Jean de La Fontaine - "The Tales and Novels, v9: Belphegor and Others"

Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe - "The American Woman's Home"

Anthony Trollope - "The Man Who Kept His Money In A Box"

J. Morris Slemons - "The Prospective Mother"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Herb of Grace

R >> Rosa Nouchette Carey >> Herb of Grace



This etext was produced by Charles Franks and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.






Herb of Grace

By ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY

Author of "Mollie's Prince," "No Friend Like a Sister," "Rue With a
Difference," etc.

A. L. HURT COMPANY

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1901

BY

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY




CONTENTS

I INTRODUCES A LOVER OF THE PICTURESQUE
II FALLEN AMONG THIEVES
III A PAGE OF ANCIENT HISTORY
IV ANNA
V MRS. HERRICK OBJECTS TO BOHEMIA
VI YEA-VERILY AND BABS
VII MORE ANCIENT HISTORY WITH VERITY
VIII THE RECORD OF AN IMPOTENT GENIUS
IX THE WOOD HOUSE
X WHAT THE FERN-OWL HEARD
XI "A LITTLE EGOTISTICAL, PERHAPS"
XII MR. CARLYON'S TEA-PARTY
XIII THE CROW'S NEST
XIV "YOU DO SAY SUCH ODD THINGS"
XV "BETTY IS A TRUMP!"
XVI "IT REALLY IS A GOOD IDEA, DIE"
XVII "ADIEU--Au REVOIR"
XVIII "YES, SHE GAVE HIM UP"
XIX "A TOUCH OF THE TARTAR"
XX A WHITE SUN-BONNET
XXI "IF I WERE ONLY LIKE YOU"
XXII "TWO MAIDEN LADIES OF UNCERTAIN AGE"
XXIII SAINT ELIZABETH!
XXIV DOWN BY THE POOL
XXV "IT HAS GONE VERY DEEP"
XXVI "I SEE LIGHT NOW"
XXVII HUGH ROSSITER SPINS HIS YARN
XXVIII "THE LADY CALLING HERSELF MISS JACOBI"
XXIX "SHE IS A WICKED WOMAN"
XXX IN KENSINGTON GARDENS
XXXI PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT
XXXII STORM AND STRESS
XXXIII "HE WILL COME RIGHT"
XXXIV TRAVELLING THROUGH SAHARA
XXXV VIA DOLOROSA
XXXVI "I HAVE BEEN A COWARD"
XXXVII THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
XXXVIII TANGLED THREADS
XXXIX THE NEW CURATE-IN-CHARGE
XL "HE IS MY RIVAL STILL"
XLI "YOU CAN BE DINAH'S FRIEND"
XLII THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME
XLIII A MAY AFTERNOON
XLIV "MY DEAREST REST"




HERB OF GRACE




CHAPTER I

INTRODUCES A LOVER OF THE PICTURESQUE


Our adventures hover round us like bees round the hive when
preparing to swarm.--MAETERLINCK.

From boyhood Malcolm Herrick had been a lover of the picturesque. In
secret he prided himself on possessing the artistic faculty, and
yet, except in the nursery, he had never drawn a line, or later on
spoilt canvas and daubed himself in oils under the idea that he was
an embryo Millais or Turner. But nevertheless he had the seeing eye,
and could find beauty where more prosaic people could only see
barrenness: a stubble field newly turned up by the plough moved him
to admiration, while a Surrey lane, with a gate swinging back on its
hinges, and a bowed old man carrying faggots, in the smoky light of
an October evening, gave him a feeling akin to ecstasy. More than
one of his school-fellows remembered how, even in the cricket field,
he would stand as though transfixed, looking at the storm clouds,
with their steely edges, coming up behind the copse, but the palms
of his hands were outstretched and he never failed to catch the
ball.

"Nature intended me for an artist or a poet," Malcolm would say, for
he was given at times to a hard, merciless introspection, when he
took himself and his motives to pieces, "but circumstances have
called me to the bar. To be sure I have never held a brief, and my
tastes are purely literary, but all the same I am a member of the
legal profession."

