brown hunter, Robin Hood, for this day's work. On with your coat. What the deuce are you staring at ?" But Squire Jack gently put his friend aside, and, holding his sword by the stepped quickly to where Captain Grimswade stood leaning upon his second with chin sunk upon his breast and sword-point pressed into the turf. The soldier noticed that his adversary your coat, man, and let's be going. never parried en seconde, but always by Damme, Jack, if you shan't have my a supple-wristed moulinet that caught his carte or tierce indifferently, and yet never took the point of his own sword out of the line of his antagonist's body, and Captain Grims wade's confidence in his own skill began to lessen. Gas-blade below the hilt in his left hand, paro Chioggi, the celebrated schermato at Turin, had cultivated Squire Jack's sight and wrist muscles in such sort that to him the clumsy wild fencing that passed muster with the majority of Englishmen was mere child's play. It was soon evident to Grimswade that his opponent held him too cheaply even to condescend a riposte, and he you are not seriously hurt." lost his temper and coolness in conse- Slowly the wounded man raised a quence. It was hard to say how it hap-haggard face and stared at the speaker. pened exactly, but after a hotly pressed "Who said I was hurt?" The words rally, during which the guardsman came husky and hurried. "Why made fierce efforts to get in past his you, it's only a scratch." adversary's point, he suddenly went staggering back half-a-dozen paces or more, until his second hurried to support him. "Ah!" The exclamation burst forth in a full breath of unmistakable satisfaction from Cholmondley Monkton. It was elicited by the sight of the red patch that kept spreading over the frilled shirt-front of Squire Jack's antagonist. There was something almost brutal in the undisguised exultation with which the tall squire of FountainsAveril seized his principal's hand. In truth Monkton had been oppressed by a very real dread of his old friend's resentment of his underhand complicity in the meeting he had, so to speak, bespoken for himself, and during the latter part of the struggle Squire Jack's very evident forbearance had begotten the additional apprehension that it might fall to his lot to have to break to the unforgiving old father intelligence of his son's, injury or even death. In the twinkling of an eye the apprehension vanished, and just as a jubilant robin, darting down from the church roof, perched on a gravestone and broke into a palpitating gush of morning hymn, Squire Monkton broke into praise of another kind. "He's got enough, Jack, On with "Captain Grimswade, God is my witness that it was no intention of mine to harm you this day. You rushed on my point. I pray from my inmost heart Jerking himself from Captain Cotton's supporting arm the guardsman swayed once to and fro, and then, quick as evil ever is, plucking his sword from its earthly sheath he drove the blade through Squire Jack's body until the shell of the hilt struck against the breastbone. With the yell of a wild beast Cholmondley Monkton bounded forward, and by one down stroke of his heavy hunting-whip felled the soldier to the ground, and stamped upon him with his great riding-boot. "You stinking foumart you! You common stabber! I'll have you nailed on my kennel door amongst the vermin ! " Then turning round to where Squire Jack was propping himself against a gravestone, and pressing his two hands to his breast, while the blood trickled warmly through the white fingers, he tore off his cravat and making a pad of it bound it as tightly as possible over the blue-looking puncture, using Squire Jack's cravat as a bandage. That was the end of the morning's work. With Collins's shirt torn into supplementary bandages around his wound, in an upeasily reclining posture in the narrow chaise, Squire Jack reached Fountains-Averil, whence & 1 grooms rode in every direction for the | in no time. Yer eyes are as bright as doctors in best repute. Captain Cotton rode to the hall door some hours later and delivered a packet into Monkton's hand, after an urgent entreaty to see that unwilling gentle man. "Captain Grimswade with his dying breath desired me to place these papers in your hand, Mr. Monkton, and entreated your immediate attention to their contents. His last statement to me was this: Paston Darrel of Amberwick bribed me to slay young Darrel that he might get his inheritance.' You acquit me, sir, I hope, of all complicity in such a rascally piece of business." Cholmondley Monkton only clenched hand in hand and stared stupidly at Captain Cotton. The revelation had come too late to effect the issue. The doctors had seen Squire Jack, had tortured