Gathering up each broken thread. 
WHYTEHEAD.

‘Tom Madison is come back,’ said the Vicar, as he sat beside Fitzjocelyn’s couch, a day or two after Lord Ormersfield had gone to London.

‘Come back ­where has he been?’ exclaimed Louis.

‘There!’ said the Vicar, with a gesture of dismay; ’I forgot that you were to hear nothing of it!  However, I should think you were well enough to support the communication.’

‘What is it?’ cried Louis, the blood rushing into his cheeks so suddenly, that Mr. Holdsworth felt guilty of having disregarded the precautions that he had fancied exaggerated by the fond aunt.  ’Poor fellow ­he has not ­’ but, checking himself, he added, ’I am particularly anxious to hear of him.’

’I wish there were anything more gratifying to tell you; but he took the opportunity of the height of your illness to run away from his place, and has just been passed home to his parish.  After all your pains, it is very mortifying, but ­’

‘Pains!  Don’t you know how I neglected him latterly!’ said Louis.  ‘Poor fellow ­then ­’ but he stopped himself again, and added, ’You heard nothing of the grounds?’

‘They were not difficult to find,’ said Mr. Holdsworth.  ’It is the old story.  He was, as Mrs. Smith told me, ’a great trial’ ­more and more disposed to be saucy and disobedient, taking up with the most good-for-nothing boys in the town, haunting those Chartist lectures, and never coming home in proper time at night.  The very last evening, he had come in at eleven o’clock, and when his master rebuked him, came out with something about the rights of man.  He was sent to Little Northwold, about the middle of the day, to carry home some silver-handled knives of Mr. Calcott’s, and returned no more.  Smith fancied, at first, that he had made off with the plate, and set the police after him, but that proved to be an overhasty measure, for the parcel had been safely left.  However, Miss Faithfull’s servant found him frightening Mrs. Frost’s poor little kitchen-maid into fits, and the next day James Frost detected him lurking suspiciously about the garden here, and set Warren to warn him off ­’

Louis gave a kind of groan, and struck his hand against the couch in despair, then said, anxiously, ‘What then?’

’No more was heard of him, till yesterday the police passed him home to the Union as a vagabond.  He looks very ill and ragged; but he is in one of those sullen moods, when no one can get a word out of him.  Smith declines prosecuting for running away, being only too glad of the riddance on any terms; so there he is at his grandfather’s, ready for any sort of mischief.’

‘Mr. Holdsworth,’ said Louis, raising himself on his elbow, ’you are judging, like every one else, from appearances.  If I were at liberty to tell the whole, you would see what a noble nature it was that I trifled with; and they have been hounding ­Poor Tom! would it have been better for him that I had never seen him?  It is a fearful thing, this blind treading about among souls, not knowing whether one does good or harm!’

‘If you feel so,’ said Mr. Holdsworth, hoping to lead him from the unfortunate subject, ‘what must we do?’

’My position, if I live, seems to have as much power for evil, without the supernatural power for good.  Doing hastily, or leaving undone, are equally fatal!’

‘Nay, what hope can there be but in fear, and sense of responsibility?’

’I think not.  I do more mischief than those who do not go out of their way to think of the matter at all!’

‘Do you!’ said the Vicar, smiling.  ’At least, I know, for my own part, I prefer all the trouble and perplexity you give me, to a squire who would let me and my parish jog on our own way.’

‘I dare say young Brewster never spoilt a Tom Madison.’

’The sight of self indulgence spoils more than injudicious care does.  Besides, I look on these experiments as giving experience.’

‘Nice experience of my best efforts!’

‘Pardon me, Fitzjocelyn, have we seen your best?’

‘I hope you will!’ said Louis, vigorously.  ’And to begin, will you tell this poor boy to come to me?’

Mr. Holdsworth had an unmitigated sense of his own indiscretion, and not such a high one of Fitzjocelyn’s discretion as to make him think the interview sufficiently desirable for the culprit, to justify the possible mischief to the adviser, whose wisdom and folly were equally perplexing, and who would surely be either disappointed or deceived.  Dissuasions and arguments, however, failed; and Mrs. Frost, who was appealed to as a last resource, no sooner found that her patient’s heart was set on the meeting, than she consented, and persuaded Mr. Holdsworth that no harm would ensue equal to the evil of her boy lying there distressing himself.

