griffith gaunt, unknown to himself, had lost temper as well as heart before he took the desperate step of leaving the country. now his temper was naturally good; and, ere he had ridden two miles, he recovered it. to his cost: for the sustaining force of anger being gone, he was alone with his grief. he drew the rein half mechanically, and from a spirited canter declined to a walk.
and the slower he went the chillier grew his heart, till it lay half ice, half load, in his bosom.
parted! oh word pregnant with misery.
never to see those heavenly eyes again nor hear that silvery voice! never again to watch that peerless form walk the minuet; nor see it lift the grey horse over a fence with the grace and spirit that seemed inseparable from it!
desolation streamed over him at the thought. and next his forlorn mind began to cling even to the inanimate objects that were dotted about the place which held her. he passed a little farmhouse into which kate and he had once been driven by a storm, and had sat together by the kitchen fire; and the farmer's wife had smiled on them for sweethearts, and made them drink rum and milk, and stay till the sun was fairly out. "ah! good-bye, little farm," he sighed, "when shall i ever see you again?"
he passed a brook where they had often stopped together and given their panting horses just a mouthful after a run with the harriers. "good-bye, little brook!" said he: "you will ripple on as before, and warble as you go; but i shall never drink at your water more, nor hear your pleasant murmur with her i love."
he sighed and crept away, still making for the sea.
in the icy depression of his heart, his body and his senses were half paralysed, and none would have known the accomplished huntsman in this broken man, who hung anyhow over his mare's neck, and went to and fro in the saddle.
when he had gone about five miles, he came to the crest of a hill; he remembered that, once past that brow, he could see peyton hall no more. he turned slowly and cast a sorrowful look at it.
it was winter, but the afternoon sun had come out bright. the horizontal beams struck full upon the house, and all the western panes shone like burnished gold; her very abode, how glorious it looked! and he was to see it no more.
he gazed, and gazed at the bright house till love and sorrow dimmed his eyes, and he could see the beloved place no more. then his dogged will prevailed, and carried him away towards the sea, but crying like a woman now, and hanging all dislocated over his horse's mane.
now about a mile farther on, as he crept along on a vile and narrow road, all woe-begone and broken, he heard a mighty scurry of horse's feet in the field to his left; he looked languidly up; and the first thing he saw was a great piebald horse's head and neck in the act of rising in the air, and doubling his fore-legs under him, to leap the low hedge a yard or two in front of him.
he did leap, and landed just in front of griffith; his rider curbed him so keenly that he went back almost on his haunches, and then stood motionless all across the road, with quivering tail. a lady in a scarlet riding-habit and purple cap, sat him as if he had been a throne instead of a horse, and, without moving her body, turned her head swift as a snake, and fixed her great grey eyes full and searching on griffith gaunt.
he uttered a little shout of joy and amazement, his mare reared and plunged, and then was quiet. and thus kate peyton and he met—at right angles—and so close that it looked as if she had meant to ride him down.
how he stared at her! how more than mortal fair she shone, returning to those bereaved eyes of his, as if she had really dropped from heaven.
his clasped hands, his haggard face channelled by tears, showed the keen girl she was strong where she had thought herself weak, and she comported herself accordingly, and in one moment took a much higher tone than she had intended as she came along.
"i am afraid," said she, very coldly, "you will have to postpone your journey a day or two. i am grieved to tell you that poor mr. charlton is dead."
griffith uttered an exclamation.
"he asked for you: and messengers are out after you on every side. you must go to bolton at once."
"well a day!" said griffith, "has he left me too? good kind old man, on any other day i had found tears for thee. but now methinks happy are the dead. alas! sweet mistress, i hoped you came to tell me you had—i might—what signifies what i hoped—when i saw you had deigned to ride after me. why should i go to bolton after all?"
