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Astounding Stories of Super-Science February, 2026, by Astounding Stories is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. The Moors and the Fens, volume 1 (of 3) – Chapter IX: Advances the Story but little
Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 2026: The Moors and the Fens, volume 1 (of 3) – Chapter IX
Advances the Story but little
By J. H. Riddell
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Mr. John Merapie never got any coat-of-arms, or crest, or motto, or anything from the Herald’s office, because he averred “he hated humbug;” but in lieu of the above aristocratical “absurdities,” as he termed them, he took for his text the three words just mentioned, and not merely preached but acted upon them perpetually.
He was in the main, not only a kind but a just man; most respected him, many grew to like him; but he said he did not profess to be capable of “loving particularly,” and we all know that, when people do not “love particularly,” they seldom are loved “especially.”
Mr. Westwood believed his principal was as fond of Mina as it was possible for him to be of mortal being, and assuredly he treated her with a something 157as nearly approaching tenderness as he ever exhibited, or ever had exhibited to any one.
When in a peculiarly happy temper, he called her, “My little niece,” or, “Mina, my dear;” he liked to see her handsomely dressed; he was most liberal in money matters towards the trio generally; but perhaps, though Malcolm made the heaviest claims on his purse, his heart really went more with the presents he occasionally gave to Mina. He thought her a model of prudence, and cleverness, and sense: most probably because she spoke little, could make pies and puddings, do all sorts of needle work, understood Latin, a little Greek, French, and Italian; was learned in Euclid, and competent to find an answer to any algebraic supposition without the key to the same being given unto her: finally, she was economical; did not care for visiting, never murmured in his presence about anything, was innocent as a Hottentot of accomplishments, and had an affection for no “frippery,” save flowers.
Here was a perfect woman; one after John Merapie’s own heart, who could not play, or dance, or draw flowers, or nett (crochet was not then in vogue), or braid, or do anything more sinful than sing in a strange low voice ballads old as the hills, 158and almost as beautiful,—and work a pair of slippers for her uncle or Malcolm occasionally. He had superintended her education himself,—that is, he had made up his mind what she should learn, and she had learnt it; and in what she should not be instructed, and of course that was left alone; and here was the result—a girl with no nonsense, or affectation, or humbug about her. “Mina,” her uncle said, “was solid like one of his houses in Belerma Square, which would last for a hundred years or more.”
“It is earnestly to be hoped she will not do that,” remarked Miss Caldera, who had a sort of humour, not witty, but dry; whereupon Mr. Merapie responded,
“Her mind would, though her body might not; I am satisfied her faculties will never desert her, she has been properly educated, Miss Caldera, and she may thank you and me for it.”
Miss Caldera had very quiet doubts as to whether thankfulness was a strongly developed trait in the character of her emancipated charge; indeed Mina, who talked freely and perpetually to her, frankly said,
“She thought she had little to be especially thankful for, as she had many things she did not 159want, and very few that she did.” And, in truth, her position was neither a cheering nor a natural one:—a young girl pent up from year to year in a dreary house in Belerma Square, surrounded by old persons; ceaselessly longing for a glimpse of her former home; her mind growing morbid and almost contracted for want of society, light, air, sunshine, freedom; no music, no companions, no paintings, nothing lively to hear or see, nothing to think of but stern reality, unless she pondered on the beauty of that land which had stamped its vision of loveliness on her soul for ever; no fixed employment, no pleasant conversation, for no one visited at her uncle’s, save a few staid city merchants and Alfred Westwood, to whom she now never spoke, if she could help it. Her mother’s society was not particularly agreeable, as she did little but bemoan her fate and wonder when Malcolm would write, and why Mina was so odd. “I should die,” said the latter to Miss Caldera, “if it were not for you.”
And it was true, they had a strange sort of attachment for each other—the weary girl and the world-tired woman. The governess was perpetually rebuking her pupil, and the pupil was in the habit of retorting rather sharply; but there was enough genuine love between them to have put half-a-dozen 160so-called friendships to shame, to have withstood the lapse of time, and breath of calumny, and hand of change, and test of separation.
