The outsider

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Chapter II. U Thea Welste Ad,”*

About two miles from Toxeter stood in a large garden of its own a very pretty villa. There were numerous houses of the same class dotted about within a radius of three miles from the quiet, pretty little country town, all noticeable for the extensive stabling accommodation they possessed in proportion to their size. For Toxeter was a great hunting center, where from November to April, as Whyte Melville sings:

“ The business of life was to hunt every day.

While the nights must take care of themselves as they may.”

Red coats were plentiful all through the town during the winter season, and all topics were subservient to the allabsorbing one of fox-hunting. What was the fate of the Ministry compared to what had been done with the Topchester hounds? and who cared about our delicate negotiations with Russia, as be listened to an eye-witnesses narration of a rattling run with the Red minster? For there

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were half a dozen packs of hounds more or less within reach of Toxeter, while the rail offered much facility for the reaching of distant meets, and training to cover was much in vogue with those who made it their hunting quarters.

Dallying over their dessert in the dining-room of the aforementioned villa were the heroine of the last chapter and an elderly lady, a Mrs. Desmond. Although Dorothea Welstead usually addressed her as auntie, she was in reality not in the least related to her. Mrs. Desmond was a widow lady, in reduced circumstances, who was only too glad to augment her scanty income and share Mrs. Welstead’s comfortable home by acting as her companion and managing the household, leaving Dorothea full leisure to superintend her stud, and indulge in her favorite diversion.

“ Such a glorious gallop as it was, auntie, and I was in such luck. I got a splendid start, and old Peter had picked up, as he always does, who were their best men, a^nd pointed out the one Pd best follow, and when he said he was a Mr. Lester, the racing lore I learned during my miserable married life stood to me, and I knew at once that he was the crack gentleman rider. I rode as I never rode before, you needs must if you take Mr. Lester for a pilot, and I don’t think he was ever more than a dozen lengths ahead of me all the time. As soon as he found out I was following him, which, of course, he very soon did, he was most courteous. At the first check, which lasted a bare two minutes, he raised his hat, and said, 4 1 am only too happy to be your pilot; with your pluck, and that horse, nothing’s too big for you that’s not too big for me.’ And then we were away again. Once only did he shout back a word of warning, but my blood was up, and there was nothing I would not have ridden at if he gave me the lead. Oh! auntie, it was a big place. I thought we were never coming down again. Dear old Birdlime, I wouldn’t take double the money I gave for her. She’s coquettish as a woman too, and will sometimes, when we’re pottering

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about, make quite a fuss about jumping a small fence, but she never turns her head when hounds are running.”

■“I am glad you had such a good day, Thea. It was rather a wild speculation going all that way by rail. ”

“ Yes, but I’d never seen that side of the country, nor, for the matter of that, the Bedminster hounds. I ought not to offer an opinion, because I enjoyed, perhaps, an exceptional day with them, but they’re a better pack than the Topchester, I think, and undoubtedly the whole thing’s better done. But what did you do with yourself all day:”

“ Walked into Toxeter after lunch, did a little shopping, and ordered some fresh books from the library,” replied Mrs. Desmond.

“ I’m afraid you have a very dull time of it, auntie, and — alas! my dull time is coming too. The hunting is very nearly over, and then, ah! then ‘ Othello’s occupation’s gone.’ Come into the other room, and let’s have some

tea. ”

Mrs. Desmond was as good-natured, well-meaning a woman as it was possible to conceive, but to a hot-tempered, vehement nature like Thea’s she was at times a little trying.

“ You must find other occupation now that the hunting is over, ” she said, as she busied herself with the tea-pot. “You know I think you devote yourself more to that pursuit than is quite befitting a lady.”

“ Don’t grumble, auntie,” rejoined Thea, impatiently. “ It s the one thing that takes me out of myself. In a moment of madness I threw my life away. I have no right to complain. I despise myself for the contemptible weakness that I yielded to. I have made oj>en confession to you too often to make any mystery of things now. In a moment of pique I accepted a wealthy man, whom I did not love, but I meant honestly to do my duty by him, and would, if he had let me. The scales fell from my eyes be-

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fore three months were over, and I knew that my life was irretrievably wrecked, that I had to play the part of a neglected wife as proudly as I could, and shut my eyes to my husband's infidelities."

