Wylder

“ A third lady, at what would have been an ordinary room's length away, half reclining on an ottoman, was now approached by Wylder, who presented me to Miss Brandon.
'Dorcas, this is my old friend, Charles de Cresseron. You have often heard me speak of him; and I want you to shake hands and make his acquaintance, and draw him out—do you see; for he's a shy youth, and must be encouraged.'
He gave me a cheerful slap on the shoulder as he uttered this agreeable bit of banter, and altogether disconcerted me confoundedly. Wylder's dress-coats always smelt of tobacco, and his talk of tar. ”

“ I say, old fellow, come out and have a weed, will you?'
I raised my eyes. Miss Brandon had left the room. I don't know that her presence would have prevented his invitation, for Wylder's wooing was certainly of the coolest. So forth we sallied, and under the autumnal foliage, in the cool amber light of the declining evening, we enjoyed our cheroots; and with them, Wylder his thoughts; and I, the landscape, and the whistling of the birds; for we waxed Turkish and taciturn over our tobacco. ”

“ The moon was low, and its yellow disk seemed, as it sometimes does, dilated to a wondrous breadth, as its edge touched the black outline of the distant woods. I half believe in presentiments, and I felt one now, in the chill air, the sudden silence, and the watchful gaze of the moon. I suspect that Wylder and Lake, too, felt something of the same ominous qualm, for I thought their faces looked gloomy in the light, as they stood together buttoning their loose wrappers and lighting their cigars. ”

“ Wylder. He never can be anything to me. I was, I thought, to build up our house. I am going, I think, to lay it in the dust. With the spirit of the insane, I feel the spirit of a prophetess, too, and I see the sorrow that awaits me. ”

“ But though the good folk of Gylingden, in general, cared very little how Mark Wylder might have disposed of himself, there was one inhabitant to whom his absence was fraught with very serious anxiety and inconvenience. This was his brother, William, the vicar.
Poor William, sound in morals, free from vice, no dandy, a quiet, bookish, self-denying mortal, was yet, when he took holy orders and quitted his chambers at Cambridge, as much in debt as many a scamp of his college. ”

“ To Captain Lake, Miss Brandon's adieux were as cold and haughty as her greeting.
'Did you see that?' said Wylder in my ear, with a chuckle; and, wagging his head, he added, rather loftily for him, 'Miss Brandon, I reckon, has taken your measure, Master Stanley, as well as I. I wonder what the deuce the old dowager sees in him. Old women always like rascals.'
And he added something still less complimentary. ”

“ Wylder—the Reverend William Wylder and his lady—could not for one moment seriously entertain it, and that I, who am bound to do the best I can for them, could not dream of advising it.'
'I fancy it is a matter of total indifference, Sir, what you may and what you may not advise in a matter quite beyond your province—I don't in the least understand, or desire to understand you—and thinking your manner impertinent and offensive, I beg that you will now be so good as to leave my house.'
Miss Rachel was very angry—although nothing but her bright colour and the vexed flash of her eye showed it. ”

“ Wylder looked confoundedly angry and flustered, standing with his heels on the edge of the rug, his hands in his pockets, jingling some silver there, and glancing from under his red forehead sternly and unsteadily across the room.
'He's not a man for country quarters! ”

“ All men are not like you and me, my dear Mr. Wylder. The sad experience of my profession has taught me that a suspicious man of the world, without religion, my dear Mr. Wylder,' and he lifted his pink eyes, and shook his long head and long hands in unison—'without religion—will imagine anything. They can't understand us.'
Now, the fifty pounds which good Mr. Larkin had procured for the improvident vicar, bore interest, I am almost ashamed to say, at thirty per cent. per annum, and ten per cent. ”

“ There was running all this time in Rachel's mind, and had been almost since the first menacing mention of Wylder's name by her brother, an indistinct remembrance of something unpleasant or horrible. It may have been mere fancy, or it may have referred to something long ago imperfectly heard. It was a spectre of mist, that evaporated before she could fix her eyes on it, but was always near her elbow. ”

