University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

It was the morning of the first of May,
that merriest morning of the year, in the
old days of merry England; and never did
a brighter dawning illuminate a fairer
landscape, than that wherein the incidents
occurred, which form the basis of one of
those true tales that prove how much there
is of wild and strange romance even in the
most domestic circles of existence.

The landscape was a portion of the western
slope of a broad English valley, diversified
with meadow-land and pasture, and
many a field of green luxuriant wheat, and
shadowy woods, and bosky dells and dingles;
and with a clear, bright, shallow
river rippling along its pebbly channel, at
the base of the soft hills, which swept
down to its flowery marge in gentle loveliness.

The foreground of the picture, for it was
one indeed, on the left hand side, was made
up of a thick mass of orchards, and beyond
these by a clump of towering lindens,
above which might be seen the arrowy
spire of a village church, piercing the cool
air with its gilded vane and weathercock—
the river sweeping round and half enclosing
the garden grounds, and cottages seen
among the shrubbery, in a blue glancing
reach spanned by a three-arched bridge of
old red brick, all overrun with ivy. Close
to the bridge, but on the west side of the
stream, lay a large tract of open common,
carpeted with rich short greensward,
whereon a thousand fairly rings were visible,
and sprinkled with all the bright wild
flowers of the early spring. A winding
road of yellow sand traversed the varied
surface of the waste, which was much broken
up by hillocks and deep hollows, alternating
clear sunny lights with cool blue
shadows; and, after crossing the river by
the old bridge, was lost for a little while
among the orchards of the village, till it
again reappeared, near the centre of the
middle distance, above the fringe of willow,
birch, and alder bushes, which skirted all
the eastern margin of the river. Beyond
this screen of coppice, the view extended
upward for nearly a mile in distance, over
a beautiful park-like lawn, dotted with
clumps of noble trees, and enclosed on
every side by woods of tall dark oak.

A large white gate gave access to this
fair demesne, with a snug porter's lodgenestled
into a shady covert close beside it;
and at the very crown of the slope, overlooking
all the broad and fertile vale, stood
a large mansion of red brick, built in the
quaint architecture of the Elizabethan era,
with large projecting oriels and tall clustered
chimneys, and a wide free-stone terrace,
bedecked with urns and balustrades, in
front; the dwelling evidently of the lord
of that fair manor. To the right of the
woods, which skirted that side of the park,
lay an abrupt ravine, through which a
brawling trout stream made its way down,
among large blocks of limestone, and under
tangled covert, to join the river in the valley.
Beyond this gorge, the sides of which
were feathered thick with yew, and box,
and juniper, rose a broad barren hill,
crowned by the gray and weather-beaten
keep of an old Norman castle, frowning in
dark sublimity over the cultured fields,

whose fruits its lords of old had reaped,
won by the mortal sword—and beyond this
a range of purple moors towered, summit
over summit, till they were lost at length
in the gray mists of the horizon.

It was, as has seen said, the early dawning
of the sweet first of May—so early that
the sun had not yet reared the whole of his
red disc above the eastern hills, but half
emerged was checkering all the slopes and
the level meadows at the bottom of the
valley with lengthened streams of ruddy
lustre, and casting long clear shadows
from every tree or bush or stone that met
its rays. Yet, early as it was, the village
was alive with merriment and bustle. A
joyous peal was chiming from the bells
of the tall steeple, while a May-pole that
almost vied in height with the neighboring
spire, was planted on the common by the
waterside, where the ground lay most level
to the sunshine, and where the greensward
grew the mossiest and softest to the
tread. The whole waste had was covered
with glad groups of peasantry, all in their
holyday attire, speeding toward the rendezyous,
beneath a huge gnarled hawthorn,
which had beheld the sports of their grandsires,
now white as if a sudden snow storm
had powdered its dense foliage with the
sweet blossoms that derive their name
from the delicious month which witnesses
their birth—the sandy road, too, and the
bridge were glistening with moving parties;
while the shrill merry laugh of girls,
and the yet shriller whoop of childhood,
came frequent on the ear from many a sequestered
spot among the budding orchards
—nor did the rugged castle hill display no
joyous company; for there, and through
the dim-wood glen, and over the old turn-style,
and through the park itself, the happy
yeomanry came flocking to celebrate
their feast of flowers.