Accordingly, in due time, Mr. Holdsworth admitted the lad, and, on a sign from Louis, shut himself out, leaving the runaway standing within the door, a monument of surly embarrassment.  Raising himself, Louis said, affectionately, ’Never mind, Tom, don’t you see how fast I am getting over it?’

The lad looked up, but apparently saw little such assurance in the thin pale cheeks, and feeble, recumbent form; for his face twitched all over, resumed the same sullen stolidity, and was bent down again.

‘Come near, Tom,’ continued Louis, with unabated kindness ­’come and sit down here.  I am afraid you have suffered a great deal,’ as the boy shambled with an awkward footsore gait.  ’It was a great pity you ran away.’

‘I couldn’t stay!’ burst out Tom, half crying.

‘Why not?’

‘Not to have that there cast in my teeth!’ he exclaimed, with blunt incivility.

‘Did any one reproach you?’ said Louis, anxiously.  ’I thought no one knew it but ourselves.’

‘You knew it, then, my Lord?’ asked Tom, staring.

‘I found out directly that there was no cement,’ said Louis.  ’I had suspected it before, and intended to examine whenever I had time.’

’Well!  I thought, when I came back, no one did seem to guess as ’twas all along of me!’ cried Tom.  ’So sure I thought you hadn’t known it, my Lord.  And you never said nothing, my Lord!’

’I trust not.  I would not consciously have accused you of what was quite as much my fault as yours.  That would not have been fair play.’

‘If I won’t give it to Bill Bettesworth!’ cried Tom.

‘What has he done?’

’Always telling me that gentlefolks hadn’t got no notion of fair play with the like of us, but held us like the dirt to be trampled on!  But there ­I’ll let him know ­’

‘Who is he?’

‘A young man what works with Mr. Smith,’ returned Tom, his sullenness having given place to a frank, open manner, such as any one but Louis would have deemed too free and ready.

‘Was he your great friend at Northwold?’

‘A chap must speak to some one,’ was Tom’s answer.

‘And what kind of a some one was he?’

’Why, he comes down Illershall way.  He knows a thing or two, and can go on like an orator or a play-book ­or like yourself, my Lord.’

‘Thank you.  I hope the thing or two were of the right sort.’

Tom looked sheepish.

’I heard something about bad companions.  I hope he was not one.  I ought to have come and visited you, Tom; I have been very sorry I did not.  You’d better let me hear all about it, for I fear there must have been worse scrapes than this of the stones.’

‘Worse!’ cried Tom ­’sure nothing could be worserer!’

‘I wish there were no evils worse than careless forgetfulness,’ said Louis.

‘I didn’t forget!’ said Tom.  ’I meant to have told you whenever you came to see me, but’ ­his eyes filled and his voice began to alter ­’you never came, and she at the Terrace wouldn’t look at me!  And Bill and the rest of them was always at me, asking when I expected my aristocrat, and jeering me ’cause I’d said you wasn’t like the rest of ’em.  So then I thought I’d have my liberty too, and show I didn’t care no more than they, and spite you all.’

’How little one thinks of the grievous harm a little selfish heedlessness may do!’ sighed Louis, half aloud.  ’If you had only looked to something better than me, Tom!  And so you ran into mischief?’

Half confession, half vindication ensued, and the poor fellow’s story was manifest enough.  His faults had been unsteadiness and misplaced independence rather than any of the more degrading stamp of evils.  The public-house had not been sought for liquor’s sake, but for that of the orator who inflamed the crude imaginations and aspirations that effervesced in the youth’s mind; and the rudely-exercised authority of master and foreman had only driven his fierce temper further astray.  With sense of right sufficient to be dissatisfied with himself, and taste and principle just enough developed to loathe the evils round him, hardened and soured by Louis’s neglect, and rendered discontented by Chartist preachers, he had come to long for any sort of change or break; and the tidings of the accident, coupled with the hard words which he knew himself to deserve but too well, had put the finishing stroke.

