"Weel, yes, la.s.sie, I just think it was. But ye'll no foregather with the villin no more, will ye? Ye'll ne'er speak to him again?"

"No, no--oh, never!" groaned Jane.

"That's weel; and I won't judge you for greeting over it all a bit, la.s.sie. Your puir heart's sair now, but it will heal up again, never fear. And now, I won't say ony mair to ye, only recollect, Miss Jenny, I'm an honest man, and I lo'e ye verra dearly."

Mr McCray had been growing somewhat excited as he spoke, and hence more broad in his language; but he cooled down into the matter-of-fact gardener after delivering himself of the above, and took a pinch of snuff to calm his feelings; for he felt that it would be wrong to press his suit with the poor girl while she was in such trouble, and his Scottish dignity was roused. Here was a damsel in distress--and were not the McCrays honourable men, from the time when they all wore plaid and wielded claymore, down to the present day, when their representative followed the pursuit of his forefather Adam?

"Oh, what is to become of me?" sobbed Jane.

"Just nothing at all but an honest man's wife one of these days," said Sandy.

"What shall I do?" cried Jane.

"Just wipe your bright eyes, and don't talk quite so loud," said Sandy.

"Oh, they'll all be down directly," cried Jane.

"Weel, I don't know that," said Sandy. "If any folk had been coming, they'd have been here sooner; so I think as no one knows anything about it but we twain, my la.s.sie, why, ye'd better put oot the candle, and lock the door, and then go up to bed."

"But do you think no one will know?" sobbed Jane.

"That's just what I do think, my la.s.sie; and if ye'll promise me, like a good girl, never to have word again with Mr Jock Gurdon, I'll be up wi'

the dawn, and put the damage reet outside, and then n.o.body'll be a bit the wiser."

"Oh, Mr McCray, how can I ever thank you?" sobbed Jane, catching one of his great hands in hers. "I do promise you, indeed!" And she tried to kiss it.

"Nay--nay, my puir bairn, that's for me to do." And he drew her towards him, and kissed her forehead gently and reverently.

"I'm a great, awkward-looking chid, Jenny Barker, but I've got a man's heart in me. Ye've been sair deceived, and I don't blame ye a bit for being true and faithful to your jo; but, now that's all over, la.s.sie, try and comfort your heart with the thought that there's another man in the world who, while he loves the ground ye tread on, loves ye, too, sae weel, that he won't say word more till he can see that it winna be distasteful to ye. And now, good night, bairn. Let me get my spade, and I'll be off. Keep yer ain counsel, and I'll keep it too; and ye may depend that Jock Gurdon will never say word about it."

With a pleasant, quiet smile upon his broad, honest face, Sandy McCray took his spade and turned to go, when Jane laid her hand upon his arm to detain him.

"What is it, bairn?" said Sandy.

"I'm afraid--" whispered Jane, earnestly.

"Afraid? and why?" asked Sandy.

"Afraid those bad men may be watching for you," whispered Jane.

"Heaven bless ye for that, la.s.sie!" cried McCray, with the tears of pleasure starting into his eyes, as, catching her in his arms, he kissed her heartily. "Ye'll send me away a happier man than I've been for months, seeing that douce-tongued carl hanging round ye. Go to your bed, la.s.sie--go to your bed, and sleep soundly; and I should like to see the face of either of them come within reach of my spade!"

A minute later, and the gardener was listening to the cautious fastening of the door; and then, boldly stepping out on to the lawn, he looked around. But there was, as he had felt, no danger at hand, and soon after he was seated in his cottage, waiting patiently for the dawn, not trusting himself to sleep; and long before another gardener appeared, the last trace of disturbed flower-stand and bed had been removed, so that not another soul at Merland Castle knew of John Gurdon's treachery.

"But I'll e'en keep my eyes wide," said Alexander to himself; "for it strikes me that the rascal may come again."

"Maybe I ought to tell the laird, and put him on his guard, for the bit of siller in the butler's pantry is a sair temptation to a rogue,"

muttered McCray, as he pondered about the matter; "but I dinna see how I'm going to tell a bit without telling the whole, and getting the la.s.sie into grief. So I'll just say nae word to a soul, but take a leuke round of a neet, and have a peep at the la.s.sie's window as weel, lest the de'il should hang about to try and tempt the puir daughter of Eve to fresh sin. For though she means reet now, the la.s.sie's weak; and though she don't know't, there may yet be a bit of the auld weed in her heart not yet rooted oot; but wait a wee, and I'll have that sweet heart of hers that clean and reet, that it shall blossom again beautifully, and I'd like to see the weed then as would get in."

Book 1, Chapter XXV.

SIR MURRAY'S THOUGHTS.

It was now an acknowledged fact that there could be no further intimacy between the residents at Castle and Hall. The Nortons led a more than ever secluded life, Mrs Norton finding it necessary to retrench in every possible way to meet their altered circ.u.mstances, for the iron company's affairs were worse and worse, and people loudly blamed Norton for his folly. "Why did he not become bankrupt," they said, "as other people would?" But Norton declined all such relief, his brow grew wrinkled and his hair slightly grizzled at the sides, but he was determined to pay to the last penny he could muster, and wait for the change that he trusted would come, for his faith was perfect in his enterprise.

Mrs Norton never complained, but always welcomed him with a smile when he returned from his long absences. Cruel doubts would come at times, brought up, perhaps, by some silly village tattle, but she cast them out with a shudder, as if they were something too loathsome to be harboured even for an instant; and, after such battles with herself, she would greet her husband with increased tenderness, as she strove to chase away the settled melancholy which oppressed him.

Twice only during many months had he encountered Sir Murray Gernon, to meet with fierce, scowling looks of hatred; but no word was spoken, and Philip Norton never knew the curses that were showered upon his head.