Just at this moment the park gates were
suddenly thrown open, and a young man
rode out into the sandy road, accompanied
by several dogs, and followed by three
serving men—two mounted and the third
on foot—and taking the downward track,
to the left hand toward the village and the
bridge, was quickly lost to view behind
the willows on the river bank. As he appeared,
however, even at that distance,
both by his dress and air to be a person of
superior rank to any of the groups around,
and as I shall have much to do with him in
the course of my narrative, I shall attach
myself to him during his ride from the manor
gates to the meadow of the May-pole.

He was a young and extremely handsome
person, well formed and tall, and giving
promise of great future strength, when
his slender and almost boyish frame should
be developed to its full proportions; for he
was, in years, all but a boy, having on that
very morning attained to his majority, and
the possession of the fine demesnes, and
ample fortune, which now called him master.
His hair was long and slightly curled,
of a deep rich chestnut color; and notwithstanding
that it was the fashion of that day,
even for the young and comely, to cover
the whole head with a disfiguring mass of
flowing powdered horse-hair, under the
title of a periwig, he wore his locks all
natural and undisguised; and well they
harmonized with the fine coloring and noble
outlines of his well marked frank features,
sparkling as they were on that bright
happy morning with gratified ambition,
and high hope, and all the bounding energies
of prosperous unbroken manhood.

There were, it is true, some indications
—which would not easily be missed by an
experienced physiognomist—that told of
strong and fiery passions concealed beneath
that bold and beautiful exterior—
there was a quick and hasty sparkle in the
fine open eye, which indicated a temperament
prone to blaze out, at any check to its
desires, into fierce bursts of angry vehemence—there
were deep lines for one so
young about the mouth and nostrils, that
clearly spoke of latent but indomitable
pride; and something, too, of the existence
of many a voluptuous feeling, ready
to spring up giants from their birth, when
any chance occurrence should kindle them
to sudden life; still, in despite these drawbacks

to his beauty, for such in truth they
were, he could not fail to be pronounced,
and that too in the highest sense of the
term, a fine and noble looking man. He
was dressed, too, in the rich fashion of the
day, with a low crowned and broad brimmed
beaver, decked by a hat hand set about
with short white ostrich feathers—his coat
of grass green velvet, ornamented by a
slight cord of gold, sat closely on his graceful
form; while breeches of white doeskin,
with heavy hunting boots and massive silver
spurs, completed his attire; a light couteau
de chasse hanging at his side, being
carried rather as an indication of the wearer's
rank, than as a weapon of defence;
which, in the settled and peaceful state of
England at that moment, was almost as
unnecessary as at the present day.

The dogs, which ran beside his stirrup,
were six or eight in number, and noble
specimens of several choice and favorite
breeds. There was the tall lithe English
bloodhound, with his sleek tawny hide, his
pendulous ears, and coal black muzzle;
there were two fleet and graceful greyhounds,
one white as snow, the other black
as the raven's wing, with their elastic
limbs and airy gait; there were a leash
of King Charles' spaniels, beautiful silky
creatures, with ears that swept the dew;
and last, though not least in the owner's
estimation, a savage-looking, wire-haired
Scotch terrier, with shaggy jaws, and keen
intelligent expression, though many a scar,
of wounds inflicted in desperate encounters
with the hill-fox or prowling wild-cat,
seamed his rough grizzly face.

The male attendants of the young gentlemen
were three, as I have said, in number;
one a gray-headed, venerable-looking
man, dressed in a suit of plain snuff-colored
clothes, and mounted on a strong brown cob,
which set off admirably, by the contrast,
the fine points and superb condition of the
splendid hunter which carried the young
lord of the manor. This aged man, who
was, indeed, the steward, who had lived on
the property in the time of this youth's father,
and to whose care and faithful man
agement much of the present wealth of the
estate might be attributed, rode not exactly
abreast of his master, nor yet entirely
behind him, but so that while preserving a
respectful distance, to show that he laid
claim to no standing of equality, he was
still near enough to maintain, without any
inconvenience, whatever conversation it
might please the younger man to originate.

