There are epochs in the lives of most men when a sad fatality seems to dog their steps and turn athwart all that they do. Anthony had come to such an epoch suddenly since that ride and walk along the Lyke-Way. He had allowed himself to be taunted into a foolish visit to the churchyard on St. Mark's Eve, when there he had desecrated a grave, then he had thrown Madame Malvine into a fit, had disagreed with his father, and now had injured the eye of his comrade.

Anthony's anger cooled down the moment he was aware of what he had done, but this was not a piece of mischief that could be put to rights at once, like the replacing of the headpiece of the grave. His presence in the room was a distraction and cause of irritation to the man he had hurt, now in the hands of the surgeon, and he deemed it advisable to leave the inn, mount his horse, and ride away to Peter Tavy Church, where he desired to have a word with the sexton and carpenter relative to the old head-post of Malvine's grave.

Peter Tavy Church, or the Church of St. Peter on the Tavy, is a grey granite edifice, mottled with lichen, with moorstone pinnacles, and a cluster of fine old trees in the yard. Externally the church is eminently picturesque, it was beautiful within at the time of our tale, in spite of the havoc wrought in the period of the Directory; of more recent times it has undergone a so-called restoration which has destroyed what remained of charm.

For a long time it has been matter of felicitation that the old opprobrium attaching to the men of the West Country of being wreckers has ceased to apply; the inhumanity of destroying vessels and their crews for the sake of the spoil that could be got from them has certainly ceased. But we are mistaken if we suppose that wrecking as a profession or pastime has come to an end altogether. The complaint has been driven inwards, or rather, wrecking is no longer practised on ships, which the law has taken under its protection, but on the defenceless parish churches.

The havoc that has been wrought in our churches within the last thirty years is indescribable. In Cornwall, with ruthless and relentless activity, the parish churches have, with rare exceptions, been attacked one after another, and robbed of all that could charm and interest, and have been left cold and hideous skeletons. I know nothing that more reminds one (speaking ecclesiologically) of the desert strewn with the bones of what were once living and beautiful creatures, scraped of every particle of flesh, the marrow picked out of their bones, the soul, the divine spark of beauty and life, expelled for ever.

No sooner does a zealous incumbent find himself in the way of collecting money to do up his church, than he rubs his hands over it and says, "Embowelled will I see thee by and by." Falstaff was fortunately able to get away from the knife. Alas! not so our beautiful old churches. The architect and the contractor are called in, and the embowelling goes on apace. All the old fittings are cast forth, the monumental slabs broken up, the walls are scraped and painted, plaster everywhere peeled off, just as the skin was taken off St. Bartholomew, and the shells are exulted over by architect, contractor, parson, and parishioners, as shells from which the bright soul has been expelled—sans beauty, sans interest, sans poetry, sans everything. The man of taste and feeling crosses the threshold, and falls back with the same sense as comes on the reader of a young lady's novel, as at a mouthful of bread from which the salt has been omitted, of something inexpressibly flat and insipid. Before its restoration, Peter Tavy Church had the remains of a beautiful roodscreen nicely painted and gilt, and an unique pew of magnificent carved oak for the manorial lord to sit in, with twisted columns at the angles supporting heraldic lions.

Anthony Cleverdon dismounted from his horse at the church-yard, hitched up his beast, and entered the graveyard. He saw the sexton there, and talking to him was an old woman in threadbare dress, grey hair, very dark piercing eyes, bent, and leaning on a staff. She was a stranger, at all events, he did not know her, and yet there was a something in her features that seemed peculiar to him. The sexton said something to her, and she at once came down the church path to meet Anthony, extending to him her hand.

"Ah!" she said. "I can see, I can see my Margaret in your face—you have her eyes, her features, and the same toss of head. I know you. You have never, maybe, heard of me, and yet I am your grandmother. Have you come here to see your mother's grave? I am glad, I am glad it is cared for, not, I ween, by your father. Which of you thinks of the mother, and has set flowers on the grave—see, it is alight with primroses?"

"I believe that was Bessie's doing," answered Anthony; then involuntarily he looked at her shabby gown, patched and worn.

