CHAPTER XIII.

THE HEYDAY OF YOUTH.

The conditions of life in this world do not permit boys to retain their boyhood indefinitely; and so it was that the boy Philip grew in time to be a young man, and to entertain the thoughts and aspirations proper to that important and interesting stage of human existence. He came of age, and a celebration was held in honour of that event; and after that he considered it to be a part of his duty to go forth and see the world. The world, as not infrequently happens in such cases, took more out of its beholder than its beholder could get in return from the world; in other words, Sir Philip Kildhurm spent the larger part of the fortune which his aunt Mrs. Chepstow had made over to him, in discovering that it is not so easy as it looks to be wise without experience. This curious bit of news having been duly recorded in his memory, he presently made his way back to Kildhurm Tower, which he found very much in the state in which he had left it; though it appeared to him rather more stupid and monotonous than of yore. However, young men are always fertile of expedients to relieve monotony; and the medicine which Sir Philip prescribed to himself in the present instance was the singularly original one of falling in love. He fell in love with an excellent and charming young lady; and she fell in love with him, which was probably more than he deserved: and in due course they were betrothed, and married. Within a year from the wedding-day, the new Lady Kildhurm presented her husband with a daughter; and soon after having done this, she died; but the little girl lived and grew strong and vigorous and charming.

The widower, whose somewhat frivolous and unsteady disposition had been sobered and steadied by the shock of his much-beloved young wife's death, sought compensation for her loss in his little daughter. No father was ever more devoted than he; and now he fancied he had attained a deeper understanding of that old saying of his mother about the treasure above. Old Lady Kildhurm, it should be mentioned, was still living at nearly eighty years of age, and was apparently neither more nor less vigorous than she had been twenty years before. Only now her hair was completely white, and hung down in long thick braids, reaching below her waist. Her face, also, had undergone a certain change. The vacant expression had given place to what might be described as a childlike look; for it had all the serenity and frankness of a child, and the eyes possessed that unconscious quality of penetration that is born of the child's unsullied intuitions. When these untroubled eyes rested upon the beholder's, therefore, he generally looked away, if he was a bad man; but if he was a good man he looked into them, and the further he looked, the more he found himself thinking, not of old age, but of childhood; and if, moreover, he happened to be acquainted with little Hilda, the granddaughter, he was apt to find himself thinking particularly of her. Certain it is that the infant woman and the aged one lost no time in becoming dearly attached to each other, as if they had been kindred spirits; and when Hilda was three years old, her sibylline grandmother did an unprecedented thing; for she took the child in her arms, and mounted with her to her seat in the Oak. Sir Philip almost feared for his precious little daughter's safety, and confidently expected to hear her break out into a clamour of alarm and aversion at the gloom and all the strange surroundings. But as it turned out the small neophyte underwent her initiation not only with composure but with gratification. When, after an hour's withdrawal from the world the venerable sibyl restored her to her father's arms, Hilda seemed regretful rather than relieved that the experience was over.

'What did grandmamma show you?' inquired Sir Philip.

But Hilda, with praiseworthy discretion, only looked at him and shook her wise little head, with a roguish smile in her brown eyes.

'Oh, so you are going to keep the secret as well!' said Sir Philip laughing.

'It is her secret now,' said old Lady Kildhurm, laying her thin dark hand on the child's golden hair. 'The spirit of the Oak was my friend, but he is her servant. She is mistress of Kildhurm, and all it contains. In her shall the race be blessed and their sorrows be comforted: and woe unto him who would thwart her purpose or dispute her will!'

All this might be true; but the fact nevertheless remained that as Hilda grew up, the worldly fortunes of Kildhurm went down; until, at about the period of the young lady's seventeenth birthday, they were pretty nearly in as bad a condition as when, forty years before, Sir Norman had ridden out to show his friend Colonel Banyon the way over the Convent Cliff. Evidently, therefore, if Hilda was going to restore the fortunes of the race, she could not set about the business too soon. Hilda herself, however, did not appear to have any idea how the thing was to be done; nor (being a person of a disposition to derive a great deal of pleasure from a very economical expenditure) did she seem to think a fortune of any paramount importance. She performed her household avocations with cheerfulness and punctuality, and enjoyed her recreation on the sea shore or the hills as heartily as if she had been mistress of ten thousand a year. But at last, luckily for Kildhurm, and for the reputation of prophecy, an unexpected occurrence took place. A strange young gentleman made his appearance in the neighbourhood.