Hearing that the police were in pursuit of him, he had fancied it was on account of the harm done by his negligence.  ’I hid about for a day,’ he said:  ’somehow I felt as if I could not go far off, till I heard how you were, my Lord, and I’d made up my mind that as soon as ever I heard the first stroke of the bell, I’d go and find the police, and his Lordship might hang me, and glad!’

Louis was nearer a tear than a smile.

’Then Mr. Frost finds me, and was mad at me.  Nothing wasn’t bad enough for me, and he sets Mr. Warren to see me off, so I had nothing for it but to cut.’

‘What did you think of doing?’ sighed Louis.

’I made for the sea.  If I could have got to them places in the Indies, such as that Philip went to, as you reads about in the verse-book ­he as killed his wife and lost his son, and made friends with that there big rascal, and had the chest of gold ­’

‘Philip Mortham!  Were you going in search of buccaneers?’

’I don’t know, my Lord.  Once you told me of some English Sir, as kills the pirates, and is some sort of a king.  I thought, may be, now you’d tell me where they goes to dig for gold.’

‘Oh, Tom, Tom, what a mess I have made of your notions!’

‘Isn’t there no such place?’

‘It’s a bad business, and what can you want of it?’

’I want to get shut of them as orders one about here and there, with never a civil word.  Besides,’ looking down, ’there’s one I’d like to see live like a lady.’

‘Would that make her happier?’

’I’ll never see her put about, and slave and drudge, as poor mother did!’ exclaimed Tom.

‘That’s a better spirit than the mere dislike to a master,’ said Louis.  ‘What is life but obedience?’

’I’d obey fast enough, if folk would only speak like you do ­not drive one about like a dog, when one knows one is every bit as good as they.’

‘I’m sure I never knew that!’

Tom stared broadly.

‘I never saw the person who was not my superior,’ repeated Louis, quietly, and in full earnest.  ’Not that this would make rough words pleasanter, I suppose.  The only cure I could ever see for the ills of the world is, that each should heartily respect his neighbour.’

Paradoxes musingly uttered, and flying over his head, wore to Tom a natural and comfortable atmosphere; and the conversation proceeded.  Louis found that geography had been as much at fault as chronology, and that the runaway had found himself not at the sea, but at Illershall, where he had applied for work, and had taken a great fancy to Mr. Dobbs, but had been rejected for want of a character, since the good superintendent made it his rule to keep up a high standard among his men.  Wandering had succeeded, in which, moneyless, forlorn, and unable to find employment, he had been obliged to part with portions of his clothing to procure food; his strength began to give way, and he had been found by the police sleeping under a hedge; he was questioned, and sent home, crestfallen, sullen, and miserable, unwilling to stay at Marksedge, yet not knowing where to go.

His hankering was for Illershall, and Louis, thinking of the judicious care, the evening school, and the openings for promotion, decided at once that the experiment should be tried without loss of time.  He desired Tom to bring him ink and paper, and hastily wrote: 

’Dear Mr. Dobbs, ­You would do me a great kindness by employing this poor fellow, and bearing with him.  I have managed him very ill, but he would reward any care.  Have an eye to him, and put him in communication with the chaplain.  If you can take him, I will write more at length.  If you have heard of my accident, you will excuse more at present.

                            ’Yours very truly,
                                   ‘Fitzjocelyn.’

Then arose the question, how Tom was to get to Illershall.  He did not know; and Louis directed his search into the places where the loose money in his pocket might have been put.  When it was found, Tom scrupled at the proposed half-sovereign.  Three-and-fourpence would pay for his ticket.  ’You will want a supper and a bed.  Go respectably, Tom, and keep so.  It will be some consolation for the mischief I have done you!’

‘You done me harm!’ cried Tom.  ’Why, ’tis all along of you that I ain’t a regularly-built scamp!’

‘Very irregularly built, whatever you are!’ said Louis.  But I’ll tell you what you shall do for me,’ continued he, with anxious earnestness.  ’Do you know the hollow ash-tree that shades over Inglewood stile?  It has a stout sucker, with a honeysuckle grown into it ­coming up among the moss, where the great white vase-shaped funguses grew up in the autumn.’

‘I know him, my Lord,’ said Tom, brightening at the detail, given with all a sick man’s vivid remembrance of the out-of-doors world.