Malcolm Herrick used his Englishman's right of grumbling to a large
extent; with a sort of bitter and acrid humility, he would accuse
himself of having missed his vocation and his rightful heritage, of
being neither "fish, flesh, nor good red herring;" nevertheless his
post for the last two years had pleased him well: he was connected
with a certain large literary society which gave his legal wits
plenty of scope. In his leisure hours he wrote moderately well-
expressed papers on all sorts of social subjects with a pithy
raciness and command of language that excited a good deal of
comment.

Herrick was a clever fellow, people said; "he would make his mark
when he was older, and had got rid of his cranks;" but all the same
he was not understood by the youth of his generation. "The Fossil,"
as they called him at Lincoln, was hardly modern enough for their
taste; he was a survival of the mediaeval age--he took life too
gravely, and gave himself the airs of a patriarch.

In person he was a thin spare man, somewhat sallow, and with dark
melancholy eyes that were full of intelligence. When he smiled,
which he did more rarely than most people, he looked at least ten
years younger.

In reality he was nearly thirty, but he never measured his age by
years. "I have not had my innings yet," he would say; "I am going to
renew my youth presently; I mean to have my harvest of good things
like other fellows, and eat, drink, and be merry;" but from all
appearance the time had not come yet.

Malcolm Herrick's chambers were in Lincoln's Inn. Thither he was
turning his footsteps one sultry July afternoon, when as usual he
paused at a certain point, while a smile of pleasure stole to his
lips.

Familiarity had not yet dulled the edge of his enjoyment; now, as
ever, it soothed and tranquillised him to turn from the noisy
crowded streets into this quiet spot with its gray old buildings,
its patch of grass, and the broad wide steps up and down which men,
hurrying silently, passed and repassed intent on the day's work.

As usual at this hour, the flagged court was crowded by pigeons,
strutting fearlessly between the feet of the passers-by, and filling
the air with their soft cooing voices.

"Ah, my friend the cobbler," he said to himself, and he moved a
little nearer to watch the pretty sight. A child's perambulator--a
very shabby, rickety concern--had been pushed against the fence, and
its occupant, a girl, evidently a cripple, was throwing corn to the
eager winged creatures. Two or three, more fearless than the others,
had flown on to the perambulator and were pecking out of the child's
hands. Presently she caught one and hugged it to her thin little
bosom. "Oh dad, look here--oh daddy, see, its dear little head is
all green and purple. I want to kiss it--I do--I love it so."

"Better put it down, Kit--the poor thing is scared," returned the
man, and the child reluctantly let it fly. It made straight for the
distant roofs behind them, but the rest of the pigeons still
strutted and pecked round the perambulator with tiny mincing steps,
like court ladies practising the minuet. Malcolm looked on with
unabated relish--the homely idyll always charmed him.

He had never spoken to the crippled child or her father, although
they had often crossed his path at this hour; nevertheless he
regarded them as old friends.

More than once he had made up his mind to accost them, but he was
reserved by nature and it cost him an effort to take the initiative.
In his case silence was always golden; in his own cynical language,
he refused to tout for a cheap popularity by saying pleasant things
to strangers.

They were not an attractive pair. The cobbler was a thin meagre
little man, with a round back, bow-legs, a sharp pinched face, and
pale blue eyes that seemed to look dejectedly at life.

The child was the image of her father, only in her case the defects
were more accentuated: her face was still more pinched, and
absolutely colourless, and the large blue-gray eyes were out of
proportion to the other features. A fringe of red hair, curled very
stiffly, and set round the small face like a large frill, gave her a
curiously weird look. Some woman's hand must have curled it and tied
the wide limp bows of her sunbonnet under the sharp little chin.

Neither of them seemed to notice Malcolm Herrick's scrutiny, they
were so absorbed by the pigeons; but the scanty supply of corn had
soon been scattered, and the guests were flying off by twos and
threes.