“ Nobody has ever breathed a word against you, Thea; nobody denies that you did your duty by Mr. Welstead as long as any woman with self-respect could have remained with him. "

u Nobody breathes a word against me," cried Thea, passionately. “ No; but I am socially tabooed wherever I go. Men know me in the hunting-field and would be very glad to know me here if I gave them the slightest encouragement, but their Wives and daughters won't know me. I am ‘ that Mrs. Welstead, separated from her husband, you know '—that is how they speak of me. No matter what wrongs, what insults she may have endured, the woman who declines to live longer with the husband who is making: her life a shame and a burden to her is always at fault. "

44 The world is apt to be unjust where our sex is concerned," replied Mrs. Desmond, in those sententious measured tones that sometimes almost prompted Thea to shake her.

44 Unjust!" she exclaimed, contemptuously. 44 Yes! Are matrons with plain though marriageable daughters likely to extend the hand of friendship to a young and pretty woman, who by separating from her husband has given them the right to dub her a free lance and to reject her from their own more regular ranks? I trow not They’re little likely to forego their advantage. Ah! I'm punished, rightly punished. If I had only had faith," she murmured, rising from her chair and pacing the room rapidly. 44 But I thought you had trifled with me, Hugh, and never dreamed of what closed your lips. Had I but known I had your love, 1 could have waited patiently till things came round. Tod late. t<»«> late,” she murmured,

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plain tively, as the tears welled into her eyes, and she continued her impetuous pacing.

Mrs* Desmond knew better than to interfere further till the storm had worn itself out; but, as she glanced furtively at poor Thea in her restless walk, and marked the fair flushed face, well-rounded figure, and the wealth of hair that crowned the little head, she could not but admit that mothers of marriageable daughters were wise in their generation, when, taking advantage of their opportunity, they laid an interdict upon Mrs. Welstead.

Toxeter, like all country towns, was scandalous; that means perhaps more correctly that in these limited communities every one is acquainted with the doings of his neighbor, and, as we all know, our neighbor’s delinquencies are invariably discussed with infinitely more relish than his good deeds. The Welsteads had been too well known in the London world for the story of their judicial separation not to be common property, although the exact cause of it had never transpired; but Toxeter knew all about it, and Toxeter and its neighborhood had decided that a woman living apart from her husband was not to be called upon; enforcing their decision with various wise saws to the effect that there was no smoke without fire, that a wife’s place was by her husband’s side, etc.

Fiercely did Thea pace her little drawing-room, as she mused on the slights that had been put upon her since she had lived apart from her husband. Her passionate little heart protested against the injustice with which the world metes out its punishment for such offending in most cases on the woman, without any knowledge of the facts, in utter ignorance of what she may have to urge in justification of the course she has taken. Then her features softened as her thoughts roamed back to the ivy and creeper-draped old rectory near Dorchester that had been her home for so many years. The quaint, old-fashioned garden, with its high walls, with its beds full of such flowers as our great-

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grandmothers loved, all growing in tangled luxuriance; very different from the prim bedded -out parterres of to-day. The high old red-brick walls dotted with peach, apricot and nectarine, as summer melted into autumn, and, above all, the broad, shady walks, up and down which she had delighted to wander with Hugh Musgrave’s stalwart figure by her side. Ah! what golden dreams she had then ! Purely Hugh loved her, and surely lie would tell her so ere many more days were over her head ! Then came a note to say good-bye — a note which, though it made no positive declaration, still breathed love in every line — in which he said that he wrote the adieu he had not courage to speak on the previous evening; how that business called him away, but he should hope to see her again ere long. Two years passed ere she was destined to see Hugh Musgrave again, and then she was a bride, in all the flush of a triumphant debut in her first London season. How well she recollected the grave, courteous salute with which he" greeted her. Ah ! it was only by degrees she understood the truth. In the quiet Dorsetshire parsonage they had little knowledge of how went the fray with those who lived in the great London world, and it was not till she too became of that world, she learned that Hugh Musgrave's embarrassments had placed it well-nigh out of his power to ask for the hand of any woman in marriage.

When she first realized that he was not coming back to her, when she first awoke to the fact that she had lost him, she felt that deadly sickness and despair that a great grief is wont to bring upon us. She did not care much what became of her. The spring was out of her life. The sunshine had vanished from her existence. We laugh at the idea of a love-sick maiden, but there are passionate natures of both sexes that take such disappointments hardly. It is always better for the man than the woman. He has his work, or can, at all events, plunge into the world and seek distraction, but for a girl situated like Thea Charlton, in-

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mate of a quiet country rectory, what was there: Nothing hut, in the old parlance, “ to eat her heart out. ” It maddened her. How she bore it she knew not, when, in an evil hour, at a ball in the neighborhood, she met ATgy Welstead. He was struck with her beauty, and, accustomed to be welcomed with smiles, and even hawked at by young ladies on promotion, he was still more struck by her utter indifference. It piqued him. He was a gentlemanly, rather good-looking man, with a rent roll of ten thousand a year, and as such, despite an evil reputation morally, esteemed a prize in the matrimonial market. He exercised all his powers of pleasing to ingratiate himself with Miss Charlton. Thea felt that she could endure the monotony of the rectory no longer; anything that would take her out of herself she would welcome. Welstead succeeded. He could offer her change of scene and all the distractions wealth could procure. He could help her to forget. He did not win her heart, but he did her hand, and to a vicious cold-blooded sensualist such as Welstead, that amply sufficed. Real love for a woman was a thing he was incapable of feeling.