’I have fixed my mind on that stick!  I think it has a bend at the root.  Will you cut it for me, and trim it up for a walking-stick?’

‘That I will, my Lord!’

’Thank you.  Bring it up to me between seven and eight in the morning, if you please; and so I shall see you again ­’

Mr. Holdsworth was already entering to close the conversation, which had been already over-long and exciting, for Louis, sinking back, mournfully exclaimed, ’The medley of that poor boy’s mind is the worst of my pieces of work.  I have made him too refined for one class, and left him too rough for another ­discontented with his station, and too desultory and insubordinate to rise, nobleness of nature turning to arrogance, fact and fiction all mixed up together.  It would be a study, if one was not so sorry!’

Nevertheless, Mr. Holdsworth could not understand how even Fitzjocelyn could have given the lad a recommendation, and he would have remonstrated, but that the long interview had already been sufficiently trying; so he did his best to have faith in his eccentric friend’s good intentions.

In the early morning, Tom Madison made his appearance, in his best clothes, erect and open-faced, a strong contrast to the jaded, downcast being who had yesterday presented himself.  The stick was prepared to perfection, and Louis acknowledged it with gratitude proportioned to the fancies that he had spent on it, poising it, feeling the cool grey bark, and raising himself in bed to try how he should lean on it.  ’Hang it up there, Tom, within my reach.  It seems like a beginning of independence.’

‘I wish, my Lord,’ blurted out Tom, in agitation, ’you’d tell me if you’re to go lame for life, and then I should know the worst of it.’

‘I suspect no one knows either the worst or the best,’ said Louis, kindly.  ’Since the pain has gone off, I have been content, and asked no questions.  Mr. Walby says my ankle is going on so well, that it is a real picture, and a pleasure to touch it; and though I can’t say the pleasure is mutual, I ought to be satisfied.’

‘You’ll only laugh at me!’ half sobbed Tom, ’and if there was but anything I could do!  I’ve wished my own legs was cut off ­and serve me right ­ever since I seen you lying there.’

’Thank you; I’m afraid they would have been no use to me!  But, seriously, if I had been moderately prudent, it would not have happened.  And as it is, I hope I shall be glad of that roll in Ferny dell to the end of my life.’

‘I did go to see after mending them stones!’ cried Tom, as if injured by losing this one compensation; ’but they are all done up, and there ain’t nothing to do to them.’

’Look here, Tom:  if you want to do anything for me, it is easily told, what would be the greatest boon to me.  They tell me I’ve spoilt you, and I partly believe it, for I put more of my own fancies into you than of real good, and the way I treated you made you impatient of control:  and then, because I could not keep you on as I should have wished, ­as, unluckily, you and I were not made to live together on a desert island, ­I left you without the little help I might have given.  Now, Tom, if you go to the bad, I shall know it is all my fault ­’

‘That it ain’t,’ the boy tried to say, eagerly, but Louis went on.

’Don’t let my bad management be the ruin of you.  Take a turn from this moment.  You know Who can help you, and Who, if you had thought of Him, would have kept you straight when I forgot.  Put all the stuff out of your head about one man being equal to another.  Equal they are; but some have the trial of ruling, others of obeying, and the last are the lucky ones.  If we could only see their souls, we should know it.  You’ll find evening schools and lectures at Illershall; you’d better take to them, for you’ve more real liking for that sort of thing than for mischief; and if you finished up your education, you’d get into a line that would make you happier, and where you might do much good.  There ­promise me that you’ll think of these things, and take heed to your Sundays.’

‘I promise,’ said Tom.

’And mind you write to me, Tom, and tell how you get on.  I’ll write, and let you know about your grandfather, and Marksedge news and all ­’

The ‘Thank you, my Lord,’ came with great pleasure and alacrity.

’Some day, when you are a foreman, perhaps I may bring Miss Clara to see copper-smelting.  Only mind, that you’ll never go on soundly, nor even be fit to make your pretty tidy nest for any gentle bird, unless you mind one thing most of all; and that is, that we have had a new Life given us, and we have to begin now, and live it for ever and ever.’

