The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

"If you hate Sir Massingberd Heath," said I despairingly, "and want to do him the worst service that lies in your power, flee, flee to that house, and bid them save this boy's life, which alone stands between his beggared uncle and unknown riches!"

Revenge accomplished what pity had failed to work. She knelt at his side, from a pocket produced a spirit-flask in a leathern case, and applied it to his lips. After a painful attempt to swallow, he succeeded; his eyelids began tremulously to move, and the colour to return to his pallid cheeks. She disappeared; during her absence I noted that the tarnished silver top of the flask bore upon it a facsimile of one of the identical griffins which guarded each side of the broad steps that led to Fairburn Hall.

After a short interval, a young and lovely girl appeared, accompanied by a groom and butler, who bore between them a small sofa, on which Marmaduke was lifted and gently carried to the house. The master came in soon, accompanied by the local doctor, who at last delivered the verdict that my friend "would live to be a baronet."

He said, moreover, that the youth must be kept perfectly quiet, and not moved thence on any consideration--it might be for weeks. Harvey Gerard, a noble-looking gentleman, refused to admit Sir Massingberd under his roof.

The baronet, however, did appear towards twilight, and forced his way into the house, where Harvey Gerard met him with great severity. Soon hatred took the place of all other expressions on the baronet's face, and he swore that he would see his nephew.

"That you shall not do, Sir Massingberd," said the gentleman. "If you attempt to do so, my servants will put you out of the house by force."

"Before night, then, I shall send for him, and he shall be carried back to Fairburn, to be nursed in his proper home."

"Nursed!" repeated Harvey Gerard hoarsely. "Nursed by the gravedigger!"

Sir Massingberd turned livid.

"To hear you talk one would think that I had tried to murder the boy," he said.

"I know you did!" cried Harvey Gerard solemnly. "To-day you sent your nephew forth upon that devil with a snaffle-bridle instead of a curb! See, I track your thoughts like slime. Base ruffian, begone from beneath this roof, false coward!"

Sir Massingberd started up like one stung by an adder.

"Yes, I say coward!" continued Harvey Gerard. "Heavens, that this creature should still feel touch of shame! Be off, be off; molest not anyone within this house at peril of your life! Murderer!"

For once Sir Massingberd had met his match--and more. He seized his hat, and hurried from the room.

III.--A Wife Undesired

When Marmaduke recovered consciousness, twelve hours after his terrible fall, he told me that he had been given a sign of his approaching demise.

"I have seen a vision in the night," he said, "far too sweet and fair not to have been sent from heaven itself. They say the Heaths have always ghastly warnings when their hour is come; but this was surely a gentle messenger."

"Your angel is Lucy Gerard," replied I quietly, "and we are at this moment in her father's house."

He was silent for a time, with features as pale as the pillow on which he lay; then he repeated her name as though it were a prayer.

"It would indeed be bitter for me to die now," he said.

I myself was stricken with love for Lucy Gerard, and would have laid down my life to kiss her finger-tips. Nearly half a century has passed over my head since the time of which I write, and yet, I swear to you, my old heart glows again, and on my withered cheeks there comes a blush as I call to mind the time when I first met that pure and lovely girl. But from the moment that Marmaduke Heath spoke to me as he did, upon his bed of sickness, of our host's daughter, I determined within myself not only to stand aside, and let him win if he could, but to help him by all the means within my power. And so it came about that later I told Lucy that his recovery depended upon her kindness, and won her to look upon him with compassion and with tenderness.

Mr. Clint, the lawyer, came from London, and arrangements were made for Marmaduke to continue in Harvey Gerard's care, and when Marmaduke was convalescent the Gerards removed him to their residence in Harley street. After I had bidden them farewell, I rode slowly towards Fairburn, but was stopped at some distance by a young gypsy boy, who summoned me to the encampment to converse with the aged woman whom I had seen on the occasion of the accident. She bade me sit down beside her, and after a time produced the silver-mounted flask, concerning whose history I felt great curiosity. I asked her how it came into her possession, and she herself asked a question in turn.

"Has it never struck you why Sir Massingberd has not long ago taken to himself a young wife, and begotten an heir for the lands of Fairburn, in despite of his nephew?"