant and the nurse ? " asked Lady Inez imperiously. "Or the Countess of Locklands?" suggested Mr. Tregellas drily. "You know, Mr. Tregellas," replied the Lady Inez contemptuously, "or you ought to know that the seat of the Countess of Lock lands is in the North of England, where the keen air would probably be fatal to little Gabrielle.

I shall write to Lady Ferndale. I have no doubt she will be an excellent mother to the child, and send down Mrs. Thistle and little Gabrielle. I suppose I must send the travelling-carriage with the child — rather inconvenient." " Bless me ! " continued her ladyship, putting her fingers to her ears ; " there is that intolerable little nuisance screaming again. Where — where is the use," repeated Lady Inez, " of godmothers if they only give goblets which cannot be used, because they are too massive, or forks and spoons, when infants want wet-nurses ? " " Some give nothing at all," suggested the commoner grandfather, thinking of Lady Locklands. " The countess gave a noble name, Mr. Tregellas," replied the titled daughter-in law ; " it is not every one who has the dis tinction to be descended in a direct line from Gabrielle d'Estrees."

Here the lady had the advantage, for Mr. Tregellas had never heard of that frail beauty. Lady Inez alwayrs pointedly addressed her father-in-law as Mister. She seemed to walk over him with the unconscious magni ficence with which the peacock deliberately7 puts down his foot on the toiling ant, who is bustling along to get to his nest and deposit his spoil ■ when the foot is lifted again, the insect pursues its way, rather disturbed and ruffled by the contact, if not materially hurt. Mr. Tregellas, indeed, had found that in transplanting that lovely rose into his family garden, he was to pay the penalty of a few thorns in his fingers ; but, then, his neighbours saw the glory7 of the flower, but did not perceive the pain of the prick. Mrs. Tregellas longed for a peerage with a bitter longing in the meantime ; he could boast of "his friend Ferndale," and his hospitality, in contradistinction to the shabbiness of the godmother countess, and derived a large amount of satisfaction from that reflected glory7.

Miss Gabrielle continued to wail, the Lady Inez to grumble, and consequently her ladyship addressed the following letter to Lady Ferndale, which occasioned great consternation in the breast of that childless woman. ' Grosvenor Square, " August 3, 1774. "Dear Madam, "Your little god-child has been in bad health lately, and my medical attendant has said, that a warmer climate, to be found in the West of England, is necessary to save her life. I feel convinced that you will be anxious to do all in your power to conduce to this happy result; and if you do not object, I shall immediately send the infant with my head nurse to the Grange, where I am convinced, that under your careful management, the child may attain some degree of health and beauty. "The young lady and Mrs. Thistle will start to-morrow, and taking the journey in easy stages, will be with you in about ten days' time.