As he raised himself, holding out his pale, slender hand from his white sleeve, his clear blue eyes earnestly fixed on the sky, his face all one onward look, something of that sense of the unseen passed into the confused, turbulent spirit of the boy, very susceptible of poetical impressions, and his young lord’s countenance connected itself with all the floating notions left in his mind by parable or allegory.  He did not speak, as Louis heartily shook his hardy red hand, and bade him good speed, but his bow and pulled forelock at the door had in them more of real reverence than of conventional courtesy.

Of tastes and perceptions above his breeding, the very sense of his own deficiencies had made him still more rugged and clownish, and removed him from the sympathies of his own class, while he almost idolized the two most refined beings whom he knew, Lord Fitzjocelyn and Charlotte Arnold.  On an interview with her, his heart was set.  He had taken leave of his half-childish grandfather, made up his bundle, and marched into Northwold, with three hours still to spare ere the starting of the parliamentary train.  Sympathy, hope, resolution, and the sense of respectability had made another man of him; and, above all, he dwelt on the prospect held out of repairing the deficiencies of his learning.  The consciousness of ignorance and awkwardness was very painful, and he longed to rub it off, and take the place for which he felt his powers.  ‘I will work!’ thought he; ’I have a will to it, and, please God, when I come back next, it won’t be as a rough, ignorant lout that I’ll stand before Charlotte!’

‘Louis,’ said Mary Ponsonby, as she sat at work beside him that afternoon, after an expedition to the new house at Dynevor Terrace, ’I want to know, if you please, how you have been acting like a gentleman.’

‘I did not know that I had been acting at all of late.’

’I could not help hearing something in Aunt Catharine’s garden that has made me very curious.’

‘Ha!’ cried Louis, eagerly.

’I was sowing some annuals in our back garden, and heard voices through the trellis.  Presently I heard, quite loud, ’My young Lord has behaved like a real gentleman, as he is, and no mistake, or I’d never have been here now.’  And, presently, ’I’ve promised him, and I promise you, Charlotte, to keep my Church, and have no more to do with them things.  I’ll keep it as sacred as they keeps the Temperance pledge; for sure I’m bound to him, as he forgave me, and kept my secret as if I’d been his own brother:  and when I’ve proved it, won’t that satisfy you, Charlotte?’

‘And what did Charlotte say?’

’I think she was crying; but I thought listening any more would be unfair, so I ran upstairs and threw up the drawing-room window to warn them.’

‘Oh, Mary, how unfeeling!’

‘I thought it could be doing no good!’

’That is so like prudent people, who can allow no true love under five hundred pounds a year!  Did you see them?  How did they look?’

’Charlotte was standing in an attitude, her hands clasped over her broom.  The gentleman was a country-looking boy ­’

’Bearing himself like a sensible, pugnacious cock-robin?  Poor fellow, so you marred their parting.’

’Charlotte flew into the house, and the boy walked off up the garden.  Was he your Madison, Louis? for I thought my aunt did not think it right to encourage him about her house.’

’And so he is to be thwarted in what would best raise and refine him.  That great, bright leading star of a well-placed affection is not to be allowed to help him through all the storms and quicksands in his way.’

Good Mary might well open her eyes, but, pondering a little, she said, ’He need not leave off liking Charlotte, if that is to do him good; but I suppose the question is, what is safest for her?’

‘Well, he is safe enough.  He is gone to Illershall to earn her.’

’Oh! then I don’t care!  But you have not answered me, and I think I can guess the boy’s secret that you have been keeping.  Did you not once tell me that you trusted those stones in Ferny dell to him?’

‘Now, Mary, you must keep his secret!’

’But why was it made one?  Did you think it unkind to say that it was his fault?’

’Of course I did.  When I thought it was all over with me, I could not go and charge the poor fellow with it, so as to make him a marked man.  I was only afraid that thinking so often of stopping myself, I should bring it out by mistake.’

Mary looked down, and thought; then raised her eyes suddenly, and said, as if surprised, ‘That was really very noble in you, Louis!’ Then, thinking on, she said, ‘But how few people would think it worth while!’

‘Yes,’ said Louis; ’but I had a real regard for this poor fellow, and an instinct, perhaps perverse, of shielding him; so I could not accuse him on my own account.  Besides, I believe I am far more guilty towards him.  His neglect only hurt my ankle ­my neglect left him to fall into temptation.’