On the other side, among the dogs,
which looked up to him from time to time
with a very evident mixture of fear and
affection in their features, strode along a
well-built sturdy fellow of some eight-and-twenty
or thirty years, standing some six
feet in his stockings, and powerful in due
proportion to his height. This man, who
was dressed as a gamekeeper or forester,
with leather buskins on his legs, and a
short musquetoon or carabine in his hand,
was what would be generally called good-looking,
by those at least who, in the habit
of regarding the mere animal qualities of
humanity, neglect the nobler characteristics
of intellectual beauty—for he was
dark-haired and fresh complexioned, with a
full bright eye and prominent features.
There was a strong resemblance, moreover,
in all his lineaments to the calm and
serene face of the old steward; but it was
in the outlines only, and, even of these,
one of the most remarkable in the father
was wholly wanting to the son—for such,
indeed, was their relationship—namely, the
ample and majestic forehead; which striking
feature was changed in the younger
man for a low and receding brow, giving a
mean and vulgar expression to the whole
countenance, which was, moreover, of a
dogged and sullen cast, with large thick
sensual lips, heavy and massive jaws, and
all the animal portions of the head unusually
and ungracefully developed. This
unprepossessing face, for such indeed it
was, gloomy and lowering, unless when it
was lighted up by a smile even more inauspicious
than the darkness it relieved,
flashed out at times under that brief illumination
with a shrewd gleam, half cuning,

half malignant, which rendered it,
nor the moment, almost fearful to behold.

The third person was an ordinary groom,
in a blue coat with a livery badge on his
farm, carrying pistols at his holsters, and a
heavy hunting whip in his right hand.

Such was the little party which rode
down from the manor gate toward the village-green,
on that May morning, amidst
the loud and hearty congratulations of
every rustic group they passed on their
way—the honest heart of every jolly yeoman
expanding, as he welcomed to his new
possessions the young man, who had dwelt
among them when a gay and thoughtless
boy, and won affections which had still remained
unchanged throughout his absence
from the home of his fathers, during his
education at school and college, or, in vacation
time, at the distant mansions of his
guardians.

It did not take the horsemen long, although
the heir paused several times for a
moment or two to converse cheerily with
some of the older farmers, whom he remembered
to have been kind to him when
a child, or with some of the stalwart striplings
with whom he had fished, or bird-nested,
or ferreted wild rabbits, as companions
in the blithe days of boyhood—it
did not take the horsemen long to thread
the windings of the sandy road, to cross
the old brick bridge, and reach the beautiful
green meadow, where the tall May-pole
stood, as it had stood for ages, surrounded
by a merry concourse, engaged in
decking it with clusters of the flowery
hawthorn, and garlands of a thousand dewy
blossoms. While one bold boy, who had
climbed to the summit of the dizzy mast,
was hoisting up a hollow globe composed
of many intersecting hoops, all bound with
wreaths of eglantine, and hawthorn, and
wild roses, with flaunting streamers and
bright ribbons of every hue under the sun,
to crown the flower-girt fabric, another
group was busied, as the horsemen wheeled
from the high road into the velvet green,
in piling up a rustic throne beneath the
aged hawthorn, composed of turf bedecked
with crocuses and violets, and the sweet
cuckoo buds, and briony, and bright marsh
marigolds from the stream's verge, and
water-lilies from its stiller reaches, and
buttercups and daisies from the meadows.

All ceased, however, instantly from their
slight labors as the young gentleman rode
forward at a slow pace, his progress actually
hindered by the pressure of the people,
crowding up to greet their honored landlord;
and a loud ringing shout, echoed
back many times by each projecting hill
through the long valley, spoke, and for
once sincerely, more of heart-love than of
lip-loyalty.