That such a marriage should turn out a miserable mistake was only what might be expected. The two had nothing in common, and Welstead’s scarce concealed infidelities speedily destroyed what respect Thea had ever felt for her husband. Bitterly had she repented of her momentary madness. Better to have endured the monotony of her old home, than to be chained for life to a man she despised. One pleasure, only, had come to Thea from her marriage, and that was a very liberal command of horseflesh. She had always been passionately fond of riding; but had never enjoyed the luxury of a horse of her own. Her father kept a couple of useful cobs, which went in saddle or harness as required, and one or other of these had generally been at Theate disposal; but when she married, a couple of ridinghorses were put apart for her exclusive use. Welstead had

TO

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faults enough to answer for, but he was not mean. A blase man of five-and-thirty, who had “ run every pleasure down,” and to whom the pursuit of the prize had afforded the chief pleasure, he speedily wearied of his beautiful wife, and betook himself to his old haunts and courses.

“ The painted toy so fiercely sought,

Had lost its charm by being caught,”

and Algernon Welstead was speedily, after his old fashion, immersed in some fresh intrigue. But if he went his own way, he was so consistent that he left his wife to go hers, and scandal would have run far higher against Mrs. Welstead during her first season, had the world known of her previous passages with Hugh Musgrave. So neglected as Thea was by her husband, it was well that season did not end in one of those explosions that are wont to startle society ever and anon. But that Hugh Musg rave's love was loyal, and that he exercised marvelous self-control, it was possible that Thea in her unhappiness might have been tempted to leave her husband, ere she had been a twelvemonth married. Then came Musgrave's final ruin and disappearance. The two had never met since, and it was well, perhaps, for both of them it was so. That Welstead rather neglected his wife had been patent to the world that first year; but Thea was not the woman to parade her troubles, and covered her husband's shortcomings to the extent of her ability. Had Musgrave, at that time, known how her pride was continually outraged, it is probable that the words which continually surged to his lips would have been spoken, and the romance of Tliea's life would have closed in one brief, sad chapter; but Hugh Musgrave was spared the bitter knowledge that the woman he loved was undergoing shameful ill-treatment from the man she had married. He was not altogether unaware of Welstead 's marital transgressions; but he knew the man, and believed, at all events, he had the decency to keep them from his wife's ears.

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Four years had elapsed since Thea had paced that walk in the rectory garden with Hugh Musgrave, and two since she had separated from her husband. One year's miserable life was her married experience, and now she finds herself a semi-outcast from society, and a target for every eviltongued woman she may come across. Algernon Welstead had behaved liberally with regard to the allowance he assigned her. He was, perhaps, somewhat weary of the conjugal fetters, little as he had allowed them to chafe him, and, as before said, he was not a mean man in money matters.

Chapter III. (( The Low Plantations.”

“ Good-morning, Captain Maltby/' said Julia Harwood, as, attired in most correct shooting costume, that nonchalant dragoon put in a rather late appearance in the dining-room the next morning.

“ Good-morning, Miss Harwood,” replied Cis, as he took her proffered hand. “ Rather behind time, I'm afraid, but I can always breakfast in seven minutes.”

££ Well, I will pour out your tea while you forage on the sideboard. Believe me, you've no time to spare. Everybody's down and done breakfast but you, and papa,” said the young lady, dropping her voice, “ is already on the fidget. ”

‘ £ Thanks, no end,” replied Maltby, as he wandered vaguely across to the side-table, with a dim consciousness that about half a bucket of strong tea would meet all his requirements, and an inward anathema against that last cigar.

’* You will have to do your devoir to-day, Captain Maltby,'' observed Miss Harwood, as Cis returned from his excursion with a wing of a boiled chicken, which he was mak-

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ing a vehicle for cayenne pepper and mustard. 44 Old Dickenson and papa have been at issue about the shooting of the low plantations for the last six weeks; Dickenson, wlit/s obstinate as a mule, insisting upon it that both pheasants and hares were 4 wasting,* as he terms it, and papa vowing that was all nonsense, and that he would keep it to wind up the season with."

