Mrs. Henry Wood

“ Connaught--that you would be sure to marry into one of the good county families," murmured Anna.
"Did they? I hope the disappointment won't be too much for them. I shall marry you, Anna, and none other."
"But what would your family say? Your father--your sister?"
"Just what they pleased. Anna, pardon me, I am only teasing you. Believe me, they will only be too glad to hear of it; glad that the wild, unsteady (as Mary Anne is pleased to call me on occasion) Isaac Thornycroft should make himself into a respectable man. Anna! can you not trust me?" ”

“ I would be served so myself, if I could thus have turned traitor!"
But what was it seized Richard's arm? Not a seabird. It was his sister Mary Anne. "You here!" he cried, with increased passion. "What the fury!--have you all turned mad to-night?"
"You have murdered him!" she cried, in a dread whisper--for how could she know that Anna Chester had fallen senseless and could not hear her?--"you have murdered Robert Hunter!"
"I have," he answered. "He is dead, and more than dead. If the shot did not take effect, the fall would kill him." ”

“ Isaac thought she would have fainted. Placing her by his side on the sofa, he kept still, listening to what she had to say.
"As I looked out of the Round Tower in the starlight, I caught a momentary glimpse of--as I thought--you, and I saw the hand that held the pistol take aim and fire. I thought it was you, and I fainted. I have thought it ever since. Mary Anne, in a word or two that we spoke together, seemed to confirm it."
"Mary Anne knew it was not I. It is not in my nature to draw a pistol on any man. Surely, Anna, you might have trusted me better!" ”

“ Sarah opened the kitchen door, and Anna took the opportunity to escape. Isaac looked after her. If ever misery, horror, despair, were depicted on a human countenance, they were on Anna's.
"I did not think she was one to take it up like this," he said, as he let himself out. And in the tone of his voice, despairing as her face, there was a perfectly hopeless sound, as if he felt that he could not combat fate.
By the next day the story of the ghost, singular to say, had spread all over Coastdown; singular, because the report did not come from Joe, or from any of Joe's hearers. ”

“ Thornycroft appeared quite content to let him stay on at the Red Court in idleness--idleness as the world called it. Save that he read a great deal, Cyril did no absolute work; but many in Coastdown blessed him. In sickness of body, in suffering of mind, there by the bed-side might be found Cyril Thornycroft, reading from the Book of Life--talking of good things in his low, earnest voice; and sometimes--if we may dare to write it--praying. Dare! For it is the fashion of the world to deride such things when spoken of--possibly to deride them also in reality. ”

“ Robert Hunter not dead, indeed! He was barbarously murdered, ma'am."
"It is the most astounding tale I ever heard," cried the bewildered Mrs. Macpherson. "What was the ghost like?"
"Like himself, ma'am. Perhaps you knew a coat he had? An ugly white thing garnished with black fur?"
"I had only too good cause to know it!" shrieked out Mrs. Macpherson, aroused at the mention. "That blessed prefessor of mine bought it and gave it him; was took in to buy it. He's the greatest duffer in everyday life that ever stood upright." ”

“ Mary Anne Thornycroft glanced at him in surprise. "Only within a few months! How is that?"
"Because I have learnt to love another. To love--do you understand, Mary Anne?--to love. With my very heart and soul; with my best and entire being. Such love cannot come twice to any man, and it teaches him much. It has taught me, amidst other knowledge, that I liked my wife as one likes a dear child, but not otherwise."
Mary Anne Thornycroft's hand trembled as it lay upon his arm. ”

“ How Fate changes plans! "L'homme propose, mais Dieu dispose," was one of the most solemn truisms ever penned. Long ere the six weeks of holidays had passed, Isaac Thornycroft and Anna Chester had become all in all to each other: and he, a man accustomed to act upon impulse, spoke out.
It was during an evening walk to the Red Court Farm. Anna was going to tea there; Isaac met her on the heath--no unusual thing--and turned to walk by her side. Both were silent after the first greeting: true love is rarely eloquent. ”

“ Playing with her neck-chain, tossing it hither and thither, she at length saw Robert Hunter come strolling home from the village, his air listless, his steps slow; just like a man who is finding time heavy on his hands.
"And not one of them to be with him!" came her passionate thought. "It is a shame. Bears! Why! who's this?"
The exclamation--cutting short the complimentary epithet on her brothers, though it could not apply with any sort of justice to Cyril, who had been prevented by his father from following Robert Hunter--related to a Jutpoint fly and pair. ”

“ I am innocent: will not that suffice?"
"It will more than suffice for me," she answered. "Since that night I have been most wretched."
"You need not have feared me in any way, Anna," was the reply of Isaac Thornycroft. "Were it possible that my hand could become stained with the blood of a fellow-creature, I should hasten to separate from you quicker than you could from me. Whatever else such an unhappy man may covet, let him keep clear of wife and children." ”

“ We learnt to care for each other as much as it is possible for people to care in this world. So much so, that when it was all past and done with, and I received an excellent proposal of marriage, I could not accept it. That early attachment was the blight of my life, Mary Anne. Instead of being a poor school-mistress, worried with many anxieties--a despised old maid--I should now have been a good man's wife, the mistress of a prosperous home."
Miss Jupp kept her rising tears down; but Mary Anne Thornycroft's eyes were glistening. ”

“ And--another word, Mary Anne," added Mr. Thornycroft, pausing in the act of leaving the room; "a word of caution; let your brothers alone; their movements are no business of yours, neither must you make it such. Shut your eyes and ears to all that does not concern you, if you want to live in peace under my roof."
"Shut my eyes and ears?" she repeated, looking after him, "that I never will. I can see how it is--papa has lived so long under the domineering of Richard that he yields to him as a habit. It is less trouble than opposing him. Richard is the most selfish man alive. ”