A brilliant flush of pleasure suffused his
cheeks, and his eyes sparkled with excitement,
as he doffed his plumed hat and
bowed repeatedly to his assembled tenantry.
He said, however, nothing in reply
to their tumultuous cheering, until the old
steward pricking his cob gently with the
spur, rode up unbidden to his master's side,
and whispered in his ear—

“Speak to them—speak to them, Sir
Edward—for they expect it; and will set
it down to pride, it may be, if you do not.
Speak to them, if it be only twenty
words.”

“Not I, faith!” said the young heir,
laughing; “I should stop short for very
bashfulness before I had got ten words out,
let alone twenty. But tell them, good
Adam”—

No! no! Sir Edward”—the old man interrupted
him, “you must, so please you,
be guided for this once by your old servant;
your father was a favorite with them always;
and so were you, God bless you!
while you were but a little boy; and, take
my word for it, you shall gain more of good
will, and of general favor, by speaking to
them frankly for five minutes, than by distributing
five hundred pounds.”

“Well, if it must be so, old Adam, I
suppose it must,” returned the other, “but,
by my honor, I had rather scatter the five
hundred pounds, you talk about, among
them.”

Then drawing himself up in his saddle,

without a moment's thought or preparation,
he once more doffed his hat, and addressed
himself in clear and well enunciated words,
although his tones at first were somewhat
low, and his manner flurried, to the yeomanry,
who stood around in silent and attentive
admiration. As he went on, however,
and gradually became accustomed to
the sound of his own voice, that voice grew
stronger, clearer, more sonorous, and his
air less embarrassed, till at length, before
he had been speaking quite five minutes,
his notes were even, and sustained, flowing
into the ear like a continued strain of silvery
music.

“I thank you, my good friends,” he said,
“I thank you, from the bottom of my soul,
for this, your frank and warm-hearted reception,
and, when I say I thank you, I
would not have you fancy that I am using
a mere word, an empty form of speech,
filling the ear indeed, signifying nothing.
No, my good friends and neighbors, when
I say here, I thank you, I mean in truth
that my heart is full of gratitude toward
you, and that it is my full and resolute intention,
to prove that gratitude by my
deeds to be done among you. I am a very
young man yet, as you all know—and, of
the few years which have hitherto been
mine, the most have been passed at a distance
from you. Many of you, whom I see
round about, remember well my birth and
boyhood; as I remember many, whom I
look upon, for their frank, manly kindness
toward a wayward schoolboy; but as I said
even now, I have hitherto lived afar from you,
and you know nothing of my heart or habits;
and therefore, though I feel that your welcome
is sincere, your gratulations honest,
I am not such a fool of vanity, as to suppose
all this affection and respectful greeting
to be won from you by any merits of
my own. Oh! no, my friends, I know
it is the legacy, the precious legacy of your
esteem and love! left to me by the virtues
of a father, a grandfather, a race who have
lived here in the midst of you, for ages,
doing good, and receiving ample payment in
looking on a free, a prosperous, and a grate
ful people. My heart then would be dull,
indeed, and senseless, if I did not appreciate
the richest legacy of all, which they have
left me, in your hereditary love—my mind
must be brutish and irrational, if, in perceiving
and appreciating this, I did not perceive,
also, how I must merit your affection
—how I must make it my own absolute
possession, even as it was my father's—
how I must leave it to my children, after
me—if it please God, in his wisdom, through
me to continue our line. My friends, I
do perceive it! I have come hither to-day, to
live among you, as my fathers did—to be
no more your landlord, than your friend,
your neighbor, your protector. I will not
draw my revenues from the country, to lavish
them on the idlers of the town! No,
my friends, where my father's life was
passed, there will I pass mine, likewise;
and when the time allotted here to us shall
be measured to its end, I trust that I shall
lay my bones beside his bones, in your
quiet churchyard! Now, mark what I
would say, for I must not be tedious; I promise
you that no man's rent shall be screwed
up by me, beyond his own ability to pay,
so he be sober, industrious, and frugal! I
promise you, that no new tenant shall be
preferred before an old one, so long as he
deal with me justly. I promise you, that
no strong man shall want good work, and
ready payment—no sick man medicine, and
succor—no old man aid and comfort—no
poor man whatsoever help his exigencies
need, that I can give to him; so long as
God continue me among you. This, then,
I promise you, not as a boon or bounty, but
as I hold it here to be my bounden duty—
and this will I make good to you, so surely
as my name is Edward Hale of Arrington!
Now I will trouble you no more, except to
pray you to continue your sports, as if I
were not present; and to request you all to
dine with me at noon, on good old English
beef and pudding. My fellows will be
down anon, to pitch some tents here on the
green, and set the ale a-flowing—and so
once more I thank you.”

