“HE NEVER SAID HE LOVED ME.”

“The feast was over in Branksome Tower,
And the ladye had gone to her secret bower.
* * * * *
The tables were drawn, it was idlesse all;
Knight and page and household squire
Loitered through the lofty hall,
Or crowded around the ample fire.”—Scott.

OOK your best, and act your best.” That was all the letter said, and it was signed “Your affectionate father, Henry Keane.”

It was the eve of a great party, to be held next day at Grantley Hall, in honour of the coming of age of the only son of General Grant Mackenzie, about a month after the incident described in last chapter.

Gerty sat alone in her room, just as the shadows of this beautiful evening in spring were beginning to deepen into night. She held the letter crumpled in her hand.

“Poor Jack!” she mentally observed. “His coming of age, and he not here! What a mockery! And dear Flora too. Oh, if she were but aware that hardly anything in this great house belongs to her father—all mortgaged, or nearly all. It is well, perhaps, she is kept in the dark. Her proud heart would be crushed in the dust if she but knew even a part. But poor Jack—is it possible, I wonder? he might come. Oh, what joy just to see his dear old face again once in a way! But ah, dear me! it may be better not. Besides, Jack never said he loved me. Oh, but he does. It is mean of me to compound with my feelings. No; I shall face the whole position. Father never asked me to marry Sir Digby Auld. Nay, he knows his daughter’s spirit too well. For the love I bear father I would do anything, so long as no command were issued. Poor Jack! Poor father!—well, and I may add, poor Sir Digby! He is so good and gentle. Ah me! my life’s bark seems drifting into unknown seas, and all is darkness and mist. What can I do but drift? Oh yes, I can hope. I am so young, and Jack is not old. We shall both forget; I am sure we shall. Moore says—

‘There’s nothing half so sweet in life
As love’s young dream.’

The poet is right. But then it does not last. In the unknown seas into which my bark is drifting all will be brightness and sunshine. Digby will be always kind, and father will be happy and gay. The people will love him, dear lonesome father! Away from the bustle and din and fogs of London, his life will enter a new lease. And Jack will visit us often, and together he and I will laugh over our childhood’s amours. Digby is too good to be jealous. I wonder if Jack will marry; I had never thought of that. Oh dear, oh dear! my victory over self will not be such an easy one as I had imagined. I hope Jack won’t marry that hateful Gordon girl, nor any of those simpering Symonses. But, after all, what does it matter to me whom Jack marries? I begin to think I am very mean after all; I hate myself. Positively I—”

“Come in.”

“Sir Digby has called, Miss Keane, and desires to see you for a moment. He is in the tartan boudoir.”

“Tell him, Smith, that I am sorry I cannot leave my room—that I have a headache—that—stay, Smith, stay. Say that I shall be down in a few minutes.”

“Yes, Miss Gertrude.”

“It is best over,” she murmured to herself as Smith left.

She touched the bell, and next minute she was seated before a tall mirror, at each side of which burned a star of candles, and her maid was dressing her hair.

“Mary,” she said, as she rose and smoothed out the folds of her blue silk dress, “do I look my best?”

“Oh, Miss Keane, you look ’most like a fairy—the low-bodied blue, and the pink camellia in your hair. You are so beautiful that if I were a knight I should come for you with a chariot and six, and carry you away to my castle, and have a real live dragon o’ purpose to guard you—I would really, miss.”

“Do you think, Mary, I could act well?”

“Oh, Miss Keane, how you do talk! Actors is low. Miss Gerty, always look your best; but acting—no, no, miss, I won’t have she.”

And Mary tossed her head regardless of grammar.

Mary was a little Essex maid that Miss Keane had had for years, and had succeeded in spoiling, as children are spoiled. “Ah dear,” said the girl, “and to think that to-morrow is Jack’s coming o’ age, and he won’t be here! You don’t mind me a-callin’ of him Jack, does ye, Miss Gerty? Heigh-ho! didn’t he used to chuck me under the chin just, the dear, bright boy? ‘Mary,’ he says once, ‘when I comes of age I means to marry you right off the reel.’ And I took him in my arms and kissed him on what Tim would call the spur o’ the moment. Then Jack ups with a glass o’ ale—it were in the kitching, miss—and he jumps on to a chair and draws his navy dirk. ‘Here’s the way,’ he cries, ‘that they tosses cans in the service. And I’ll give you a toast,’ he says. ‘I drinks

‘To the wind that blows,
And the ship that goes,
And the girl as loves a sailor,
Hip, hip, hooray!’

But run away, Miss Gerty. Only no acting, mind. Oh dear, oh dear! I wish poor Jack would come.”

“Ah, Jack, my bo’,” cried Tom, meeting his friend on the quarter-deck just after divisions, “let me congratulate you. You’ve come of age this very morning. Tip us your flipper, Jack. Why, you don’t look very gay over it after all. Feeling old, I daresay—farewell to youth and that sort of game. Never mind; I’m going to see the surgeon presently. Old M?Hearty is a splendid fellow, and he’ll find an excuse for splicing the main-brace, you may be sure. Why, Jack, on such an eventful occasion all hands should rejoice. Ah, here comes the doctor!—Doctor, this is Jack’s birthday, and he’s come of age, and—”

“Sail in sight, sir!”

It was a hail from the mast-head—a bold and sturdy shout that was heard from bowsprit to binnacle by all hands on deck, and that even penetrated to the ward-room, causing every officer there to spring from his seat and hurry on deck.

The captain, Sir Sidney Salt, came slowly forth from his cabin. A daring sailor was Sir Sidney as ever braved gale or faced a foe. Hardly over the middle height, with clean shaven face and faultless cue, his age might have been anything from thirty to forty; but in those mild blue eyes of his no one, it was said, had ever seen a wrathful look, not even when engaged hand-to-hand in a combat to the death on the blood-slippery battle-deck of a French man-o’-war.

“Run aloft, Mr. Mackenzie,” he said now, “and see what you make of her.” In five minutes’ time, or even less, young Grant Mackenzie stood once more on the quarter-deck, and the drum was beating to arms.

No one would break with a loud word the hushed and solemn silence that fell upon the ship after the men, stripped to the waist, had stood to their guns; and as barefooted boys passed from group to group, scattering the sawdust that each one knew might soon be wet with his own or a comrade’s life-blood, many an eye was turned skywards, and many a lip was seen to move in prayer.

Jack and Tom stood together. The former was pale as death. “Tom,” he whispered, “I had a terrible dream last night. I shall not survive this battle; I do not wish to. Tell her, Tom, tell Gerty I died sword in hand, and that, false as she is, my last thoughts were—”

“Stand by the larboard guns!”

Jack and Tom flew to their quarters, and in the terrible fight that followed neither love itself nor thoughts of home, except in the minds of the wounded and dying that were borne below, could find a place.