Foxglove Manor (Vol. 1-3). Robert Williams Buchanan

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СКАЧАТЬ was an old pupil of yours.”

      “Yes,” said the vicar, with an uneasy glance towards her, “many years ago.”

      “It is a little curious,” continued Mr. Haldane, “how people lose sight of each other for years, and then are unexpectedly thrown together into the same small social circle, after they have quite forgotten each others existence.”

      The vicar winced at the last words, but replied with a faint smile, “The great world is, after all, a very little world.”

      “Ah, my dear sir, I see I have started a familiar train of thought—the littleness of the world,” said Mr. Haldane, with a dry light in his eyes.

      “And you fear I may improve the occasion?” asked the vicar a little coldly.

      “Pray do not misunderstand my husband,” interposed Mrs. Haldane. “He was delighted with your sermon to-day; and I do not wonder, for you have the power of appealing to the heart and raising the mind beyond earthly things. It was only a few moments ago that he told me he was deeply interested.”

      “I perceived that he was amused once or twice,” replied the vicar, with a smile.

      “I confess that I may have smiled at one or two points in your discourse.”

      “Excuse my interrupting you,” said Mrs. Haldane; “will you not walk? You can spare time to accompany us a little way?”

      Mr. Santley bowed, and Mrs. Haldane signed to the coachman to drive on slowly towards the village.

      “For example,” resumed Mr. Haldane, “I see you still stick to the old chronology and the mythic Eden.”

      “Certainly I do.”

      “And yet you should be aware that at least a thousand years before the date you fix for the creation of Adam, tribes of savage hunters and fishers peopled the old fir-woods of Denmark, and set their nets in the German Ocean.”

      “It may eventually prove necessary to revise the chronology of the Bible,” replied the vicar; “but there is at present too much conflict of opinion among your archaeologists to decide on the absolute age of these tribes. After all, the question is one of minor importance.”

      “Granted. But you cannot say the same of the efficacy of prayer.”

      Mrs. Haldane laid her hand on her husband’s arm, and stopped abruptly. “Ask Mr. Santley to dinner, George, and then you can discuss as long and as profoundly as you like; but I will not allow you to argue now. Besides, I want to talk to Mr. Santley.”

      Mr. Haldane laughed good-naturedly. “Just as you please, my dear. If Mr. Santley will favour us with his company, I shall be very glad. Your predecessor was a frequent visitor at our house. A jovial, rubicund fellow, whose troubles in this life were less of the world and the devil than of the flesh! A fat, ponderous man and a Tory, as all fat men are; a sort of Falstaff in pontificalibus; a man with a wit and a shrewd palate for old port. Poor fellow! he was snuffed out like a candle. One could have better spared a better man.”

      “Will you come to-morrow?” asked Mrs. Haldane; “and, if your sister can accompany you, will you bring her? You will excuse our informality and so short a notice.”

      “I shall be very happy to call tomorrow.”

      “Then, if you can spare me a few moments I will have a better opportunity of speaking to you. I must learn all about the parish, and I have a whole catechism of questions to ask you. You will come to-morrow, then?” she concluded, with one of those flashing looks from her great dark eyes.

      He watched them drive away with that look burning in his brain and the pressure of her hand tingling through every nerve. He stood gazing after her with a passionate light in his eyes and an eager, yearning expression on his pale, agitated face. This was the woman he had lost, and now they were again thrown together in the same small social circle, after she had completely forgotten his existence! Those words of her husband had cut him to the quick. Could she so soon, so easily, so completely have forgotten him? It seemed incredible. If she had used any such expression to her husband, was it not rather to forestall any jealous suspicion on his part? Clearly she had not divulged the secret of those schoolgirl days. He knew not the story of that sweet, imperishable romance; those burning kisses and unforgotten vows had been hidden from him; and in that concealment the vicar found a strange, subtle pleasure. It was at least one tie between him and her; one secret in common in which her husband had no share.

      CHAPTER V. THE LAMB AND THE SHEPHERD.

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      The vicar was standing close beside the village school, and as he turned to go back home he saw the schoolmistress in the doorway of her little cottage. He started as though she had been looking into his heart, instead of watching the carriage as it bowled along towards the village. Without a moment’s hesitation, however, he opened the schoolyard gate and went up to her.

      “Well, Miss Greatheart, how are you to-day?”

      Dora, a bright, merry-looking woman of about thirty, dropped a curtsy, and invited the vicar into the house.

      “Thank you, no; I must not stay. I have just been speaking, as you have seen, to my new parishioners. I call them new, though I suppose they are older in the parish than I am myself.”

      “Old as they are, this is the first time I ever set eyes on Mr. Haldane in our church, sir. His pretty wife must have converted him.”

      “Then they have not been long married?”

      “Somewhere about two years, I should think. All last year they were away in Egypt and Palestine; and perhaps now that he’s seen the Land, he believes in the Book.”

      “Indeed!”

      “Seeing’s believing, you know, sir; and if all tales be true, he used not to believe in anything from the roof upward. Oh, you may well look shocked, sir, but he was quite an atheist and an infidel; but you see he was so rich that the gentry round about didn’t care to give him the go-by. I suppose you haven’t been to the Manor yet, sir? The old vicar, Mr. Hart, was always there. People did say he paid more court to the people at the Manor than he should have done, considering the need for him in the parish; and when Mr. Hart got his second stroke, there were those that said it was a judgment on him for high living, and the company he kept. But you know, sir, how folks’ tongues will wag.”

      “Is the Manor far from here? Of course I have heard of the place, but I have never been near it.”

      “It’s about four miles, sir, and a lonely place it is, and dismal it must be in winter, with miles of wood about it. In summer it is not so bad, but it is awfully wild and solitary. I went over the grounds once, years ago. I became acquainted with one of the housemaids, you see, sir—quite a nice young person—and she invited me to tea. I remember it was getting dusk when I left, and she took me through the woods. Dear me, what a fright I got! I happened to look up, and there was a man, quite a giant, standing among the trees. I screamed, and would have run had not Jane—that was the maid, sir—laughed, and said it was only a statue. And so it was, for we went right up to it. All the woods are full of statues—quite improper and rude, and rather frightening to meet in the dusk. СКАЧАТЬ