BELGRAVIA

FEBRUARY 1876

JOSHUA HAGGARD'S DAUGHTER

BY THE AUTHOR OF LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET,' ETC.

YOU

CHAPTER VI. CYNTHIA GOES INTO SERVICE.

are not too tired to walk three miles farther ?' Joshua asked kindly, when Cynthia and he had gone a little way along the sunny road.

'O, no; I have rested, and my feet don't burn as they did before I bathed them.'

'You were very tired when you sat down to rest on that common.' Very tired. I felt as if I should like to have lain down by the roadside, and never get up any more. I thought that perhaps I should go on walking all day, and at night, when I was quite worn out, I should find a haystack, like the one where I slept last night, and I should lie down among the sweet-smelling hay, and never wake any more. I would rather have slept for ever than waked to go back to Harriet and the Black Captain.'

'You shall never go back to them. If your father and mother are not amongst them, they can have no claim on you. Remember that always. I shall place you with some good kind people; and if ever those strollers find you, and try to take you away, you must refuse to go with them. You are mistress of your own life; they have no right to take you.'

'Ah, but you don't know how strong the Captain is,' said the girl despondingly.

Joshua saw that she was not yet capable of learning that lesson of self-reliance which he wished to teach. She was not much more than a child in years, and had but a child's knowledge of life.

'Have no fear of the Captain or any one else,' he said, 'so long as you learn to read your Bible, and do your duty by the light that will give you. This Black Captain is a gipsy, I suppose?'

'He is very dark, with a skin like tarnished copper, and black fierce eyes, and he wears gold rings in his ears.'

THIRD SERIES, VOL. VIII. F.S. VOL. XXVIII.

FF

'Forget that you ever saw him,' said Joshua. I doubt if he will ever trouble your life again.'

He was thinking what a transformation domestic life would make in this wild flower he had found by the wayside. That flaxen hair, now falling in picturesque disorder over the girl's neck and shoulders, would be neatly bound up under a thick muslin mob-cap. A pity to hide anything so pretty; but then it is good for a woman's head to be covered;' and a flower in a well-kept garden cannot bloom in Nature's profuse beauty like the starry traveller's joy in the hedges. A neat cotton gown, muslin neckerchief, and large white apron would replace those disorderly rags, which now hung loosely on the slender figure. Her old companions would hardly recognise the runaway in this decent attire, should chance bring them to Penmoyle, which lay off the beaten tracks, and was about the sleepiest place imaginable.

Joshua began the walk at his usual pace of four miles an hour, but soon discovered that his companion was flagging, and altered his step to suit hers. They were an hour and a half walking those three miles, and the minister questioned Cynthia still more closely upon her past life-that comfortless wandering childhood, which held no sunny memories of childish pleasures; that unprotected girlhood, among dark scenes and dark minds. He found her a poor benighted creature, ignorant of all those things which, in his mind, were most needful or most hallowed; but he found no evil in her. lived among sinners, yet seemed to have remained sinless. No unclean or degrading thought shaped itself upon those lovely lips. It seemed to Joshua that in her beauty and youth there was a spiritual purity, which, even in contact with unholy things, had escaped all contamination.

She had

Their way lay along a parched high-road, sometimes up hill, sometimes down hill. They were within half a mile of Penmoyle, when they turned into a narrow lane, between tall ragged hedges full of dog-roses and honeysuckle.

Is this the way to the place where I'm to stop?' asked Cynthia,

very tired.

'Yes; we are very near the village now.'

'Do you live there ?'

No. My home is in Devonshire, a long way off.'

'I'm sorry for that. I would rather have been your servant than any one else's, because you are so good to me.'

The soft blue eyes looked up at him full of trust; sweeter eyes, it seemed to him, than had ever been lifted to his face before.

Perhaps that Cornish village of Penmoyle was as sleepy a place as one could easily discover upon this varied earth. There was no reason for its existence save that the fields must be tilled, and flocks

and herds tended, and that the human beasts of burden who perform those agricultural duties must live somewhere. Yet slumberous, sequestered as it was, Penmoyle had a completeness and beauty with which Providence has not endowed all Cornish villages. It was an ancient settlement, and had its old priory church and its patron saint, and there were yet traces of the priory that had first given the spot name and dignity. It was the centre of a fertile oasis amid the wild hills, and the meadows round about were full of fatness. On one side of the village street was the post-office; on the other an old rambling inn, with a good deal of empty stabling. Opposite the inn stood a clump of horse-chestnuts-noble old trees which made a shadow and a darkness beneath them, where the tramp and wanderer lay down to rest in sultry August noontides and forgot all weariness and care under those spreading boughs, and where the village children played at sundown. To the right of this chestnut-grove stood the village dame's school-not a free institution, but a self-supporting academy, which exacted fourpence a week from its scholars-a white wooden cottage with neat latticed casements and green palings; a lattice porch, myrtle-shaded; a green door and brass knocker, exactly like the door of a doll's-house; a wicker birdcage in the right parlour window, and a brazen one in the window on the left; a row of geraniums and mignonette in vermilion pots on every window-sill.

It was three o'clock, and a Saturday afternoon, when Joshua Haggard and his companion entered the village. School was over for the week, and the voices of the children pealed shrilly from beneath the chestnut leafage. Joshua went straight to that myrtleshadowed porch and knocked with the shining brass knocker; the girl standing a little way behind him, wondering at his audacity in approaching such a splendid abode.

