MORLEY ASHTON:

A Story of the Sea.

BY

JAMES GRANT,

AUTHOR OF "THE ROMANCE OF WAR," "FAIRER THAN A FAIRY," ETC.

In Three Volumes VOL. I.

LONDON: TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, W.C. 1876. [All rights reserved.]

CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. The Blind Goddess

CHAPTER II. Laurel Lodge

CHAPTER III. Cramply Hawkshaw

CHAPTER IV. Rivalry

CHAPTER V. Suspicion

CHAPTER VI. For the Last Time

CHAPTER VII. The Rejection

CHAPTER VIII. Morley and Hawkshaw

CHAPTER IX. Alarm

CHAPTER X. Poor Ethel

CHAPTER XI. Darkness made Light

CHAPTER XII. On board the good Ship "Hermione," of London

CHAPTER XIII. Acton Chine

CHAPTER XIV. The Rescue

CHAPTER XV. An Old Shipmate

CHAPTER XVI. Under the Tropic of Capricorn

CHAPTER XVII. Second Hearing

CHAPTER XVIII. Rio de Janeiro

CHAPTER XIX. Ethel amid the Atlantic Isles

CHAPTER XX. Moonlight on the Sea

CHAPTER XXI. The Story of a Brave Boy

CHAPTER XXII. Zuares and the Shark

CHAPTER XXIII. Hawkshaw's Old Friends

CHAPTER XXIV. Up Anchor

CHAPTER XXV. The Suspicious Sail

CHAPTER XXVI. The Strange Island

CHAPTER XXVII. The Hermit

MORLEY ASHTON.

CHAPTER I. THE BLIND GODDESS.

It was the evening of one of the last days of spring, when that delightful season is blending with the approaching summer, and when the sun was setting on one of those green and fertile landscapes which we find nowhere but in England, that a young man paused upon the crest of the eminence which overlooks, from the southward, the beautiful little vale and sequestered village of Acton-Rennel, and, with a kindling eye and flushing cheek, surveyed the scene and all its features, on which he had not gazed for what now seemed a long and weary lapse of time.

Morley Ashton—for it was he whom we introduce at once to the reader—was a handsome and active young fellow, with a lithe and well-knit figure, somewhat above the middle height; but he was thin and rather sallow in face, as if wasted by recent sickness or suffering.

His short-shorn hair and well-pointed moustache, together with the general contour of his head, suggested the idea of a soldier, and yet no soldier was he.

Forethought and penetration were perceptible in the form and lines of his brow; his keen, bright, but contemplative eyes, and the shape of his lower jaw, betokened firmness, decision, and courage; and well did Morley Ashton require them all, for these pages, and the course of our story, which opens at no remote date, but only a very short time ago, will show that he had a very desperate game to play.

Tanned by warmer suns than those which shine in his native England, his complexion was dark, and, at times, there was a keen, bold restlessness in his eyes, which seemed to indicate that he had seen many a far and foreign shore, and many a danger too, since last he stood by the old Norman cross on Cherrywood Hill, and looked on the vale and village of Acton-Rennel.

In Morley's dress—a stout grey tweed suit—there was nothing remarkable; but a large and well-worn courier-bag, slung by a broad strap across his right shoulder, seemed to indicate that he was travelling, and dust covered his boots; yet he had only walked some four miles or so from the nearest station on the London and North-Western line.

As he looked upon the landscape, where the cowslips were spotting the meadows; where the wild rose was blooming, and the yellow gorse was flowering by the hedgerows; where the cherry and apple trees were in full blossom by the wayside; the landscape, so rich in its foliage and greenery; so calm in aspect, with the square tower of its Norman church, stunted in form and massed with ivy, darkly defined against the flush of the western sky; the little parsonage, secluded among plum and apple trees, over which its clustered chimneys and quaint old gables peeped; the thatched village, buried amid coppice, wild hops, wild flowers, and ivy; the fertile uplands, where the wavy corn would soon be yellowing under the genial summer sun; and, stretching in the distance far away, the wooded chase, the remains of a great Saxon forest, whence comes the name of our village, Æctune, or Oaktown-Rennel, whose leafy dingles have echoed many a time to the horn of William Rufus, ere he fell by Tyrrel's arrow; the landscape, where the voice of the cuckoo rose at times from the woodlands, with

the occasional lowing of the full-fed herd, winding homeward "slowly o'er the lea." As he gazed on all this, we say, a sigh of pleasure escaped from Morley Ashton, for it was long since he had beheld such a scene, or one that had so much of England and of home in all its placid features.

