When the Kye Came Hame.

And when Mary had left the room, the Vicar sat musing before the fire in his study. “Well,” said he to himself, “she took it quieter than I thought she would. Now, I can’t blame myself. I think I have shown her that I am determined, and she seems inclined to be dutiful. Poor dear girl, I am very sorry for her. There is no doubt she has taken a fancy to this handsome young scamp. But she must get over it. It can’t be so very serious as yet. At all events I have done my duty, though I can’t help saying that I wish I had spoken before things went so far.”

The maid looked in timidly, and told him that breakfast was ready. He went into the front parlour, and there he found his sister making tea. She looked rather disturbed, and, as the Vicar kissed her, he asked her “where was Mary?”

“She is not well, brother,” she answered. “She is going to stay upstairs; I fear something has gone wrong with her.”

“She and I had some words this morning,” answered he, “and that happens so seldom, that she is a little upset, that is all.”

“I hope there is nothing serious, brother,” said Miss Thornton.

“No; I have only been telling her that she must give up receiving George Hawker here. And she seems to have taken a sort of fancy to his society, which might have grown to something more serious. So I am glad I spoke in time.”

“My dear brother, do you think you have spoken in time? I have always imagined that you had determined, for some reason which I was not master of, that she should look on Mr. Hawker as her future husband. I am afraid you will have trouble. Mary is selfwilled.”

Mary was very self-willed. She refused to come down-stairs all day, and, when he was sitting down to dinner, he sent up for her. She sent him for an answer, that she did not want any dinner, and that she was going to stay where she was.

The Vicar ate his dinner notwithstanding. He was vexed, but, on the whole, felt satisfied with himself. This sort of thing, he said to himself, was to be expected. She would get over it in time. He hoped that the poor girl would not neglect her meals, and get thin. He might have made himself comfortable if he had seen her at the cold chicken in the back kitchen.

She could not quite make the matter out. She rather fancied that her father and Hawker had had some quarrel, the effects of which would wear off, and that all would come back to its old course. She thought it strange too that her father should be so different from his usual self, and this made her uneasy. One thing she was determined on, not to give up her lover, come what would. So far in life she had always had her own way, and she would have it now. All things considered, she thought that sulks would be her game. So sulks it was. To be carried on until the Vicar relented.

She sat up in her room till it was evening. Twice during the day her aunt had come up, and the first time she had got rid of her under pretence of headache, but the second time she was forced in decency to admit her, and listen entirely unedified to a long discourse, proving, beyond power of contradiction, that it was the duty of every young Englishwoman to be guided entirely by her parents in the choice of a partner for life. And how that Lady Kate, as a fearful judgment on her for marrying a captain of artillery against the wishes of her noble relatives, was now expiating her crimes on 400L. a-year, and when she might have married a duke.

Lady Kate was Miss Thornton’s “awful example,” her “naughty girl.” She served to point many a moral of the old lady’s. But Lady Fanny, her sister, was always represented as the pattern of all Christian virtues who had crowned the hopes of her family and well-wishers by marrying a gouty marquis of sixty-three, with fifty thousand a-year. On this occasion, Mary struck the old lady dumb —“knocked her cold,” our American cousins would say — by announcing that she considered Lady Emily to be a fool, but that Lady Kate seemed to be a girl of some spirit. So Miss Thornton left her to her own evil thoughts, and, as evening began to fall, Mary put on her bonnet, and went out for a walk.

Out by the back door, and round through the shrubbery, so that she gained the front gate unperceived from the windows; but ere she reached it she heard the latch go, and found herself face to face with a man.

He was an immensely tall man, six foot at least. His long heavy limbs loosely hung together, and his immense broad shoulders slightly rounded. In features he was hardly handsome, but a kindly pleasant looking face made ample atonement for want of beauty. He was dressed in knee-breeches, and a great blue coat, with brass buttons, too large even for him, was topped by a broad-brimmed beaver hat, with fur on it half-aninch long. In age, this man was about five-and-twenty, and well known he was to all the young fellows round there for skill in all sporting matters, as well as for his kind-heartedness and generosity.

When he saw Mary pop out of the little side walk right upon him, he leaned back against the gate and burst out laughing. No, hardly “burst out.” His laughter seemed to begin internally and silently, till, after one or two rounds, it shook the vast fabric of his chest beyond endurance, and broke out into so loud and joyous a peal that the blackbird fled, screeching indignantly, from the ivy-tree behind him.