Mina’s temper was not of the meekest, her mood of the serenest; and frequently the governess told her so, and the girl, by way of rejoinder, said Miss Caldera never felt for, nor had the least sympathy with her: still the tie, whatever it was, which joined the two hearts, somehow bore these perpetual jerks without even a thought of breaking; and, at sixteen, Mina Frazer was far fonder of her quaint instructress than she had been as a child, and when the bond of teacher and taught ceased to unite them, that of friend and friend proved quite as strong to draw them almost daily together. But still a perpetual difference of opinion caused a sort of ceaseless war to range between them: they never met without a kind of tilt, for whatever Miss Caldera’s private idea might be, her generally expressed one was that Mina was the most fortunate creature in the universe, who would only come to a knowledge of the blessings she enjoyed, if by any mischance she were at a future period deprived of them.
She considered Mina too much inclined to self pity to indulge her with even an atom of compassion on any subject: she conscientiously talked to 161her in a general way, sensibly and rationally enough; but the sense and reasoning coming from the mind, and not from her heart, they usually sounded dry, and cold, and formal; and annoyed Mina into making sundry irritable answers, which bettered her cause not in the least, and confirmed Miss Caldera in her opinion that the girl ought not to be encouraged to murmur by any unwise sympathy or words of commiseration.
Thus, whenever Mina was inclined to yearn a little for a sight of the land of her birth, and the relatives who dwelt there, the gouvernante treated her to that very questionable kind of consolation derivable from considering that some other person had no friends at all, no home, no money, and no advantages. Mina, who perhaps in her heart never greatly desired society, occasionally suggested that something of the kind would be suitable to her years, and agreeable to her character; whereupon Miss Caldera remarked, she “ought to be thankful she had so kind an uncle, so amiable a brother, and a mother who—”
“What?” demanded the girl once, as her friend paused.
“Never interferes with, and thinks you so clever,” was the somewhat embarrassed response.
162Then, again, Mina frequently expressed an opinion to the effect that Belerma Square was not the very pleasantest locality in London, or her uncle’s house the most cheerful residence in that city; and so surely as she did so, Miss Caldera promptly informed her she might be much worse off,—might be forced to live in some dreadful neighbourhood, and that it was the height of ingratitude to be repining about such a trifle, when she was surrounded by luxuries and blessings innumerable.
“Well, suppose,” said Mina, one afternoon, in answer to some such comment as the above,—resting both elbows on a little square table in the room where she had been wont in former days to inquire into the mysteries of other tongues, but where, latterly, she came merely to give free scope to her own,—resting both elbows on the table, and supporting her chin with the backs of her hands in a most unfashionable, discontented, and unladylike manner,—“Well, suppose we just see what those luxuries and blessings are, concerning which you are eternally talking. I admit that my uncle is most kind; that Malcolm, when at home, is amiable; that my mother never speaks to me except to say I am clever and odd; that Belerma Square is not Smithfield; that this house is not a five-roomed 163cottage; and that in every way I might be, as you perpetually say, ‘much worse off.’ I have shelter, food, and clothing; am, in short, ‘provided for,’ without being compelled to do anything for myself. If I want money my uncle gives it to me: I admit I have all these causes, as you remark, for thankfulness; and yet——”
“You are dissatisfied,” promptly interposed Miss Caldera.
“Not absolutely dissatisfied,” returned Mina. “I was going to add—and yet I wish for something more: but whenever I express a desire for aught further than I now possess, you appear to imagine I am discontented and ungrateful. Happy here, I tell you candidly, I have never been: no time has reconciled me to this place: no circumstances have here occurred to make me cordially like it: I do not value the ‘luxuries and blessings’ you speak of so highly as many might, simply because food, dress, and money, are not to my mind the things a human being should prize the most in existence.”
“You could not do without any one of them at all events,” drily remarked Miss Caldera.
“Only try me,” returned Mina with eagerness; “only say to me, Which will you do,—remain in 164Belerma Square and retain all you now possess, or live on the humblest fare, and dress in the simplest manner at Craigmaver? and you shall see how speedily I will choose the latter. Oh, dear friend! you have never been in my country; you have never seen anything like it, I know: but still, try to imagine the difference between a ride over the breezy moors, and a stiff dreary walk through these suffocating London streets: think of sunrises on the hills, and noons among flowers and perfumes and scenery; of evenings on the water, with the clear moon shining above, and mountains around, and the voices of sweet singers floating over the lake, as in a dream of romance. If you had looked once, only once, at the view from Glenfiord over Loch Lomond; or stood for ten minutes on the lawn at Craigmaver; you would never marvel again that I cannot become naturalized here. How I think of those places!” she added with a sigh: “I try not, but they will return back and back to my memory,—‘A thing of beauty is a grief for ever.’ I wish, I wish, you could just get one peep of my old home; and then you would understand one of the things for which I pine.”