"Oh see, dad!" exclaimed the child in her shrill little voice. "Oh,
my! ain't it heavenly to cut capers like that in the air; it is like
the merry-go-rounds at the fair," and then Kit clapped her hands as
another pretty creature rose softly and fluttered away in the
distance.

The air had been growing more sultry and oppressive every moment; a
heavy storm was evidently gathering--already a few heat-drops had
fallen. Malcolm was a man who noticed details; he perceived at once
that the ragged cover of the perambulator offered a flimsy and
insufficient protection. Then he glanced at the umbrella in his
hand; it was a dandified article, with a handsomely carved handle.

The two voices that usually wrangled within his breast for the
mastery made themselves heard.

"It is perfectly impossible for you to offer the umbrella that Anna
gave you to that brat," murmured common-sense; "very likely her
father would pawn it for gin."

"But the child looks ill," remonstrated impulse. "Anna would be sure
to think of the poor mite first." But it was doubtful which voice
would have prevailed but for a chance word.

"Oh, dad, there is a big drop--it quite splashed my face. Ma'am said
the rain would drown us." Then the man, whose wits had been wool-
gathering, looked up in alarm, and began fumbling with Kit's shawl.

"Dear sakes," he muttered, "who would have thought it! But it is
just my luck. You will be drenched before I get you in, Kit, and
Ma'am will scold us for the rest of the day."

"Will you take this umbrella for the child, my good man?" observed
Malcolm pleasantly. "I am close to my chambers. You can let me have
it back to-morrow morning." Then, as the man regarded him in dazed
astonishment, he gave him his address. "Perhaps you may as well let
me know your name," he continued.

"Caleb Martin, sir," replied the cobbler; "and we live in
Todmorden's Lane, leading out of Beauchamp Street. It is Mr.
Bennet's the bootmaker, and I works for him and lives in the
basement, 'long of wife and Kit."

"Beauchamp Street--oh yes, I know. Then you had better get the child
home." He nodded and smiled at Kit as he moved away.

Caleb gazed after him with open mouth and pale eyes full of
speechless gratitude; but Kit had unfurled the umbrella proudly, and
sat like a queen in a silken tent.

"Ain't he a gentleman!" she exclaimed with a joyous chuckle; "seems
to me the angels must be his sort. Wasn't he just splendid, dad!"
But Caleb, who was trundling the perambulator down a side street,
only shook his head in silence.

Malcolm felt a warm glow of exhilaration, which secretly moved him
to astonishment, as he ran lightly up the long bare flights of
stairs to his chambers. "A mere trifle like that," he said to
himself contemptuously, as he entered the outer room, where a small
and exceedingly sharp office boy, rejoicing in the euphonious name
of Malachi Murphy, beguiled the tedium of the waiting hours by
cutting the initials of his family on the legs of the table.

When Malcolm wanted to amuse a friendly visitor, he would question
Malachi blandly and innocently on his brothers' and sisters' names.

"You are all minor prophets," he would say carelessly. "I think Mr.
So-and-So would be interested to hear how you came by these names."
And thus encouraged, Malachi would twist his face knowingly, until
it resembled a gargoyle rather than a human face, and start away as
though he had been wound up afresh.

"Well, it was like this, sir. Father was just reading Hosea on
Sunday evening, when mother took bad, and so they made up their
minds that they would call my eldest brother Hosea; the next one was
Joel, because father liked the name; and by-and-by mother put in her
word for Amos. Obadiah only lived five weeks; and the next was a
girl, and they called her Micah. Father wouldn't have none of us
christened Jonah, because he said he was real mean; but we had
Nahum, and Habakkuk Zephaniah and Haggai Zechariah; and when my time
came there was nothing left but Malachi, and father said we had
better finish the job: and so Malachi I was. It is a blessing,"
continued Malachi frankly, "that Habakkuk Zephaniah and Haggai
Zechariah died when they were babies; for none of us would have
known what to call them; as it is, I am mostly called Mealy Murphy
down my way."