"I would like to see Bessie. Is she like you? If so—she is like your mother. Ah! my Margaret was the handsomest girl in all the West of England. You have not forgotten your mother, I hope, young man."

"I do not remember her—you forget she died shortly after I was born."

"How should I know?" The old woman took his hand, and held it fast as she peered into his face with eager eyes. "How should I know, when your father never took the trouble to let me know that my own, my dear and only child, was dead? If I had known she was ill, I would have come to her, though he took, as he threatened to take, the pitchfork to me, if I crossed his threshold. I would have come and nursed her; then, maybe, she would not have died. But he did not tell me. He did not ask me to her burial, and not till long after did I hear she was no more. He was a hard and a cruel man."

The clear tears formed in the old woman's eyes, and trickled down her cheeks.

"I have been ill all the winter, and very poor; but that was not known, and if known would not have concerned your father. When I got better, I came here to ask if I might be buried, when I die, near my Margaret. Or are you Cleverdons too great and fine now for that? Well—you will let me lie at her feet, though I was her mother, just as I have seen a dog put under the soles of the figures in old churches. You are her son, you are my own grandchild, though you have never known me and cared for me, and given me a thought. Please the Lord, you are not hard as your father, and you will grant me this."

"I did not know I had a grandmother," said Anthony. "If there is anything you want, it shall be done."

"No, I do not suppose that your father ever spoke of me. Your mother's father was the parson here, and died leaving no money. I had to leave, and become a housekeeper to maintain myself, and what little money I then earned has been expended in my illness. Now, will you let me see Bessie? She is good, she remembers her mother, and thinks of her."

Anthony endeavoured to withdraw his hand from the grasp of the old woman, but she would not suffer it; she laid the other caressingly on his, and said,

"No, my boy, you will not be unkind, you will not go from me without a promise to bring me Bessie. I must see her."

"You shall come to Hall, and see her there."

She shook her grey head. "Never! never! I could not bear to be in that house where your mother, my poor Margaret, suffered. Moreover, your father would not endure it! He threatened to take the pitchfork to me—when your mother was alive."

"He would not do that now," said Anthony. "But as you will. I will bring Bessie to you. Where shall I find you?"

"I am staying at Master Youldon's. He knew my dear husband in the old times, and knew me, and does not forget old kindnesses."

"Very well. You shall see Bessie. I have some business with the sexton."

Then he withdrew his hand from the old woman, and went to the grave of Richard Malvine, where he gave directions what was to be done to that and the headpiece. Widow Penwarne came to him.

"What is this?" she asked. "What have you to do with this grave?"

"I have some orders to give concerning it," answered Anthony, vexed at her interference. "I will speak with you later, madam."

"But what does the grave of Richard Malvine matter to you?" again she asked. "Ah!" she exclaimed, and went and picked some of the primroses from the mound over her daughter, and then strewed them over the grave of Richard, "Ah!" she said. "Here lie two whose hearts were broken by your father—two for whom he will have to answer at the Judgment Day, and then I will stand up along with them, and point the finger at him, and accuse him. If there be a righteous God, then as He is righteous so will He judge and punish!"

"Why, well, now, is not this strange?" exclaimed Anthony. "Here comes my sister Elizabeth. I wonder much what has brought her."

Bessie appeared, with a wreath of spring flowers in her hand. She had ridden, attended by a serving-man. She was surprised and pleased to see Anthony at Richard Malvine's grave.

"Oh, brother!" she said, "I have been so troubled over what has been done that I set to work to make a garland to hang on the grave, as some token of respect, and regret for what had been done."

"What, you also!" exclaimed the old woman, and went to her and clasped her hands. "You are Bessie Cleverdon, the dear child of my Margaret. Let me kiss you, ay, and bless you." She drew the head of Elizabeth to her and kissed her.

"This is our grandmother, Bessie," exclaimed Anthony.

"Ay!" said the old woman, studying the girl earnestly with her dark, eager eyes. "Yes, I am the grandmother of you both; but you are not like my Margaret, not in face, and yet not like your father—please God in heaven—not like him in soul!" she said, with vehemence.