“And do you think, Mina,” said Miss Caldera, 165earnestly,—a sort of half-strangled memory swelling up in her heart at the sound of the girl’s regretful murmur; “that I cannot sympathize with your feelings from experience: that I never pined to revisit any place; never wished for anything? Do not believe it, for though I have not sighed for the sight of lakes, and hills, and mountains, I have wept for the loss of things more precious, in my eyes, than these can possibly be in yours—a happy home, an independence, parents, friends, enjoyment.
“After I first came to London, the perfume of a familiar flower, the words of a song, the sound of a melody, used to have power sufficient to make me feel faint and sick: but I knew then what I tell you now, that it is wrong to be discontented with the lot which hath been appointed for us—to be always looking gloomily back, thinking of what might have been: so I floated along with the frequently muddy stream, and tried with my whole soul to be thankful I was enabled to do it.”
“But you were not happy,” cried Mina. “I would not believe it if you said you were: you might feel resigned; you might think you were quite contented: but completely happy——”
“Who is so, on earth, Mina?” demanded the lady.
166“Oh! I do not know; plenty, I dare say;” was the response.
“Are you acquainted with any individual who can truly state that he, or she, feels so?” asked Miss Caldera.
“No;” confessed Mina: “but then you see I am acquainted with only a very few persons. If I were back at Craigmaver; if uncle John, and you, and we, all were living there, with my dear old other uncle, I should not have a thought of care,—a wish on earth ungratified.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure as I can be of anything in the world, that I should feel completely happy there.”
“Indeed you would not, Mina.”
“And why not?” she inquired, “I was perfectly happy at Glenfiord; oh! supremely so, until papa died.”
“But you were a child then; you are one no longer. You cannot return to that state again, Mina—ever——”
There was a something almost mournful in the tone in which these words were spoken; it struck sadly to the young girl’s heart, and, after musing for a moment, she said—
“Then you think that nowhere—in England—in 167Scotland—in this world, I shall ever be happy again?”
“Comparatively you may be; completely so, never,” was the rejoinder. “That time comes but once in the lives of any—not at all in the lives of some: it passes away like a dream of the morning; its transitory brightness is remembered always, but never can be felt again.”
“Yet I have a wish——” commenced Mina.
“To try the experiment,” finished Miss Caldera; “better not—far, far better not. Keep the ‘thing of beauty’ as it is, not a grief, Mina, but ‘a joy for ever.’ Long not too much to see it again; for believe me that which we desire most frequently proves our heaviest trial when granted to our importunity.”
“Then ought we to wish for nothing?” was the impatient question.
“If we could avoid it,—but human nature is rebellious.”
“And do you never wish?” persisted Mina.
“Often,” confessed her friend, “but still I am aware it is, to say the least, foolish and useless.”
“And what is it for?” demanded her former pupil; “do tell me—I should like to know—what you desire.”
“What I never expect to get,” replied the lady 168with a sad smile; “a small independence, a little cottage, no matter how humble if I could call it mine; flowers, green fields and nature about me; these are my wishes, extravagant enough, no doubt: on this side of the grave I have none other.”
“I wish I were rich, and they should soon be realities,” said the girl; then after a pause she added, “Do you know, if you would just always talk to me as you have talked to me now, I do not think I should ever snap at you.”
“Id est, if I encouraged you to discontent by showing you how very far from perfect I am; if I seconded your every foolish fancy, and praised and flattered and complimented you for not being a simpleton or a dunce; you would perhaps not get out of temper quite so frequently as is the case at present,” remarked Miss Caldera.
“If you would only acknowledge occasionally, that you are not perfectly satisfied and supremely happy, and cease telling me how thankful I ought to be for a whole host of things I could be quite contented without, I would never ask you to praise, or flatter, or compliment.”
“For a sufficient reason,” said her friend with a smile.
“And what may that be?” asked Mina.
169“Because you know I would not do it.”