44 Well, Miss Harwood," rejoined Cis, laughing, 44 we'll all do our best, but I’m bound to tell you that Dickenson has got much the best of the argument, insomuch as he can prove his case. If a keeper don't mean you to kill game, you won't, you may depend upon it."

44 But you don't think Dickenson would dare to play such tricks as that?" cried Julia. 44 Papa always wishes to show his guests the best sport he can. "

44 An old keeper is apt to be an obstinate beast, Miss Harwood," said Cis, as he gulped down a second cup of tea, 44 and when he's had an argument will risk his place for the sake of saying, 4 Well, I tould you how it'd be, sir. ’ "

44 But what can we do?" asked Miss Harwood, half laughing and half annoyed.

44 Always conclude that sort of argument with a keeper by giving him to understand if you don't kill the pheasants you expect, he goes. Secondly, never keep a servant more than live years at the outside; he's always useless, and usually insolent, by that time."

44 And pray is that the way you treat your servants, Captain Maltby?" inquired Julia, much amused.

44 Of course it isn't," replied Cis, gravely. 44 I've go't one fellow I've sent away six times, and lie's with me yet. He gets into the guard* room, and goes back to the ranks now and again for a time, but lie comes back in due course, like a protested bill. He's my old man of the sea, Miss Harwood. I never expect to be free from him."

But further conversation was cut short by the impatient voice of the squire in the hall, who was loudly calling upon his laggard guns to keep their tryst, and to remember how short the days were.

££ That means me/’ said Maltby, rising. ££ We shall see you down with the luncheon, I hope?*'

££ Oh, yes; we are all coming to count the slain and minister to your necessities, till which time, monsieur, I bid you adieu/* and sweeping him a mock courtesy, Julia vanished through a side door which led to the terrace.

It was the very day for cover shooting; a bright January day, with a slight north-east wind just swaying the trees, and so to some extent muffling the approach of the beaters. On those very still days, when the dead branch that crackles under one's feet can be heard afar off, the hares and pheasants (is there any bird more cunning than an old cock pheasant — a wild bred one I mean) scent danger in the distance, and are off betimes, and when fairly alarmed the most scientific stopping will fail to deter the more crafty of fur or feather from what our cousins term ££ making tracks. " J ulia Harwood and the other ladies stood on the terrace watching the party, as in irregular line they made their way across the park, and almost at once the fusillade opened. Outlying hares leaped noiselessly from their forms and loped away in that deceiving style that beguiles the neophyte into shooting well behind them, they look to be going so slow, and yet they are stealing over the ground in marvelous fashion,, But though the half-dozen guns are “ workmen," and though the killing hares clean at five-and -thirty yards* rise is a sharp test of a man's shooting, they respond to it but indifferently to all appearance, many of the hares simply quickening their pace in answer to the shot.

Hear me," exclaimed a Miss Skelton, who was among the spectators on the terrace, ££ they are shooting very badly. What a shocking waste of cartridges. "

£ * You can't tell from here, Lucy; it's the most decep-

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U tive piece of shooting in England. Let them shoot as straight as their gun barrels, hares at that distance will always carry on a bit before they roll over. The moment they top the crest of the rise we lose sight of them, but most of those you think have got away scathless will be probably picked up dead just over the ridge. ''

The shooting-party like the hares speedily disappeared over the ridge, and the ladies returned to the house to amuse themselves as best they might till such time as it would be necessary to start for luncheon, which it was arranged should take place at the end of a cover about a mile and a half from Holton Manor. The promise of the early morning had so far been kept. The day was still fair for the business in hand, and, for once, the master seemed to have known better than the man. Despite his evil auguries, so far, Dickenson was forced to acknowledge that the low plantations had not deteriorated, although the shooting of them had been left till the very end of the season, and, more wonderful still, that veteran grumbler was satisfied with the performance of 4 4 the guns. ” For once his satellites missed the sarcastic commentary that usually dropped from the old man's lips:

44 What's the use of getting up game for a lot of tailors as can't kill it when they sees it? It makes me sick to see my pheasants tinkered like this. Yah! there goes another away with a leg down.”

But these 44 gay mornings ” are wont to end in grewsome evenings, and there was destined, speaking metaphorically, to be lightning in the skies before the shooting of the low plantations was got done with.