him with their probes and shaken their heads. Kindly, gentle, brave Squire Jack would never leave Fountains-Averil till they carried him to rest with his ancestors in the vault at Bassetwyke Church. Where is my son, Cholmondley Monkton ? What 'ave ye done with my son ? "" Squire Darrel thrust aside the hands his old friend extended, and stiffened himself up fiercely, in spite of the tottering state of his gout-tormented feet. "Don't hate me, Darrel, my old friend; God knows I hate myself enough without that." The old squire laughed bitterly. Ate! hoo, what 'ave you to do with love or 'ate? Take me to Jack, will ye?" Jack." Squire Jack slipped his hand into his father's and smiled. "Ay, smile again, Jack, my son; it makes my heart warm." And then the grey old head fell forward on his son's breast, and the father sobbed in the helplessness of his threescore and fourteen years. Cholmondley Monkton had not intruded himself at the interview; thus when a visitor rode to the hall door he was there to receive him, and looked at the new arrival with a mingling of perplexity and deadly animosity that the suave-mannered Mr. Paston Darrel did not fail to remark. The deep concern visible on his serious face and that vibrated in his softly toned voice was not in the least overdone; it was simply inimitable. "Mr. Monkton, for kindness' sake tell me that the rumor that has reached me at Bassetwyke is false. My kinsman is not killed? Surely, surely he is not killed?" "No, sir, he is not killed." And then Monkton glared at Paston Darrel with shut lips and a look on his face that was suggestive of a desire to worry him with his teeth. "If you I will walk in there" - he pointed to a room on the left-"you shall hear more of your kinsman after a bit." Truth to tell, Paston Darrel would rather have walked into his own more modest room at Amberwick, but he was not the man to betray his feelings. At the bend of the circular drive When the old father saw his son sweeping past the entrance to Founa suddenly reviving hope sprang up tains-Averil the Bassetwyke carriage within him. The wounded man was stood drawn up and two ladies occupallid enough, but composed and bright- pied it. Squire Darrel came bareeyed, and all outward traces of his hurt headed to the carriage door and opened were removed. Squire Darrel tried to kneel by the "Dorothy, wife, 'e wants to see 'er. couch, but failed and fell on his hands, Let 'm 'ave 'is way, will 'ee, I think it recovering himself, however, instantly.'ll do 'im good. 'E's not so bad as they "Jack, my lad, you're not going to die. You're not going to leave me all alone. We'll have the best doctors from Lunnun, and they'll set you up. LIVING AGE. VOL. LXXXII. 4210 said; 'is eyes are as clear as water. Let the lass go to 'im; 'e wants 'er. You and me 'll stop with 'im all night." For a moment the mother's eyes looked resentfully at Dorothy Scrope, | wyke, the old squire, transported by whose face was hidden by her black the frenzy of passion that lent him for silk hood. They quickly softened. "Go, Dorothy, and remember his life may depend upon you." Alone the young girl with widely opened tearless eyes entered the room where her lover lay dying, and at a glance she knew the worst without knowing how she knew it. Dropping the hood from her shoulders she sank upon her knees by the couch and looked down into his face, gently pushing back the hair that lay damp on his forehead. "O Jack, Jack, what is this?" Not without an effort he encircled her neck and drew her mouth down till it rested on his own. The fresh cool lips were given up to his kisses without a thought of shame, without a shadow of resistance. Would she not have breathed her very life into him if she could, and what were kisses ? "Jack, yesterday, only yesterday you were my own true sweetheart ! O what is this to-day? I am so frightened, Jack!" "It is death to-day, Dorothy, my love my love! The shadow has overtaken the sunshine, and I know your heart will ache, my true love; but I want to ask you to make my end happy, Dorothy. I want you to be my wife before I die." She shrank quiveringly as he pronounced the last word. "Your wife, Jack! Yes, I will be your wife and, if God will, will die with you; for eternity will be full of love if I am with you, and the earth will be empty if you are not there." a time a renewal of his former vast strength, had nearly strangled his crafty kinsman with his own cravat, and had then been carried off prostrated with gout to bed. He died three days afterwards, and Squire Jack, surviving him, reigned in his stead as squire of Bassetwyke. Notwithstanding this, Parson Youl made Squire Jack and Dorothy Scrope man and wife, and by virtue of the clause in the