The Prophet's Mantle

'John Hatfield wouldn't work for a man as had ruined his girl.'

'Hungry dogs eat dirty pudding,' remarked Potters.

'Hatfield does na' deal o' thee, Potters,' observed Murdoch, drily.

'And it would be just one if he did,' answered Potters, his large face growing crimson, 'and Alice was a good lass and a sweet lass till she took up wi' fine notions and told a' the lads as none on 'em was good enough to tie her shoon, and as she'd be a lady, and I don't know what all, and Mr Roland was the only gentleman as ever took any notice of her, except Mr Richard; and Mr Roland, he went away when she went away, and it's all as plain as the nose on your face.'

'Tha says too much,' said Murdoch slowly, 'for't a' to be true.'

'Now, now!' interposed Bolt. 'Enow said on all sides, I'm sure. The poor old master's gone, and the mill's got a holiday, and I think you'll all be better employed i' turning your thoughts on him as is gone than i' picking holes i' them as is to be your masters, and raking up yesterday's fires i' this fashion. And so I say, as I said before, I for one am sorry he's gone.'

'Yes; and so am I,' said Bill; 'for as long as he lived I always expected him to do summat for me, as worked alongside o' him when he were a lad i' Carrington's Mills, and now I know that chance is ower.'

'Well, he gave thee work here, and he'd always a kind word for thee.'

'Kind words spread no butties, and when he was rolling in brass, work at the usual wages was a' he ever give me.'

'Did'st thee ever gie him owt, lad?'

'I never had owt to give him, or anyone else for that matter.'

A general laugh arose, and Bill buried his face in his mug of beer.

'The next work-day the mill's closed'll be a wedden-day, I s'pose,' said Sigley, after a pause.

'Ay, and not long fust.'

'Mr Roland's always up at Aspinshaw.'

'So's Mr Richard if you come to that.'

'They can't both marry the girl.'

'No, nor I shouldn't think either of them would yet a bit. Miss Clare's only just come home fro' endin' her schoolin'.'

'And a gradely lass she is.'

'Ay, that's so,' cut in old Murdoch. 'She thinks a sight more o' workin'-folk nor either o' they boys do.'

'Where's your proof o' that, Bill?' asked Bolt, the village logician.

'Proof,' snarled Murdoch; 'don't 'ee call to mind two years agone when we had a kind o' strike like, and didn't she go about speakin' up for us like a good un?'

A murmur of assent mingled with the gurgling of liquor down half-a-dozen throats.

'There's one I hope she'll never take to,' Potters was beginning, but Bolt interrupted him with—

'Whichever has her will have a fine wife. Let's drink good luck to the new masters, lads.'

'Or, so to say, to oursel', for their's'll be ours,' said Sigley.

'Their bad luck'll be ours; but their good luck's their own,' said Bill Murdoch sententiously.

This startling economic theory meeting with no support, the original toast was drunk with a feeble attempt at honours.

The 'new masters' whose health had thus been unenthusiastically drunk found it hard to realise the peculiar position in which they found themselves.

The will was a great surprise to them both. Neither had thought that the slight breach which had come between them was sufficiently wide to be noticed, and the very fact of its having been noticed made it appear deeper and more serious than they had before considered it to be.

It was a bitter thought to Richard Ferrier that the old man's last moments should have been made unquiet through any conduct of his, and he reproached himself for not having concealed his own feelings better, and for not having watched more keenly over those of his father. The most crushing part of bereavement is always the consciousness that so little more thought, so little more tact and tenderness, would have sufficed to spare that ended life many an hour of sorrow, that quiet heart many a pang of pain. It is then that we would give our heart's blood for one hour with the beloved in which to tell them all that we might have said so easily while they were here. This universal longing is responsible for that deeply rooted belief in the life beyond the grave which causes two-thirds of human-kind to dispense with evidence and to set reason at nought. So long as the sons and daughters of men

Weep by silent graves alone,

so long will the priest find his penitent, the professor of modern spiritualism his open-mouthed dupe, and the shrine its devotee. The ages roll on, each year the old earth opens her bosom for our dearest, and still man—slow learner that he is—will not realise that (whatever may be the chances of another life in which to set right what has been here done amiss) in this life, which is the only one he can be sure of having, it rests with him to decide whether there shall be any acts of unkindness that will seem to need atonement.

The consolation which so many find in the idea of a future life was a closed door to Dick. He had belonged to the 'advanced' school of thought at college, and to him the gulf which separated him from his father was one that could never be bridged over.

