Urith

“ I do not want a maid; no—I shall never forgive you, if it be not a boy. Urith, My—everything depends on that. When there is a new Anthony Cleverdon, my father can hold out in his obstinacy no longer. He must give way. An Anthony Cleverdon of Willsworthy, and not of Hall! It would go against all his pride, against his most cherished ambition. It cannot, it shall not be. Urith, a boy it must be, and what is more, he shall not lie in that dusty, cobweb-clad pig-trough. ”

“ Anthony and Urith might have been happy parents of a sweet, innocent little one, who would have bowed the heart of his grandfather, and wiped off it all the rust that has gathered there. That little life, with all it might have been to itself, or to others, is destroyed—by you! You and Anthony broke the heart of Urith, and brought about what has taken place. You cannot give back the little life—you cannot mend the wreckage of happiness you have brought about. ”

“ Urith said nothing, she was looking down at the tossing, thundering torrent far below.
"I never cared much for Julian," continued Anthony, "and after yesterday I like her less."
"Why so?" Urith looked up and met his eyes.
"Why so? Because I have seen you. If I have to go through life with any one, I will take you in the saddle behind me—no one else." ”

“ How could he have supposed that Urith was devoid of all those feminine delicacies of manner which enable a woman to place herself at ease in all society? She had thrown a cold, wet blanket over his joy on this first coming forth into the world from his seclusion at Willsworthy. Then Anthony went on spinning at the same dark thread of ideas. He asked himself what there was in Urith that had attracted him, why it was that he had been so infatuated as to throw his luck to the winds so as to possess her. When the head begins to reckon, then the heart is on the way to bankruptcy. ”

“ He was pale as death.
"Urith, your forgiveness for all the sorrow I have caused you."
"Oh, Anthony!" she clung to him, quivering with emotion. "It is I—it is I—who must——"
"We have been neither of us free from blame. One kiss—a last—in token of perfect reconciliation." ”

“ I am too proud to go back to Hall and say to him, 'Urith has cast me off, now she finds that I am penniless.' What am I to do? I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed, and I have no stewardship in which to be dishonest. If I cannot have you, I have nothing to live for, nothing to work for, nothing, and no one to love. ”

“ Urith's life hung on a thread; and, as Luke paced his room, he could not resolve whether it were better to pray that it should be spared or taken.
If her life were spared, it would be to what? To a renewal of misunderstandings, to the greatest of unhappiness, probably to deep-seated, embittered estrangement. Anthony and Urith were unsuited to each other—she sullen, moody, and breaking forth into bursts of passion; he impulsive, reckless, and without consideration for others. ”

“ Home?—To Willsworthy? To the reproaches of Urith, to the tedious jests and drawled-out songs of Mr. Gibbs? To the sight of Urith ostentatiously holding her hand in a sling to let him know that he had hurt her, when she intercepted the blow aimed at her uncle?
"Pshaw!" said Anthony. "She is not hurt, she cannot be hurt. She caught the stick in her palm. It stung her, no doubt, but will pass. ”

“ The floor was littered with bracken, and was dry. The crushed fern exhaled a pleasant odour.
Outside the hut, in early morning, sat Anthony with Urith among the rocks, looking down into the gorge. The valley was full of white mist, out of which occasionally a grey rock thrust its head. Above the mist the moor-peaks and rounded hills glittered in the morning sun.
Anthony sat with his arm about Urith; he had drawn [Pg 408] her head upon his breast, and every moment he stooped to kiss it. Tears were in her eyes—tears sparkling as the dewdrops on bracken and heather—tears of happiness. ”

“ Nothing is sound. Faith—trust—love." She paused between each word, as gathering her thoughts. "Everything is broken. Words—promises—oaths—." Then she looked at the token. "Everything is broken. Hearts are broken—lives—unions—nothing is sound."
"Look at this, Urith."
Anthony drew from his breast the half-token that had belonged to his mother, and placed it against that which Urith held.
"See, Urith! they fit together." ”

