Ned Hayward

“ Difficulties and dangers have their interest in telling; calm and tranquil happiness has too few incidents for record. Ned Hayward and Mary took up their abode with Mrs. Clifford, and the fair bride had never any cause to repent that she had discovered in her husband something deeper, finer, nobler than those who had given him the name of thoughtless Ned Hayward. Certainly there were some changes came over him. He was as cheerful, as sunshiny, as frank and ready as ever; but he was not quite so fond of fishing, shooting, and hunting. He liked a quiet walk or ride with Mary better. ”

“ Thus on he went upon his way, and what he had got to after partridges and field-swamps, and matters of such kind, Heaven only knows. He might be up in the moon for aught I can tell, or in the Indies, or riding astride upon a comet, or in any other position the least likely for a man to place himself in, except when aided by the wings of imagination; and yet, strange to say, Ned Hayward had not the slightest idea that he had any imagination at all. He believed himself to be the most simple jog-trot, matter-of-fact creature in all the world ”

“ By the marks of emotion which she displayed, Ned Hayward was led to believe, that he had spoken too plainly of what he had never intended to touch upon at all; and he hastened to repair the error.
"What I mean is simply this, my dear Miss Clifford," he said; "a man who enjoys himself very much--as I do--feels pain in the same proportion, or perhaps more keenly. ”

“ No sin in that--no, Ned."
"None in the world, Sir John," answered Ned Hayward, "but a great deal of dulness. I never could make out in my life how men, with their wits about them, could spend hours throwing bits of painted pasteboard in a particular order for shillings and sixpences."
"Just as reasonable as standing up for hours to be showed for shillings and sixpences," answered Sir John Slingsby, "and both you and I have played at that, you dog. ”

“ The wide moor extended for miles, every tree and bush was visible, and even the distant belts of planting where the common ended on the right could be seen lying black and heavy against the moonlight sky; but yet there was a darkness over the ground which showed that it was not day; and still, as he urged the willing beast forward, Ned Hayward kept a ready hand upon the bridle in case of need. Soon he thought he gained upon the other, but then he saw him turn from the sandy road and take over the turf to the left. Ned Hayward ran across, and pressed hard the beast's sides. ”

“ But while he was reflecting on pretty girls, and combining them in the honestest way possible with his hunt after a man who had fired a shot into the window of Tarningham House, an obtrusive recollection crossed his mind that moons will go down, and that then wide open moors with many a shaking bog and pitfall were not the most lustrous and well-lighted places upon earth, which remembrance or reflection puzzled him most exceedingly. Though we have never set up Ned Hayward for a conjuror, he was an exceedingly clever, dashing, and amiable person ”

“ Here's Ned Hayward, the most deadly shot in Europe, whether with pistol, rifle, or fowling-piece, nothing escapes him, from the human form divine down to a cock-sparrow. The best angler in England, too; would throw a fly into a tea-spoon at fifty yards distance. He has come down for an interminable number of months to catch my trout, kill my game, and drink my Claret. Then there is my friend Mr. Beauchamp, more sentimentally given, a very learned man and profound, loves poetry and solitary walks, and is somewhat for musing melancholy made ”

“ I envy him the first twenty miles of his drive."
"I envy him in all things," answered Ned Hayward; "his life may, and, indeed, seems likely to be made up of beautiful days; and I am very sure that mine is not."
"Nay, Captain Hayward," said Mary, raising her eyes gently to his face, and shaking her head with a smile, "you are in low spirits and unwell, otherwise you would never take so bright a view of your friend's fate, and so dark a one of your own. Many a fair and beautiful day may be, and ought to be, in reserve for you. Indeed, they must be ”

“ I promised to catch the best trout in the river before noon; and there he is; match him if you can."
"Before noon," exclaimed Sir John Slingsby, taking out his watch; "twenty minutes past twelve, by Jove!"
"Ay, but he has been caught twenty minutes," said Ned Hayward, "I will appeal to all persons present."
"Well, granted, granted," exclaimed the baronet, "the bet's won, the bet's won. You shall change your clothes, make yourself look like a gentleman, and then tell the reverend company your story."
"Impossible," answered Ned Hayward, shaking his head; "I have forty things to do." ”

