the two richards walked through the park towards the priory, jeffray laughingly explaining how he had come by a broken head, and pointing out the many beauties of the place as they went. there were the cedars his father had planted, already lusty and handsome trees. pine and beech woods spread romantic and mysterious gloom upon the slopes. here were gnarled and dying oaks that still lived on, torn and shattered, after the storms of centuries. there on a green knoll stood the holy thorn that was said to have sprung from the bones of some old saint, and had flowered in popish days at christmas. a myriad rushes streaked the grass-land where mole-hills studded the dew-silvered grass with brown. when they came in sight of the old house lying in the hollow, lapped in the purple gloom of the woods, its chimneys towering to the blue, its fish-ponds glimmering in the sun, wilson stopped and laid a hand on jeffray’s shoulder.

“by heaven, this is splendid!” he said. “see the purple, the green, the blue, the brave bronze! see the silver showers of light on the old trees! the toning of the moss and lichen on those walls is enough to make an impotent mortal weep!”

jeffray’s face kindled. he loved the old place, and was glad to hear so blunt a critic as richard wilson wax eloquent over the home of his fathers.

“you must stay with me, dick,” he said, warmly. “can you leave your portrait-painting in town?”

“i have given up the flattering of fools,” quoth the painter, almost with a snarl; “and in turn the fools are giving me up. see here, richard, this is how the gay world treats its servant.”

he turned up the tails of his shabby coat, and smiled with a species of rueful bitterness.

“english gentlemen like to behold their own smug faces, sir,” he added, “better than waving woods and smiling plains.”

before introducing wilson to the lady letitia in the afternoon, richard delicately assisted the painter in making his toilet, lending him a frilled shirt, and a green waistcoat that was much too tight for him, and providing him with a pair of peter gladden’s buckled shoes.

“my aunt is something of a great lady, dick,” he said, with an apologetic twinkle; “she loves to see a man’s buttons and cravat in order. i am always being scolded for slovenliness and lack of distinction, so to appease her taste i take more trouble with my dress.”

the painter, who was worming his huge feet into the butler’s shoes, grimaced at jeffray, and ran the professional eye over the black-coated figure.

“you have not grown fatter, richard,” he said. “i could still make an apollo of you in the nude, as i did that day when you bathed at baiæ. what a graceful trunk, sir!—what a hand and foot! don’t blush, lad, your lines are splendid, so far as they go, though, on my honor, you are reading too much, to judge by your shoulders. i’ll wager you have set the country nymphs a-simpering, the dear phœbes. deuce take these shoes! is my wig on straight?”

“perfectly,” said jeffray, with a smile.

wilson expanded his chest, turned out his right foot and knee, put his hand over his heart, and bowed.

“how’s that, richard?” he asked, gravely.

“worthy of st. james’s.”

“my professional bow, richard. i detest it, sir—detest it! the money-getting tricks are not part of my art. i leave them to mr. joshua, who could flatter the moon into a trance, as his namesake did in canaan, and talk the sun into believing that his complexion was not fiery. now, sir, lead on.”

meanwhile, the lady letitia had heard strange and distorted accounts of the person and profession of her nephew’s visitor. peter gladden had unpacked mr. wilson’s knapsack and red bundle, and had discovered besides canvas, brushes, and paints, a tooth-brush, a few handkerchiefs, a razor, a soiled shirt, two night-caps, a piece of flannel, and a prayer-book. it was all over the house and into aunt letitia’s ears in half an hour that this eccentric person had borrowed mr. jeffray’s waistcoat and a pair of peter gladden’s shoes. the dowager’s pride bristled, despite the saintly emotions of the morning. a common painter fellow, a mere vulgar artist, whose name she did not even know, received as a guest at rodenham priory! what could richard be thinking of, by associating with such a low and uncultured creature! why, he would be for entertaining next that awful author fellow, mr. johnson, a man who spilled soup down his waistcoat, sneezed over the table, and was so bold as to contradict a lady flatly.

hence, the lady letitia’s reception of mr. richard wilson in the parlor that afternoon, was not calculated to put that gentleman at his ease. the dowager was polite, portentously and oppressively polite, “to please poor richard,” as she would have phrased it. her eyes searched mr. wilson from wig to buckles, started at his wrinkled and complaining waistcoat, and recognized peter gladden’s shoes. she deigned to listen to the painter’s stumbling platitudes about the weather, and then discovered suddenly that she was afflicted with deafness and a sick headache, and declared that she would go and rest in her bedroom until dinner.

when the lady letitia had sailed out of the room, wilson stood and stared pathetically at jeffray.