“ As Urith looked, she saw how handsome was her opponent, with fluttering locks, her colour heightened by wrath, her full lips trembling, her eyes flashing. She thought that if she were to match herself against such an one she would come away with ignominious defeat; and Julian, by the same light, and at the same moment, formed [Pg 31] her opinion of the rival facing her, recognised her strength, her charm, and felt that she was a girl who would jeopardise her hold over Anthony, and imperil her happiness. ”

“ With nervous hands she plucked at her gloves, and dragged rather than drew them off.
"Will you allow me to go forward?" asked Urith coldly.
Then all at once Julian broke forth into a stream of words, disconnected, fiery with the fury that raged within.
"You would snatch him away! You! And you do not know, or you do not care, that he and I are destined for each other—have been ever since our cradles. Who are you to come between us? What are you, Urith Malvine, but a half-savage moor-girl? I have heard of you. Folks have tongues, and tell tales. ”

“ If you have driven Anthony away, driven him to his death in the battle-field, and Urith also dies, then there will be the lives of all three you will be answerable for. It may be that Anthony was too hasty in marrying Urith, but once married, you should have left him alone. I do not believe, Julian, that he ever loved you. No, you may look at me in anger and doubt, but I am sure of it; I am his sister, I have seen and heard him, and if you fancy that he ever loved you, you are utterly in error. He never did. He never loved any girl till he saw Urith. ”

“ I will go seek out my friend Cudlip at the Hare and Hounds. I shall not be late, but I want to hear news. There is a wind that the Duke of Monmouth has set sail from the Lowlands. The militia have been called out and the trainbands gathered. Come, Urith, do not look so grave. Brighten up with some of the humours of the maid who sang of winter on Trinity Monday. It cannot be summer-time all the year—why, neither can it be winter. ”

“ Bessie said aside to Urith, "Make the attempt. You cannot well go wrong."
Urith stood up—nervous, trembling, turning white and red, and with the tears very near the surface.
"Look here," said Anthony. "Father thinks, because I am thrust out of Hall, that everyone may kick at me—that I am of no account any more. Let us show that it is otherwise. Let them see that I am something still, and that my wife is not a nobody. Come!" He whisked her to her place at the head of the room.
Urith saw that all eyes were on her, and this increased her nervousness. ”

“ She looked at it, seemed surprised, parted the portions, and reclosed them again.
"Everything broken may be mended, Urith," said Anthony. "Faith—trust—love. Do you see? Faith shaken and rent may become firm and sound again, and trust may be restored as it was, and love be closed fast. Unions—a little parted by misunderstanding, by errors, may be healed. Do you see—Urith?"
She looked questioningly into his eyes, then back at the token, then into his eyes again. ”

“ And this, too, to the throwing over of his grand opportunity of uniting the Kilworthy property to Hall!
"Come, father, sit down, and keep cool. I am sorry if you prefer Julian to Urith, but unfortunately the selection has to be made, not by you, but by me, and I greatly prefer Urith to Julian. Indeed, I will not have the latter at any price—not if she inherited all the Abbey lands of Tavistock. You are disappointed, but you will get over it. When you come to know Urith you will like her; she has lost her father—and she will find one in you." ”

“ I have always loved Anthony. There is no sin in that. If Urith succeeded in drawing him away from me to whom he was all but assured, must I not feel it? May I not resent it? She stole him from me, and the blessing at the altar does not hallow her theft."
"What are you saying!" exclaimed Bessie, fixing her eyes on Julian. "Is it not a sin to love a man who has sworn before heaven that he will be true to one, and one only, and that not yourself? Is it not a sin to endeavour to make him false to his oaths?"
"I cannot force him to be true to Urith, and to love her. You are going to marry Fox. ”

“ There was another person present who turned white at the announcement, and that was Julian Crymes; but she speedily recovered herself, and, rising, looked across the church at Urith with eyes that flamed with jealousy and hate. Her hand clenched her gloves, wrapped together in it. Yes, that wild moor-girl had won in the struggle, and she—the rich, the handsome Julian—was worsted. Her heart beat so furiously that she was afraid of leaning against the carved oak sides of the pew lest she should shake them. ”