“ If the gentleman grasps our legs we can kick him off; if he seizes our hands we can often shake him away; but the deadly pressure upon the chest and neck; the clinging, grasping energy of those small digits on the throat, when we find that, half a second more and life is gone, is perhaps as unpleasant a thing as often falls to the lot of mortal man to feel.
Now Ned Hayward, I have endeavoured to impress upon the reader's mind, was a brave, bold, determined fellow as ever lived. ”

“ All the objects of country life are gone. It seems to me that the world has turned as dead as a horse-pond, and men and women nothing but the weed at the top, waiting coolly in green indifference for the ducks to come and gobble them up. Lack-a-day! lack-a-day! if we had but Ned Hayward here to cheer us up! What can have become of him?"
"Oh, he has come back, my dear uncle," replied Mary; "I saw him upon the terrace as I was taking my morning's walk."
"Then why is he not here?" exclaimed Sir John Slingsby, "why is he absent from his post? ”

“ However, we hear the young man is better, and therefore I trust we shall not be obliged to play at hide and seek much longer."
Thus saying, he went up the stairs again, but was several minutes ere he returned, during which time, though occasionally falling into fits of grave thought, Ned Hayward laughed and talked gaily; from time to time stealing a quiet look at the fair face of Mary Clifford, as she leaned her arm upon the table, and gazed somewhat sadly at the embers of the gamekeeper's fire. ”

“ And Ned Hayward, who had held the above conversation with one of Sir John Slingsby's servants, hurried upstairs. His room was all in the most exact order. His fishing tackle, two fowling-pieces in their cases, shot-pouches, game-bags, powder-flasks, &c., were in array on the top of the drawers. His clothes were all in their separate places, his boots arranged under the dressing-glass, his writing-desk upon the table, flanked on either side by half-a-dozen volumes. Every thing could be found in a moment, so that if called upon suddenly to march, the baggage would require no time to pack. ”

“ Beauchamp took out his watch and satisfied himself that they were to their time, spoke a few words to the surgeon, unlocked the mahogany box, looked at some of the things it contained, and then walked up and down the field with Ned Hayward for a quarter of an hour.
"This is too bad, Hayward," he said, at length; "I think we might very well now retire."
"No, no," said Hayward, "give him law enough, one can never tell what may stop a man. He shall have another quarter of an hour. Then if he does not come, he shall have the horsewhipping." ”

“ Some persons must come by in the morning who will help mc to beat the bushes."
Ned Hayward concluded his reflections, however, with a sentence which seemed to have very little connexion with them.
"She's an exceedingly pretty girl," he said, "and seems to be as amiable as she is pretty, but I can't let that stop me." ”

“ I told the dear girl I loved her, and she bade me stay, so I had nothing to do but to obey, und now I think in three weeks more, thoughtless Ned Hayward will be the husband of the sweetest and loveliest girl in the world."
"With one exception," said Beauchamp, smiling; "and one of the best husbands in the world will he make her. But one thing more let me say, Hayward; as little as you thought of finding marriage on your onward path when first we met, so little did I think of finding friendship, as little did I hope for or even wish it ”

“ To some men it affords a faculty of finding their way about houses--I wish to Heaven it did so with me, for I am always getting into wrong rooms and places where I have no business--others it enables to go through all sorts of tortuous paths and ways almost by intuition; with others it is strong regarding government offices, and the places connected therewith; but in Ned Hayward it was powerful in the country, and it would have been a very vigorous ignis fatuus indeed that would lead him astray either on horseback or on foot. ”