“No,” was the reply, “but because I shouldn’t like you half so well, if you were in the habit of saying such things. I believe half the compliments in the world are merely civil sneers, that delight some and provoke others. Now, when my mother or uncle praise and extol me, I know they are quite sincere, though, as you imagine, perhaps not judicious; but Mr. Westwood——”
“Well, Mina, I am all attention, what of Mr. Westwood?”
“If he ever flatter, be sure he is inwardly laughing at the folly of those who listen to him; for he really admires nothing, cares for nothing, thinks of nothing, but himself——”
“And you,” quietly added Miss Caldera.
“I do not believe he does,” said Mina quickly. “I think he is the most conceited, disagreeable, selfish being in existence—I perfectly detest him.”
“Times are changed,” remarked the lady; “I remember when you were very fond of him.”
“Yes, when I was a child, perhaps,” returned Mina vehemently; “ere that time had passed away which, as you say, never can return,—before I had sense, or knowledge, or understanding,—then I know I did like him, but now——”
170“You do not.”
“I despise him,” said the girl. “I cannot endure to see him, to hear him speak, to speak to him. If there were no other reason in the world to make me wish to leave London, he would be quite sufficient.”
“And yet he loves you. Oh! Mina.”
“And yet he loves me, oh! Miss Caldera,” pettishly echoed that young lady, “and what in the world do I care whether he do or not. To begin with, I believe he can love nothing but himself; and next, I think, if he entertain the slightest shadow of affection for me, it is solely because he fancies Uncle John will give me a large fortune.”
“So you have got to the portion already,” laughed Miss Caldera, “well, although you think so little of him, I wish from my heart it were come to that.”
“I know you do,” retorted Mina; “but it never shall—never. I had rather go to live in Seven Dials, upon bread and water, and learn to beg or steal, or do anything of that kind, than marry a detestable, vain, self-sufficient being, who would be continually sneering at me, and saying the most cutting things in the most polite manner.”
“I should like to see you begging, Mina,” said Miss Caldera; “and dear me child, how soon you would tire of the bread and water, and try to make 171a little variety by boiling them up together, or exchanging your allowance for a turnip, or perhaps a carrot: and what a respectable locality you have selected for the scene of your penance. I wonder if you ever will learn to reflect, for one moment, before you speak.”
“You may laugh if you like, and you may think it folly, or sense, or whatever else you choose, but I repeat it is truth,” returned Mina, laying a vigorous emphasis on the last word. “I had rather live anywhere, or with any person, than with your prime favorite, Alfred Westwood. I cannot bear to see him even for an hour; only imagine therefore what it would be to have to admire him always.”
“Your affections and your distastes are equally strong, and, I must add, Mina, equally unreasonable,” was the response. “Have you a single good reason for your aversion to Mr. Westwood, because if you could tell me one, I might change my opinion on the subject.”
“I have fifty good reasons that satisfy me I am right, not one of which, however, would convince you,” answered Mina. “To begin with, he is the vainest——”
“Well, I admit he is a little vain,” interposed Miss Caldera; “and you, Mina, are so free from the 172weakness yourself, that you have a perfect right to throw the first stone!”
“No, no, I am not vain,” cried the other eagerly; “I know I am not pretty: no one but papa ever thought me so. You know I am not vain.”
“Personally, perhaps not, but there are other kinds of vanity even more objectionable and dangerous: however, to return to Mr. Westwood, what is his next crime?”
“He is a hypocrite,” promptly responded Mina.
“Indeed, make that out clearly to my satisfaction, and I am mute,” replied Miss Caldera.
“Unless you can find it out for yourself,” said Mina, “it is useless for me to attempt to prove it to you; if you had not once told me ‘there are none so blind as those who won’t see,’ I should have said—watch him as closely as I have done; only notice him talking to mamma, and agreeing with everything she advances; listen to how he humours and cautiously flatters my poor uncle: he appears honest and straightforward to you, but he is not so, I know.”
“How do you know?”
“He says what he does not think: he compliments me and sneers at me; and he imagines, because I am a girl, he can deceive and blind me, but he cannot.”
173“We have now got two of his faults settled,” said Miss Caldera; “what is his third? I hope and trust you spoke, as usual, in a rather exaggerated style, when you stated you had fifty reasons; if not, it will be morning again before we get through them all: now Mina, the third!”