‘Yet, by the way he talks of you ­’

’Yes, he has the sort of generous disposition on which a little delicacy makes a thousand times more impression than a whole pile of benefits I hope and trust that he is going to repair all that is past.  I wish I could make out whether good intentions overrule errors in detail, or only make them more fatal.’

Mary was glad to reason out the question.  Abstract practical views interested her, and she had much depth and observation, more original than if she had read more and thought less.  Of course, no conclusion was arrived at; but the two cousins had an argument of much enjoyment and some advantage to both.

Affairs glided on quietly till the Saturday, when Lord Ormersfield returned.  Never had he so truly known what it was to come home as when he mounted the stairs, with steps unlike his usual measured tread, and beheld his son’s look of animated welcome, and eager, outstretched hands.

‘I was afraid,’ said the Earl, presently, ’that you had not felt so well,’ and he touched his own upper lip to indicate that the same feature in his son was covered with down like a young bird.

Louis blushed a little, but spoke indifferently.  ’I thought it a pity not to leave it for the regulation moustache for the Yeomanry.’

‘I wish I could think you likely to be fit to go out with the Yeomanry.’

‘Every effort must be made!’ cried Louis.  ’What do they say in London about the invasion?’

It was the year 1847, when a French invasion was in every one’s mouth, and Sydney Calcott had been retailing all sorts of facts about war-steamers and artillery, in a visit to Fitzjocelyn, whose patriotism had forthwith run mad, so that he looked quite baffled when his father coolly set the whole down as ‘the regular ten years’ panic.’  There was a fervid glow within him of awe, courage, and enterprise, the outward symbol of which was that infant yellow moustache.  He was obliged, however, to allow the subject to be dismissed, while his father told him of Sir Miles Oakstead’s kind inquiries, and gave a message of greeting from his aunt Lady Conway, delivering himself of it as an unpleasant duty, and adding, as he turned to Mrs. Ponsonby, ’She desired to be remembered to you, Mary.’

‘I have not seen her for many years.  Is Sir Walter alive?’

‘No; he died about three years ago.’

‘I suppose her daughters are not come out yet?’

’Her own are in the school-room; but there is a step-daughter who is much admired.’

‘Those cousins of mine,’ exclaimed Louis, ’it is strange that I have never seen them.  I think I had better employ some of my spare time this summer in making their acquaintance.’

Mrs. Ponsonby perceived that the Earl had become inspired with a deadly terror of the handsome stepdaughter; for he turned aside and began to unpack a parcel.  It was M’Culloch’s Natural Theology, into which Louis had once dipped at Mr. Calcott’s, and had expressed a wish to read it.  His father had taken some pains to procure this too-scarce book for him, and he seized on it with delighted and surprised gratitude, plunging at once into the middle, and reading aloud a most eloquent passage upon electricity.  No beauty, however, could atone to Lord Ormersfield for the outrage upon method.  ’If you would oblige me, Louis,’ he said, ‘you would read that book consecutively.’

‘To oblige you, certainly,’ said Louis, smiling, and turning to the first page, but his vivacious eagerness was extinguished.

M’Culloch is not an author to be thoroughly read without a strong effort.  His gems are of the purest ray, but they lie embedded in a hard crust of reasoning and disquisition; and on the first morning, Louis, barely strong enough yet for a battle with his own volatility, looked, and owned himself, dead beat by the first chapter.

Mary took pity on him.  She had been much interested by his account of the work, and would be delighted if he would read it with her.  He brightened at once, and the regular habit began, greatly to their mutual enjoyment.  Mary liked the argument, Louis liked explaining it; and the flood of allusions was delightful to both, with his richness of illustration, and Mary’s actual experience of ocean and mountains.  She brought him whatever books he wanted, and from the benevolent view of entertaining him while a prisoner, came to be more interested than her mother had ever expected to see her in anything literary.  It was amusing to see the two cousins unconsciously educating each other ­the one learning expansion, the other concentration, of mind.  Mary could now thoroughly trust Louis’s goodness, and therefore began by bearing with his vagaries, and gradually tracing the grain of wisdom that was usually at their root; and her eyes were opened to new worlds, where all was not evil or uninteresting that Aunt Melicent distrusted.  Louis made her teach him Spanish; and his insight into grammar and keen delight in the majestic language and rich literature infected her, while he was amused by her positive distaste to anything incomplete, and playfully, though half murmuringly, submitted to his ’good governess,’ and let her keep him in excellent order.  She knew where all his property was, and, in her quaint, straightforward way, would refuse to give him whatever ‘was not good for him.’