Save a glimpse of the distant ocean, rippling and shining in the sunset, through a rocky opening or chasm, known as Acton Chine—terrible in the annals of wreckers and smugglers—the landscape might have seemed in the very heart of England; but on the ocean, "our water-girdle," Morley turned his back, for of late he had tasted quite enough of spray and spoondrift, having just landed in the Mersey, after a long and perilous voyage.

He passed the old church with its deep grey buttresses, and older yew trees; its picturesque Lykegate, footstile, and gravelled path, that wound between the grassy mounds and lettered stones; he passed the village, with its alehouse and well-remembered sign-board; and then he struck into the long green lane that lies beyond—the lane in which Dick Turpin robbed the rector.

All was very calm and still.

The merry voices of some little roisterers, who swung with frantic glee upon a paddock gate, soon died away in the distance; the wheel of the rustic mill had ceased to turn, and the water flowed unchafed along its narrow race; even the hum of the honey bee had died away, as it had gone laden to its home, and soft and almost holy thoughts would have stolen into Morley's heart, at such a time and place and sober sunset, but for the keen anxiety that made him hasten on—the anxiety that love and long absence had created, and verses that he had somewhere read occurred to him with painful truth:—

"Ah! not as once!—my spirit now Is shadowed by a dull cold fear, Nor Spring's soft breath that fans my brow Nor Spring's sweet flowers my breast can cheer.

"Oh, Spring! sweet Spring! if Heaven decree My term of life to be so brief, That joy I would afar but see, But taste the bitter cup of grief."

While proceeding, he looked frequently and eagerly around him; for now every old gnarled beech that overhung the path, and every meadow gate brought back some stirring thought or tender memory.

The flush in the western sky was bright, so he shaded his eyes with his hand (though whilom accustomed to more cloudless skies and brighter suns than ours), as if looking for some expected person.

At last an irrepressible exclamation of joy escaped him, as a hat and feather, and a female figure there was no mistaking, met his eye.

He flourished his wide-awake hat, and then quickened his pace, as a little parasol was waved in reply.

In a minute more his arms were around a young girl, who rushed forward, panting and breathless, to meet him, and his lips were pressed to hers in a long and silent kiss.

"Ethel, my own, own Ethel, at last—at last!" he exclaimed, in a voice rendered tremulous by excess of emotion; but the young girl for some time was unable to reply. She could but sob upon his breast in the fulness of her joy.

There was a long and tender pause, during which their lips, though silent, were busy enough, perhaps, for "Love," says some one, "is a sting of joy, but a heartache for ever!"

"I knew, dear Ethel, that you would come to meet me," said Morley, "if my letter arrived in time to inform you of the train by which I would leave Liverpool."

"Where you landed last night—only last night—and this evening you are here," she exclaimed.

"Yes, Ethel; but poorer than when I left England," said the young man sadly; "poorer than when I left you," he replied, drawing her arm through his, but still retaining her hand, with both of his folded over it;—"and now tell me how are all at Laurel Lodge. Your papa——"

"Is quite well."

"And your sister Rose—merry little Rose?"

"Well, blooming, and lively as ever."

"Why did she not come to meet me too? My letters have told you, Ethel, that after enduring the misery of three years' exile on the Bonny River, wearily waiting and toiling, transacting the sale of camwood, ivory, and palm oil, for my owners in Liverpool, and often enduring the frightful fever of that pestilent place——"

"Ah, my poor dear Morley, how it has thinned and wasted you!" said Ethel, looking at him tenderly through her tears.

"I have been compelled to return, almost broken in health, and what is worse, perhaps, in a worldly sense, well-nigh penniless, Ethel, to look for other work at home. But tell me something of yourself, dearest!"

"What can I say?—what can I tell you, Morley, for here, at Laurel Lodge, each day that passes is so like its predecessor?"

"How will Mr. Basset—how will your father, welcome me?" asked Morley, anxiously.

"Most kindly, Morley."

"You think so, still," continued the young man.

"Yes. All the more kindly that you have not been favoured by fortune; papa is most generous," replied Ethel.

Morley did not feel quite persuaded of this, but replied:

"Bless him and you for this assurance, darling. Oh, Ethel, how charming your sweet English face seems to me! Do you know, dearest, that for three whole years I have never seen a white woman or a red cheek? But you have not told me about Rose—no husband yet?"

