An Eye for an Eye | Page 4

appeared to be younger than his age.
His hair was nearly white, but his eyes were still bright, and the
handsome well-cut features of his fine face were not reduced to
shapelessness by any of the ravages of time, as is so often the case with

men who are infirm as well as old. Were it not for the long and heavy
eyebrows, which gave something of severity to his face, and for that
painful stoop in his shoulders, he might still have been accounted a
handsome man. In youth he had been a very handsome man, and had
shone forth in the world, popular, beloved, respected, with all the good
things the world could give. The first blow upon him was the death of
his wife. That hurt him sorely, but it did not quite crush him. Then his
only daughter died also, just as she became a bride. High as the Lady
Blanche Neville had stood herself, she had married almost above her
rank, and her father's heart had been full of joy and pride. But she had
perished childless,--in child-birth, and again he was hurt almost to
death. There was still left to him a son,--a youth indeed thoughtless,
lavish, and prone to evil pleasures. But thought would come with years;
for almost any lavishness there were means sufficient; and evil
pleasures might cease to entice. The young Lord Neville was all that
was left to the Earl, and for his heir he paid debts and forgave injuries.
The young man would marry and all might be well. Then he found a
bride for his boy,--with no wealth, but owning the best blood in the
kingdom, beautiful, good, one who might be to him as another daughter.
His boy's answer was that he was already married! He had chosen his
wife from out of the streets, and offered to the Earl of Scroope as a
child to replace the daughter who had gone, a wretched painted
prostitute from France. After that Lord Scroope never again held up his
head.
The father would not see his heir,--and never saw him again. As to
what money might be needed, the lawyers in London were told to
manage that. The Earl himself would give nothing and refuse nothing.
When there were debts,--debts for the second time, debts for the third
time, the lawyers were instructed to do what in their own eyes seemed
good to them. They might pay as long as they deemed it right to pay,
but they might not name Lord Neville to his father.
While things were thus the Earl married again,--the penniless daughter
of a noble house,--a woman not young, for she was forty when he
married her, but more than twenty years his junior. It sufficed for him
that she was noble, and as he believed good. Good to him she

was,--with a duty that was almost excessive. Religious she was, and
self-denying; giving much and demanding little; keeping herself in the
background, but possessing wonderful energy in the service of others.
Whether she could in truth be called good the reader may say when he
has finished this story.
Then, when the Earl had been married some three years to his second
wife, the heir died. He died, and as far as Scroope Manor was
concerned there was an end of him and of the creature he had called his
wife. An annuity was purchased for her. That she should be entitled to
call herself Lady Neville while she lived, was the sad necessity of the
condition. It was understood by all who came near the Earl that no one
was to mention her within his hearing. He was thankful that no heir had
come from that most horrid union. The woman was never mentioned to
him again, nor need she trouble us further in the telling of our
chronicle.
But when Lord Neville died, it was necessary that the old man should
think of his new heir. Alas; in that family, though there was much that
was good and noble, there had ever been intestine feuds,--causes of
quarrel in which each party would be sure that he was right. They were
a people who thought much of the church, who were good to the poor,
who strove to be noble;--but they could not forgive injuries. They could
not forgive even when there were no injuries. The present Earl had
quarrelled with his brother in early life;--and had therefore quarrelled
with all that had belonged to the brother. The brother was now gone,
leaving two sons behind him,--two young Nevilles, Fred and Jack, of
whom Fred, the eldest, was now the heir. It was at last settled that Fred
should be sent for to Scroope Manor. Fred came, being at that time a
lieutenant in