for their ready reception of my suit, except the simple one that they liked me, and approved of the alliance, the more I sought for some occult and sinister one. My father’s strange behaviour, the absolute solitude in which he lived, the mystery of my mother’s disappearance and death, his irreconcilable hatred to the Wellwoods—which I had hitherto attributed to some ordinary source of quarrel between neighbours, embittered by my father’s ungenial character and temperament: these, and other half-forgotten trifles, coloured by the lurid light of that death-bed scene, I was eternally brooding on.
No doubt a great change was visible in my character and demeanour; but this was naturally attributed to the sudden catastrophe that had occurred. In compliance with continental customs, the funeral took place earlier than it would in England; and immediately after our marriage, which was quite private, I started for Elfdale with my bride, my presence there being necessary. Our original plan had been to travel southward, and spend the winter at Rome, where Lady Wellwood and Sir Ralph had promised to join us. It seemed possible enough to fulfil this engagement still, and we spoke of it as probable; but I confess to privately feeling a disinclination to carry out the arrangement. Their presence had become a restraint and an annoyance to me. I wanted leisure to brood over my suspicions, for morbid suspicion, like morbid jealousy, “grows by what it feeds on!” the germ, once planted, it fell on such congenial soil, that it spread and spread till it had quite o’ermastered me.
Poor Clara must have found it a dull journey; however, it came to an end, and we arrived at Elfdale. She was struck with the beauty of the grounds—a gloomy beauty it is true; but even I, whether, because my taste was developed by time and travel, or whether because it was now my own, could not but acknowledge it.
“I had no idea the country was so picturesque,” said Clara. “I almost wonder my uncle could live entirely away from it for so many years.”
“Ah,” said I, “did you ever understand why he did so?”
“No,” she answered, “it never struck me to inquire. You know I had never been here since my infancy, and though I had a recollection of being lifted up to kiss a little boy over the wall, and of the storm that ensued, which was perhaps, what impressed the circumstance on my memory, I had not the slightest recollection of the place, and of course had no desire to return to it. My uncle said it did not agree with him.
“There cannot be a more healthy situation,” I said. “It is high and dry, and yet not bleak.”
“Still, you say, you would not like to live here yourself.”
“Well, no; I have got accustomed to continental life, and—”
“But your father did not live here, either, for many years before he died,” she said suddenly, as if the circumstance had just struck her. “It’s odd everybody should leave it. It must be unhealthy, surely!”
“No, Clara,” I said, “I believe it’s healthy enough; but I fancy that your uncle’s and my father’s dislike to this part of the country arose from the same source.”
“Indeed!” she said, looking up innocently; “and what was that?”
“Ah!” I answered, “that is what I do not know—I wish I did.”
“Why? Is there any mystery about it?” she asked.
“There may be,” I said. “But did you never hear your uncle allude to the feud that existed betwixt the two families.”
“Feud? No; I knew that he disliked your father; and after your first visit, Lady Wellwood told me the dislike was mutual, and she rather wondered at your seeking our acquaintance. Then we found you were not on very good terms with your father yourself, and so we never named him. Afterwards, when you began to pay me attention, I said to her, ‘But I’m afraid, Mr. Herbert would not like George to marry me?’”
“And what did she answer?”
“‘Oh!’ she said, ‘We’ve nothing to do with that. He’s quite independent of his father,’ and, of course, I did not think it necessary to be more scrupulous than she was,” she added, smiling on me affectionately. I could not smile; but Clara was too unsuspicious to put anything but the most favourable construction on my behaviour; and thinking I was merely suffering from some regrets connected with my father’s death, she made an effort to turn the conversation into another channel.
My father had kept no establishment at Elfdale. Within the house there were only the housekeeper, and two or three women to assist her—strangers to me. Out of doors, there were the gardeners, the gamekeeper, and the people at the lodge—all equally strange, with the exception of Phibbs, whom, notwithstanding the ill name he bore amongst his own class, had always retained his place. He knew his business thoroughly, and, either from honesty or policy, had contrived to secure one voice on his side, and make it his master’s interest to keep him.
The prejudice against him was founded on the slight foundations I have alluded to before, and I shared them from the reasons mentioned; but those were rougher times than these, especially in our part of the country. Killing a man in fair fight was looked on as a very venial crime, and would have excited no unfavourable feeling; but the source of the quarrel and the story of the pike were not forgotten, and the man’s character and deportment were well calculated to keep alive the recollection. As a child, I had dreaded and hated him, and I had determined he should not remain a day in the place after I had power to dismiss him. I do not know whether it is the case with all children, but I know, for my own part, I had retained in my heart a fund of resentment against every one who had treated me with harshness and injustice.
After breakfast, on the morning after our arrival, while Clara was settling matters with the housekeeper, I took my hat and strolled into the garden. It was not long before I found him: he was stooping over a flower-bed, digging up the tubers; and, although he must have heard my