It was well for him, too, that he did not know that many a night, Marion Gernon, brokenhearted and despairing, knelt by her solitary pillow to say, almost in the words of the old prophet, "It is enough," and to pray that she might pa.s.s away.

It was only at times, though, that such despairing thoughts oppressed her; at others she would bewail her wickedness, and pray for strength, as she looked upon the tiny slumbering face of her infant, and then bathed it with tears.

For Lady Gernon's was now a sad and solitary life; Sir Murray seemed to be plunged in some abstruse study, taking his daily ride or walk, but spending the rest of his hours in his library. To the world, and to that lesser one, their household, they were a model couple, dining together regularly, and appearing a little in society, but not much, on account of Lady Gernon's health--so it was said; but Sir Murray, at heart, looked upon wife and child with a hatred that was almost a loathing, and so Lady Gernon's return to convalescence was very slow.

Once--nay, many times--she had clung to her husband beseechingly, her eyes telling her prayer; but she had soon found that such efforts merely irritated him.

"Where is the cross?" he had asked her peevishly, and, upon her weak protest reaching his ears, he had laughed scornfully.

"Lady Gernon," he once said, "had you spoken to me on his behalf--had you told me of his strait--I would have placed thousands in your hands to relieve him. But you have made my life a curse to me."

"But have you no faith?--my words--my solemn a.s.severations of innocence," sobbed Lady Gernon.

"None!" he said, furiously--"none! I would not believe you were you dying. You have made me a madman, I believe; you have disgraced me in the eyes of the world; and I would have a divorce, but that I will not have the scandal renewed, and in the lips of every idler in the kingdom, the 'Great Lincolnshire Scandal' for a newspaper heading, and endless leading articles upon the gross immorality of the upper cla.s.ses. Once for all, let this rest. You have gained your t.i.tle, and you have _aided_--There, I will say no more; I will not descend to coa.r.s.eness. I was once a man of refinement, and, I believe, generous. Let the past be dead--dead between us for ever. It should have been dead now, but that you try to nurse it into life with your tears. Now leave me. You know my commands; I will have this subject brought up no more!"

"Murray Gernon," said Marion, sadly, "you are in a dream. Some day you will waken."

He did not reply, and she left the room.

As Lady Gernon's strength returned, she had, by slow degrees, taken to her old pursuit; and often she might be seen, basket in hand, laden with specimens, returning from some field or woodland ramble. But, so far, once, and once only, while alone, it had fallen to her lot to encounter Philip Norton, when he turned slowly out of the path, raised his hat, and was gone.

She stood as if unable to proceed for a few minutes, and then walked slowly on; but before night, Sir Murray Gernon knew of the encounter, and fed with it the smouldering fire of his jealousy.

He had not stooped to the meanness before, but now, telling himself it was his duty, he had her watched, finding in one of the servants a willing tool; but his news was always of the most meagre; and growing daily more morose, Sir Murray now gave way to a fresh belief--he felt sure that his wife corresponded with some one at the Hall. At one time he made up his mind to leave the neighbourhood--to return to Como; but he stubbornly decided to the contrary, thinking that it would turn attention to his family affairs. Then he decided to see "that unhappy woman at the Hall," as he termed her, and to enlighten her upon the state of affaire, while, if possible, he would secure her as his coadjutor. He even went so far, during one of Norton's absences, as to ride over; but he repented, and returned home more and more disposed for solitude and misery; for he had almost grown to love his sense of injury, pitying himself, and feeling that he was a martyr, seeing nothing but the past, believing nothing but the evidence of his own eyes, and resolutely shutting himself out from the happiness that might have been his portion.

Suspicion is a ravenous monster, devouring all before it. Matters the most ill-suited often become its food, as the simplest acts of the suspected are magnified into guilt. The feeling grew stronger and stronger every hour that he was being cleverly tricked; but though he waited day after day for the coming enlightenment, it came not.

It must be, then, by night that some arrangement or correspondence was made; and his brow grew blacker, and his head sank upon his breast, as he muttered the thought.

The months had glided by rapidly, when, one night, after a long, gloomy day, he retired to his bedroom--a different chamber to that he had before used--but not to sleep; for, throwing himself upon a low couch, he lay thinking of his present life, and asking his heart what was to be the end?--whether it was possible that a reconciliation would ever take place, and something, if not of happiness, of quiet esteem and smoothness of life-course return?

He could not conceive it possible; it seemed to him then that death alone could be the termination of such a state of being.

It was a gloomy introduction to his thoughts, that word death, and he frowned more heavily as it oppressed him. Should he die himself? The distance was but short, he knew, between here and eternity. But one step, and all would be over: the wretchedness and misery of his life, his torturing suspicions, the great mistake of the past, all swept away in an instant; but then afterwards?

He paused, shuddering, as standing upon the brink, he peered forward into that deep, dark, mysterious, impenetrable gulf of the unknown, shrinking from it, too, for his was not the bold, reckless, daring spirit for such a step. He knew it, too, and again began to find sympathy for himself, condoling and pitying, and telling himself that no man had ever before experienced such suffering as had fallen to his lot.

No, he ought not to die: the world at his age ought to be still bright and fair, and ready to offer some goal for his aimless life. He ought not to die, but--

The horrible thought that flashed across his brain made him get up and pace the room hastily, the cold, dank beads of fear gathering themselves upon his brow. He tried to chase out the thought; but he had brooded so long, had given way to such wild phantasms, that it seemed now as if some potent devil were at his ear, whispering temptation, and driving him to the committal of some horrible deed. So strong grew the feeling to his distempered imagination that he commenced muttering half aloud, as if in answer to dictation from an evil prompter.