“He has a bad temper,” she answered.
“That is unfortunate,” remarked Miss Caldera, “as we know ‘two of a trade cannot agree.’”
“I do wish you would forget some of those detestable old proverbs,” exclaimed Mina; “they are just like yourself, dry and provoking, and express the most disagreeable ideas in the fewest number of words: I do not pretend to have a good temper, but it is better than his,—I am sure of that, at any rate.”
“Entirely a matter of opinion,” said Miss Caldera, with a smile.
“Well, we can leave it so, and I will retain mine,” retorted Mina; “and, besides, nobody knows anything about who he was, or what his relations are; and there is a quarter of a century between us.”
“Perhaps,” was the rejoinder; “but at all events you have ancestors enough on your father’s side to suffice for both: and if his relatives, supposing he have any, do not cross your path, why in the world, 174child, need you step out of it to discover their’s. With regard to age, I remember once merely casually remarking to you, that Mr. Awrill was an agreeable young man, and you answered, quite tartly,—‘that he might be after a little while, when he grew older, and had learned to talk properly.’”
“Young, or old, he was worth a million Mr. Westwoods,” said Mina; “and there are a great many on the earth a vast deal better than he, after all; but to end this discussion, I am not going to marry your friend,—not for my mother, not for my uncle, not for Malcolm, not for you.”
“And pray, my dear, did anybody ever ask you to marry him?” enquired Miss Caldera.
The angry blood came mounting into Mina’s face, as she answered,
“I do not know what it is makes me care for you; for I do believe of all the tormenting unaccountable beings mortal ever beheld, you are the strangest. My mother has not the most remote notion this man entertains, what you call, ‘a regard for me;’ nor has my uncle, at least he never said so to me; and Malcolm, I am sure, would be quite provoked about it, if he were told; but you—why you know as well as I do, that you have been praising him, and telling me how foolish I should 175be to reject such affection (as if I wanted affection from him), and what an excellent husband he would make (it shall never be to me though); and a number of such things, for the last five weeks: if you never said in so many plain words, ‘Mina, I wish you would marry that Adonis;’ you have given me pretty clearly to understand that you desired I should do so.”
“Dear me, Mina, what a deal you do say about nothing,” observed her friend, when she stopped literally for want of breath; “if you would just take things a little more reasonably and quietly——”
“But I cannot be quiet or reasonable,” interrupted Mina, “when I am worried out of my life by that creature, smiling, and simpering, and sighing, and sneering, and complimenting. Will you oblige me by saying why you wish me to marry him?”
“Briefly—because I think, and am sure, you might ‘go further and fare worse;’” was the reply.
“Another of those horrid saws,” said Mina; “why will you annoy me with them—why will you do it, dear old friend?”
“Partly, because I know nothing could please you at this minute; chiefly, because they express my meaning much better than I could for myself.”
176“I wish, notwithstanding,” said Mina, “that you would explain it a little more fully to me.”
“Well then, Mina, I think Mr. Westwood will make you quite as good a husband as you are likely to meet with: he is kind, sufficiently rich, fond of you, very clever, agreeable, well-informed.”
“Anything else?” inquired the girl, when her friend paused: “anything else?”
“No!” answered Miss Caldera, rising, “as you prohibit proverbs; let me however, suggest, that there are two, the consideration of which might be beneficial to you at present: one relates to the best time for making hay; and the other is about a word to the wise.”
“Heaven grant me patience!” murmured the young lady devoutly.
“I trust it may,” said Miss Caldera; “for believe me it is a virtue of which you are lamentably deficient.”
To which truism Mina made no answer, but walked silently off to her embroidery frame, behind which she was in the habit of taking refuge when either annoyed by any reference to Mr. Westwood, or by his unwelcome presence; and there she would sit for hours, working generally, at an interminable pair of slippers with the rapidity of lightning; 177musing and thinking and pondering—about what? no person, perhaps not even she herself, had a perfectly accurate idea.
Others in the world, however, had apparently more patience, and greater occasion for its exercise, than Mina Frazer; and, though, had any friend told her so, she most probably would have justly enough replied “that was no comfort to her,” there may be some who would willingly turn from the enumeration of her slight trials, to the heavier and more hopeless troubles of the miser’s eldest born.
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