The door was opened by a spinster of middle age, tall and thin, with dark hair neatly arranged in little bunches of stiffly-curling ringlets on each side of her small square forehead. She wore a flowered-challis gown, which Cynthia considered absolutely beautiful; and her neat waist was zoned by a broad ribbon band, to match the challis, tightly clasped by a large gilt buckle. Her square muslin

collar was trimmed with pillow-lace, and her brooch was a jewel to wonder at. Round her brow she wore a circlet of narrow black velvet, and the ends of her long gold earrings touched her shoulders. Her eyes were black and bright like jet beads; her nose sharp and of noticeable length; her complexion russet and ruddy, with a hard look like winter apples.

At sight of Joshua she gave a shrill scream, expressive at once of wonder and delight.

This summons to somebody unseen was shrieked in a still higher key; and from the little parlour to the right emerged a second figure in a challis gown, so like the first in person and in all outward adornments that Cynthia stared from one to the other, transfixed by astonishment.

They were not twin sisters, these middle-aged maidens; but sisters who live together and have their garments cut off the same piece are apt to become the image of each other. The Miss Weblings had spent five-and-forty years of life in constant companionship. They thought alike; ate and drank the same things, and by the same measure; dressed alike, walked alike, spoke alike, and uttered the same ejaculations with the simultaneousness of a single machine. Deborah threw up her hands and eyebrows on beholding Mr. Haggard, exactly as Priscilla had done a minute earlier.

'My!' she cried. 'To think, now!

Did you ever?'

Then followed a perfect gush of rejoicing from both spinsters, who took the minister between them and drew him into the best parlour. Both parlours were the pink of neatness, and ornate after their manner, but the parlour in which the brazen canary cage hung was the best par excellence. It was the room for Sunday afternoon occupation and stately tea-drinkings, the room in which to lay the dessert on Christmas-day.

'The cowslip wine, Priscilla,' cried the elder sister.

And the seedy-cake, love,' added the younger.

Cynthia stood in the porch all this time, mutely wondering.

And what blessed Providence has brought you this way, dear sir?' asked Deborah, while Priscilla unlocked a closet in the wainscot which was half as large as the room, and produced therefrom a decanter of dark-brown wine, and a seed-cake in a green dessertplate.

Mr. Haggard explained his mission in the west briefly, while Priscilla filled a glass of wine and cut a wedge of cake.

• And you came this way on foot on purpose to see old friends,' said Deborah. 'How good of you! You don't know how we have missed your blessed teaching, and thought and talked of you since you were last at Penmoyle. Do you find the place improved?' she asked with an air of latent pride.

'It looks as pretty and as peaceful as ever,' replied Joshua.

'O, but didn't you take notice? They've built a new house on the left-hand side as you come from the Truro road. It makes quite an addition to the place. And Mrs. Simmons at the shop has enlarged her window, and has painted herself up a bit outside; and the church vane has been gilded. We were quite busy last spring, I assure you.'

'And your school? I hope that has been going on prosperously?' 'We've been very well off for pupils, but I'm afraid children get

slower and duller every year. It seems harder work to teach 'em. If we hadn't the comfort of knowing that we've got a nice little bit of property laid by, it would be too wearying. But when one knows one's old age is provided for, one can bear a good deal. You've come to make a bit of a stay, I hope, Mr. Haggard ?'

'No, indeed; I'm sorry to say I'm not free to do that. I must get across to Truro in time for the night coach, for I must be at Combhollow for service to-morrow. There's no one to minister to my flock when I'm away.'

On this followed lamentations from both sisters. They had hoped that he would stay; that he would preach in their tabernacle, which was a little bit of a building with a sloping roof, next door to the shop-a building that had begun life as a stable.

'I want to see all old friends at Penmoyle,' said Joshua, this village having been one of his favourite abiding places in the days of his Cornish wanderings; but I came to you first, Miss Webling, because I've a favour to ask of you. There's a girl outside-'

'Yes, I saw her,' cried Priscilla eagerly, a tramp. And she's there still, I declare,' looking sideways at the porch.

ever such impudence ?'

'I brought her,' said Joshua.

Was there

'You! I thought she had been begging of you. She looks an awful character.'

'I do not believe there is any harm in her,' said the minister; ' and then remember who said that He was sent to the lost sheep of Israel. It is the duty of His ministers to seek and to save those that are lost. I found that stray lamb by the wayside.'

Ah, dear Mr. Haggard, I'm afraid she has imposed upon your goodness.'

'I don't think so. I have questioned her closely, and she seems to me innocent and good, little more than a child in years, and in sore need of help and protection. Now it struck me, my kind friends, that you would be the very people to help her.'

'We! O Mr. Haggard, when you know that we never could abide a grain of dust about our place! A creature like that, with ragged yellow hair, and not a thing upon her that isn't in tatters! What could we do for her ?'

Take her in and make her clean and clothe her comfortably, and teach her to read her Bible and earn her living honestly. That's what I want you to do, Miss Webling.'

'But consider, Mr. Haggard, the children. A creature with hair like that!

What an example for them!'

Twist her hair up into a knob like your own, or cut it off if you like, only make a Christian of her. You used to feel an interest in missionary work, Miss Priscilla.'

'Yes, dear Mr. Haggard, but I never held with mixing things