“there, sir,” he exclaimed, with tragic emphasis, “you see, my poor face always frightens them away, and i fall over my own tongue as well as over my feet. nature did not breed me for a courtier, jeffray. damn it, i can’t flatter the fools in the gallant style. beg pardon, richard, i was not referring to your august and noble relative.”

“come and see the garden, dick.”

“do you keep peacocks there, sir?”

“peacocks, dick! why, peacocks?”

“a mere whim, sir—a mere whim,” quoth the painter, with a queer twist of the mouth.

a mysterious change had fallen upon the lady letitia’s temper by dinner-time, a change that betrayed itself in her attitude towards richard wilson. she was peculiarly gracious and urbane, and no one could be more gracious than the lady letitia when she so chose. the painter, astonished at his sudden acceptance into favor, found himself talking to the dowager with an ease and a fervor that made him fancy for the moment that jeffray’s wine had got into his noddle. aunt letitia beamed and sparkled, crowed and chuckled at dick’s jokes, and seemed wholly to have abandoned the air of hauteur that had repulsed wilson in the afternoon. jeffray himself was thoroughly mystified as to the miracle. he could only conclude that the dear old lady had spoken the truth when she had complained of a headache, and that it was not the painter’s shabby clothes or his rough and unfashionable face that had shocked her aristocratic susceptibilities.

aunt letitia had been spending the afternoon gossiping with her maid, and that trusted servant had let fall mr. richard wilson’s name into her mistress’s pensive ear. the four syllables had suddenly struck some rusty note of by-gone scandal in the dowager’s brain. “wilson! wilson! yes, to be sure, there used to be a painter fellow in town of that name. she had not heard him spoken of lately, though some of the gentry had sat to him for their portraits years ago. wait! could this be the mr. richard wilson concerning whom a merry tale had been spun one season in the fashionable seats? sir peter hardacre had had a house in town seven years or so ago, before economy had been forced like a bolus down the poor baronet’s throat.” the lady letitia had knitted her brows over these curious and interesting reminiscences. she had determined to discover more about mr. richard wilson and his past that evening. hence her amazing and gracious affability to that honest but slovenly individual, an affability that made mr. wilson expand his chest, set his shabby wig straight, and imagine that there was yet hope for him in the world of mammon.

“you have been long abroad, sir, i believe?” said the dowager, sweetly, after drawing the painter into a discussion on italian art.

“years, madam, years.”

“you painted many clever portraits in town some seasons ago.”

mr. wilson bowed in his chair, and was flattered to hear my lady had so kindly a memory.

“i was honored at one time, madam,” he said, stroking his broad chin, “by the presence of certain of the beauties of the fashionable world in my studio. yes, madam, i painted sir toby gilhooly and his lovely daughters; mr. walsh, the poet; admiral timberbuck, and many others, madam.”

the lady letitia twinkled, and exhaled perfumes. her nephew was engaged at the other end of the table in a scholarly debate on roman architecture with dr. sugg. the lad had desisted from fathering richard wilson, and was delighted to see that his aunt showed the poor fellow so much favor.

“did you ever paint sir peter hardacre, mr. wilson?” asked the old lady, innocent as a paschal lamb.

the painter darted a look at her, flushed, and began to fidget in his chair.

“sir peter hardacre, madam?”

“yes, sir. i thought i remembered seeing the picture—”

richard wilson adjusted his wig, and drank down a glass of wine.

“i believe i did, madam—i believe i did,” he said.

“dear sir peter; he must have made such an aristocratic study! i think i must really ask you to honor me with a sitting, mr. wilson.”

the painter blinked, and then bowed low across the table. he appeared glad in measure to escape the subject, nor was his discomfort lost upon the lady letitia.

“i shall be proud, madam, proud,” he said; “the honor is on my side, madam. i shall be proud to paint richard jeffray’s grandmother—pardon me, madam—aunt, i mean. upon my word, madam, you look extraordinarily young to have so old a nephew.”

aunt letitia, not in the least disturbed by the painter’s slip, received his clumsy apologies and awkward apings of flattery with infinite good humor.