“ Mark Wylder is as prompt as you, and has ten times your nerve and sense; you are more likely to have committed yourself than he. Take care; he may retaliate your threat by a counter move more dreadful. I know nothing of your doings, Stanley—Heaven forbid! but be warned, or you'll rue it.'
'Why, Radie, you know nothing of the world. Do you suppose I'm quite demented? Ask a gentleman for his estate, or watch, because I know something to his disadvantage! ”

“ As we went out, Wylder enquired, with his usual good taste: 'Well, what do you think of her?' Then he looked slily at me, laughing, with his hands in his pockets. 'A little bit slow, eh?' he whispered, and laughed again, and lounged into the hall. If Dorcas Brandon had been a plain woman, I think she would have been voted an impertinent bore; but she was so beautiful that she became an enigma. I looked at her as she stood gravely gazing from the window. Is it Lady Macbeth? No; she never would have had energy to plan her husband's career and manage that affair of Duncan. ”

“ I often thought since that he had expected to see Wylder before him.
The church-yard meteor expired, there was nothing in a moment but his ordinary smile of recognition.
'You're surprised to see me here,' he said in his very pleasing low tones.
'I lighted on him in the village; and I knew Miss Brandon would not forgive me if I allowed him to go away without coming here. (He had his hand upon Lake's shoulder.) They are cousins, you know; we are all cousins. I'm bad at genealogies. ”

“ At all events it flashed the same suspicion of Lake upon his mind again; and he said—
'I don't know, Sir, that the Reverend Mr. Wylder would entertain anything in the nature of a sale of his reversion. I rather think the contrary. I don't think his friends would advise it.'
'And why not? It was never more than a contingency; and now they say Mark Wylder is married, and has children; they tell me he was seen at Ancona?' said Lake tranquilly.
They tell you! who are they? said the attorney, and his dove's eyes were gone again, and the rat's eyes unequivocally looking out of the small pink lids. ”

“ Here was a new reason for wishing to know really how Mark Wylder stood. William had undoubtedly the reversion of the estate; but the attorney suspected sometimes—just from a faint phrase which had once escaped Stanley Lake—as the likeliest solution, that Mark Wylder had made a left-handed marriage somehow and somewhere, and that a subterranean wife and family would emerge at an unlucky moment, and squat upon that remainder, and defy the world to disturb them. ”

“ The baronet was sudden and vehement in his affairs of the heart; but curable on short absences, and easily transferable. He had been vehemently enamoured of the heiress of Brandon a year ago and more; but during an absence Mark Wylder's suit grew up and prospered, and Sir Harry Bracton acquiesced; and, to say truth, the matter troubled his manly breast but little.
He had hardly expected to see her here in this rollicking, rustic gathering. She was, he thought, even more lovely than he remembered her. Beauty sometimes seen again does excel our recollections of it. ”

“ Wylder; a gentleman of very moderate abilities, with no prospects, and without fortune, who finds himself, without any deservings of his own, on a sudden, possessed of an estate, and about to be united to the most beautiful heiress in England, is, I think, rather a fortunate person.'
'You did not always think me so stupid, Miss Lake,' said Mr. Wylder, showing something of the hectic of vexation. ”

“ In fact, he was then and there fully apprising him of his awful situation; and poor William Wylder looking straight at him, with white face and damp forehead, was listening stunned, and hardly understanding a word he said, and only the dreadful questions rising to his mouth, 'Can anything be done? Will the people come to-day?'
Mr. Larkin explained the constitutional respect for the Sabbath. ”

“ I am Uncle Lorne; and when I am not here, a devil goes up and down in the room. See! he had his face to your ear when I came in. I came from Dorcas Brandon's bed-chamber door, where her evil angel told me a thing;—and Mark Wylder must not seek to marry her, for he will be buried alive if he does, and he will, maybe, never get up again. ”

“ Captain Lake turned and walked quickly to the door, but came back as suddenly.
'Shake hands, Sir. We'll forget it. I accept what you say; but don't talk that way to me again. I can't imagine what the devil put such stuff in your head. I don't care twopence. No one's to blame but Wylder himself. I say I don't care a farthing. Upon my honour, I quite see—I now acquit you. You could not mean what you seemed to say; and I can't understand how a sensible man like you, knowing Mark Wylder, and knowing me, Sir, could use such—such ambiguous language. ”