It is probable that no set oration, delivered

by the mightiest of the world's rhetoricians,
bedecked with all the gorgeous
ornaments, that genius can produce from its
immortal garners, was ever listened to with
more profound and rapt attention, than the
few simple words, which flowed as it appeared
so naturally from the heart to the
tongue of the young landlord. It is certain,
that none ever sunk more deeply into the
feelings of the audience—their better, holier
feelings! There was no violent outburst
of pleasure—no loud tumultuous
cheering—but a deep hush—a breathing
silence! Many of the old men, and all the
women, were in tears; and when they
spoke, at length, it was with husky interrupted
voices that they invoked Heaven's
blessings on his head; and when they
thought, it was with gratitude for their own
happy lot in owning such a master.

Sir Edward was himself affected, partly
it might be from the excitement of delivering
a first speech, and that with success, so
apparent and complete—it might be from
the genuine warmth of his own heart, and
strength of his own feelings; for the hearts
of the young are almost ever warm, whether
for good or for evil; and their emotions
powerful and abundant; and oftentimes
it happens, that the mere speaking
forcibly of feelings, which perhaps at the
time exist but faintly—and as I might say
speculatively—will give those feelings actual
force, and cause them to develop themselves
with new and unsuspected vigor.
And so it surely was with Edward Hale, in
this case.

He was, as we have seen, extremely
young—not in years only, but in knowledge
of the world—and volatile, and hasty, and
impetuous—too much, indeed, a creature
and a child of impulse—I say not that his
impulses were evil—I believe not that the
impulses of the very young are so; except
in rare and almost monstrous instances—
but they were impulses, ungoverned, uncontrolled
by any principle, any set rule of
action, any guide of religion—and, therefore,
even when most originally good, they
were liable to be pushed into excesses; to
be deceptive; to be self-deceivers; to degenerate
into downright vices. That Edward
Hale had thought, at times, of the
condition of his subordinate fellows, is most
true—that he had often dreamed bright day-dreams,
concerning the happiness of a half
patriarchal life among his tenants, is undoubted;
and that his tastes, his habits, his
pursuits, all led him to prefer a country to
a city residence, no less so.

So it is true, that being liberal as the
wind—nay, almost lavish—charity, so far
at least as charity consists in giving, was
an accustomed and familiar pleasure; that,
like all men of glowing and enthusiastic
minds, he was by no means without some
crude and undigested notions of a wild
species of Utopian justice! that he was of
too bold and fiery a temperament not to
abhor and loathe the very name of fraud or
falsehood—and more, to do him simple justice,
too kindly-hearted to be cruel, or systematically
overbearing and oppressive.
Still, it is no less certain that, until that
very morning—nay, until the very minute
when accident called on him to deliver an
impromptu speech, when the excitability of
his emotions, and his gratification at his
warm reception by his tenants set loose the
flood-gates of his faney and his heart—for
in this instance, both were acted on, and
both reacted in connection—he had never
thought consecutively for half an hour on
the subject; never had laid out for himself
any rule or principle at all; never had, indeed,
considered that he owed any duties to
his fellow men.

“What then,” I fancy I can hear the
reader say, “What then, was Edward Hale
a hypocrite? Was all his fine, apparently
free-hearted speech a piece of absolute deception?”
Neither, dear reader, neither;
the young are rarely, oh! very rarely, hypocrites;
rarely deceivers even, unless it
be from fear, in timid dispositions, of some
contingent evils, which they imagine they
can shun by falsehood. And Edward Hale
was neither; scarce even a deceiver of
himself.

