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

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.