"There's a gentleman waiting to see you, sir," observed Malachi,
dropping his clasp knife dexterously into the waste-paper basket.
"Wouldn't give his name. Seems in a mighty hurry by the way he has
been walking all over the shop," he continued, sotto voce, as he
dipped his pen into the ink again. "I wonder what the governor would
say if he had heard him whistling like a penny steamer and playing
old Sallie with the pen-wipers and sealing-wax. A lively sort of
bloke as ever I see."

Malcolm walked rapidly to the door and opened it; as he did so, a
look of surprise and pleasure crossed his face at the sight of a
handsome, fair-haired youth, lying back on his easy-chair, with his
feet resting on a pile of ledgers.

"Hallo, Cedric!" he exclaimed in a cordial tone. "What on earth has
brought you up to town on the hottest day of the year? No, stay
where you are," as his visitor attempted to rise, and Malcolm put
his hands lightly on the boy's shoulders, pressing him gently back
against the cushions. "I never sit there myself unless I am lazy."

"All right, old chap," returned the other easily. "I didn't want to
move; only manners maketh man--I always was the pink of courtesy and
politeness, don't you know. Ask old Dinah, and she will tell you."

"Oh yes, we all know that," returned Malcolm drily. "Now, will you
answer my question--what brings you up to Lincoln's Inn in this
unexpected manner?"

"Keep cool, old fellow, and take a seat, and I will tell you,"
returned the lad in a patronising tone. "You see I am staying at
Teddington. Fred Courtenay was spliced yesterday, and I had promised
to be at the show."

"Oh, I forgot Courtenay was to be married yesterday," muttered
Malcolm.

"It went off all right," continued Cedric. "No one forbade the
banns, and the happy couple drove away with half-a-dozen satin
slippers reposing on the roof of the carriage. But now the business
is over, it is a trifle dull. Fred's sisters are all in the
schoolroom, you know, so I told Mrs. Courtenay that I had a pressing
engagement in town."

"Oh, I begin to see light."

"I did some shopping in the Strand, and then I thought I would look
you up in your grimy old diggings. My word, we are going to have a
storm, Herrick," as a flash of lightning lit up the dark room.

"Yes, but it will soon be over, and you are in no hurry to catch
your train."

"No, you are right there. The house is all in a muddle from the
wedding, and we are to have a sort of nondescript meal at eight.
Herrick, old fellow, I want you to put me up for a couple of nights.
You are coming down to Staplegrove on Tuesday, so I told Dinah that
we might as well travel together."

"Does your sister really expect me?" asked Malcolm dubiously. "My
dear boy," as Cedric grew rather red and pulled his budding
moustache in an affronted manner, "I know you were good enough to
invite me, but I understood from you that your sisters were the
owners of the Wood House, and as I have not yet made their
acquaintance--"

"Hang it all, Herrick, I suppose a fellow can see his friends
sometimes, even if he is dependent on his sisters," and Cedric's
tone was decidedly sulky. "Besides, Dinah sent you a message--she
and Elizabeth will be delighted to see you, and all that sort of
thing, and they hoped you would stay as long as possible."

"I am glad you told me that," returned Malcolm, with a relieved air.
In reality he had been secretly much embarrassed by Cedric's
invitation. "You know, my dear fellow, how pleased I am to be
introduced to your people, and it is most kind of Miss Templeton to
send me that message."

"Oh, Dinah is a good old sort," returned the lad carelessly. The
cloud had vanished from his face. "Well, Herrick, what do you say
about putting me up? There are two or three things I want to do in
town, and it is a bore staying on at the Briars now old Fred has
gone."

"When do you want to come to me?" asked Malcolm. "I am to sleep at
Queen's Gate the next two nights, and I have promised to take Miss
Sheldon out to-morrow. She is my mother's adopted daughter, you
know--Anna Sheldon. I have often mentioned her to you."

Then Cedric nodded.