“la, mr. wilson,” she said, frankly, “i am an old woman, and, thank god, i know it. i think it is a pitiful sight, sir, to see an old woman frittering away the solemn and awful years of age in folly, when she should be preparing herself to meet her maker.”

“upon my soul, madam,” said the painter, much relieved, “your wisdom is as admirable as—ahem—as—as your distinguished and aristocratic person. ahem. i shall be proud, madam, to put my poor powers at your service.”

“what a blundering and honest fool it is,” thought the lady letitia. “yes, it is the very fellow who painted old sir peter, and made love to the daughter. or was it miss jilian who made love to him? egad, dear nephew, there is no need for your old aunt to play the scandal-monger, if this good ass can be got to bray. mr. wilson must be made welcome here, and the secret coaxed out of his ugly mouth.” and thus the lady letitia continued to beam upon the painter with all the waning sunshine of her november years. she made him draw droll sketches for her in the parlor after dinner, laughed at his whimsies, promised to send her dear friends lady boodle and miss fitznoodle to be painted by wilson when he returned to town. when peter gladden set the card-table in order, the dowager insisted that richard wilson should be her partner, and that richard should challenge them with dr. sugg. and though poor dick managed his cards disgracefully, trumped the lady letitia’s tricks, bungled the returns and lost her money, she continued to beam on him with undiminished brightness, and to encourage the good oaf with all the sweetness she could compel.

“yes, richard, mon cher,” she said to her nephew, as she bade him good-night, “my headache has left me; i felt quite vaporish this afternoon. your friend is a dear creature, so droll and refreshing; not polished, of course, but quite charming. i have fallen in love with the dear bear, richard. it is so delightful to talk to a man of sense and humor, even though he may smell—faintly, of the soil.”

bess had wandered back from beacon rock through her well-loved woods that morning, thinking more of richard jeffray than was good for a woman’s heart. there was a charm about bess that no mortal could gainsay. she looked fit for carrying a milking-pail over meadows golden with cowslips, for playing the miss prue gathering rosemary and thyme in some red-walled garden, or walking in brocade and lace amid the close-clipped yews, statues, and terrace ways of some stately manor. despite her strength and her brilliant vitality she was no hoyden, and even in her wild beauty seemed to suggest the subtle delicacy of high birth. richard himself had been puzzled by her quaint stateliness, such stateliness as a child might have inherited from a noble mother and treasured unconsciously as she grew to womanhood.

the thoughts uppermost in bess’s mind that morning dealt with the worldly gulf between jeffray and herself. the girl had been content hitherto with the forest life, content to accept old ursula as her foster-mother and the rest of them as her kinsfolk. she had grown up with dan and david, and the forest children, ignorant as they were of the great world beyond the shadows of pevensel. yet beyond the forest life a dim and forgotten past seemed to rise up in the blue distance of the mind. a few strange incidents, which she had never been able to explain, still lived on like relics of a vanished age. she had prattled of them to old ursula as a child, and had been laughed at and chided for her pains. the old woman had always told her that rachel, her mother, ursula’s younger sister, had run away from the hamlet before bess was born, and that when her mother had died—“down in the west”—a peddler man had brought bess back to the grimshaws of pevensel. ursula had always shed a species of reticent mystery over the past, and had waxed dour if bess had pressed her questions too boldly or too far.

the girl had been content these years to let these vague memories glide away into oblivion. now and again they would rise up to haunt her with strange vividness, frail ghostly images of other days. how was it that she often saw a negro man with black, woolly hair in her dreams, she who had never seen such a man in pevensel? then there was that memory of her falling and cutting her bare knee upon a stone, and of a tall lady with bright eyes and a brooch with green stones at her throat running to catch her in her arms. vaguely, too, she believed that she had once been in a great ship at sea. there were incidents that lived more vividly than the rest in her mind; one, the memory of her standing at night on the deck of a ship with the dark sails flapping above and rough men swearing and quarrelling about her; she had seen blows given, heard a wild cry and the plash of a body thrown over the bulwarks into the sea. then again she remembered being taken in a boat by night to land; the same rough men were with her; she could still recall one who wore a great pig-tail and had a black patch over one eye and a cloven lip. they had come with her to the shore and taken her into the woods, carrying bales that had seemed wondrous heavy. thence they had disappeared, and the life in pevensel had begun, its very beginnings dim as the mysterious past.

