CHAPTER XXII.

ON WINGS OF HOPE.

When Trelyon arrived late one evening at Penzance he was surprised to find his uncle's coachman awaiting him at the station: "What's the matter, Tobias? Is the old gentleman going to die? You don't mean to say you are here for me?"

"Yaäs, zor, I be," said the little old man with no great courtesy.

"Then he is going to die if he sends out his horse at this time o' night. Look here, Tobias: I'll put my portmanteau inside and come on the box to have a talk with you—you're such a jolly old card, you know—and you'll tell me all that's happened since I last enjoyed my uncle's bountiful hospitality."

This the young man did: and then the brown-faced, wiry and surly little person, having started his horse, proceeded to tell his story in a series of grumbling and disconnected sentences. He was not nearly so taciturn as he looked: "The maäster he went sün to bed to-night: 'twere Miss Juliott sent me to the station, without tellin' en. He's gettin' worse and worse, that's sure: if yü be for giving me half a crown, like, or any one that comes to the house, he finds it out and stops it out o' my wages: yes, he does, zor, the old fule!"

"Tobias, be a little more respectful to my uncle, if you please."

"Why, zor, yü knaw en well enough," said the man in the same surly fashion. "And I'll tell yü this, Maäster Harry, if yü be after dinner with en, and he has a bottle o' poort wine that he puts on the mantelpiece, and he says to yü to let that aloän, vor 'tis a medicine-zart o' wine, don't yü heed en, but have that wine. 'Tis the real old poort wine, zor, that yür vather gied en—the dahmned old pagan!"

The young man burst out laughing, instead of reprimanding Tobias, who maintained his sulky impassiveness of face.

"Why, zor, I be gardener now, too: yaäs I be, to save the wages. And he's gone clean mazed about that garden—yaäs, I think. Would yü believe this, Maäster Harry, that he killed every one o' the blessed strawberries last year with a lot o' wrack from the bache, because he said it wüd be as good for them as for the 'sparagus?"

"Well, but the old chap finds amusement in pottering about the garden—" said Master Harry.

"The old fule!" repeated Tobias, in an under tone.

"And the theory is sound about the seaweed and the strawberries; just as his old notion of getting a green rose by pouring sulphate of copper in at the roots."

"Yaäs, that were another pretty thing, Maäster Harry, and he had the tin labels all printed out in French, and he waited and waited, and there bain't a fairly güde rose left in the garden. And his violet glass for the cucumbers: he burned en up to once, although 'twere fine to hear'n talk about the sunlight and the rays and such nonsenses. He be a strange mahn, zor, and a dahmned close'n with his penny-pieces, Christian and all as he calls his-sen. There's Miss Juliott, zor, she's go-in' to get married, I suppose; and when she goes no one 'll dare spake to 'n. Be yü going to stop long this time, Maäster Harry?"

"Not at the Hollies, Tobias. I shall go down to the Queen's to-morrow: I've got rooms there."

"So much the better—so much the better," said the frank but inhospitable retainer; and presently the jogtrot old animal between the shafts was pulled up in front of a certain square old-fashioned building of gray stone which was prettily surrounded with trees. They had arrived at the Rev. Mr. Penaluna's house, and there was a young lady standing in the light of the hall, she having opened the door very softly as she heard the carriage drive up.

"So here you are, Harry; and you'll stay with us the whole fortnight, won't you? Come in to the dining-room—I have some supper ready for you. Papa's gone to bed, and he desired me to give you his excuses, and he hopes you'll make yourself quite at home, as you always do, Harry."

He did make himself quite at home, for, having kissed his cousin and flung his topcoat down in the hall, he went into the dining-room and took possession of an easy-chair.

"Sha'n't have any supper, Jue, thank you. You won't mind my lighting a cigar—somebody's been smoking here already. And what's the least poisonous claret you've got?"

"Well, I declare!" she said, but she got him the wine all the same, and watched him light his cigar: then she took the easy-chair opposite.

"Tell us about your young man, Jue," he said. "Girls always like to talk about that."

"Do they?" she said. "Not to boys."

"I shall be twenty-one in a fortnight. I am thinking of getting married."

"So I hear," she remarked quietly.

Now he had been talking nonsense at random, mostly intent on getting his cigar well lit, but this little observation rather startled him. "What have you heard?" he said abruptly.

"Oh, nothing—the ordinary stupid gossip," she said, though she was watching him rather closely. "Are you going to stay with us for the next fortnight?"

"No, I have got rooms at the Queen's."

"I thought so. One might have expected you, however, to stay with your relations when you came to Penzance."

"Oh, that's all gammon, Jue," he said: "you know very well your father doesn't care to have any one stay with you—it's too much bother. You'll have quite enough of me while I am in Penzance."

"Shall we have anything of you?" she said with apparent indifference. "I understood that Miss Rosewarne and her mamma had already come here."

"And what if they have?" he said with unnecessary fierceness.