Darrel settlements, whereby in the event of failure of issue to a marriage the tenant for life could give usufruct and life interest to a surviving wife during widowhood, in bar of dower, when Squire Jack joined his old father in the mortuary chamber, which he did one month to a day after receiving his wound, beautiful Dorothy Darrel the younger became life-tenant of all the Darrel domain. She was a strangely beautiful woman ten years later when she said to Lady Dorothy who lived with her : "No, mother! Jack is waiting for me; I'll go to him his widow." From The Nineteenth Century. ASPECTS OF TENNYSON. III. THE REAL THOMAS BECKET. EIGHT years ago I was so bold as to say that Lord Tennyson's "Becket" was his noblest work. I was even In another part of the house a scene bolder; I gave my reason for saying so. over which a veil may be drawn was His " Becket," I said, closes a proenacting which resulted in one of those longed struggle between prejudice and miserable episodes of unbridled passion | historic truth, and will reinstate in the and lawless license characteristic of affections of the English people the the epoch. Apprised by Cholmondley memory of one of England's greatest. Monkton of the bargain made between men, after centuries of alienation Paston Darrel and Raven Grimswade, caused by an act of royal tyranny that by virtue of which the latter was to for pettiness and malice cannot be receive two thousand pounds a year for matched in history. taking Squire Jack out of the way of Paston Darrel's succession to Basset The intervening years have proved that I was not too bold; and I gladly avail myself of the opportunity now | periods varies. The brilliant chancelgiven me to dwell upon the point. lorship of Thomas Becket, preceded by Nearly four centuries ago Henry the the bright, promising days of his youth, Eighth enacted the miserable farce of was succeeded by the sad, weary time commanding a quo warranto information of his primacy, ending in martyrdom, to be filed by the attorney-general the years of glory and worship immediagainst Thomas, sometime Archbishop ately following his martyrdom were, on of Canterbury, summoning him, four the other hand, succeeded by a time of hundred years after he had been treach- contumely and misrepresentation inierously done to death, to answer the tiated by Henry the Eighth, during charge of high treason. To complete which prejudice and perversity have the mockery, counsel at the public ex-borne such abundant fruit that only in pense was assigned to the martyr; he recent years has there been a sign that was declared guilty of contumacy, trea- truth would prevail. son, and rebellion, and sentence was But now at last a third and glorious passed upon him. According to this period has set in. Inaugurated, as far sentence and the proclamation that fol- as Englishmen as a nation are conlowed, his bones were condemned to be cerned, by Richard Hurrell Froude, publicly burnt; the offerings made at and advancing under, if not in spite of, his shrine (they were of inestimable the fluctuating lights of Southey, Giles, value, and the gifts of Christendom) Lord Campbell, Milman, Robertson, were forfeited to the crown; all per- Freeman, Stubbs, and J. A. Froude, it sons were forbidden to call or esteem now, illuminated with the broad dayhim a saint, and compelled to destroy light of the Rolls Series,2 culminates in every image and picture of him; the the national drama of the laureate. festivals in his honor were abolished, Englishmen have ever felt the spell and his name and remembrance erased exercised in life and death by England's out of all books, under pain of his greatest chancellor and primate; but Majesty's indignation, and imprison-again and again prejudice has won the ment at his Grace's pleasure.1 It was thus that the voice of the people was stifled, and the double reign of slander and prejudice inaugurated. But Henry the Eighth knew what he was at when he blasted the fair fame of the great archbishop, dragged the martyr of liberty from his throne in the heart of the nation, and destroyed his altars With the sure throughout the land. instinct of a tyrant, he attacked a vital principle directly in the concrete form in which, appealing to the reason with a new force, it had sunk deep into the national mind, and been riveted afresh to the affection of the people. It is a noteworthy circumstance that, as the lifetime of St. Thomas of Canterbury naturally falls into three distinct epochs, so what may be called his history after his death, the history of his memory, divides itself into three clearly defined periods. But here the parallel ends; the sequence of the 1 Wilkins, Concilia, iii. 835-841, upper hand. If, fronting the