these memories came back with strange vividness to her mind that morning after her parting with jeffray on the heath. for the first time in her life she found herself wondering whether old ursula had told her the truth. could she have dreamed these mind pictures that still clung to her? were these memories but the dim and fantastic fancies of childhood, mere myths begotten of a child’s brain. she puzzled over them earnestly as she walked through the woods that morning, and promised herself that she would tell them to richard jeffray when they should meet again.

old ursula sat up after bess had gone to bed that night, huddled snugly in the ingle-nook with her black cat at her side. the pewter glistened on the shelves as the handful of sticks that the dame had thrown on the sulky fire kindled and broke into busy flame. bess had been in bed half an hour or more, and was lying with her black hair loose upon the pillow, thinking of richard jeffray and her adventure with him. she had primed the pistols from the powder-horn kept in the kitchen-press, and had hidden them away in the cupboard in her bedroom, meaning to carry one whenever she went abroad in the woods. bess had fallen asleep, when old ursula, dozing in the ingle-nook, was awakened by a knocking at the cottage door. she started up, hobbled across the kitchen, and let isaac grimshaw in.

the old man sat himself down on the settle before the fire, drew out a short pipe and a tobacco-box, and began to smoke. he looked at ursula with his shrewd, calculating eyes, jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and smiled.

“the wench is above, eh?”

“this hour or more.”

“dame, i have much to gossip over with ye about our bess. she is a dangerous wench and needs a master. there’ll be no peace with us, dame, till the girl is stalled.”

isaac, kindling to his subject, began to talk to the old woman, significantly, about betrothing the girl to dan without delay. he had much to put forward in justification of the measure. bess’s beauty had become an apple of discord in the hamlet; all the young men wanted her, and black dan would put up with no rival. isaac spoke mysteriously of the need for good-fellowship among the forest-folk; there must be no mating of bess to a bachelor outside the hamlet; she was one of them and with them she must remain. old ursula looked surly and displeased during the patriarch’s harangue. the match was little to her liking, and she distrusted dan’s ability to make marriage bearable to such a woman as bess.

“i may as well tell ye, isaac,” she said, sourly, “that the wench does not care a brass button for your dan.”

“who does she fancy then, dame, eh?”

“i thought once she was for liking young david. she is a powerful-tempered wench is bess, and she don’t like being driven.”

isaac puffed at his pipe and frowned.

“odd’s my life,” he said, “the wench must be taught her place. my dan’s the first man in the forest, eh? what better lad does the wench look for? i’ll wager that we will soon persuade her.”

“you be careful of bess,” quoth the old woman, solemnly.

“careful, dame! that’s the very text i’m preaching on. how much does the wench remember, eh? deuce take me, sister, we have reared her here, and here she must remain. and dan will be breaking all the youths’ heads unless he has her, and have her he shall.”

isaac laid down his pipe and, leaning forward with his hands spread to the fire, began to speak further to the old woman in his grim and didactic way. there was an expression of almost ferocious earnestness on his thin and clever face, and it was difficult to believe that an old man could be possessed of so much fire and vigor. isaac had ruled the hamlet these forty years; his will had been law unto them all. old ursula’s one feeling was known to the patriarch well enough. he played upon it that night as she sat in the ingle-nook and listened. the dame kept a stockingful of guineas hid under the floor in one of the upper rooms. she would often go up secretly and play with the pretty golden pieces, counting and recounting them, letting them fall and jingle in her lap.

“a hundred gold guineas, dame,” said isaac at the end of his persuading. “i’ll bring them to you on the betrothal day. why, look you, the wench will be spry and gay enough when she is mated. unbroken fillies are always wild.”

ursula nodded over the fire, stroked the black cat reflectively, and watched isaac’s face with her greedy eyes.

“you take your oath on it?” she asked.

the patriarch grinned, and drew a leather pouch from the tail-pocket of his coat. he jingled it and tossed it into his sister’s lap.

“there are twenty,” he said, curtly; “keep them, dame, as a proof of the bargain. i’ll give you the rest when the gold piece is broken.”