Herb of Grace | Page 4

YORK COPYRIGHT, 1901
BY
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

CONTENTS
I INTRODUCES A LOVER OF THE PICTURESQUE II FALLEN
AMONG THIEVES III A PAGE OF ANCIENT HISTORY IV ANNA
V MRS. HERRICK OBJECTS TO BOHEMIA VI YEA-VERILY
AND BABS VII MORE ANCIENT HISTORY WITH VERITY VIII
THE RECORD OF AN IMPOTENT GENIUS IX THE WOOD
HOUSE X WHAT THE FERN-OWL HEARD XI "A LITTLE
EGOTISTICAL, PERHAPS" XII MR. CARLYON'S TEA-PARTY

XIII THE CROW'S NEST XIV "YOU DO SAY SUCH ODD
THINGS" XV "BETTY IS A TRUMP!" XVI "IT REALLY IS A
GOOD IDEA, DIE" XVII "ADIEU--Au REVOIR" XVIII "YES, SHE
GAVE HIM UP" XIX "A TOUCH OF THE TARTAR" XX A WHITE
SUN-BONNET XXI "IF I WERE ONLY LIKE YOU" XXII "TWO
MAIDEN LADIES OF UNCERTAIN AGE" XXIII SAINT
ELIZABETH! XXIV DOWN BY THE POOL XXV "IT HAS GONE
VERY DEEP" XXVI "I SEE LIGHT NOW" XXVII HUGH
ROSSITER SPINS HIS YARN XXVIII "THE LADY CALLING
HERSELF MISS JACOBI" XXIX "SHE IS A WICKED WOMAN"
XXX IN KENSINGTON GARDENS XXXI PLOT AND
COUNTERPLOT XXXII STORM AND STRESS XXXIII "HE WILL
COME RIGHT" XXXIV TRAVELLING THROUGH SAHARA
XXXV VIA DOLOROSA XXXVI "I HAVE BEEN A COWARD"
XXXVII THE PARTING OF THE WAYS XXXVIII TANGLED
THREADS XXXIX THE NEW CURATE-IN-CHARGE XL "HE IS
MY RIVAL STILL" XLI "YOU CAN BE DINAH'S FRIEND" XLII
THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME XLIII A MAY AFTERNOON XLIV
"MY DEAREST REST"

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