He had returned, only the previous night,

to the home of his happy boyhood, after
years of absence; had looked upon the
picture of a mother, whom he almost adored
—had trod the floors, along which he had
bounded years ago; how changed, and yet
the same; and every thing he saw and
heard and thought of, conspired to call up
his better feelings, and to attune his spirit
to a mood more reflective—nay, almost melancholy—than
his wont. A passionate
lover of the charms of nature, he had felt,
while he gazed out from his window over
the lovely landscape, while he rode in all
the consciousness of power and health, on
his splendid hunter, beneath his old ancestral
trees, he had felt, I say, that he could
never love a spot on earth so well as his
own fair demesnes; that he could never live
so happily or with so calm a dignity in any
other place, as he could here among his
people. Then, when he found himself quite
unexpectedly the object of affection so enthusiastic,
of greetings so sincere and earnest,
his fancy pictured to him in a moment,
the pure and exquisite delights of such a
life as he described in his brief speech; his
heart yearned to the kind and humble yeomanry,
whose very souls, apparently, were
overflowing with love to all his race. He
spoke embarrassed at the first, and faltering,
and undecided; but, as he warmed to
his task, his rich imagination woke; image
suggested image, and though, perhaps, he
actually thought, now for the first time, of
many of the things he stated, they glowed
so vividly before the eyes of his mind, that
he believed them for the moment to be old
and familiar ideas—the well remembered
consequences of past reasoning. He believed,
from the bottom of his heart, that
every word he uttered was strictly and indisputably
true; not for his life would he
have uttered one, had he not so believed!
And when he ceased to speak, he was affected
by the very ideas that his own lively
fancy had, for the first time, set before him;
and he could safely then have registered a
vow in heaven that such had always been
his view of his own duties; and that so he
would surely act, as long as he lived to act
on earth at all.

As he ceased speaking, he turned his
horse half round, as if to leave the green,
saying to a fine hearty-looking yeoman who
stood nearest to him, one of the patriarchs,
unquestionably, of the place.

“I must ride, Master Marvel, to Stowcum-Barnesley,
to meet some college friends
of mine who promised to come down and
spend my birth-day with me; but it is early
yet, you know, and Oliver here,” patting
as he spoke the proud neck of his horse,
“makes nothing of fifteen miles an hour;
so I can ride thither easily, and be back
with my friends to dinner.”

“Ay, that thou canst, Sir Edward,” returned
the old man, laughing cheerily—
“Ay, that thou canst; so go thy ways, go
thy ways, and God speed thee!”

Edward Hale touched his horse lightly
with the spur, that he made one quick
bound forward; but as he did so, the rider
turned half round in the saddle, for something
caught his attention so keenly that
his eye sparkled, and his cheek flushed
suddenly. The consequence was, that he
checked Oliver so sharply with the curb,
although involuntarily, that he reared bolt
upright, and by the suddenness of the
movement, so nearly unseated his master,
that his hold on the saddle depended for a
moment on the rein, and consequently the
strain was increased greatly on the bit.

The hunter stood erect, pawing the air
with his fore-feet, as if in an effort to retrieve
his balance. Every one thought that
he must have fallen backward, crushing
his rider in the fall, and a shrill female
shriek rang piercingly into the air; but,
active, young, and fearless, Sir Edward
scarce perceived the error he had committed
before he repaired it. Throwing himself
forward in his stirrups, by a rapid and
elastic spring, he wreathed his fore-finger
lightly in the mane, and gave the horse the
spur so sharply that he made a violent
plunge forward and alighted on his fore-feet
with a dint that threw the turf into the air,

in fifty several fragments, but failed to
move the horseman in his saddle in the
slightest degree.