"I shall be back at Chelsea on Friday, if you like to come to me
then; but the guest-chamber is remarkably small--at present it holds
all my lumber and little else." But as Cedric professed himself
indifferent on the subject of his own comfort--an assertion that
drew a covert smile from his friend's lips--the matter was soon
settled.

An animated conversation ensued, consisting mainly of a disjointed
monologue on Cedric's part; for Malcolm Herrick only contributed a
laconic remark or question at intervals, but there was a kindly
gleam in his eyes as he listened, as though the fair, closely-
cropped head lying back on the shabby cushion, with the eager bright
young face, was a goodly spectacle.

At first sight the friendship between these two men seemed
singularly ill-assorted; for what possible affinity could there be
between a thoughtful, intellectual man like Malcolm Herrick, with
his habitual reserve, his nature refined, critical, and yet
imaginative, with its strong bias to pessimism, and its intolerance
of all shams, and Cedric, with his facile, pleasure-loving
temperament, at once indolent and mercurial--a creature of moods and
tenses, as fiery as a Welshman, but full of lovable and generous
impulses?

The disparity between their ages also seemed to forbid anything like
equality of sympathy. Malcolm was at least eight or nine years
older, and at times he seemed middle-aged in Cedric's eyes. "He is
such a regular old fossil," he would say--"such a cut and dried
specimen of humanity, that it is impossible to keep in touch with
him; it stands to reason that we must clash a bit; but there, in
spite of his cranks, Herrick is a good fellow." But, notwithstanding
this faint praise, the inhabitants of the Wood House knew well that
there was no one whom Cedric valued more than his friend Malcolm
Herrick.




CHAPTER II

FALLEN AMONG THIEVES


Why insist on rash personal relations with your friend?
Why go to his house, or know his mother and brother and
sisters? Why be visited by him at your own? Are these
things material to our covenant? Leave this touching
and clawing. Let him be to me a spirit.--EMERSON.

Malcolm Herrick was a devout disciple of Emerson. He always spoke of
him as one of the master minds that dominated humanity. "He is the
chosen Gamaliel at whose feet I could sit for ever," he would say;
"on every subject he speaks well and wisely;" and once, when he was
strolling through Kensington Gardens with his sister-friend, Anna
Sheldon, he had electrified her by quoting a favourite passage from
his essay on friendship.

"Friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and unlikeness
that piques each with the presence of power and of consent in the
other party. Let me be alone to the end of the world, rather than
that my friend should overstep, by a word or look, his real
sympathy. I am equally baulked by antagonism and by compliance. Let
him not cease an instant to be himself.... Better be a nettle in the
side of your friend than his echo."

Malcolm had uttered the last sentence in rather a tragic tone, but
he was somewhat offended when the girl laughed. "What an odd idea!"
she observed innocently. "I should strongly object to anything so
stinging as a nettle; perhaps it is because I am a woman that I
should prefer the echo;" but Malcolm, who had received a douche of
cold water from this feminine criticism, declined to be drawn into a
discussion on the subject.

"Women are so illogical," he muttered angrily, and Anna's heaven of
content was suddenly clouded. Malcolm's approval was vitally
necessary to her happiness--a chilling word from him had power to
spoil the fairest landscape and blot out the sunshine; nevertheless
she took her rebuff meekly and without retort.

A mere chance, an accident in the destinies of both men, had brought
about this acquaintance between Malcolm Herrick and Cedric
Templeton. The vice-president of Magdalene was an old friend of the
Herrick family, and was indeed distantly related to Mrs. Herrick;
and after Malcolm had taken his degree and left Lincoln, he often
spent a week or two with Dr. Medcalf. He was an old bachelor, and
one of the most sociable of men, and his rooms were the envy of his
friends. Malcolm was a great favourite with him, and was always
welcome when he could spare time to run down for a brief visit.