“What! Thomas Troubridge,” said Mary. “My dear cousin, how are you? Now, don’t stand laughing there like a great gaby, but come and shake hands. What on earth do you see to laugh at in me?”

“Nothing, my cousin Poll, nothing,” he replied. “You know that is my way of expressing approval. And you look so pretty standing there in the shade, that I would break any man’s neck who didn’t applaud. Shake hands, says you, I’ll shake hands with a vengeance.” So saying, he caught her in his arms, and covered her face with kisses.

“You audacious,” she exclaimed, when she writhed herself free. “I’ll never come within arm’s-length of you again. How dare you?”

“Only cousinly affection, I assure you, Poll. Rather more violent than usual at finding myself back in Drumston. But entirely cousinly.”

“Where have you been then, Tom?” she asked.

“Why, to London, to be sure. Give us ano —”

“You keep off, sir, or you’ll catch it. What took you there?”

“Went to see Stockbridge and Hamlyn off.”

“Then, they are gone?” she asked.

“Gone, sure enough. I was the last friend they’ll see for many a long year.”

“How did Stockbridge look? Was he pretty brave?”

“Pretty well. Braver than I was. Mary, my girl, why didn’t ye marry him?”

“What — you are at me with the rest, are you?” she answered. “Why, because he was a gaby, and you’re another; and I wouldn’t marry either of you to save your lives — now then!”

“Do you mean to say you would not have me, if I asked you? Pooh! pooh! I know better than that, you know.” And again the shrubbery rang with his laughter.

“Now, go in, Tom, and let me get out,” said Mary. “I say Tom dear, don’t say you saw me. I am going out for a turn, and I don’t want them to know it.”

Tom twisted up his great face into a mixture of mystery, admiration, wonder, and acquiescence, and, having opened the gate for her, went in.

But Mary walked quickly down a deep narrow lane, overarched with oak, and melodious with the full rich notes of the thrush, till she saw down the long vista, growing now momentarily darker, the gleaming of a ford where the road crossed a brook.

Not the brook where the Vicar and the Major went fishing. Quite a different sort of stream, although they were scarcely half a mile apart, and joined just below. Here all the soil was yellow clay, and, being less fertile, was far more densely wooded than any of the red country. The hills were very abrupt, and the fields but sparely scattered among the forest land. The stream itself, where it crossed the road, flowed murmuring over a bed of loose blue slate pebbles, but both above and below this place forced its way, almost invisible, through a dense oak wood, deeply tangled with undergrowth.

A stone foot-bridge spanned the stream, and having reached this, it seemed as if she had come to her journey’s end. For leaning on the rail she began looking into the water below, though starting and looking round at every sound.

She was waiting for some one. A pleasant place this to wait in. So dark, so hemmed in with trees, and the road so little used; spring was early here, and the boughs were getting quite dense already. How pleasant to see the broad red moon go up behind the feathery branches, and listen to the evensong of the thrush, just departing to roost, and leaving the field clear for the woodlark all night. There were a few sounds from the village, a lowing of cows, and the noise of the boys at play; but they were so tempered down by the distance, that they only added to the evening harmony.

There is another sound now. Horses’ feet approaching rapidly from the side opposite to that by which she had come; and soon a horseman comes in sight, coming quickly down the hill. When he sees her he breaks into a gallop, and only pulls up when he is at the side of the brook below her.

This is the man she was expecting — George Hawker. Ah, Vicar! how useless is your authority when lovers have such intelligence as this. It were better they should meet in your parlour, under your own eye, than here, in the budding spring-time, in this quiet spot under the darkening oaks.

Hawker spoke first. “I guessed,” he said, “that it was just possible you might come out to-night. Come down off the bridge, my love, and let us talk together while I hang up the horse.”

So as he tied the horse to a gate, she came down off the bridge. He took her in his arms and kissed her. “Now, my Poll,” said he, “I know what you are going to begin talking about.”

“I daresay you do, George,” she answered. “You and my father have quarrelled.”

“The quarrel has been all on one side, my love,” he said; “he has got some nonsense into his head, and he told me when I met him this morning, that he would never see me in his house again.”

“What has he heard, George? it must be something very shocking to change him like that. Do you know what it is?”

“Perhaps I do,” he said; “but he has no right to visit my father’s sins on me. He hates............