And in spite of Lady Diana"s warning, "Not now," Lord Erymanth declared, "Avice, yes! A bird whose quills are quills of iron dipped in venom, and her beak a brazen one, distilling gall on all around. I shall inform her that she has made herself liable to an action for libel. A very fit lesson to her."

"What steps shall I take, my lord?" said Eustace, with much importance.

"I shall be most happy to be guided by you."

"It is not you," said Lord Erymanth.

"Oh! if it is only _he_, it does not signify so much."

"Certainly not," observed Dermot. "What sinks some floats others."

Lady Diana here succeeded in hushing up the subject, Harold having said nothing all the time; but, after we broke up from breakfast, I had a private view of Lady Diana"s letter, which was spiteful beyond description as far as we were concerned; making all manner of accusations on the authority of the Australian relations; the old stories exaggerated into horrible blackness, besides others for which I could by no means account. Gambling among the gold-diggers, horrid frays in Victoria, and even cattle-stealing, were so impossible in a man who had always been a rich sheep farmer, that I laughed; yet they were told by the cousins with strange circ.u.mstantiality. Then came later tales--about our ways at Arghouse--all as a warning against permitting any intercourse of the sweet child"s, which might be abused.

Lady Diana was angered and vexed, but she was not a woman who rose above the opinion of the world. Her daughter, Di Enderby, was a friend of Birdie Stympson, and would be shocked; and she actually told me that I must perceive that, while such things were said, it was not possible--for her own Viola"s sake--to keep up the intimacy she would have wished.

For my part it seemed to me that, in Lady Diana"s position, unjust accusations against a poor young girl were the very reason for befriending her openly; but her ladyship spoke in a grand, authoritative, regretful way, and habitual submission prevented me from making any protest beyond saying coldly, "I am very sorry, but I cannot give up my nephews."

Viola was not present. It was supposed to be so shocking that she could know nothing about it, but she flew into my room and raged like a little fury at the cruel wickedness of the Stympsons in trying to turn everyone"s friends against them, and trumping up stories, and mamma giving up as if she believed them. She wished she was Dermot--she wished she was uncle Erymanth--she wished she was anybody, to stand up and do battle with those horrid women!--anybody but a poor little girl, who must obey orders and be separated from her friends. And she cried, and made such violent a.s.surances that I had to soothe and silence her, and remind her of her first duty, &c.

Lord Erymanth was a n.o.bler being than his sister, and had reached up to clap Harold on the shoulder, while declaring that these a.s.sertions made no difference to him, and that he did not care the value of a straw for what Avice Stympson might say, though Harold had no defence but his own denial of half the stories, and was forced to own that there was truth in some of the others. He was deeply wounded. "Why cannot the women let us keep our friends?" he said, as I found him in the great hall.

"It is very hard," I said, with grief and anger.

"Very hard on the innocent," he answered.

Then I saw he was preparing to set off to walk home, twelve miles, and remonstrated, since Lake Valley would probably be flooded.

"I must," he said; "I must work it out with myself, whether I do Eustace most harm or good by staying here."

And off he went, with the long swift stride that was his way of walking off vexation. I did not see him again till I was going up to dress, when I found him just inside the front door, struggling to get off his boots, which were perfectly sodden; while his whole dress, nay, even his hair and beard, was soaked and drenched, so that I taxed him with having been in the water.

"Yes, I went in after a dog," he said, and as he gave a shiver, and had just pulled off his second boot, I asked no more questions, but hunted him upstairs to put on dry clothes without loss of time; and when we met at dinner, Eustace was so full of our doings at the castle, and Dora of hers with Miss Woolmer, that his bath was entirely driven out of my head.

But the next day, as I was preparing for my afternoon"s walk, the unwonted sound of our door-bell was heard. "Is our introduction working already?" thought I, little expecting the announcement--"The Misses Stympson."

However, there were Stympsons and Stympsons, so that even this did not prepare me for being rushed at by all three from Lake House--two aunts and one niece--Avice, Henny, and Birdie, with "How is he?" "Where is he? He would not take anything. I hope he went to bed and had something hot." "Is he in the house? No cold, I hope. We have brought the poor dear fellow for him to see. He seems in pain to-day; we thought he would see him."

At last I got in a question edgeways as to the antecedents, as the trio kept on answering one another in chorus, "Poor dear Nep--your cousin--nephew, I mean--the bravest--"

Then it flashed on me. "Do you mean that it was for your dog that Harold went into the water yesterday!"

"Oh, the bravest, most generous, the most forgiving. So tender-handed!

It must be all a calumny. I wish we had never believed it. He could never lift a hand against anyone. We will contradict all rumours.

Report is so scandalous. Is he within?"

Harold had been at the Hydriot works ever since breakfast, but on my first question the chorus struck up again, and I might well quail at the story. "Lake Mill; you know the place, Miss Alison?"