He was in every respect a highly interesting object. He was blue-eyed, handsome in face and figure, courteous and brave. Though hardly more than twenty-five years old, he was a captain of Grenadiers, and had won his rank by gallant services in the American War. He was rich and well connected; and it was reported that he had come into the neighbourhood to buy land, to build a house, and to settle down in it. His name was Harold Bramston; and he was a bachelor.

Improbable as it may appear, one of the last people in the county to hear the news about Captain Bramston was the very person who was generally considered to be the most affected by it: namely, Miss Hilda Kildhurm. The first she knew about the matter was, that one afternoon, as she was sitting beneath the Oak, mending a rent that she had made in her frock the day before, she saw a gentleman ride along the road, and draw rein at the Tower gate; and a moment afterwards she saw him pulling vigorously at the bell-handle. This proved (what Miss Hilda had already suspected) that the gentleman was a stranger; for anybody who was not a stranger would have known that the bell of Kildhurm Tower had been cracked and done away with any time these ten years past. Now, it was unquestionably the duty of the Kildhurm family to be hospitable to strangers; and since that family at present consisted of three members, one of whom--Sir Philip--was absent in the neighbouring market town, and another of whom--Miss Hilda's grandmother--was presumably asleep in the topmost chamber of the Tower;--such being the state of affairs, it inevitably devolved upon the third and only available member--Miss Hilda herself--to do the honours of the occasion. So she arose, and paced demurely across the grass towards the stranger. As she drew near she perceived that he was very good-looking, in both senses of that phrase, and this discovery gave her a certain satisfaction. Moreover, when he turned to look at her it was evident that he found her appearance agreeable, which was the more noteworthy inasmuch as she was by no means dressed to receive company, and her hair was in disorder. She thought the stranger must be a man of great natural kindliness, and very easy to please. When she was within speaking distance, therefore, she asked him, in a friendly tone, whether he wanted to see anyone?

He eyed her for a moment very intently, as if she were the first young woman he had ever beheld; and he answered in a deep but very pleasant voice, lifting his hat from his forehead,

'I beg your pardon!' (which she thought quite unnecessary). 'I am Captain Bramston--Harold Bramston: you may chance to have heard mention made of me----?' He bowed slightly with an expectant look.

'No: I never heard of you before,' replied Hilda, with a meditative air, as if she were searching her memory to make sure.

Captain Bramston coloured a little. 'You are, I venture to suppose, Miss--that is, Miss----'

'Yes, I am Miss Kildhurm,' she replied gravely. 'Hilda Kildhurm,' she added, after a pause.

The Captain hereupon doffed his hat again, and continued to hold it in his hand while he spoke.

'I am happy and honoured to meet Miss Kildhurm,' he said. 'Though you have never heard of me, I heard of you long ago, and I have often thought of you--pardon the liberty!--especially of late. I am a sort of relative of yours, you must know: a distant one, I fear; but still----'

'A distant one is better than none at all,' put in Hilda, intending no more than to help him out with his sentence; for he seemed to find a difficulty in finishing his sentences; and when he broke off in the midst of them he had a way of resting his eyes on her face, as if he expected to find the conclusion there.

'Thank you for thinking it worth while to say that!' exclaimed the Captain, straightening himself and lifting his head with a very bright glance.

'Oh, you must not think I meant that--exactly!' Hilda said in some haste and panic, and with a flush that may have indicated her regret at having been born such a fool.

The Captain was certainly very kind. He took no notice of her embarrassment, but went on, smoothing the feather in his hat as he spoke,

'I was going to explain, in regard to our being relations, that I had a grand-uncle, whose name was Banyon. He was an Indian colonel.'

'Oh, I know all about him,' said Hilda, glad to show that she was not quite such a fool after all. 'He was in love with his cousin, poor old Mrs. Chepstow, my grand-aunt; and left her all his precious stones in his will; only she never got them, because, poor man....' Here Hilda paused, and threw a glance at the handsome young officer.

'Because he was drowned, wasn't he?' said he, smiling however in a very unnephew-like manner. 'And the precious stones were drowned along with him, of course.'

'That is what the common people believe,' said Miss Kildhurm with a certain reserve in her manner that prompted the Captain to say,

'Ah then, if I may ask it, what is Miss Kildhurm's belief?'

'I believe,' said she, after a moment's silence, 'that there is a secret, and a mystery!'

'A mystery?' repeated the Captain, opening his blue eyes. 'Where?'

Hilda's brown eyes met his blue ones with a grave and somewhat doubtful expression: but at last she raised her hand and pointed to the Oak, saying nothing.