“ If he swings it will be no bad job; a bloody-minded scoundrel!"
Ned Hayward was somewhat surprised to hear his friend Wolf qualify by so unsavoury an epithet a gentleman, whose friend and companion he had very lately been; the young officer, however, knew a good deal of the world and the world's ways, and he was not at all inclined to honour the ci-devant poacher for so sudden a change of opinion. ”

“ Ned Hayward's puzzle was of a different kind, but it proceeded from the same source, namely, an erroneous preconception. He saw that Mary Clifford was embarrassed, whenever the subject of the attack upon their carriage was mentioned, that she changed colour, not from red to white as would have been the case, had terror had aught to do with it, but from white to red, which is generally a change produced by other emotions. ”

“ Fancy is a wonderful thing, and it has been accounted for some people as good as physic. I should say it was better for most men, but yet, taken in too large doses it is dangerous, very dangerous. Now Ned Hayward had, that night, taken too large a dose, and the effect was this: he imagined he was perfectly well acquainted with the figure, person, and appearance of the horseman whom he had hunted from under the walls of Tarningham-park to the spot where he then stood, with his horse's bridle over his arm. ”

“ We can send up people to look for the bodies. But let us see what's at the back of the house." He accordingly walked round, still carrying the boy in his arms, but found nothing there, except a low detached shed, which seemed in security, as the wind blew the other way. A long trough and spout, indeed, between the shed and the cottage, seemed in a somewhat perilous position, and as it was likely that they might lead the fire to the building yet uninjured, Ned Hayward thought fit to remove them before he left the ground. ”

“ When Captain Hayward left the tent, he proceeded to the stream which skirted the woods. Bending over it, he bathed his fevered brow. Then he seated himself upon the bank of the river, and, resting his head upon his hands, was, for a long time, absorbed in his thoughts. A human form flitted lightly past. Hayward raised his head and listened, but all was quiet again, and, in the darkness of the night he could distinguish nothing.
“I was mistaken!” he said to himself. “If I was not, and a human being is around, I will wager it was Nettleton, who, anxious for my safety, has followed me.” ”

“ Captain Hayward was greatly emaciated. Loss of blood, fever, hunger and exposure would have ended a life less tenacious than his; but, despite his suffering, the presence of friends, the rescue of his sister, the anticipated happiness of her union with the man who had proven himself so well worthy of her—all conspired to give an elasticity to his spirits more potent than the infusions of herbs prepared by the not unskilled hands of old Madge, who, from an enemy, had, “by the force of couldn’t help herself,” as Nettleton declared, become a useful instrument at a critical moment. ”

“ Hayward answered carelessly, as if personal friendships with Presidents were very ordinary affairs for him. Lily Porter was a mite skeptical, but she hoped he spoke the truth, for it would more than confirm her estimate of him and would be such an effective counter to her father's nagging opposition.
"Oh, isn't that interesting! Tell me all about it!"
"Really I cannot. I have never told that, even to my mother. There is only one other person who knows of it. It is my one secret, and my life—that is, my future—depends largely upon it. There's too much at stake." ”

“ At last Captain Hayward ordered a halt, and the party dismounted. The horses were secured to the surrounding trees, and Nettleton and the negro left to guard them.
"Come with me, comrades," said Hayward, as he took his course toward the river's bank.
In a moment they were seated by the side of the rapid Osage, entirely concealed by the thick growth of underbrush by which they were surrounded.
"It is better that our servants should not hear our conversation," remarked Hayward. "And now, gentlemen, we must lay our plans. I wish every one to speak freely. You know our object, of course." ”

“ To say that Miss Mamie Hayward soon became Mrs. Wells, in the presence of the whole division—that a grand gala-day followed—is but half the truth, however; for, at the same time, another bridegroom was there in the form of the pale but happy Captain Henry Hayward, who took to be his comforter and his much-needed nurse, the woman who loved him most truly—Miss Nettie Morton. It was, indeed, a most happy consummation of a drama which promised, at one time, to end only in sorrow and broken hearts.
Not the least happy of all that throng, nor the least noted, was
Nettleton, the Captain’s Body-Guard. ”