It was all to oblige Mary that, when he could sit up and use pen and pencil, he set to work to finish his cottage plans, and soon drew and talked himself into a vehement condition about Marksedge.  Mary’s patronage drew on the work, even to hasty learning of perspective enough for a pretty elevation intelligible to the unlearned, and a hopeless calculation of the expense.

The plans lay on the table when next his father came home, and their interest was explained.

‘Did you draw all these yourself?’ exclaimed the Earl.  ’Where did you learn architectural drawing?  I should have thought them done by a professional hand.’

‘It is easy enough to get it up from books,’ said Louis; ’and Mary kept me to the point, in case you should be willing to consider the matter.  I would have written out the estimate; but this book allows for bricks, and we could use the stone at Inglewood more cheaply, to say nothing of beauty.’

‘Well,’ said Lord Ormersfield, considering, ’you have every right to have a voice in the management of the property.  I should like to hear your views with regard to these cottages.’

Colouring deeply, and with earnest thanks, Fitzjocelyn stated the injury both to labourers and employers, caused by their distance from their work; he explained where he thought the buildings ought to stand, and was even guarded enough to show that the rents would justify the outlay.  He had considered the matter so much, that he could even have encountered Richardson; and his father was only afraid that what was so plausible must be insecure.  Caution contended with a real desire to gratify his son, and to find him in the right.  He must know the wishes of the farmer, be sure of the cost, and be certain of the spot intended.  His crippled means had estranged him from duties that he could not fulfil according to his wishes, and, though not a hard landlord, he had no intercourse with his tenants, took little interest in his estate, and was such a stranger to the localities, that Louis could not make him understand the nook selected for the buildings.  He had seen the arable field called ‘Great Courtiers,’ and the farm called ‘Small Profits,’ on the map, but did not know their ups and downs much better than the coast of China.

‘Mary knows them!’ said Louis.  ’She made all my measurements there, before I planned the gardens.’

‘Mary seems to be a good friend to your designs,’ said the Earl, looking kindly at her.

‘The best!’ said Louis.  ’I begin to have some hope of my doings when I see her take them in hand.’

Lord Ormersfield thanked Mary, and asked whether it would be trespassing too much on her kindness to ask her to show him the place in question.  She was delighted, and they set out at once, the Earl almost overpowering her by his exceeding graciousness, so that she was nearly ready to laugh when he complimented her on knowing her way through the bye-paths of his own park so much better than he did.  ’It is a great pleasure to me that you can feel it something like home,’ he said.

‘I was so happy here as a child,’ said Mary, heartily, ’that it must seem to me more of a home than any other place.’

‘I hope it may always be so, my dear.’

He checked himself, as if he had been about to speak even more warmly; and Mary did the honours of the proposed site for the cottages, a waste strip fronting a parish lane, open to the south, and looking full of capabilities, all of which she pointed out after Louis’s well-learned lesson, as eagerly as if it had been her own affair.

Lord Ormersfield gave due force to all, but still was prudent.  ’I must find out,’ he said, ’whether this place be in my hands, or included in Morris’s lease.  You see, Mary, this is an encumbered property, with every disadvantage, so that I cannot always act as you and Louis would wish; but we so far see our way out of our difficulties, that, if guided by good sense, he will be able to effect far more than I have ever done.’

‘I believe,’ was Mary’s answer, ’this green is in the farmer’s hands, but that he has no use for it.’

’I should like to be certain of his wishes.  Farmers are so unwilling to increase the rates, that I should not like to consent till I know that it would be really a convenience to him.’

Mary suggested that there stood the farmhouse; and the Earl apologetically asked if she would dislike their proceeding thither, as he would not detain her long.  She eagerly declared that Louis would be ‘so glad,’ and Lord Ormersfield turned his steps to the door, where he had only been once in his life, when he was a very young man, trying to like shooting.