Indeed I did. The lake, otherwise quiet to sluggishness, here was fed by the rapid little stream, and at the junction was a great mill, into which the water was guided by a sharp descent, which made it sweep down with tremendous force, and, as I had seen from the train, the river was swelled by the thaw and spread far beyond its banks. "The mill-race!" I cried in horror.

"Just observe. Dear Nep has such a pa.s.sion for the water, and Birdie thoughtlessly threw a stick some way above the weir. I never shall forget what I felt when I saw him carried along. He struggled with his white paws, and moaned to us, but we could do nothing, and we thought to have seen him dashed to pieces before our eyes, when, somehow, his own struggles I fancy--he is so sagacious--brought him up in a lot of weeds and stuff against the post of the flood-gates, and that checked him. But we saw it could not last, and his strength was exhausted.

Poor Birdie rushed down to beg them to stop the mill, but that could never have been done in time, and the dear dog was on the point of being sucked in by the ruthless stream, moaning and looking appealingly to us for help, when, behold! that superb figure, like some divinity descending, was with us, and with one brief inquiry he was in the water. We called out to him that the current was frightfully strong--we knew a man"s life ought not to be perilled; but he just smiled, took up the great pole that lay near, and waded in. I cannot describe the horror of seeing him breasting that stream, expecting, as we did, to see him borne down by it into the wheel. The miller shouted to him that it was madness, but he kept his footing like a rock. He reached the place where the poor dog was, and the fury of the stream was a little broken by the post, took up poor Nep and put him over his shoulder. Nep was so good--lay like a lamb--while Mr. Alison fought his way back, and it was harder still, being upwards. The miller and his men came out and cheered, thinking at least he would come out spent and want help; but no, he came out only panting a little, put down the dog, and when it moaned and seemed hurt he felt it all over so tenderly, found its leg was broken, took it into the miller"s kitchen, and set it like any surgeon. He would take nothing but a cup of tea, whatever they said, and would not change his clothes--indeed, the miller is a small man, so I don"t see how he could--but I hope he took no harm. He walked away before we could thank him. But, oh dear! what a wicked thing scandal is! I will never believe anything report says again."

To the end of their days the Misses Stympson believed that it was the convenient impersonal rumour which had maligned Harold--not themselves.

I was just parting with them when Harold appeared, and they surrounded him, with an inextricable confusion of thanks--hopes that he had not caught cold, and entreaties that he would look at his patient, whom they had brought on the back seat of the barouche to have his leg examined. Harold said that his was self-taught surgery, but was a.s.sured that the dog would bear it better from him than any one, and could not but consent.

I noticed, however, that when he had to touch the great black Newfoundland dog, a strong shudder ran through his whole frame, and he had to put a strong force on himself, though he spoke to it kindly, and it wagged its tail, and showed all the grateful, wistful affection of its kind, as he attended to it with a tender skill in which his former distaste was lost; and the party drove away entreating him to come and renew the treatment on the Monday, and asking us all to luncheon, but not receiving a distinct answer in Eustace"s absence, for he was very tenacious of his rights as master of the house.

I was quite touched with the dog"s parting caress to his preserver. "So you have conquered the birds with iron quills!" I cried, triumphantly.

"Who were they?" asked Harold, astonished.

"Surely you know them? I never thought of introducing you."

"You don"t mean that they were those women?"

"Of course they were. I thought you knew you were performing an act of heroic forgiveness."

Harold"s unfailing politeness towards me hindered him from saying "heroic fiddlesticks," but he could not suppress a "Faugh!" which meant as much, and that mortified me considerably.

"Come now, Harry," I said, "you don"t mean that you would not have done it if you had known?"

"I should not have let the poor beast drown because his mistresses were spiteful hags." And there was a look on his face that made me cry out in pain, "Don"t, Harry!"

"Don"t what?"

"Don"t be unforgiving. Say you forgive them."

"I can"t. I could as soon pardon Smith."

"But you ought to pardon both. It would be generous. It would be Christian."

I was sorry I had said that, for he looked contemptuously and said, "So they teach you. I call it weakness."

"Oh, Harry! dear Harry, no! The highest strength!"

"I don"t understand that kind of talk," he said. "You don"t know what that Smith is to my poor mother!"

"We won"t talk of him; but, indeed, the Misses Stympson are grateful to you, and are sorry. Won"t you go to them on Monday?"

"No! I don"t like scandal-mongers."

"But you have quite conquered them."

"What do you mean? If we are the brutes they tell those who would have been our friends, we are not less so because I pulled a dog out of the river."

The hard look was on his face, and to my faint plea, "The poor dog!"

"The dog will do very well." He went decisively out of the way of further persuasions, and when a formal note of invitation arrived, he said Eustace and I might go, but he should not. He had something to do at the potteries; and as to the dog, the less it was meddled with the better.