splendor of Becket's great deeds, or the radiance of a beautiful, touching, noble incident in his life, a ray of light for a moment pierced the dense fogs with which from childhood education had confused their mental vision, prejudice quickly reasserted its old ascendency and the light was lost to them. There is something much more to be dreaded than the fierce light that beats upon a throne: the obscuring of that. light. And when Henry the Eighth darkened the memory of Thomas Becket he blinded the nation for centuries. I do not speak at random, or with rhetorical exaggeration. Taken as a whole, the writers of this century excluding Catholic writers, for they venerate Thomas Becket as a saint 2 The publication, at the public expense, of the eight large volumes of the Rolls Series, dealing solely with the history of St. Thomas Becket, is one of the most striking instances I know of a nation making reparation for the evil deeds of its sometime sovereign. considered in the light of the "Mate-to themselves," and that "his spirit rials for the History of Archbishop was one of those which difficulties and Thomas Becket," of the Rolls Series, dangers serve only to exalt," it certainly will be found to fully bear me out. But gave a false air of impartiality to his there are not many that have the time description of him as the boon comto make such a review; there are, per-panion of the king," who, up to his haps, still fewer that have the patience. election to the See of Canterbury, had Happily, the need for it of former times been anything rather than a Churchno longer exists. Lord Tennyson, with man. The praise is quickly obscured the sight and insight of a seer, saw the by gathering clouds of prejudice; and truth; with the strength of a strong thick as snowflakes fall, "his lax noman he proclaimed it, and with the tions of moral obligation," a spirit. rhythmic graces of his art, and the win- of aggression," "an ambitious heart," ning beauty of his genius he clothed it." ambitious zeal," "a breach of faith,' The strange travesties, the contradic-"duplicity," "he acted with a deceittions and inconsistencies, the false fulness for which excuse can only be inferences, the clouds of misunder- found in the casuistry of his Church," standing and misrepresentation of a "whether he entertained the fear that long line of writers, historians and his life was in danger, it was plainly biographers, all vanished before the his intention to act as if he did," "viosingle eye, the steady gaze of the poet lent and imperious in prosperity," 99.66 an who dared to look and was strong to inflexible temper," an unbounded indignation." And then comes the summing up : "In this long contention each party had committed acts as unwarrantable as the other could have desired." see. But, distasteful and irksome though it be to plunge back into the darkness and windings of bigotry and prejudice when the simplicity and light of knowledge and genius beckon us forward, it is necessary, in order to understand the greatness, the true stability of Tennyson's work, for a moment at least to glance at some of the contradictions and calumnies in which honorable and gifted writers have been involved when unconsciously misrepresenting the life of one of England's greatest sons. Not one of these historians, not one of these biographers, has wholly escaped the subduing power of heroic virtue; however strong their prepossessions, however tough their prejudices, an admiration of their subject bursts from them in spite of themselves — or rather in spite of their adverse circumstances; but this very admiration itself has not unfrequently intensified the mischief of their misreading of history. 66 At the risk of digression I must recall one act, a notorious act, of Henry's in his six years' struggle to change, not only the Constitution of England, but also the ecclesiastical law of the whole of Christendom-reminding my readers meantime that in his love of Henry, which, in spite of everything, remained to the end, Becket never could bring himself to excommunicate him, though, as his letters show, he used every argument and entreaty that duty and affection could prompt to soften the king's heart. 3 mar-e In the depth of the winter, by the command of Henry, all the kindred and friends of the archbishop were seized and transported beyond the sea. Neither age nor sex was spared ried and single, young and aged, the sick as well as the sound, orphans, & widows, expectant mothers, nursing mothers with their babes in their arms, feeble old men, delicate girls, his clergy and secular friends - all were exiled, after having, with a refinement of cruelty, been forced to swear that they would present themselves before the |