The round-eyed little maid would say nothing but ‘Walk in, sir,’ in answer to inquiries if Mr. Norris were at home; and they walked into a parlour, chill with closed windows, and as stiff and fine as the lilac streamers of the cap that Mrs. Norris had just put on for their reception.  Nevertheless, she was a sensible, well-mannered woman, and after explaining that her husband was close at hand, showed genuine warmth and interest in inquiring for Lord Fitzjocelyn.  As the conversation began to flag, Mary had recourse to admiring a handsome silver tankard on a side table.  It was the prize of a ploughing-match eight years ago, and brought out a story that evidently always went with it, how Mrs. Norris had been unwell and stayed at home, and had first heard of her husband’s triumph by seeing the young Lord galloping headlong up the homefield, hurraing, and waving his cap.  He had taken his pony the instant he heard the decision, and rushed off to be the first to bring the news to Mrs. Norris, wild with the honour of Small Profits.  ‘And,’ said the farmer’s wife, ’I always say Norris was as pleased with what I told him, as I was with the tankard!’

Norris here came in, an unpretending, quiet man, of the modern, intelligent race of farmers.  There was anxiety at first in his eye, but it cleared off as he heard the cause of his landlord’s visit, and he was as propitious as any cautious farmer could be.  He was strong on the present inconveniences, and agreed that it would be a great boon to have a few families brought back, such as were steady, and would not burden the rates; but the few recurred so often as to show that he was afraid of a general migration of Marksedge.  Lord Ormersfield thereupon promised that he should be consulted as to the individuals.

’Thank you, my Lord.  There are some families at Marksedge that one would not wish to see nearer here; and I’ll not say but I should like to have a voice in the matter, for they are apt to take advantage of Lord Fitzjocelyn’s kindness.’

’I quite understand you.  Nothing can be more reasonable.  I only acted because my son was persuaded it was your wish.’

’It is so, my Lord.  I am greatly obliged.  He has often talked of it with me, and I had mentioned the matter to Mr. Richardson, but he thought your lordship would be averse to doing anything.’

‘I have not been able to do all I could have wished,’ said the Earl.  ’My son will have it in his power to turn more attention to the property.’

And he is a thorough farmer’s friend, as they all say,’ earnestly exclaimed Norris, with warmth breaking through the civil formal manner.

‘True,’ said Lord Ormersfield, gratified; ’he is very much attached to the place, and all connected with it.’

‘I’m sure they’re the same to him,’ replied the farmer.  ’As an instance, my Lord, you’ll excuse it ­do you see that boy driving in the cows?  You would not look for much from him.  Well, the morning the doctor from London came down, that boy came to his work, crying so that I thought he was ill.  ‘No, master,’ said he, ’but what’ll ever become of us when we’ve lost my young Lord?’ And he burst out again, fit to break his heart.  I told him I was sorry enough myself, but to go to his work, for crying would do no good.  ‘I can’t help it, master,’ says he, ’when I looks at the pigs.  Didn’t he find ’em all in the park, and me nutting ­and helped me his own self to drive ’em out before Mr. Warren see ’em, and lifted the little pigs over the gap as tender as if they were Christians?’

‘Yes, that’s the way with them all,’ interposed Mrs. Norris:  ’he has the good word of high and low.’

Lord Ormersfield smiled:  he smiled better than he used to do, and took leave.

‘Fitzjocelyn will be a popular man,’ he said.

Mary could not help being diverted at this moral deduced from the pig-story.  ‘Every one is fond of him,’ was all she said.

‘Talent and popularity,’ continued the Earl.  ’He will have great influence.  The free, prepossessing manner is a great advantage, where it is so natural and devoid of effort.’

‘It comes of his loving every one,’ said Mary, almost indignantly.

‘It is a decided advantage,’ continued the Earl, complacently.  ’I have no doubt but that he has every endowment requisite for success.  You and your mother have done much in developing his character, my dear; and I see every reason to hope that the same influence continued will produce the most beneficial results.’

Mary thought this a magnificent compliment, even considering that no one but her mamma had succeeded in teaching Louis to read when a little boy, or in making him persevere in anything now:  but then, when Lord Ormersfield did pay a compliment, it was always in the style of Louis XIV.