'In the Oak?' Captain Bramston at first reddened a little, as if he thought he were being made game of; but in a moment he exclaimed in a tone full of interest, 'Oh, is that the famous Oak--the Oak of Kildhurm?'

'Yes, that is our Oak,' replied Hilda, with a breath of pride.

'You see, I had heard of it before,' said the Captain.

'I should think there was no one who had not heard of the Oak of Kildhurm,' replied Hilda, rather amused at the contrary suggestion. 'I suppose there might be some who couldn't,' she added charitably, reflecting that India and America were a long way off, and their inhabitants probably very ignorant.

'May I see it?' resumed Captain Bramston.

'You cannot see the mystery!' Hilda answered with some awe in her voice. 'I have not seen that myself; I only know a little about it. My grandmamma is the only one who has seen!'

'I was speaking of the Oak. As to the mystery, I shan't ask about seeing that as long as I may see you.'

'I don't see how you can say that,' replied Hilda, 'since you have known me only so short a time.'

'But I have been waiting to know you a long time,' the Captain was bold enough to say: 'ever since I was a man. And the longer one waits to know a woman, the faster he gets to know her when he begins.'

'But I have not been waiting any time at all to know you, and yet--' began Hilda. But there she broke off, and said, 'You will think I have no manners, Captain Bramston. I have forgotten to ask you on what errand you are come here. And will you not step into the house and have some refreshment? I expect my father back in an hour or so.'

'Miss Kildhurm, have I offended you?' said the Captain very humbly.

'No, indeed, anything but that!'

'Else you would not speak so formally.'

'I must not speak as I might speak, if my father were here,' answered the young lady with a blush. 'I am the representative of the family until he comes, and I must speak for them and not for myself.'

'Then--I wish your father were here!' exclaimed the Captain.

'So do I.'

'Why do you wish it? So that you might get rid of me? or so that you might not continue to be the representative of your family?'

'That does not seem to me a very wise question. But will you not step into the house?'

'You were sitting under the Oak when I first saw you: would you mind letting me come there?'

'Wherever you wish,' replied Miss Kildhurm graciously; and she led the way to the Oak, and she and the Captain established themselves beneath its shadow.

The Captain thought it was the loveliest day and the loveliest spot that he had ever seen; which simply showed that he must have been a very unobservant young man hitherto, because, in his travels about the world, he had met with scenes and with climates far lovelier than Kildhurm could boast of at its best. But the Captain, though he praised the prospect, looked at it much less than at his companion; and if he had said that his travels had never brought him in contact with anybody like her, he would probably have been declaring more nearly what he felt to be the truth. She was so simple, and yet so dignified: so naïve, and yet so sensible: so lovely, and yet so unconscious. He gazed, and wondered, and blessed his stars for having brought him round the world, and reserved this fairest of all sights for him at the end of his pilgrimages and dangers. Yes, it was a blessed fortune that had put it into his mind to come and settle down here, in this remote and beautiful region, here to make his home and to spend his days. And it was a beneficent Providence, surely, that had kept his heart free and unstained through those perilous years of early youth, when hearts are so apt to go astray. What happiness to think that he might say to this charming maiden, 'You are the first woman I have loved; and I am not wholly unfit to take your hand in mine, and to look in your dear eyes!' For it was nothing less than this that the Captain already imagined himself as saying to Miss Kildhurm.

But having got thus far in his thoughts he began to entertain gloomy and portentous fears. What if Miss Kildhurm should not respond to this sudden and unlooked-for passion of his? What should she know of love? And why should she love him? This last was a question which Harold Bramston might not have thought it necessary to ask himself in respect of every woman that he had met: but, as regarded Hilda Kildhurm, he found himself destitute of any vanity whatever, and inclined to look upon himself as the most insignificant of men. The most insignificant of men? Was there then some other man who was more significant--or who possessed more significance in Hilda's eyes? This idea was torture to Captain Bramston, and he tried to put it away, and to fight against it; but the more he tried the more numerous and plausible were the reasons which suggested themselves to him for supposing it to be true. There must be young men enough in the country-side to love and woo fifty Hildas; and such a Hilda as this might raise up lovers to herself in the midst of a desert. And if she were loved, why might she not love in return? Oh! misery, why might she not be engaged to somebody at this very moment? Was it consistent with human nature to suppose that she could have lived for a little less than twenty years in the world without having been obliged to engage herself to somebody? Captain Bramston groaned inwardly, and cursed his luck for not having made him to be born and raised under the shadow of Kildhurm's Oak.