“ The chapel was growing dark, and its stone and marble company of bygone Wylders and Brandons were losing themselves in shadow. Part of the periwig and cheek of Sir Marcus Brandon still glimmered whitish, as at a little distance did also the dim marble face and arm of the young Countess of Lydingworth, mourning these hundred and thirty years over her dead baby. Sir William Wylder, in ruff, rosettes, and full dress of James I.'s fashion, on his back, defunct, with children in cloaks kneeling at head and foot, was hardly distinguishable ”

“ William Wylder's solicitor, and as I have already demonstrated to him, I must now inform you, that the sum of six hundred pounds would be absolutely useless in his position. No party, Miss Lake, in his position, ever quite apprehends, even if he could bring himself fully to state, the aggregate amount of his liabilities. I may state, however, to you, without betraying confidence, that ten times that sum would not avail to extricate him, even temporarily, from his difficulties. He sees the thing himself now; but drowning men will grasp, we know, at straws. ”

“ Wylder was leaning on his elbow, with just the tip of his thumb to his teeth, with a vicious character of biting it, which was peculiar to him when anything vexed him considerably, and glancing sharply this way and that—
'You know,' he said, suddenly, 'we are a sort of cousins; his mother was a Brandon—a second cousin of Dorcas's—no, of her father's—I don't know exactly how. He's a pushing fellow, one of the coolest hands I know; but I don't see that I can be of any use to him, or why the devil I should. ”

“ The ghost of Miss Baily is a lie, he said, by my soul; and he likes you—he loves you. Shall I write it all in a book, and give it you? I meet Mark Wylder in three places sometimes. Don't move, till I go down; he's as easily frightened as a fish.'
And Uncle Lorne crept down the bank, tacking, and dodging, and all the time laughing softly to himself; and sometimes winking with a horrid, wily grimace at Stanley, who fervently wished him at the bottom of the tarn. ”

“ Lady Chelford stared at the audacious young lady with a look of incensed amazement for some seconds, unable to speak.
'Upon my word, young lady! vastly fine and independent! You chasser Mr. Wylder without one moment's notice, and without deigning to consult me, or any other person capable of advising you. You are about to commit as gross and indelicate a breach of faith as I recollect anywhere to have heard of. What will be thought?—what will the world say?—what will your friends say? Will you be good enough to explain yourself? ”

“ There is always a little shock after an absence of some years before identities adjust themselves, and then we find the change is not, after all, so very great. I suspect it is, rather, that something of the old picture is obliterated, in that little interval, to return no more. And so William Wylder was vicar now instead of that straight wiry cleric of the mulberry face and black leggings. ”

“ Where is the woman who will patiently acquiesce in the reserve of her husband who shares his confidence with another? How often had Stanley Lake sworn to her there was no secret; that he knew nothing of Mark Wylder beyond the charge of his money, and making a small payment to an old Mrs. Dutton, in London, by his direction, and that beyond this, he was as absolutely in the dark as she or Chelford. ”

“ The attorney made a hungry snatch at the paper, over William Wylder's shoulder, nearly bearing that gentleman down on his face, but his clutch fell short.
'Hallo! Miss Lake, Ma'am—the paper!'
But wild words were of no avail. The whole party, except Rachel, were aghast. The attorney's small eye glanced over the ground and hearthstone, where the bits were strewn, like
Ladies' smocks, all silver white, That paint the meadows with delight. He had nothing for it but to submit to fortune with his best air. He stood erect ”

“ I had then been his working junior in the cause of Wylder v. Trustees of Brandon, minor—Dorcas Brandon, his own cousin. There was a complicated cousinship among these Brandons, Wylders, and Lakes—inextricable intermarriages, which, five years ago, before I renounced the bar, I had at my fingers' ends, but which had now relapsed into haze. There must have been some damnable taint in the blood of the common ancestor—a spice of the insane and the diabolical. They were an ill-conditioned race—that is to say, every now and then there emerged a miscreant, with a pretty evident vein of madness. ”