him out of that this afternoon, I promise you."
As she said this, she just touched her horse with the spur, leaped the low hedge in front of her, and cantered slowly home across country; she was one that seldom troubled the hard road, go where she would.
She had ridden about a mile when she heard a horse's feet behind her; she smiled, and her color rose a little, but she cantered on.
"Halt! in the King's name," shouted a mellow voice, and a gentleman galloped up to her side, and reined in his mare.
"What! have they killed?" inquired Catherine, demurely.
"Not they; he is in the middle of Gallowstree Gorse by now."
"And is this the way to Gallowstree Gorse?"
"Nay, mistress," said the young man; "but, when the fox heads one way and the deer another, what is a poor hunter to do?"
"Follow the slower, it seems."
"Say the lovelier and the dearer, sweet Kate."
"Now, Griffith, you know I hate flattery," said Kate; and the next moment came a soft smile, and belied this unsocial sentiment.
"Flattery?" said the lover. "I have no tongue to speak half your praise. I think the people in this country are as blind as bats, or they'd—"
"All except Mr. Griffith Gaunt; he has found a paragon where wiser people see a wayward, capricious girl."
"Then he is the man for you. Don't you see that, mistress?"
"No, I don't quite see that," said the lady, drily.
This cavalier reply caused a dismay the speaker never intended. The fact is, Mr. George Neville, young, handsome, and rich, had lately settled in the county, and had been greatly smitten with Kate. The county was talking about it, and Griffith had been secretly on thorns for some days past. And now he could hide his uneasiness no longer; he cried out, in a sharp, trembling voice, "Why, Kate, my dear Kate, what, could you love any man but me? Could you be so cruel?—could you? There, let me get off my horse, and lie down on this stubble, and you ride over me, and trample me to death. I would rather have you trample on my ribs, than on my heart with loving any one but me."
"Why, what now?" said Catherine, drawing herself up. "I must scold you handsomely;" and she drew rein and turned full upon him; but by this means she saw his face was full of real distress; so, instead of reprimanding him, she said gently, "Why, Griffith, what is to do? Are you not my servant? Do not I send you word whenever I dine from home?"
"Yes, dearest; and then I call at that house, and stick there till they guess what I would be at, and ask me too."
Catherine smiled; and proceeded to remind him that thrice a week she permitted him to ride over from Bolton (a distance of fifteen miles) to see her.
"Yes," replied Griffith, "and I must say you always come, wet or dry, to the shrubbery gate, and put your hand in mine a minute. And Kate," said he piteously, "at the bare thought of your putting that same dear hand in another man's, my heart turns sick within me, and my skin burns and trembles on me."
"But you have no cause," said Catherine, soothingly. "Nobody, except yourself, doubts my affection for you. You are often thrown in my teeth, Griffith—and (clenching her own) I like you all the better—of course."
Griffith replied with a burst of gratitude: and then, as men will, proceeded to encroach. "Ah," said he, "if you would but pluck up courage, and take the matrimonial fence with me at once."
Miss Peyton sighed at that and drooped a little upon her saddle. After a pause, she enumerated the "just impediments." She reminded him that neither of them had means to marry on.
He made light of that, he should soon have plenty; Mr. Charlton had as good as told him he was to have Bolton Hall and Grange: "Six hundred acres, Kate, besides the park and paddocks."
In his warmth he forgot that Catherine was to have been Mr. Charlton's heir. Catherine was too high-minded to bear Griffith any grudge; but she colored a little, and said she was averse to come to him a penniless bride.
"Why, what matters it which of us has the dross, so that there is enough for both?" said Griffith, with an air of astonishment.
Catherine smiled approbation, and tacitly yielded that point. But then she objected the difference in their faith.
"Oh, honest folk get to heaven by different roads," said Griffith, carelessly.
"I have been taught otherwise," replied Catherine, gravely.
"Then give me your hand and I'll give you my soul," said Griffith Gaunt, impetuously. "I'll go to heaven your way, if you can't go mine. Anything sooner than be parted in this world, or the next."
She looked at him in silence; and it was in a faint half apologetic tone she objected "that all her kinsfolk were set against it."
"It is not their business; it is ours," was the prompt reply.
"Well, then," said Catherine, sadly, "I suppose I must tell you the true reason; I feel I should not make you happy; I do not love you quite as you want to be loved, as you deserve to be loved. You need not look so; nothing in flesh and blood is your rival. But my heart it bleeds for the church I think of her ancient glory in this kingdom, and, when I see her present condition, I long to devote myself to her service. I am very fit to be an abbess or a nun; most unfit to be a wife. No, no; I must not, ought not, dare not, many a Protestant. Take the advice of one who esteems you dearly; leave me—fly from me —forget me—do everything but hate me. Nay, do not hate me: you little know the struggle in my mind. Farewell; the saints, whom you scorn, watch over and protect you: farewell."
And with this she sighed, and struck her spur into the grey, and he darted off at a gallop.
Griffith, little able to cope with such a character as this, sat petrified, and would have been rooted to the spot if he had happened to be on foot. But his mare set off after her companion, and a chase of a novel kind commenced. Catherine's horse was fresher than Griffith's mare, and the latter, not being urged by her petrified master, lost ground.
But, when she drew near to her father's gate, Catherine relaxed her speed, and Griffith rejoined her.
She had already half relented, and only wanted a warm and resolute wooer to bring her round. But Griffith was too sore, and too little versed in woman. Full of suspicion and bitterness he paced gloomy and silent by her side, till they reached the great avenue that led to her father's house.
And, while he rides alongside the capricious creature in sulky silence, I may as well reveal a certain foible in his own character.
This Griffith Gaunt was by no means deficient in physical courage; but he was instinctively disposed to run away from mental pain the moment he lost hope of driving it away from him. For instance, if Catherine had been ill and her life in danger, he would have ridden day and night to save her; but if she had died he would either have killed himself, or else fled the country, and so escaped the sight of every object that was associated with her, and could agonize him. I do not think he could have attended the funeral of one he loved.
The mind, as well as the body, has its self-protecting instincts. This of Griffith's was after all an instinct of that class, and, under certain circumstances, is true wisdom. But Griffith, I think, earned the instinct to excess; and that is why I call it his foible.
"Catherine," said he, resolutely, "let me ride by your side to the house for once; for I read your advice my own way, and I mean to follow it: after to-day you will be troubled with me no more. I have loved you these three years, I have courted you these two years, and I am none the nearer. I see I am not the man you mean to marry; so I shall do as my father did, ride down to the coast, and sell my horse, and ship for foreign parts."
"Oh! as you will," said Catherine, haughtily. She quite forgot she had just recommended him to do something of this very kind.
Presently she stole a look. His fine ruddy cheek was pale; his manly brown eyes were moist; yet a gloomy and resolute expression on his tight-drawn