Then the hot temper of the young man
rose; and, though a moment's thought
would have shown him that the horse was
in no respect to blame, he checked him
again almost fiercely with the heavy curb,
and spurred him till the blood spirted from
his sides, under the galling rowels. Stung
by the treatment, the noble beast yerked out
his heels, and fell into a quick succession of
balotades, croupades, and caprioles, and furious
plunges, such as must have inevitably
cast headlong to the earth a less accomplished
cavalier, than he who backed him
now.

Firm as a rock in his demipique sat
Edward Hale, as though he had been a
portion of the animal which he bestrode;
but maddened, by the resistance offered to
his first momentary action of injustice, he
plied both lash and spur with almost savage
impetuosity, yet with so rare a skill, that
in five minutes' space, or even less, the
brown horse stood stock still, panting, and
humbled, and subdued.

He gazed around him for a moment, with
a triumphant and defying glance; and
without again looking in the direction of
the object, whatsoever it was, that had before
attracted his attention, he bade his
mounted groom give up his horse to the
game-keeper, and stay himself to wait on
master Adam Eversly. The change was
accomplished in aminute; and, without any
farther words, he dashed into a gallop, and
was speedily lost to view beyond the summit
of the hills, which bounded the valley to the
westward.

“Oh! father,” cried a beautiful country
girl, who was leaning on the arm of an old
gray-headed farmer, “Oh, father, father—
how beautifully young Sir Edward spoke,
and what a kind speech that was, and then
how well he sat on that vicious horse of his,
and how quickly he did master him. He is
the handsomest gentleman, I think, in all
the country; and the best-hearted too, I'll
warrant him.”

“And yet, Rose,” answered a young
stalwart yeoman, who had been been standing
close beside her, leaning on a long two-handed
quarter staff, “and yet, Rose, it was
all of his own fault, that the poor horse was
vicious; and then see how he dealt with
the dumb beast for his own failing. He is
a handsome man, that's true, as ever an eye
looked upon; but did you see the way his
black brows met together; how the passion
flashed out, almost like lightning, under
them; and how he bit his lips till the blood
came? Be sure, now, he has a fearful temper.
Why he looked liker to a handsome
devil, than to a Christian man! I would be
loth to stand against him, in aught he
had set his heart on.”

“For shame—for shame to thee, Frank
Hunter,” cried the girl he had addressed
as Rose—“For shame on thee, to speak so
of the young winsome gentleman. I hate
an envious spirit—and he so kind, too, and so
gentle—didst not hear what he promised—
how no poor man should ever want for any
thing; and how no sick man should need
doctoring, so long as his name was Edward
Hale—and then to liken him to a devil!
I'm sure, I think he looked like an angel;
and spoke like an angel, too, just come
down to us out of heaven!”

“Have a care, Rose,” returned the other,
gloomily, “have a care, lest he lure thee to
somewhat, that will not lead thee up there;
whether he came down out of heaven or
no. I reckon it was all along o' looking at
those brown curls and hazel eyes o' thine,
that he came so near falling from his saddle.”

“Why, here's a nice to do,” answered
the girl, very sharply, “and what an' he
was looking at my curls, or my eyes either;
what is that, master Hunter, to thee, I'd
be pleased to know—or who gave thee the
right to say who shall look at me; or who
I shall look at either, for that matter? You
are no kin of mine—much less a master.”

“Oh, Rose! oh Rose! can it be come to
this, between us—and we troth-plighted
too!”

“Aye, has it,” answered Rose, tossing

her pretty head, “aye, has it come to this—
and better now than later!—better troth-plighted,
and rue the plighting! than wed
and rue the wedding!—better an envious
sweetheart and a jealous; than a hard tyrannizing
husband! Aye, has it come to
this, and thou must mend thy manners, ere
aught else come of it, I tell thee.”

Her father tried to interpose; but the
village beauty was quite too indignant, to be
appeased so readily; and she left his arm
instantly, turning her back without ceremony
on her luckless swain, saying that
she must go and join Susan Fairly, for all
the girls were seeking her. So little does
it need, to raise a quarrel between those
who truly and sincerely love each other,
especially in quick and ardent dispositions.