"because you will be an ungrateful wretch else. what, leave others to carry your kinsman and your benefactor to his grave; while you turn your back on him—and inherit his estate?—for shame, sir! for shame!"
griffith expostulated humbly. "how hardly you judge me. what are bolton hall and park to me now? they were to have been yours, you know. and yours they shall be. i came between and robbed you. to be sure the old man knew my mind: he said to himself, 'griffith or kate, what matters it who has the land? they will live together on it. but all that is changed now; you will never share it with me; and so i do feel i have no right to the place. kate, my own kate, i have heard them sneer at you for being poor, and it made my heart ache. i'll stop that anyway. go you in my place to the funeral: he that is dead will forgive me; his spirit knows now what i endure: and i'll send you a writing, all sealed and signed, shall make bolton hall and park yours: and, when you are happy with some one you can love, as well as i love you, think sometimes of poor jealous griffith, that loved you dear and grudged you nothing; but," grinding his teeth and turning white, "i can't live in cumberland, and see you in another man's arms."
then catherine trembled, and could not speak awhile: but at last she faltered out, "you will make me hate you."
"god forbid!" said simple griffith.
"well then don't thwart me, and provoke me so, but just turn your horse's head and go quietly home to bolton hall, and do your duty to the dead and the living. you can't go this way for me and my horse:" then, seeing him waver, this virago faltered out, "and i have been so tried to-day first by one, then by another, surely you might have some pity on me. oh! oh! oh! oh!"
"nay, nay," cried griffith, all in a flutter: "i'll go without more words: as i am a gentleman i will sleep at bolton this night, and will do my duty to the dead and the living. don't you cry, sweetest: i give in. i find i have no will but yours."
the next moment they were cantering side by side, and never drew rein till they reached the cross roads.
"now tell me one thing," stammered griffith, with a most ghastly attempt at cheerful indifference. "how—do you—happen to be—on george neville's horse?"
kate had been expecting this question for some time: yet she colored high when it did come. however, she had her answer pat. the horse was in the stable-yard, and fresh: her own was tired. "what was i to do, griffith? and now," added she, hastily, "the sun will soon set, and the roads are bad: be careful. i wish i could ask you to sleep at our house: but—there are reasons—" she hesitated; she could not well tell him george neville was to dine and sleep there.
griffith assured here there was no danger; his mare knew every foot of the way.
they parted; griffith rode to bolton; and kate rode home.
it was past dinner-time. she ran upstairs, and hurried on her best gown and her diamond comb. for she began to quake now at the prank she had played with her guest's horse: and nature taught her that the best way to soften censure is—to be beautiful.
—on pardonne tout aux belles.
and certainly she was passing fair; and queenly with her diamond comb.
she came down-stairs, and was received by her father; he grumbled at being kept waiting for dinner.
kate easily appeased the good-natured squire, and then asked what had become of mr. neville.
"oh, he is gone long ago: remembered, all of a sudden, he had promised to dine with a neighbor."
kate shook her head skeptically, but said nothing. but a good minute after, she inquired, "how did he go? on foot?"
the squire did not know.
after dinner old joe sought an interview, and was admitted into the dining-room:
"be it all right about the grey horse, master?"
"what of him?" asked kate.
"he be gone to neville court, mistress. but i suppose (with a horrid leer) it is all right. master neville told me all about it. he said, says he, 'some do break a kine or the likes on those here joyful occasions; other some do exchange gold rings. your young mistress and me, toe exchange nags. she takes my pieball; i take her grey;' says he. 'saddle him for me, joe,' says he, 'and wish me joy.' so i clapped master neville's saddle on the grey, and a gave me a golden guinea a did, and i was so struck of a heap i let un go without wishing on him joy; but i hollered it arter un, as hard as i could. how you looks! it be all right, baint it?"
squire peyton laughed heartily, and said he concluded it was all right: "the piebald," said he, "is rising five, and i've had the grey ten years. we have got the sunny side of that bargain, joe." he gave joe a glass of wine and sent him off, inflated with having done a good stroke in horseflesh.
as for kate she was red as fire, and kept her lips close as wax; not a word could be got out of her. the less she said the more she thought. she was thoroughly vexed, and sore perplexed how to get her grey horse back from such a man as george neville; and yet she could not help laughing at the trick, and secretly admiring this chevalier, who had kept his mortification to himself, and parried an affront so gallantly.
"the good-humored wretch!" said she to herself. "if griffith ever goes away again, he will have me, whether i like or no. no lady could resist the monster long, without some other man at hand to help her."