"Well, Harry," she said, "you needn't get unto a temper about it, but people will talk, you know; and they say that your attentions to that young lady are rather marked, considering that she is engaged to be married; and you have induced your mother to make a pet of her. Shall I go on?"

"No, you needn't," he said with a strong effort to overcome his anger. "You're quite right—people do talk, but they wouldn't talk so much if other people didn't carry tales. Why, it isn't like you, Jue! I thought you were another  sort. And about this girl, of all girls in the world!"

He got up and began walking about the room, and talking with considerable vehemence, but no more in anger. He would tell her what cause there was for this silly gossip. He would tell her who this girl was who had been lightly mentioned. And in his blunt, frank, matter-of-fact way, which did not quite conceal his emotion, he revealed to his cousin all that he thought of Wenna Rosewarne, and what he hoped for her in the future, and what their present relations were, and then plainly asked her if she could condemn him.

Miss Juliott was touched: "Sit down, Harry: I have wanted to talk to you, and I don't mean to heed any gossip. Sit down, please—you frighten me by walking up and down like that. Now, I'm going to talk common sense to you, for I should like to be your friend; and your mother is so easily led away by any sort of sentiment that she isn't likely to have seen with my eyes. Suppose that this Miss Rosewarne—"

"No, hold hard a bit, Jue," he said imperatively. "You may talk till the millennium, but just keep off her, I warn you."

"Will you hear me out, you silly boy? Suppose that Miss Rosewarne is everything that you believe her to be. I'm going to grant that, because I'm going to ask you a question. You can't have such an opinion of any girl, and be constantly in her society, and go following her about like this, without falling in love with her. Now, in that case would you propose to marry her?"

"I marry her!" he said, his face becoming suddenly pale for a moment. "Jue, you are mad! I am not fit to marry a girl like that. You don't know her. Why—"

"Let all that alone, Harry: when a man is in love with a woman he always thinks he's good enough for her; and whether he does or not he tries to get her for a wife. Don't let us discuss your comparative merits: one might even put in a word for you. But suppose you drifted into being in love with her—and I consider that quite probable—and suppose you forgot, as I know you would forget, the difference in your social position, how would you like to go and ask her to break her promise to the gentleman to whom she is engaged?"

Master Harry laughed aloud in a somewhat nervous fashion: "Him? Look here, Jue: leave me out of it—I haven't the cheek to talk of myself in that connection—but if there was a decent sort of fellow whom that girl really took a liking to, do you think he would let that elderly and elegant swell out in Jamaica stand in his way? He would be no such fool, I can tell you. He would consider the girl first of all. He would say to himself, 'I mean to make this girl happy; if any one interferes, let him look out!' Why, Jue, you don't suppose any man would be frightened by that sort of thing?"

Miss Juliott did not seem quite convinced by this burst of scornful oratory. She continued quietly, "You forget something, Harry. Your heroic young man might find it easy to do something wild—to fight with that gentleman in the West Indies, or murder him, or anything like that, just as you see in a story—but perhaps Miss Rosewarne might have something to say."

"I meant if she cared for him," Trelyon said, looking down.

"Granting that also, do you think it likely your hot-headed gentleman would be able to get a young lady to disgrace herself by breaking her plighted word and deceiving a man who went away trusting in her? You say she has a very tender conscience—that she is so anxious to consult every one's happiness before her own, and all that. Probably it is true. I say nothing against her. But to bring the matter back to yourself—for I believe you're hot-headed enough to do anything—what would you think of her if you or anybody else persuaded her to do such a treacherous thing?"

"She is not capable of treachery," he said somewhat stiffly. "If you've got no more cheerful things to talk about, you'd better go to bed, Jue. I shall finish my cigar by myself."

"Very well, then, Harry. You know your room. Will you put out the lamp when you have lit your candle?"

So she went, and the young man was left alone in no very enviable frame of mind. He sat and smoked while the clock on the mantelpiece swung its gilded boy and struck the hours and half hours with unheeded regularity. He lit a second cigar, and a third; he forgot the wine. It seemed to him that he was looking on all the roads of life that lay before him, and they were lit up by as strange and new a light as that which was beginning to shine over the world outside. New fancies seemed to awake with the new dawn. For himself to ask Wenna Rosewarne to be his wife! Could he but win the tender and shy regard of her eyes he would fall at her feet and bathe them with his tears. And if this wonderful thing were possible—if she could put her hand in his and trust to him for safety in all the coming years they might live together—what man of woman born would dare to interfere? There was a blue light coming in through the shutters. He went to the window: the topmost leaves of the trees were quivering in the cold air far up there in the clearing skies, where the stars were fading out one by one, and he could hear the sound of the sea on the distant beach, and he knew that across the gray plain of waters the dawn was breaking, and that over the sleeping world another day was rising that seemed to him the first day of a new and tremulous life, full of joy and courage and hope.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]