"She has lovers in plenty, and Jack Page is her adorer," said Ethel smiling; "but there is enough time for Rose to think of marrying. Besides——" but Miss Basset paused and sighed.

"True; she is two years younger than you, Ethel. But our marriage, my love, seems far, far off indeed. Oh, farther than ever! Your father——"

"Will welcome you warmly, of that be assured, but——"

"But what, Ethel? Something weighs upon your mind."

"Many misfortunes have come upon him, misfortunes which we could never have foreseen."

"In your two last letters, you hinted something of losses in London speculations."

"Yes; and consequently, he has come to the resolution of leaving Acton-Rennel—leaving dear Laurel Lodge, where since childhood we have been so happy."

"Leaving Laurel Lodge!" exclaimed Ashton.

"Leaving England itself, Morley," said Ethel, as her fine eyes became suffused with tears again.

"England!" repeated Morley Ashton, breathlessly, and growing very pale indeed.

"Yes; did you not get my letter, in which I told you that papa had been appointed to a vacant judgeship in the Isle of France, and that in two months or less from this time we shall sail for that distant colony?"

"No—no! I hear all this now for the first time."

"Papa will tell you all about it," continued Ethel, weeping on her lover's shoulder. "He has been appointed one of the three judges in the supreme civil and criminal court of the island."

"Oh, what fatality is this!" exclaimed Morley Ashton, mournfully, as he struck his hands together; "have I returned to England, but to be more than ever an exile, and to learn that you are going where you must school yourself to forget me?"

"Oh, do not say so, Morley!" implored Miss Basset.

"All is ended now," replied her lover; "on earth there is nothing more for me."

"Or me!" said Ethel, upbraidingly.

"True; in the selfishness of my own love and grief, I forget yours."

The girl's tears fell fast, and he held her locked to his breast; for there was no eye on them in that sequestered lane, where the evening star, sparkling like a diamond set in amber, alone looked on them.

After a pause:

"See, Morley," said the girl, with a lovely smile, as she drew her ribbon from her bosom; "our split sixpence!"

"Here is the other half, dear Ethel. I used to carry it at my watch-guard, but seals and charms are dangerous gear among the black fellows of the Bonny River, who want every trinket they see, so I thought it safer where your lock of hair lay—next my heart. It was a happy hour in which you gave me that dear lock, my sweet Ethel."

"It was on an evening in summer, when we sat yonder by the old stile at the churchyard. How often have I wished to live that hour over again!" sighed his companion.

"And, sweet one, so we shall in reality, as I have often done in my day-dreams, when far, far away from this dear home and you; but this approaching separation crushes the heart within me, and destroys all hope for the future."

"Take courage, Morley, though I have none," said the young girl, while still her tears fell fast.

Ah me! a split sixpence is of small value, yet here it was riches, for it embodied the hopes, the future, and was all the world to two young and loving hearts!

"Amid the pestilent swamps and mangrove creeks of West Africa, where, from September to June, the steamy malaria rises like smoke in the sunshine, baleful," said Morley, "and laden with disease and death, O Ethel, my thoughts were with you! There, while engaged in the stupid and monotonous task of daily bartering old muskets, nails, and buttons, powder, rum, and tobacco, for palm-oil, camwood, ivory, lion-skins, and gorgeous feathers, bartering, cajoling, and often browbeating the hideous and barbarous savages of Eboe and Biafra, for our house in Liverpool, the hope of being reunited to you alone sustained and inspired me. In my wretched hut, built of stakes, roofed with palm-leaves, and plastered with mud, or on board the river craft, where we always sleep at some seasons, and during the horrors of the fever which left me the wreck of myself, it was your memory alone that shed light and hope around me. And there was one terrible night, when the breathless air was still and heavy, and when a green slime covered all the ripples of the rotten sea, while my

pulse was as fleet as lightning, and my brain was burning, and when I thought that certainly I must soon die, my old friend Bartelot—you have often heard me speak of Tom Bartelot, of Liverpool—conveyed me to his brig, which rode at her moorings inside Foche Point, and he actually cured me, merely by talking for hours of you, Ethel, and of our meeting again—cured me, when, perhaps, the doctor's doses failed. And now, Ethel, poor though I am, broken in spirit, and crushed in hope—this hour, this moment, and these kisses, dearest, reward me for all, all—toil, danger, suffering, and hoping against hope itself!"

As he spoke he pressed Ethel Basset again to his breast in a long and passionate embrace, and a bright, happy, and lovely smile spread over the face of the young girl.

CHAPTER II. LAUREL LODGE.