And what were Hilda's thoughts all this time? She said to herself that there was a sensation in her heart which she had never known till now: a lightness, a fulness, and yet a fear: it affected her voice, so that she found it difficult to speak evenly or to breathe as regularly as usual, or to keep under control the blood that sought her cheeks. Moreover, a smile was ever attempting to manifest itself on her lips, without her being able to account to herself satisfactorily for its being there. She told herself that this was very silly; but its being silly did not prevent it from being rather pleasant. Another singularity in her sensations was, that she felt a great tenderness and affection for the world at large. Everything seemed kind to her, and considerate of her happiness. There was a bird up somewhere in the branches of the Oak that sang just the kind of song that she would have liked to sing, if she had known how. Surely the sunshine need not have fallen with such mellow radiance of warm colour on the grass and on the grey Tower, if it had not wished to do her an especial favour: surely the sea need not have murmured with such languorous sweetness beneath the cliff, if it had not wished to echo the inarticulate harmony that whispered in her own soul. And, by the way (not that this had anything to do with it), what a delightful voice Captain Bramston had, and what a noble countenance, and what a gentle and withal spirited expression, and what a picturesque way of leaning against the trunk of the Oak, and of occasionally moving his hand when he spoke, and of throwing back his head when he laughed. What a strange freak of destiny to bring this young hero all round the world to sit here at her feet at last, and make a summer afternoon so memorable! It was a remarkably brief afternoon, however, and once gone it would never return. It would never return. There was a sweet pain in that reflection--the sweeter the more painful. Yes, Captain Bramston would ride away by-and-by, and he would never come back. Why should he come back? There could never be such another afternoon: there could never be such another Captain Bramston: there could never be such another longing, and tenderness, and fear as abode now in Hilda's heart. Such things, such times, came once and came no more. As Hilda said this to herself, she felt quite melancholy in the midst of her happiness; and soft tears stood in her eyes as she looked seaward.

It must not be supposed that these two young people allowed anything of what was passing in their minds to appear in their conversation: by no means! They talked of anything rather than that. The Captain gave an interesting account of his adventures abroad, and described the American Indians, and General Lafayette, and General Washington, and General Arnold, and unfortunate Major André, who was so cruelly hanged. Captain Bramston was of opinion that Arnold was much more deserving of hanging than André. To all this Hilda listened and replied and questioned; and then, being questioned in turn, she attempted to give some account of her own life at Kildhurm; whom she saw, what she did, what she wanted to do: but it all struck her as being profoundly uninteresting and empty, and she was sure that Captain Bramston must share her opinion, though he very politely made believe that he liked to hear her. So the hours passed away and the sun reached the hills, and Hilda expected every moment to hear Captain Bramston say that now he must be going. But he stayed on in the most unaccountable way. It was strange, too, how well acquainted with each other they seemed to have become, though they had been but so short a time together, and had talked about such external matters. It almost seemed as if they must have known what was passing, unuttered, in each other's hearts. Could it be that those things that can never be spoken manage to get themselves expressed, somehow, in the tones of the voice and the glances of the eyes, and effect more in a few hours than words can tell in as many months?

'You have not yet told me, Captain Bramston,' Hilda said at last, 'the reason why you came here.'

'I did not know why I came till after I got here,' said the Captain.

Hilda gazed at him inquiringly.

'I knew as soon as I saw you,' the intrepid gentleman pursued.

'Oh! then it was not anything worth knowing!'

'I care more about it than about anything else in the world!'

'Then what did you care most about before this?'

'About--myself, I suppose!'

'You should have left somebody else to do that!'

'Somebody else? Who?'

'Oh--anybody!'

Captain Bramston took hold of her hand, and his eyes were ardent. 'Miss Kildhurm, I--may I tell you something?'

She made an effort to draw her hand away. 'I think I would rather you didn't--at least with that voice, and----'

'Don't turn away from me!' exclaimed this impetuous warrior; and he kissed her hand passionately. 'I cannot help it! Hilda, I----'

An imperative voice here interrupted the young people, and brought Captain Bramston to his feet. 'Stop, sir!' it said. 'Whoever you are, this conduct is inadmissible. Stand back, sir!'

It was Sir Philip; and old Lady Kildhurm was with him. Sir Philip was looking as stern--and, indeed, fierce--as it was in his nature to do. Hilda, rising also, said appealingly,

'Don't, father! It wasn't his fault!'

'Not his fault--!' Sir Philip, in a mixture of amazement and indignation, glared first at his daughter, then at the handsome stranger, who, however, met his look frankly and resolutely. For a few moments the baronet's face worked strangely: then, much to the surprise and more to the relief of the guilty persons, he burst into a shout of laughter.