Roland's grief was more absorbing than his brother's, though it was not so acute; and by its very nature could not be so lasting. Yet through it all he felt rather—not vexed—but grieved that his father should have not only divined his inmost feelings, but should have published them to the world by means of this will. He had an uneasy consciousness that he was made to appear ridiculous, and for Roland to be possibly absurd was to be certainly wretched. It was very irritating that two brothers could not have an occasional difference without having their 'sparring' made the subject of a solemn legal document; and without being themselves placed in such a situation that the eyes of all their acquaintances must be turned expectantly on them to see what they would do next.

The differences arose from an only too complete agreement on one particular point. When they had come back from Cambridge a year before, they had found a new and interesting feature in the social aspect of Firth Vale. Clare Stanley had come home from the German boarding-school where she had spent the last three years. The young men had not seen her since she was a child, and now they met her in the full blossom of very pretty and sufficiently-conscious young womanhood.

For about two months they discussed her freely in their more sociable hours, admired her prodigiously, and congratulated each other on their good luck. Then came reticence; then occasional half-hearted sarcasms, directed against her, varied by a criticism of each other, the sincerity of which was beyond a doubt. For some months before the old man's death the rivalry that had sprung up between them had been too strong to be always kept under, even in his presence, and he had seen the effect, though not guessed the cause.

Strangely enough, another cause of dissension between the brothers had been also touched on by their critics in the tap of the Spotted Cow: Alice Hatfield. When Mrs. Ferrier had died Mrs. Hatfield had been foster-mother to the two boys, and during their childhood they were the constant playfellows of little Alice. Of course as they grew older the distance between them increased, but Richard was still very fond of Alice, and it was a great blow to him when one day, about three months after their return from college, the girl suddenly disappeared, taking leave of no one, and leaving no word of explanation. All that anyone could gather was that during a visit she had recently paid to an aunt in Liverpool she had been seen to talk more than once to a gentleman, and that she had left the Firth Vale Station for Manchester by an early train alone. But the worst of it was that Roland had that very day abruptly announced his intention of taking a holiday, and had gone North without any apparent object; and village gossip busied itself rarely with this portentous coincidence. At the end of a month Roland returned, looking worn and harassed. His brother asked him point blank where he had been, and for what. Roland indignantly denied his right to question, and flatly refused to answer. A quarrel ensued—the first of many, which grew more frequent as they saw more of Miss Stanley.

On the morning on which Mr Ferrier died, she and her father had gone to London to spend a month; and the time of her absence was the most peaceful the young men had known for some time.

Clare herself was glad to go to London, though not so glad to leave the scene of her conquests. One cannot blame her much for knowing that she was charming. The two Ferriers were the most desirable young men the country-side could offer, and no girl could have wished a finer pair of captives to grace her chariot-wheels. And—Aspinshaw was very dull.

CHAPTER IV.

A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE

WHEN Miss Stanley opened her hazel eyes the morning after the mischance on the way home from the theatre, her first waking impression was that something pleasant was to happen. She laughed at herself a little when complete wakefulness made her conscious that, after all, it was only Count Litvinoff's acquaintance and promised call which were answerable for that dreamy feeling of anticipated enjoyment.

She let her thoughts stray in his direction several times that day, and at the table d'hôte looked out for him with interest. But he was not there. Bearing in mind Mr Stanley's invitation, Count Michael Litvinoff had thought it as well to absent himself from the table d'hôte. It would have been rather awkward to meet his new acquaintances at dinner and then to call on them immediately afterwards.

'I don't see our Russian friend, Clare,' remarked Mr Stanley as the fish was removed. 'I think you must have been mistaken about his staying here.'

'Perhaps I was, papa,' said Clare, submissively, but with a sparkle in her eyes that contradicted her words. 'Or perhaps his foot hurt him so much that he couldn't come down.'

'If he doesn't come up after dinner we'd better make inquiries.'

But he did come up after dinner, and when he entered, limping slightly, Mr Stanley received him with as much effusion as could be shown by an old gentleman after a heavy meal.

'My daughter tells me you are staying in this hotel,' he began; and as Litvinoff, taking this as an introduction, bowed low to her, with his eyes on the ground, she hoped he did not notice the sudden flush that swept over her face. But he did; there was, in fact, very little that went on within a dozen yards of him that Count Litvinoff did not notice.

'How strange that you should have been on the spot last night, and how fortunate.'