It uth less had been the destruction of fur and feather. The party could all shoot 4 4 above a bit/' and there was little that ought fairly to have been brought to hand that escaped them. Still, the great object of a sportsman's ambition, a woodcock, had not yet been gathered. Two or three had been seen, indeed fired at; but it had fceto

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rattier on tlie principle advocated by a dear old friend of mine , ■“ always shoot at a woodcock if he's in the same parish with you,” than for any chance there had been of knocking them over. Maltby was the man destined to secure the coveted distinction of the first “ cock,” and he arrived at it in singular fashion. His quick eye detected a hare stealing away through the briers in front of him. His barrel rang out, over rolled the hare, while at the same moment a bird rose some three feet above the under cover, and immediately dropped again. He had actually shot a woodcock on the ground, and in picking it up the companion bird was flushed, which also Maltby secured.

And now they are nearing the end of the cover, by the side of which luncheon is awaiting them. It is a pretty spot; the cover runs along the side of an artificial lake, studded with islets, from which it is separated only by a broad grass drive, and coming along that ride is Maltby, who has been put outside the plantation, as it narrows to a point, and is now accompanied by Miss Skelton and Julia Harwood. The game are penned like the famous six hundred at Balaklava, “ Guns to the right of them, guns to the left of them, ” and are being mowed down much as our gallant Light Brigade was on that glorious but fatal field. Suddenly leaps from the cover a hare, maddened with fright; for a second he turns forward up the cover-side, only to be headed back by the discovery that there are people in his front; he turns abruptly in his tracks, only to be confronted by Maltby and his fair companions; for a second lie is irresolute, then jumps back into the cover, only to once more immediately leap out again, and then, with a cry of terror, the panic-stricken animal plunged into the lake and swam boldly in the direction of the nearest islet.

“ Shoot, sir, here in the lake!” shout the beaters.

“ Shoot, Captain Maltby!” reiterate the shrill tones of Miss Skelton.

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Julia Harwood said nothing; but a pained expression shot across her face as Cis half raised his gun.

“ No, hang it!” he said, dropping it. “ He deserves his life, poor brute; a hare's sore put to it when he risks drowning.”

‘ c Ali! Thank you, Captain Maltby,” said Julia. “ That poor wretch deserved to go scathless. There is po mistake about it.

* Your tineliel cows the game,’ ”

she continued, with a smile, and half ashamed of her late display of emotion.

“Yes,” rejoined Cis, “I fancy that hare possesses a peculiarly nervous organization. ”

“ So would you, sir, if you were hunted like that; I believe that hare owes its life to woman's soothing influence,” and Julia stopped in some little confusion as she remembered she had said nothing, and that Miss Skelton had advocated the hare’s destruction.

An amused smile pla} T ed on Cis’s face for a moment.

“Quite right. Miss Harwood,” he rejoined. “Your presence always restrains our more brutal instincts. Why didn’t you continue the quotation?

“ * We start as fierce as forest deer,

You drive us home as tame.’

I’m not going to let you off, though, you beggar,” he concluded, as he tumbled a cock pheasant into the water, who was winging his way toward the same sanctuary which his four-footed companion had by this time safely reached.

Miss Harwood had seen too many battues to be the least sentimental about the killing of game; but this hare had certainly appealed to what chivalry there might be in the breasts of his persecutors, and though she said nothing she felt inwardly disgusted with Miss Skelton’s shrill demand for its death. The gallant animal deserved its life as much

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as any brave of the arena. For a few seconds she had thought that Ois was about to yield to the cry for its destruction, and it was with quite a sigh of relief that she saw him drop his gun. But the cover has been by this time thrashed out. The cunning old cock pheasant that invariably skulks in the bush till the guns have handed their pieces to the attendants, has risen with tremendous fuss, and winged away, crowing, unharmed and exultant, calling forth a laughing rebuke from the host at the undue hankering after the flesh-pots, which had led them to abandon their arms prematurely, and who, with his mouth full of Irish stew, was hardly a fitting person to upbraid his companions in such wise. The ladies were all seated on cushions from the pony-chaise, game-bags, etc., and very gay and cheery was the al-fresco meal as it proceeded. Capital sport, an exhilarating day, and just that amount of healthful exercise that gives a zest to one’s food.

“ You will walk with us this afternoon?” said Cis, as he busied himself in attending to Julia Harwood’s requirements. “ It’s all good going, grassy rides on a light soil. You can criticise our performance and will get your afternoon walk to boot.”

“ Oh, yes; we generally walk with the guns when you are shooting the low plantations. It’s better fun than pounding along the road. ”

“ We’ve done pretty well, I fancy,” said Cis. “ I overheard Dickenson saying it was pretty good for before lunch.”

“ From what I recollect of former days here you are quite up to the average; but I see papa’s on the fidget, and there’s very little law^given after that.”

c; A glass of sherry and Fm ready,” replied Cis. “ Let me get you one too.”

“ No, jthank you,” said Miss Harwood as she rose to her feet. u Come along, Lucy, it is time to fall in.”