"Let us go aside," said Anthony, "out of earshot of the sexton, if you cannot speak of my father without such an overflow of spleen."

"Then we will go to your mother's grave," said Madame Penwarne. "I see you stand by your father; but I can see this in you—that you will stand by him so long as he does not cross your will. Let him but oppose you, young man, where your headstrong will drives, and there will be trouble between you. Then, maybe, your father will begin to receive the chastisement from the hand of the Lord that has been hanging over him ever since he took Margaret to Hall. That is a strange turn of the wheel, that his two children should meet at the grave of Richard Malvine to care for its adornment. And I warrant you do not know, either of you, what is owing to him who lies there—ay! and to her who rests at our feet."

"I can't understand riddles," said Anthony, "and it is no pleasure to me to hear hard words cast at my father. If you are in poverty, grandmother, you shall be helped. I will speak to my father about you, and when I speak he will listen and do as is fitting. Of that be assured. If you have anything further to say of my father, say it to him, not to me."

"I will take nothing, not a farthing of his," answered the old woman, sharply.

"Why not, grandmother?" asked Bessie, gently, and kissed the old woman's quivering cheek. "It will be the greatest unhappiness to Anthony and me to think that you are not provided for in your age, and in comfort. We shall not be able to rest if we suppose that you are in want. It would fill us with concern and self-reproach. My father is just, and he also——"

"No," said the old woman, interrupting her, "just he is not. Moreover, he owes me too much—or rather he owes my dead daughter, your mother, too much—he cannot repay it: not one thousandth part with coin. You, Elizabeth, are older than your brother. You must know that your mother's life was made miserable, that she had no happiness at Hall."

"And I trust and believe," said Bessie, "that my dear mother, in the rest of Paradise, has long ago forgotten her troubles, and forgiven my father if he had in any way annoyed her."

"Do not be so sure of that, child," exclaimed the old woman, with vehemence. "If I were to go out of this life to-morrow, I should go before the throne of God to denounce your father, and I would call Richard Malvine and your mother as witnesses against him. Shall I tell you what he did? These who lie here—he yonder, where you have placed the garlands, and my poor Margaret—loved each other, and would have been happy with each other. But her father died, I was poor, and then for the sake of his money, Margaret was persuaded to take Anthony Cleverdon, and give up Richard Malvine."

"If that be so——" began young Anthony.

"It is so," said the old woman, vehemently.

"Then the blame lies with you," said he. "You pressed her to take the rich man and refuse the poor. My father was guiltless."

The widow drew back and trembled; but presently recovered herself and said, "That may be—I bear in part the blame. But if he had been kind to her it would have been other. I would not reproach him; but it was not so, and Bessie was old enough to remember that little love passed between them, that he was hard, and cruel, and unkind. He broke her heart—and there she lies."

"I am not here," said Anthony, "to hear my father reproached. I respect you as my grandmother; but you have doubtless a jaundiced eye, that sees all things yellow. I will see what can be done for you. It does not befit us that the mother of our mother should be in want."

As they spoke, from out of the church came Luke Cleverdon. His face was pale, and his eyes were sunken. The sexton had not known that he was in the sacred building. Luke came towards the little group, treading his way among the graves with care. The tomb of the Cleverdons was near the chancel south window. He extended his hand to Mistress Penwarne, saying, "I was within. It was not my fault if I heard much that was said; and now I have but come into your midst, Anthony, Bessie, and you, Madame, to make a humble petition. I am curate in charge here; the rector is not resident. I live in the old parsonage, that must be so familiar to Mistress Penwarne—every room hallowed with some sweet recollection—and I am alone, and need a kinswoman to be my housekeeper, and"—he smiled at the old woman—"be to me as a mother. Madame, will you honour my poor roof by taking up your abode therein? It is, forsooth, more yours than mine, for there you lived your best days, and to it you are attached by strongest ties; but I am but a casual tenant. It is not mine—I am but the curate. Here we have no continuous city, and every house is to us but a tavern on our pilgrimage where we stay a night."