To a certain extent the conversation in the preceding chapter must have served to inform the reader of the relative positions and prospects of those whom, without much preamble, we have introduced—to wit, the hero and heroine of our story.

Morley Ashton was the only son of a once wealthy merchant, whose failure and death had left him well-nigh penniless, to push his fortune in the world as he best could. Thus, as agent of a Liverpool house, he had been, as he stated, broiling for the last three years on the western coast of Africa, with what success the reader has learned from his conversation with Ethel Basset, to whom he had now been engaged for four years.

Ethel was now somewhere about her twentieth year, and though her face was not, perhaps, of that kind which is termed strictly beautiful, it would be difficult to say wherein a defect could be traced.

Her features were regular, and, though somewhat pensive in expression, her occasionally sparkling and piquant smile relieved them from that insipidity which frequently is the characteristic of a perfectly regular face.

Though, in addition to singing, riding, and waltzing to perfection, she could play rather a good stroke at billiards, and make a good shot at the archery butts, her manner was gentle and graceful, her mind intelligent, and she improved on acquaintance, for few could converse with Ethel Basset for half-an-hour without being somehow convinced that she was lovely.

Her taste in dress was excellent, and one felt that from her little gloved hand, or, rather, from her smoothly-braided hair to the little heels of her kid boots, Ethel was a study.

Her mother's death had early inducted her into the cares and mystery of housekeeping, and made her thoughtful, perhaps, beyond her years.

Mr. Scriven Basset, her father, was a kind and warm-hearted, but somewhat easy-tempered man. In early life he had practised successfully as a barrister in London, where he had contracted a wealthy marriage. After this event he had retired to Acton-Rennel, and there, for the last eighteen years or so, his life had passed quietly and happily.

His tastes were elegant, but expensive; thus his villa of Laurel Lodge was fitted up in a style of no ordinary splendour, and to part with the elegancies by which he was surrounded would cost some pangs when the time came.

Since a pecuniary change had come upon his affairs, and as he had procured, by the friendship of the M.P. for Acton-Rennel, a legal colonial appointment, all his household goods must be scattered. He knew this, and that there was no help for it: save his dead wife's portrait, and a few equally dear "lares," all must "come to the hammer," as he phrased it, when he and his two girls sailed for their new home in the tropics.

He knew that poor Morley Ashton and his daughter, Ethel, had loved each other in early youth, when the prospects of the former were fair, and his "expectations" unexceptionable; and, though reverses came which blasted these, and rendered a marriage unadvisable, strange to say he did not separate them.

This was but a part of his easy disposition, and he permitted them to correspond, in the hope that, by absence, their mutual regard would gradually die away, as the mere fancy of a boy and girl.

But fortune ordained it otherwise.

Had Morley come home with wealth (three years on the Bonny River will scarcely serve to acquire that), he could have had no objections to their marriage; but there would be many now that Morley had come home poor.

Mr. Basset knew, moreover, that Morley, as his last letter had informed Ethel, was to visit them at Laurel Lodge immediately on his return.

"Well, well," thought the easy Mr. Basset, "a few weeks will separate them hopelessly now, so the poor young folks may as well be left to bill and coo together in peace until we sail for the Mauritius, which will be three times as far off as the Bonny River."

This policy was dangerous, and somewhat questionable; but we shall see how it ended.

Proceeding slowly hand in hand, and while such thoughts as these passed through the mind of papa, who, reclining in his easy-chair, was still lingering over his wine and walnuts, watching dreamily the last flush of the sun, that shone down the dingles of Acton Chase, Morley and Miss Basset reached the end of the green lane, where a handsome white gate closed the avenue that led to Laurel Lodge.

It was long and shady; a double row of giant laurels, from which the villa had its name, bordered the approach, and over these rose some venerable sycamores, in which the lazy rooks were croaking and cawing.

Laurel Lodge was a house of irregular proportions, the oldest part having been built in the middle of the seventeenth century, had small latticed windows, with carved mullions of red sandstone. The modern additions had been built by Mr. Basset, and were lofty and elegant, with large windows, some of which opened to the gravelled walks of the garden.

There was a handsome Elizabethan porch, surmounted, as some thought, rather ostentatiously by the Basset arms, a shield having three bars wavy, supported by two unicorns, armed and collared; and the pillars and arch of this porch, like the roof and clustered chimneys of the older part of the edifice, were covered with masses of dark ivy, fragrant honeysuckle, clematis, and brilliant scarlet-runners.