“ How long he stood thus fascinated he could not conjecture, he was startled out of it by his horse jerking his bridle from under his foot, and then at once, as one starting out of a trance, he passed into a world of other sensations, he heard the rush of water and the wail of wind, he saw the fires about him, and Urith's eyes no longer filled the entire horizon.
"Come," said he, roughly, as he caught the bridle, "get on the horse; we must waste no more time talking folly." ”

“ She recalled how Anthony had brushed out her initials linked with his, and interwoven in their place his own with those of Urith.
"There," said she, hastily, "I came here for something else than to be judged and condemned by you."
"I neither judge nor condemn you," answered Bessie, [Pg 345] "but I tell you the truth. Anthony can never be yours, not even if Urith dies. He never did love you."
Julian stamped. "You do not know—he did, and I loved him."
"What token did he give that he cared for you?—answer me now."
"I loved him, I love him still. In love all is fair. ”

“ It is like a game of quoits when one has not strid the distance, and knows not what force to employ."
Urith without further demur came to him. This was a new experience to her to be addressed in tones of command; her mother scolded and found fault, and gave, indeed, orders which she countermanded next moment, so that Urith had grown up with the habit of following her own desires, and disregarding the contradictory or impossible injunctions laid on her.
"Come here, Urith," said Anthony; "I do not see why we have been such strangers heretofore. Why do you never come to Hall?" ”

“ No one could approach unobserved, and opportunities of escape lay ready on all sides—a thousand hiding-places among the piles of broken rock, and bogs that could be put between himself and a pursuer. Nevertheless, he could not remain for ever thus hiding. He must escape across the seas, as he was certain to be proscribed, and a price set on his head. That he must be with Urith but for a day or two he was well aware, and every moment that she was with him was to him precious. ”

“ Urith's knowledge of men, their ways, and their fancies, was limited to the study of her uncle; and though she could not believe that her Anthony was a sot and witless, yet she supposed that he partook of the same taste for society and for the bottle, which she regarded as much a characteristic of men as a rough chin and a masculine voice. ”

“ Why should I shout across the hall to you, and you stand with your back turned to me, as though we were on opposite sides of the Cleave?" He spoke with as much imperiousness as if he were in his own house, commanded her as though he expected of her as ready submission as was accorded him by his sister.
"What do you want with me? I do not care to go near a man subject to such outbreaks of folly."
"You are one to declaim!" said Anthony, scornfully. "You who run away, and bite your knuckles till they are raw."
Urith's brow darkened. ”

“ It disconcerts them to find themselves worsted by such as they have despised. There, I shall bear him no grudge. I forgive him, and he will be ashamed of himself ere ten minutes are past in which his blood has cooled. None of us are masters of ourselves when the juices are in ferment."
He took his niece's hand and looked at the palm; it was darkened across it, by the stroke of the stick.
"So! he has bruised thee, Urith! That would have cracked my old skull had it fallen athwart it, by heaven! Never mind, I kiss thee, wench, for having saved me, and I forgive him for thy sake. ”

“ Now tell me about Urith."
"Urith! I cannot. I have not seen her; nor been near Willsworthy since you came away. I have been going about the country, to the taverns looking for Anthony, and not hearing any tidings of him."
"I can tell you where he is."
"I know myself now. Squire Crymes informed me that he had ridden across the moor towards Exeter, also bound for Taunton. Let me sit down. Nothing can be done yet; every one sleeps. The Hare and Hounds at Cudliptown will be closed. Do you hap to have any cider that can be got at? I am dry as old hay." ”

“ With his hand at the bit he urged the horse on, and strode forward, looking down at the turf, without speaking. The sudden drunkenness of brain that had come over him left its vapours that were not withdrawn wholly and at once. But Anthony was not a man to brood over any sensation or experience, and when Urith asked, "Did you find your father's colts?" he recovered his good humour and gaiety, and answered in his wonted tone, "No, the fire must have driven them further north, maybe they are lost in Cranmeer." ”