“ Never losing her calm self-possession on any occasion, as so many young ladies do on no occasion at all, Miss Thornycroft stepped up to the side glass cases to examine the curiosities, talking as easily to him as though she had known him all her life. Without being in the least free, there was an openness of manner about her, an utter absence of tricks and affectation, a straightforward independence, rather remarkable in a young lady. For Robert Hunter it possessed a singular charm. ”

“ At the end window of the corridor, looking towards the church and village, stood Mary Anne Thornycroft. Not yet had she recovered the recent stormy interview, and a resentful feeling in regard to it was rife within her. The conduct of her father and eldest brother appeared to have been so devoid of all reason in itself, and so gratuitously insulting to Robert Hunter, that Mary Anne, in the prejudice of her love for him, was wishing she could pay them off. It is the province of violent and unjust opposition to turn aside its own aim, just as it is the province of exaggeration to defeat itself ”

“ You are mad, Mary Anne."
"It is not treason at all, sir," replied Mr. Hunter, regarding Richard with surprise. "It is a pretty well ascertained fact that contraband goods are landed and housed in the rocks at the Half-moon. It will be loyalty, instead of treason, if we can contrive to lay a trap and catch the traitors."
Richard Thornycroft moved forward as if to strike the impetuous speaker. It would seem that one of the fits of passion he was liable to was coming on. Cyril, calm and cool, placed himself across his brother's path. ”

“ Thornycroft started. "Daughter!" he cried, in a hoarse whisper, hoarse with passion, "hold your peace about your brothers. What is it to you where they go or what they do? Is it seemly for you, a girl, to trouble yourself about the doings of young men? Are you going to turn out a firebrand amongst us? Take care that you don't set the Red Court alight." ”

“ The aged fisherman, of dim sight and failing memory, did not know his guest; he was easily bribed not to tell of his sojourn; and the rumours of the ghost had not penetrated to him. In that hut Hunter lay by day, and watched from the churchyard by night, as being a likely spot to see Richard, who used often to pass and repass it on his way to and from the heath, and an unlikely one to be seen and recognised by the public. With that convenient tomb of old Marley's to shelter behind whenever footsteps approached, he did not fear. ”

“ Kyne is also mistaken?" cried Robert Hunter, veering round.
"What I think, and what I do not think, you may gather from my words," was the haughty reply. "I tell you that no man living under my roof shall encourage by so much as a word, let alone an act, anything of the sort. Mr. Kyne can pursue his own business without us."
"If it were one of my own brothers who did so, I would shoot him dead," said Richard, with a meaning touch at his gun. "So I warn him."
"And commit murder?" echoed Robert Hunter, who did not admire this semi-threat of Richard's. ”

“ Sitting there on the hearth-rug, in the October evening, her eyes on the small print by the firelight, getting dim now, Anna's heart was a-glow within her, for that evening was to be spent with Isaac Thornycroft. A gentleman with his daughter was staying for a couple of days at the Red Court, and Anna had been asked to go there for the evening, and bear the young lady company.
"My dear," whispered Mrs. Copp, in the midst of her knitting, "is it not getting late? You will have the daylight quite gone." ”

“ He found nothing there that could be converted into suspicion by the most lively imagination. The worn grass beneath the feet was all genuine; the circular wall, crumbling away, had stood for ages. Satisfied, so far, they crossed the railings on their way home.
Mr. Thornycroft was in the dining-room writing a note; Richard, who had apparently just stepped in to ask a question, held a gun; Cyril lay back in an easy-chair, reading. When Mary Anne and their gentleman guest burst in upon them with eager excitement, the one out-talking the other, it was rather startling. ”

“ Few in this world are so good and pure and loving as Cyril Thornycroft. Fare you well, Robert Hunter! fare you well for ever."
"For ever on earth," he added. Another pressure of the poor weak hand, a warm, earnest look, a faint thought of the Heaven that might be attained to yet, and Robert Hunter turned away, and woke up to the world again.
His cold coffee stood in the drawing-room when he got back. He sat a short while with the two young ladies, very quiet and absorbed. Cyril was not there. Mary Anne inquired what was the matter with him. ”

“ She can take her fences better than I can. That's not the kind of woman I'd marry. I should like a meek one."
"A meek one!" echoed Mary Anne, wondering whether he was speaking in derision. "What do you call a meek one?"
"A modest, gentle girl who would not shake me. Such a one as--let me see, where is there one?--as Anna Chester, say, for example."
All the scorn the words deserved seemed concentrated in Miss Thornycroft's haughty face.
"As good marry a beggar as her. Why, Isaac, she is only a working teacher--a half-boarder at school! She is not one of us." ”

“ Mary Anne Thornycroft lifted her eyes. "How do you mean, discovered? What is there to discover?"
"Not anything, I dare say," she said. "But it used to strike me as very singular--this superstitious belief in these enlightened times--and a feeling was always on my mind that something would occur to explain it away. Have you heard of it?" she asked, directing her eyes to Robert Hunter.
"Somewhat. There is a difficulty, I hear, in keeping the preventive men on the plateau after dusk. What it is they precisely fear, I do not know." ”

“ Thornycroft approached.
"Looking out for smugglers?" demanded the justice, jestingly. For this new superintendent had started the subject of smuggling soon after he came to Coastdown, avowing a suspicion that it was carried on; the justice had received it with a fit of laughter, and lost no opportunity since of throwing ridicule on it.
"Shall I tell him, or not?" mentally debated Mr. Kyne. "Better not, perhaps, until we can get hold of something more positive. He would never believe it; he would resent it as a libel on Coastdown." ”