In Far Bolivia Part 5

And she knows her boy and Peggy are safe.

"Thank G.o.d for all his mercies!" she says fervently, then, woman-like, bursts into tears.

CHAPTER III--BURNLEY HALL, OLD AND NEW

I have noticed more than once that although the life-story of some good old families in England may run long stagnant, still, when one important event does take place, strange thing after strange thing may happen, and the story rushes on with heedless speed, like rippling brooklets to the sea.

The St. Clairs may have been originally a Scottish family, or branch of some Highland clan, but they had been settled on a beautiful estate, far away in the wilds of Cornwall, for over one hundred and fifty years.

Stay, though, we are not going back so far as that. Old history, like old parchment, has a musty odour. Let us come down to more modern times.

When, then, young Roland's grandfather died, and died intestate, the whole of the large estate devolved upon his eldest son, with its fat rentals of fully four thousand a-year. Peggy St. Clair, our little heroine, was his only child, and said to be, even in her infancy, the very image of her dead-and-gone mother.

No wonder her father loved her.

But soon the first great event happened in the life-story of the St.

Clairs. For, one sad day Peggy's father was borne home from the hunting-field grievously wounded.

All hope of recovery was abandoned by the doctor shortly after he had examined his patient.

Were Herbert to die intestate, as his father had done, his second brother John, according to the old law, could have stepped into his shoes and become lord of Burnley Hall and all its broad acres.

But, alive to the peril of his situation, which the surgeon with tears in his eyes pointed out to him, the dying man sent at once for his solicitor, and a will was drawn up and placed in this lawyer's hands, and moreover he was appointed one of the executors. This will was to be kept in a safe until Peggy should be seventeen years of age, when it was to be opened and read.

I must tell you that between the brothers Herbert and John there had long existed a sort of blood-feud, and it was as well they never met.

Thomas, however, was quickly at his wounded brother's bedside, and never left it until--

"Clay-cold Death had closed his eye".

The surgeon had never given any hopes, yet during the week that intervened between the terrible accident and Herbert's death there were many hours in which the doomed man appeared as well as ever, though scarce able to move hand or foot. His mind was clear at such times, and he talked much with Thomas about the dear old times when all were young.

Up till now this youngest son and brother, Thomas, had led rather an uneasy and eventful life. Nothing prospered with him, though he had tried most things.

He was married, and had the one child, Roland, to whom the reader has already been introduced.

"Now, dear Tom," said Herbert, one evening after he had lain still with closed eyes for quite a long time, and he placed a white cold hand in that of his brother as he spoke, "I am going to leave you. We have always been good friends and loved each other well. All I need tell you now, and I tell you in confidence, is that Peggy, at the age of seventeen, will be my heir, with you, dear Tom, as her guardian."

Tom could not reply for the gathering tears. He just pressed Herbert's hand in silence.

"Well," continued the latter, "things have not gone over well with you, I know, but I have often heard you say you could do capitally if you emigrated to an almost new land--a land you said figuratively 'flowing with milk and honey'. I confess I made no attempt to a.s.sist you to go to the great valley of the Amazon. It was for a selfish reason I detained you. My brother John being n.o.body to me, my desire was to have you near."

He paused, almost exhausted, and Tom held a little cup of wine to his lips.

Presently he spoke again.

"My little Peggy!" he moaned. "Oh, it is hard, hard to leave my darling!

"Tom, listen. You are to take Peggy to your home. You are to care for her as the apple of your eye. You must be her father, your wife her mother."

"I will! I will! Oh, brother, can you doubt me!"

"No, no, Tom. And now you may emigrate. I leave you thirty thousand pounds, all my deposit account at Messrs. Bullion & Co.'s bank. This is for Peggy and you. My real will is a secret at present, and that which will be read after--I go, is a mere epitome. But in future it will be found that I have not forgotten even John."

Poor Peggy had run in just then, and perched upon the bed, wondering much that her father should lie there so pale and still, and make no attempt to romp with her. At this time her hair was as yellow as the first approach of dawn in the eastern sky.

That very week poor Squire St. Clair breathed his last.

John came to the funeral with a long face and a c.r.a.pe-covered hat, looking more like a mute than anything else.

He sipped his wine while the epitomized will was read; but a wicked light flashed from his eyes, and he ground out an oath at its conclusion.

All the information anyone received was that though sums varying from five hundred pounds to a thousand were left as little legacies to distant relations and to John, as well as _douceurs_ to the servants, the whole of the estates were willed in a way that could not be divulged for many a long year.

John seized his hat, tore from it the c.r.a.pe, and dashed it on the floor.

The c.r.a.pe on his arm followed suit. He trampled on both and strode away slamming the door behind him.

Years had flown away.

Tom and his wife had emigrated to the banks of the Amazon. They settled but a short time at or near one of its mouths, and then Tom, who had no lack of enterprise, determined to journey far, far into the interior, where the land was not so level, where mountains nodded to the moon, and giant forests stretched illimitably to the southward and west.

At first Tom and his men, with faithful Bill as overseer, were mere squatters, but squatters by the banks of the queen of waters, and in a far more lovely place than dreams of elfinland. Labour was very cheap here, and the Indians soon learned from the white men how to work.

Tom St. Clair had imported carpenters and artificers of many sorts from the old country, to say nothing of steam plant and machinery, and that great resounding steel buzz-saw.

Now, although not really extravagant, he had an eye for the beautiful, and determined to build himself a house and home that, although not costing a deal, would be in reality a miniature Burnley Hall. And what a truly joyous time Peggy and her cousin, or adopted brother, had of it while the house was gradually being built by the busy hands of the trained Indians and their white brethren!

Not they alone, but also a boy called d.i.c.k Temple, whose uncle was Tom St. Clair's nearest neighbour, That is, he lived a trifle over seven miles higher up the river. d.i.c.k was about the same age and build as Roland.

There was a good road between Temple's ranch and Tom St. Clair's place, and when, after a time, Tom and Peggy had a tutor imported for their own especial benefit, the two families became very friendly indeed.

d.i.c.k Temple was a well-set-up and really brave and good-looking lad.

Little Peggy averred that there never had been, or never could be, another boy half so nice as d.i.c.k.

But I may as well state here at once and be done with it--d.i.c.k was simply a reckless, wild dare-devil. Nothing else would suffice to describe young d.i.c.k's character even at this early age. And he soon taught Roland to be as reckless as himself.

Time rolled on, and the new Burnley Hall was a _fait accompli_.

The site chosen by Tom for his home by the river was a rounded and wooded hill about a quarter of a mile back from the immediate bank of the stream. But all the land between the hill and the Amazon was cultivated, and not only this, but up and down the river as well for over a mile, for St. Clair wanted to avoid too close contact with unfriendly alligators, and these scaly reptiles avoid land on which crops are growing.