About two years before, he was spending a few days with his friend,
when one evening as he was strolling down Addison's Walk in the
gloaming, his attention was attracted by a young undergraduate. He
was seated on a bench with his head in his hands; but at the sound
of passing footsteps he moved slightly, and Malcolm caught sight of
a white boyish face and haggard eyes that looked at him a little
wildly; then he covered his face again. Malcolm walked on a few
steps; his kind heart was shocked at the lad's evident misery, but
to his reserved nature it was never easy to make the first advance;
indeed, he often remarked that he had rather a fellow-feeling with
the Levite who passed by on the other side.

"I daresay he was sorry for the poor traveller in his heart," he
observed, "but it takes a deal of moral courage to be a Good
Samaritan; it is not easy for a shy man, for example, to render
first aid to a poor chap with a fractured limb in the middle of a
crowd of sympathising bystanders--one's self-consciousness and
British hatred of a scene seem to choke one off."

So, true to his diffident nature, Malcolm walked to the other end of
Addison's Walk; then something seemed to drag at him, and he
retraced his steps slowly and reluctantly; finally, as though
constrained by some unseen power that overmastered his reserve, he
sat down on the bench and touched the youth lightly on the arm.

"You are in trouble, I fear; is there anything I can do to help
you?"

The words were simple almost to bluntness, but they were none the
worse for that, for they rang true from a good heart.

Malcolm's voice was pleasant; when he chose, it could be both
winning and persuasive; to the lad sitting there in the Egyptian
darkness of a terrifying despair, it sounded honey-sweet. He put out
a hot hand to his new friend, and then broke into a fit of tears and
sobs. "Oh, can you help me?" he gasped out. "I wanted to drown or
hang myself, sooner than disgrace them; only I thought of Dinah and
I couldn't do it;" and then as he grew calmer a little judicious
questioning and a few more kind words brought out the whole story.

He had fallen into bad hands; two or three men older and richer than
himself had got hold of him for their own purposes, and had led him
into mischief. The culminating misfortune had happened the previous
evening, when they had induced him to play at cards; the stakes were
high, though the boy was too much fuddled by champagne to guess
that.

"They made me drunk, sir," groaned Cedric; "and there was a
professional sharper there--Wright has just told me so--and he will
not let me off. If they found out things at headquarters I should be
rusticated, and I am only in my first term. The Proctor has vowed to
make an example of the next fellow caught gambling, and they say he
always keeps his word."

"How much do you owe?" asked Malcolm; and when Cedric in a low voice
mentioned the sum, Malcolm gave a whistle of dismay. No wonder he
was in despair.

"If I had not drunk too much, I should have stopped playing when I
saw I was losing," went on Cedric in a contrite tone; "but they
plied me with liquor, and I got reckless, and then I knew no more
till I found myself in bed with my clothes on."

Cedric was not shirking the truth certainly. The young prodigal
already realised the nature of the husks given to him; he was so low
and abject in his abasement that a word of rebuke would have seemed
cruel. One thing was certain, that matters were serious--gambling
and drunkenness were no light offences.

Malcolm had already been put into possession of the youth's domestic
history. His name was Cedric Templeton; his parents were dead, and
he was dependent on his half-sisters; his father had had heavy
losses, and Cedric's inheritance had been small. The first Mrs.
Templeton had brought her husband great wealth, but the money had
been settled on the daughters. Mr. Templeton's second wife was a
penniless girl. She had died two or three years after Cedric's
birth, and Dinah, the elder sister, had mothered him.

"You must put a good face on it and write to your sister," continued
Malcolm. "If you take my advice, Templeton, you will keep nothing
back--' the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth'--and
hang the consequences." Malcolm finished his sentence with a touch
of impatience, for the boy's scared face almost frightened him.

"No, no, no!" returned Cedric vehemently. "I would sooner drown
myself a hundred times over. Look here," plucking at Malcolm's coat-
sleeve with his feverish, restless hand, "you don't understand--you
don't know Dinah; she would break her heart, and Elizabeth too. They
are such good women, they don't allow for a fellow's temptation;
and--and I have broken my word."